The Burning Wire (Lincoln Rhyme 9)

"Right," McDaniel said. "But I'm running multi-language and -dialect monitoring programs on all communications we can pick up."

"Legally," Noble added quickly. "That we can pick up legally."

"But most of their communications take place in the cloud zone," McDaniel said. He didn't explain this.

"Uhm, what's that, sir?" Ron Pulaski asked, a variation of what Rhyme was about to, though in a much less deferential manner.

"Cloud zone?" the ASAC responded. "The phrase comes from the latest approach to computing--where your data and programs are stored on servers elsewhere, not on your own computer. I wrote an analysis paper on it. I'm using the term to mean new communications protocols. There's very little standard cell phone and email use among the negative players. People of interest are exploiting new techniques, like blogs and Twitter and Facebook, to send messages. Also embedding codes in music and video uploads and downloads. And personally I think they've got some new systems altogether, different types of modified phones, radios with alternative frequencies."

The cloud zone . . . Negative players.

"Why do you think 'Justice For' is behind the attack?" Sachs asked.

"We don't necessarily," Noble said.

McDaniel filled in, "Just, there were some SIGINT hits about monetary dispersals over the past few days and about some movement of personnel and the sentence 'It's going to be big.' So when the attack happened today, we thought, maybe."

"And Earth Day's coming up," Noble pointed out.

Rhyme wasn't exactly sure what Earth Day was--and didn't have an opinion about it one way or the other, except recognizing with some petulance that it was like other holidays and events: crowds and protesters clogging the streets and depleting the resources of the NYPD, which he might otherwise need to run cases.

Noble said, "Might be more than a coincidence. Attack on the grid the day before Earth Day? The President's taking an interest."

"The President?" Sellitto asked.

"Right. He's at some renewable energy summit outside of D.C."

Sellitto mused, "Somebody making a point. Ecoterror."

You didn't see much of that in New York City; logging and strip-mining weren't big industries here.

" 'Justice For the Environment' maybe," Sachs suggested.

"But," McDaniel said, "there's another wrinkle. One of the SIGINT hits correlated 'Justice For' with the name Rahman. No family name. We've got eight unaccounted-for Rahmans on our Islamist terror watch list. Could be one of them, we're thinking, but we don't know which one."

Noble had abandoned the bears or manatees on his cuffs and was now playing with a nice pen. "We were thinking, at Homeland, that Rahman could be part of a sleeper cell that's been here for years, maybe from around the time of Nine-eleven. Staying clear of an Islamist lifestyle. Sticking with moderate mosques, avoiding Arabic."

McDaniel added, "I've got one of my T and C teams up from Quantico."

"T and C?" Rhyme asked, peeved.

"Tech and Communications. To run the surveillance. And warrant specialists to get taps if we need them. Two DOJ lawyers. And we're getting two hundred extra agents."

Rhyme and Sellitto glanced each other's way. This was a surprisingly substantial task force for a single incident that wasn't part of an ongoing investigation. And mobilized with incredible speed. The attack had happened less than two hours ago.

The Bureau man noticed their reaction. "We're convinced there's a new profile to terrorism. So we've got a new approach to fighting it. Like the drones in the Middle East and Afghanistan? You know the pilots are next to a strip mall in Colorado Springs or Omaha."

The cloud zone . . .

"Now, T and C's in place, so we'll be able to hook more signals soon. But we'll still need traditional approaches." A look around the lab. Meaning forensics, Rhyme supposed. And then the ASAC looked toward Dellray. "And street-level work. Though Fred tells me he hasn't had much luck."

Dellray's talent as an undercover op was exceeded only by his skills as a handler of confidential informants. Since 9/11 he'd curried favor with a large group of CIs in the Islamic community and taught himself Arabic, Indonesian and Farsi. He worked regularly with the NYPD's impressive anti-terror unit. But the agent confirmed his boss's comment. Grim-faced, he said, "Haven't heard anything about Justice For or Rahman. Ran it past my boys in Brooklyn, Jersey, Queens, Manhattan."

"Just happened," Sellitto reminded.

"Right," McDaniel said slowly. "Of course something like this would've been planned for, what would you guess? A month?"

Noble said, "I'd imagine. At least."