The Enemy Within

Helen’s gaze softened. She had her own nightmare visions of that terrible day and night by the Potomac. “The lab says the solid-rocket exhaust residues we picked up on the shore near Georgetown probably came from Russian-designed missiles either SA-7s or the newer SA-16s. Our divers and the Park Police are still dragging the river for any bits and pieces we could use to confirm that.”

“Wonderful,” Thorn said softly. There were so many SA7s and SA-16s piled up in military and terrorist arsenals around the world that tracing the weapons used for this particular attack would be almost impossible.

“What about on your end, Peter? Have you and the Maestro zeroed in on any of our guys who might have gone bad?” Helen asked.

“Only a handful.” Thorn spread his hands in a gesture of negation.

“And none I’d lay any money on. One’s in prison, so he’s out. Another’s overseas working as a bodyguard for a Saudi prince. I understand most of the others had airtight alibis when your people checked them out. Anyway, none of them showed any signs of having the kind of connections or money they’d have to have to jump all over the country without getting caught.”

Suddenly, he shook his head. “I just don’t buy this, Helen. I could swallow the Bureau not spotting one or two small, sophisticated domestic terrorist groups… but three or four or five? Where the hell are all these bastards coming from?”

“Believe me, Peter, we’ve all been asking the same question,” Helen said quietly. She lowered her eyes to the pile of reports and photos on her desk. “Our intelligence people honestly thought they had a handle on every group likely to cause trouble. But it’s a big country out there and the evidence is pretty clear that we screwed it up somehow. Maybe we counted too much on these people slotting neatly into our psychological profiles. Or we relied too heavily on informants who weren’t tracking the right organisations.”

She looked up again. “All I know is that we’re getting hammered by terrorists of all stripes using different techniques and weapons to hit different types of targets in different parts of the country. And the only thing I can see that they’ve got in common is that they’re damned good at what they do.”

Thorn grimaced. “True.” Every separate attack showed clear signs of careful advance planning and attention to detail. That was one of the factors that had first led him to believe someone with military training might be involved. Something else about the terrorist strikes tugged at his memory. Something about the communiques claiming responsibility…

Helens phone buzzed, breaking his train of thought. “Special Agent Gray here.”

Thorn sat still while she listened to someone on the other end.

“Right. I’ll be there.” Helen hung up. She looked sadly at him. “I have to go, Peter. Flynn’s called a meeting in five minutes to go over the preliminary reports on the monorail bombing.”

“Is he still giving you grief about sharing information with me?” Thorn asked seriously.

“Not much.” One side of Helen’s mouth twitched upward for an instant.

“Mike Flynn’s got a few too many other things to worry about right now. So I think he’s pretty well decided to turn a blind eye on us at least as long as he doesn’t trip over you every time he turns around.”

Thorn forced some humor into his own voice. “Got it. I’ll practice tiptoeing on eggshells.” He stood up. “I’ll talk to you tomorrow?” he asked.

She nodded and came around the desk to kiss him goodbye. “Tomorrow.”

Thorn was on the Metro before he remembered what it was that had been bothering him about the terrorist communiques. Every one of them had been written or spoken in precise, textbook-perfect English. At first he’d thought that was because the terrorists wanted to avoid giving the FBI’s language analysts any regional accents or speech patterns that could be used to identify them later. But what if there was another reason? A simpler reason? Did all the statements sound like textbook English precisely because they were taken out of a textbook?

He thought hard about that all the way back to the Pentagon.

NOVEMBER 22

NBC News morning briefing, “Terrorism in America”

NBC had built a special set in its New York broadcast studios as a backdrop for its daily reports on the terrorist campaigns convulsing the nation. A giant electronic map of the United States framed the news desk and NBC’s top anchorman. Pulsing red lights scattered across the map marked areas officially confirmed by the FBI as terror attacks. A large monitor showed the grim, determined face of Senator Stephen Reiser, the Senate majority leader. He was being interviewed by satellite linkup with the Capitol Hill television studio.

“If I understand you correctly, Senator, you believe that the administration’s response to this wave of terrorism has been too weak and too hesitant. Is that right?”