The Scent of Revenge Read online

  Although he has an office at 26 Federal Plaza in New York, Buster had been away for a week at CIA headquarters in Langley, Virginia. Barbara gave him a hug, and so did I. Sometimes I feel like he’s my brother.

  “So here’s the story, folks,” said Buster. “We’ve been worried about SAMs for a long time. We’ve found out that ISIS came into possession of hundreds of them in Iraq. Yesterday’s airplane attack leads us to believe that the missile may have come from ISIS. At this point, it’s just a hunch, and I don’t like to plan based on hunches.”

  ISIS is an acronym that I’ve grown to hate. It means the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria. It’s also known as ISIL, for the Islamic State in the Levant, the Levant being a region that includes the countries of Iraq, Syria, Eastern Libya, and the Sinai Peninsula of Egypt. Whether you call it ISIS or ISIL, the words Islamic State are the most important. It’s an attempt by a bunch of terrorist killers to gain a political identity of statehood. The goal is to bring into the world a caliphate, a state run according to the Sharia Laws of Islam, a government that has no pretense toward any democratic institutions. Dhimmis, or subjects, of an Islamic State are just that, subjects, not self-defined individuals in the body politic, but human beings whose lives are controlled by a religious/political philosophy that got its start over 700 years ago.

  “What hits me between the eyes,” said Barbara, “is that there’s little we can do to stop a missile attack on an aircraft. A man hiding in the bushes is just that, a man hiding in the bushes. We can’t send an army to sweep every area around an airport before a plane lands or takes off. Buster, your thoughts on the matter?”

  “Yes, there is something we can do. Every SAM made or deployed by our armed forces has a tracking device imbedded into its mechanism. Think of it like the tracker in your cell phone. The enemy doesn’t know this, or at least we think that’s the case.”

  “Do you mean that we can spot one of these missiles before a plane begins its approach?” I asked.

  “That’s exactly what I mean, Rick.”

  “But how can we track every landing or takeoff zone for a missile in the bushes?”

  “It will cost a ton of money,” said Buster, “but it’s what we have to do. The White House is all over this like a blanket. Just as the jihadis put the screws to ground transportation and the cruise ship industry, now they’re aiming at a critical part of our economy. Would you want to fly in an airplane that can be knocked out of the sky by a scumbag hiding in the bushes?”

  “Do you mean we’ll have to sweep every landing and takeoff zone for every plane in the country?” asked Barbara.

  “I’m afraid so,” said Buster. “Before any plane lands or takes off, a drone will sweep the area to hunt for the tracking device on a possible missile in hiding. American air travel is about to get a lot more expensive—and a lot slower.”

  “Madam Director, I suggest you turn on the TV,” yelled a voice over the intercom.

  ***

  “This is Shepard Smith for Fox News, ladies and gentlemen. For our viewers who have just tuned in, I have distressing news. Another aircraft has been shot down by what appears to have been a surface-to-air missile. Delta flight 219 was on its final approach to O’Hare Airport in Chicago when an object was seen streaking toward the plane just moments before it exploded. This announcement comes on the heels of yesterday’s report of a United Airlines jet that was shot down as it approached Newark Airport in New Jersey. We’re told that the Delta flight carried 237 passengers; and from the view of the wreckage, it’s unlikely there are any survivors. In the United Airlines attack yesterday, over 300 died. President Reynolds is scheduled to speak from the White House at 2 p.m. today. We will keep our viewers informed as we receive more information.”

  Chapter 3

  Captain Jimmy Thompson, the skipper of the S.S. Cape Orlando, prepared to enter Baltimore Harbor. The Orlando was a small freighter that plied the waters off the east coast of the United States. At 7 a.m., the pilot boat pulled alongside. After the crew secured the boat to the platform, the pilot climbed the ladder and headed toward the bridge to maneuver the vessel into port. As the pilot boat motored away, a Coast Guard patrol boat pulled alongside the Orlando. Ever since the events that began on 10/15, every merchant vessel entering an American port required a Coast Guard officer to interview the captain and search the cargo.

  “Hi, Jimmy,” said the Coast Guard lieutenant as he entered the bridge.

  “Good morning, Lieutenant Phil, welcome aboard,” said Thompson as he handed a cargo manifest to the officer.

  “So what are you hauling today, Jimmy, same old crap?”

  “Beats me, Phil. My job is just to drive this thing. Whatever’s in the hold is on the manifest. Coffee?”

  “No thanks. Let’s go to the hold so I can do my checklist.”

  The two men entered the ship’s hold. Lt. Phil carried the manifest attached to a clipboard. He walked the area, randomly comparing items of cargo against what was on the document.

  It’s tougher to check your groceries out of Costco than to get security clearance for a cargo ship in this port, Thompson thought to himself.

  A flatbed trailer truck pulled up next to the ship. The crew loaded two sleds of baking flour onto the truck, along with two dozen 50-gallon drums of cooking oil. The cargo manifest showed that the items originated at a Sysco food company plant in Delaware, and were bound for various supermarkets around Baltimore. Lt. Phil stifled a yawn as he finished his check-off routine.

  “Have a good day, Jimmy. See you next time.”

  After the Coast Guard officer left, a detail of 12 men unloaded 40 sacks covered in plastic from a void space next to the starboard cargo hold. The sacks weren’t visible on an inspection of the hold, and their contents were not on the cargo manifest. The men loaded the sacks onto a boat that was tied up on the starboard side of the Orlando. The boat pulled away. They then unloaded the same number of sacks from a void on the portside of the ship and carried them onto another boat. Thompson had been given strict orders not to allow the starboard and portside sacks to come near each other.

  The boats took their cargo to a residential canal off Baltimore harbor and maneuvered to a dock behind a private house. Each shipment of sacks was unloaded into a different van.

  “The operation is completed, Brother Islam,” said the first mate.

  “Dammit, how many times do I have to tell you not to use my Muslim name? My name is Jimmy Thompson.”

  After the ship cast off its lines and got underway, Captain Thompson, aka Islam Yamani, removed his prayer rug from the locker in his stateroom and checked his compass for the bearing that faced Mecca.

  Chapter 4

  Ellen gave me a shoulder rub as I read The New York Times. We were enjoying a quiet Sunday by ourselves.

  “I see you’re working on my stress reduction list, Rick. You did your yoga this morning, a half hour on the treadmill, and a 20-minute meditation. And last night, when we handled number one, it was just, well, wow. I’m proud of you.”

  She leaned over and kissed my ear as she continued to rub my shoulders.

  “Hey, look at this, babe. One of your books, Enjoy Modern Architecture, is back on the Best Seller List. Let’s go to your favorite restaurant tonight to celebrate. We have to figure out a way to spend all the money you make.

  “Holy shit,” I almost screamed as I came across an article in the Times.

  “What, did they mention my book again?”

  “Listen to this. A dozen women in a village in Afghanistan came down with dementia. They were all between 25 and 45 years old. This article says that it was extremely fast-acting and that they were in an advanced state of mental deterioration within 48 hours after they first showed symptoms. The authorities are calling it Alzheimer’s disease, but they really don’t know.”

  “My God, that’s horrible,” Ellen said. “Twelve women in one village? What the hell could it possibly be?”

  “When something comes from
out of left field, it usually means something. It’s a dot, a clue. Whenever we say to ourselves, ‘that can’t possibly be,’ it usually means something is going on. But what the hell can this mean?”

  Chapter 5

  Maria Adams, age 37, was appointed Deputy Secretary of State for Middle Eastern Affairs by President Reynolds on January 22. She graduated from Columbia University with a bachelor’s degree in history, and received her PhD in Public Policy from Harvard. The New York Times, often a harsh critic of President Reynolds’ personnel selections, hailed her as “one of the finest, if youngest, experts on Middle Eastern Affairs that the State Department has seen in a long time.” Adams had written a book, published by Harvard University Press, entitled The Middle East: A Crucible for Our Times.

  On February 22, the Senate Foreign Relations Committee convened for a special meeting. Maria Adams was scheduled to testify at 2 p.m. Senator Ross Fenster, Chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, called the meeting to order at 1:30. Maria Adams was scheduled to meet with Fenster before the meeting, but she wasn’t there. Amy Patiston, Adam’s assistant, called the deputy secretary on her cell phone.

  “Maria, it’s Amy. Is everything okay? You’re due to testify in about 20 minutes.”

  “Where?”

  “Hey, Maria, you know. You’re due to talk in front of the Foreign Relations Committee at two.”

  “Why?”

  “Where are you, Maria?”

  “I don’t know.”

  ***

  At 4 p.m., Washington D.C. police officer Jerome Langston saw a woman walking barefoot along H Street in Georgetown. The temperature was 25 degrees with a stiff wind. The woman’s hair was uncombed and her clothing was disheveled, with her blouse hanging out over her skirt. She wasn’t wearing a coat. He approached the woman and asked her name. She said that she didn’t know.

  “I need backup in front of the Ridge Diner on H Street. I need a female officer backup.”

  Officer Margie Perez walked up to Langston. She glanced at the disheveled barefoot woman and smiled.

  “Why don’t we invite our friend for a cup of coffee, Jerry?”

  They knew they couldn’t arrest the woman for walking barefoot, but she seemed to be in some kind of distress, and it was their job to offer help.

  “Do you mind if I ask you for your identification?” said Perez.

  “Where’s that?”

  “It’s probably in your pocketbook. Mind if I have a look?”

  Her driver’s license identified her as Maria Adams, and a card with a photo ID indicated that she was Deputy Secretary of State.

  Langston called the desk officer at the police district. Because of the woman’s title, he figured this could be a big deal. The district officer called the State Department, and within a few minutes, Amy Patiston showed up.

  “Hey, Maria. What’s up, hon?”

  Adams smiled at Patiston and said nothing.

  At 7 p.m. that evening, Maria Adams was admitted to Georgetown University Hospital’s mental evaluation unit. The doctors were confused. Even though the woman was only 37 years old, her symptoms indicated severe dementia, mimicking Alzheimer’s disease. The doctors were shocked by the suddenness of the symptoms.

  Chapter 6

  Buster and I were in Barbara Auletta’s office for yet another meeting.

  “Rick, I have to ask you something,” said Barbara Auletta. “Just before you answered your phone, you cracked up laughing. Were you expecting to hear something funny?”

  “Blame it on my wife. Ellen’s on a crusade to calm me down. She’s worried that I’m starting to burn out, so she came up with a plan to remake Rick Bellamy. One of the items on her list is for me to think of a joke before I answer my phone or turn on the TV. It puts my mind in a good place to hear bad news. I just thought of a Jerry Seinfeld routine before I picked up the phone. I carry a list of his jokes in my wallet.”

  I showed Barbara and Buster my list of Jerry Seinfeld jokes. I noticed that they scribbled notes.

  “That wife of yours is one of the most incredible people I’ve ever met,” said Auletta. “I’d love to convince her to change careers. Imagine having her talents here at the FBI. She’d have to take a 90 percent pay cut, I guess, but her work would be a lot more exciting.”

  “Well, you’ll get to pick her brain a bit in a little while. She’s meeting me here for lunch.”

  “Before we get to the Chicago disaster,” said Buster, “I’d like to comment on Ellen. As usual, the woman has hit something right on the head. We all have an obligation to keep our heads screwed on tightly. Our job isn’t just to listen to upsetting phone calls and bad news on the TV. Our job is to anticipate and react. Ellen’s right. We have to lighten up. Hey, Rick, are you a religious man?”

  “Religious?” I said. “Why do you ask?”

  “Because you should go to church and get down on your knees and thank God that he sent you a woman like her.”

  I just smiled.

  “To change the subject,” I said, “when do you think we’ll put into place the missile tracking procedure?”

  “The President will speak to the nation at 2 p.m., but don’t expect him to announce what I told you about the tracking devices. If we tip our hands, we’ll lose a great source of information from any of the jihadis we capture. I expect that he’ll put the plan into effect quietly and immediately.”

  Buster’s cell phone went off. Before he answered, he cracked up laughing.

  “See, Ellen’s plan works,” I said to Barbara as Buster picked up his call.

  Buster didn’t talk, he just listened to the voice on the other end, saying, “I got it, I got it,” as he scribbled notes. He hung up and looked at us.

  “I notice you’re not laughing anymore,” I said.

  “That was my contact at the FAA. This will soon be all over the news. Get this—90 percent, that’s 90-fucking-percent, of all foreign and domestic flight reservations have been cancelled. The jihadis have done it again, this time to air travel. It will be a while before things settle down and we’re able to take out the missiles before they fire. For the time being, people are just afraid to fly. Can you blame them?”

  ***

  Barbara’s intercom announced, “Mrs. Bellamy is here to see Agent Rick.”

  Barbara’s assistant escorted Ellen to the room. Ellen burst into the office with her usual infectious enthusiasm. “How the hell are you guys?” Ellen said as she hugged me and gave Barbara and Buster a high-five. “Hey, Buster, nice suit. Can you take Rick shopping with you?”

  The mood in the room lightened, as usual, because Ellen was around.

  Chapter 7

  Angela Johnston had just been appointed President of the University of Michigan at the young age of 42. During the seemingly endless rounds of interviews, she impressed the members of the board of trustees with her scholarship, her skills at dealing with squabbling factions, as well as her fundraising talents. She had taken McGloon College, a struggling institution on the verge of bankruptcy, and turned it around, putting its budget in the black and increasing student enrollment by 30 percent in just three years. Having graduated first in her class from Stanford, she went on to receive a PhD from Yale.

  “I think we have ourselves a winner,” said Jacob Menzies, the chairman of the board of trustees, as he addressed an executive committee meeting. “Angela’s not only smart as hell, but she has an amazing ability to bring people together. She picked that little college out of the scrap heap, made it solvent, and turned it into a regional star. As you’ll see shortly, Angela is also an excellent public speaker.”

  The board members filed out of the conference room and into the auditorium, where Angela Johnston would address them as well as 180 faculty members and staff.

  Menzies, with a long career in business, government, and academia, knew how to introduce a speaker. After a five-minute introduction, during which Menzies told the assembled all about Johnston’s educational credentials as well as her strin
g of successes, he called her to the podium.

  “Ladies and gentlemen, the new President of the University of Michigan, Doctor Angela Johnston!”

  In keeping with tradition, all of the assembled gave her a standing ovation.

  Johnston approached the podium as the applause continued.

  “Why is everybody standing?” she said into the microphone.

  The audience laughed. Everybody appreciates a little self-deprecating humor at the start of a talk.

  “I mean, no shit,” Johnston said, “what the hell is this all about?”

  A few chuckled, most cleared their throats.

  Menzies, trying to reclaim a situation that was spinning into an unknown direction, stepped up to the microphone and tilted it his way.

  “I told you folks that we hired a no-nonsense woman. Angela’s showing you her tough Brooklyn roots.”

  She looked at Menzies and said, “And who the fuck are you?”

  Almost every attendee in the audience of over 200 people suddenly had an irresistible urge to check their cell phones. Email, weather, ball scores—anything to distract them from what was happening before their eyes.

  Johnston held onto the podium with both hands and stared out at the audience. An agonizingly long minute went by. She finally spoke.

  “Fuck this, I’m hungry.” She walked toward the back of the stage, but was unable to find the opening in the curtain.

  ***

  Angela Johnston, PhD, newly appointed President of the University of Michigan at age 42, now resides at the Petit Flower Nursing Home in Ann Arbor. She has been diagnosed with severe dementia. One doctor speculated that it might be early-onset Alzheimer’s disease, but he had never heard of it acting so quickly. Nor had he seen the disease attack someone so young.