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Seventy-Six
Ahmed al-Adel had been sitting alone in his cell with the lights off for about an hour. No one had spoken to him in more than ten hours by his estimation. No reading, no radio, no TV, and no communication since he'd last talked to his lawyer after lunch. He had no watch, no way of telling time, but it seemed that they turned the lights off at 10:00 each night.
He was in solitary confinement and so had no contact with any other prisoners, and only sparse contact with his guards. They dropped off and picked up his food three times a day. He assumed they watched him from the camera mounted on the wall opposite his cell. All of this was fine with him. He had no desire to talk to anyone. Even his lawyer was irritating him. Jackson was beginning to question his story.
Worse, though, was that Jackson had already been proven wrong. The lawyer had told him that there was no way they would be able to hold him in jail over the long weekend unless they charged him formally. Instead of charging him, though, the feds had decided to hold him as a material witness. Jackson told him that the American Arab community in Atlanta, Miami, Baltimore, and New York had all been hit with a flurry of arrest warrants. This was not good news, but al-Adel didn't let Jackson know it bothered him. It was crucial that he feigned ignorance for another day. Whether he lived did not matter, just so long as his death came quickly and without pain. Al-Adel was ready to be martyred. They had promised him that his pivotal part in this operation would be properly recorded. All of Arabia would soon know of his greatness.
The clanging noise of a heavy door opening and closing pulled him from his thoughts of greatness. He could hear footsteps coming down the hallway. He wasn't sure if it was more than two people, but it was definitely more than one. Two men suddenly appeared on the other side of his bars. Al-Adel couldn't see much more than their backlit silhouettes, but he could tell by the uniform that one of them was a guard.
The guard unlocked the door to the cell and left without uttering a single word. The man who was left did not open the door right away. Instead he pulled a phone from his pocket and dialed a number.
"Are you in?" the mysterious man asked. He listened for a second and then said, "Cut the video feeds and erase anything that shows us entering or leaving the building."
The man put the phone away and began addressing al-Adel in flawless Arabic. Al-Adel sat up in his bed clutching his blanket, terror coursing through every vein. "I am an American," he said with what little courage he could muster. "I want to see my lawyer."
The man on the other side of the bars did not answer him with words, but with laughter, laughter that showed no fear of anything that al-Adel could say or do, laughter tinged with a deep anger that spoke of unpleasant things to come.
* * *
Seventy-Seven
The turning point came after the second call from Atlanta. The CDC Hazardous Material team found the truck, and it was really hot. As predicted, there was paperwork pertaining to the trip from Mexico to Atlanta. The truck's location was not far from the truck stop and upon arriving the Hazmat team quickly located the trailer. It was also contaminated but even more telling was the pile of discarded clothes, lead aprons, and radiation badges that they found behind a nearby construction trailer.
Reimer had relayed all of this to McMahon and Rapp. The team identified the source of radiation as Pu-239, or plutonium, the primary isotope used in reactor fuel and weapon-grade nuclear material. On a more positive note, Reimer was saying that, as predicted, this device was extremely unstable and throwing off a ton of radiation, which would make it easy for the sensors around D.C. to pick up.
It was after Reimer's call that McMahon had surprised Rapp. Rapp knew the veteran agent was capable of looking the other way, but what he had just proposed went way beyond looking the other way. This was breaking the law, something that Rapp was not in the slightest bit opposed to, but there would be no turning back if they decided to move forward. It would be a definite career ender for McMahon and maybe ev
en for Rapp himself. Knowing all that, Rapp still decided to go for it. Too much was at stake to not take the risk.
Only one thing gave him pause. He could deal with accusations and deflect media scrutiny, but not if they had him on video tape. One phone call to Marcus Dumond, the CIA's resident computer hacker, allayed his concerns. A short while later Rapp and McMahon were flying Route 123 toward Fairfax.
It was after 10:00 and the area around the federal courthouse and county jail was pretty quiet. McMahon drove his FBI sedan around to the rear of the building and honked his horn. One of the big garage doors opened and they entered the sally port where prisoners were transferred to vehicles. The port was empty with the exception of one man, and he did not look pleased to be there.
McMahon and Rapp got out of the car and walked over to the man. McMahon stuck out his hand, "Joe, I appreciate this."
The man shook his head. "I hope you know what you're doing."
"If I'm wrong, which I'm not, I'll take all the heat." McMahon pointed to Rapp. "Joe, meet Mitch Rapp. Mitch, this is Joe Stewart, U.S. Marshal's office."
The two men shook hands. "Thanks for sticking your neck out like this," Rapp said.
"Yeah, well, I've known Skip for a long time and I know he wouldn't ask if it wasn't serious."
"It is, trust me."
"We'd better get going then." The Marshall led them over to a heavy steel door. After a second it buzzed and they were let in. A Fairfax County deputy was waiting for them. Stewart looked at the younger man and said, "We need Ahmed al-Adel. You've got him in solitary."
"What for?" the deputy asked.
Stewart was short, but imposing. He glared at the young deputy and said, "Don't worry yourself with what for. He's a federal prisoner. When I say go get him, you just go get him."
The deputy backed down immediately. Rapp stepped forward. "I'll go with."
The deputy shrugged. "Suit yourself."
Another heavy door was buzzed and Rapp and the deputy entered. As they walked down the hallway, the deputy looked over his shoulder and said, "Hey, aren't you that Mitch Rapp fellow?"
Rapp shook his head. "Nope. You're not the first person to say it though. I'm with the Justice Department." Rapp didn't actually think this would work as an alibi, it was just better than having to answer all the man's questions about what it was like to work for the CIA and kill bad guys.
