Patriot by M.A. Rothman (summer reading list TXT) 📗

and his shoulders slumped. A sure sign of a broken man.

“The shipments have nothing to do with the olive oil,” he said at last. “It’s what’s in the olive oil that’s important.”

Chapter Thirty-Two

“What could this mean?” Connor asked as he stared at his phone. The chilling text message from Aliyah said a lot of things, none of them good.

Bashir,

I have to leave. Maybe someday, we’ll have that coffee. Be careful.

Aliyah

Thompson, who was driving the Tahoe, frowned. “It sounds like the sheikh sent his baby girl away for safety.”

Connor shrugged. “I can imagine him doing it right after the bombing, but why now? This has my Spidey senses tingling.”

“I don’t know, but take a look at this,” Annie said. holding up her cell phone.

It was playing a live newscast from one of the local stations, discussing the influx of police officers from surrounding states to assist with security. Bomb squads from multiple agencies were arriving to assist with post-blast processing and detection.

“We’re running out of time,” Thompson said. “We need to nail this down, and we need it done by tomorrow.”

Connor leaned forward between the two front seats. “Nail it down? We don’t even know what we’re going to nail down. Wagner says they’re robbing a bank, but he doesn’t know which bank it is. Do you know how many banks and credit unions and depositories New York has?”

“Too many to set a bomb off in every one,” Annie said. “And don’t forget about the rest of the bombs. There’s been three so far, and if twelve trucks left today …”

“I don’t even want to think about twelve more bombs going off all up and down the East Coast,” Thompson said. “It’ll be worse than 9/11.”

“Why the hell set off that many bombs in the first place?” Connor asked. “It doesn’t make any sense to draw extra attention to where you’re trying to pull off a heist. Right? You don’t want more cops in the area, you want less.”

Annie crossed her arms. “He said it was going to be a big hit, the biggest one they’d ever done. What are they going to do, hit Wall Street?”

“No cash on Wall Street,” Connor said. “It’s all ones and zeros. Digital. Nothing to steal.”

“The Federal Reserve has the largest stockpile of gold bullion in the world,” said Thompson.

Connor couldn’t help but laugh. “Are you going all Bruce Willis on me now?”

“Huh?”

“Bruce Willis, Sam Jackson, Die Hard, the third movie?”

Thompson shook his head. “Never seen it.”

“German terrorists bomb the hell out of New York, steal a whole bunch of gold, and get revenge for the leader’s dead brother. Great movie. Of course, that movie was made before 9/11 was even a thought in some asshole’s mind. I guarantee you it wouldn’t have been made after that day. No way.” A thought hit Connor, and he laughed. “Goddamn Bruce Willis.”

“What?” Thompson asked.

Annie rolled her eyes. “He’s said this already. Die Hard. We get it, you watch a lot of movies.”

Connor leaned forward from the back seat. “With all the cops on standby and everyone looking for suspicious activity, no one’s going to get away with robbing a bank. It doesn’t make any sense.”

Thompson tapped his fingers on the steering wheel. “Well, we’ve picked up some chatter about some cells operating out of DC and New York over the last couple of days, but nothing specific. And we’ve even had a couple people on the no-fly list sneak into the country under false identities. But they’re nowhere near New York.”

“You let people into the county that are on the no-fly list?” Connor asked.

Thompson shrugged. “All the time. We keep tabs on them, see where they go, watch who they talk to. We’ve developed a lot of good leads that way.”

Connor shook his head. “All the years I’ve spent keeping these people out of the country and you just let them waltz right in.”

“We don’t exactly let them waltz right in,” Thompson said, “but knowing who they’re talking to, that’s important. Especially when the person they’re talking to is a legal citizen who we might not have had eyes on beforehand. Keeping them out is easy; knowing where the attack is going to come from on the inside is what’s difficult.”

He had a point, and Connor was actually surprised the CIA hadn’t started running operations like that. Yes, operation within the States was technically against the agency’s mandate, but it wasn’t like the CIA had never done anything questionable. He was sure if the public knew about all the black bag operations they’d run against terror groups and their financiers in other countries, the average Joe would have a fit.

The price of freedom, Connor thought.

Thompson’s phone rang. “Yeah… oh crap.”

Connor and Annie exchanged worried looks.

“Hold on.” Thompson switched the phone over to Bluetooth, and Richards’ voice came through the SUV’s speakers. “Repeat what you just said.”

“Two more bombs have gone off in Manhattan.”

“Where?” Annie asked.

“Columbia University Hospital and St. Michael’s Church on 99th Street.”

“Son of a bitch,” Annie said.

“Casualties?” Connor asked, leaning forward.

“Still coming in.”

“What the hell are they doing?” Annie said. “Wagner’s full of crap—they aren’t stealing anything, they’re just blowing stuff up. How that hell is that going to make anyone rich? I don’t understand.”

“I’m getting reports that the NYPD stopped a suspect on his way to a third location, and the bomb squad is en route to deal with the situation.”

“They’ve got him in custody?” Connor asked.

“That’s what it sounds like. I’ve got Brice already working on patching us through to their data centers. We should know what they do shortly.”

“We need to talk to that suspect. Do we have any idea who he is?”

“What I’ve been able to pick up over the radio is that he doesn’t speak English and he’s possibly Arab.”

“One of Hakimi’s guys?”

“I don’t know yet—oh, wait a minute. Just heard that he had a slip of paper with Abdullah Khan’s name and address in his wallet.”

“We need to snatch Khan up,” Annie said. “Before we