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

Connor sipped his coffee. He couldn’t help the feeling that he’d come full circle, moving from one packed office to another. Both of which had him waiting on other people to make decisions. Decisions that might or might not be made based on valid intelligence. It wasn’t like they had much actionable data.

“That’s just my point though,” Connor said. “Why are we chasing our tails?”

“Uh, because some crazy terrorists have decided to blow up a bunch of random landmarks,” Richards said.

“What if it’s not random?” Connor asked.

Thompson raised an eyebrow. “Are you seeing a pattern that we aren’t?”

“I don’t know that there’s a pattern to see,” Connor said. “The target themselves might very well be random, but the intent might not be.”

“All right, so what’s their intent, other than to sow mayhem?”

Connor scoffed. “If I knew that, we wouldn’t be standing here right now.”

A group of people started pressing together in the middle of the office, pointing and calling others over. Before long, half of the room was gathered around the long table that served as the room’s centerpiece. Several were speaking in excited voices, and others immediately got on their cell phones and walked to the sides of the room to be heard over the commotion.

“What the hell is going on?” Richards asked, stepping forward.

As if in answer to his question, TV screens around the room all started displaying the same image—a middle-aged Arabic man wearing a traditional thobe and kufi. His beard was unkempt and he wore small, wire-framed glasses. He spoke to the camera directly, occasionally looking off-screen to what Connor assumed was his script.

“Mohammad Hakimi,” Connor said aloud. “About time you show your face.”

“I am Mohammad Hakimi, and I have come here to tell you a story. A story about oppression and greed and evil. The powers of the West have long conspired against my people and those like me, threatening to destroy our very way of life. You have come into our country and demolished our homes, murdered our women and children, and have done so under the flag of peace. You have lied to the world about your intentions and reasons, and you have managed to pull the wool over everyone’s eyes, hiding them from the truth.”

Hakimi paused a beat, then continued. “The truth is that this, all of this, is your fault. Despite what your leaders tell you, it was your country that began this war, not us. We did not infiltrate your country and murder your leaders and holy men. We did not flood the streets of your cities with savages bent on disrupting every aspect of your lives and call it peacekeeping. You have brought sorrow and despair upon my people, and now I am forced to repay that debt in kind.

“I have hidden a nuclear bomb in your city. You will not find it. But despite what you may think, I consider myself a reasonable man. I do now wish to detonate this device. And I will not detonate it if my conditions are met. You must recall and remove one hundred percent of your murdering soldiers from our lands. You must publicly promise to never return, and to take no further aggressive actions against my people. You must turn off all power to the city’s power grid—and I do mean all. And you must transfer one hundred billion dollars to the account specified at the bottom of this image.” Hakimi pointed to the bottom of the screen.

“There will be no further transmissions or communications. You will not find me or the bomb. You have seen our capabilities so far. Those explosions were merely demonstrations of our ability and resolve. Do not test me. You have seventy-two hours. Allahu Akbar.”

The video ended, then immediately started replaying.

“What in the hell?” Richards said, turning to face the other two men.

“There’s no way he could’ve gotten into the city,” Thompson said, pulling out his phone. “He’s got to be lying.”

“What the hell does shutting down the power grid have anything to do with anything?” Richards asked.

Connor shook his head. None of it made sense, nor did it line up with anything Hakimi had done in his past.

As he watched the video play a second time, he studied the man’s face. When Hakimi started talking about recalling the soldiers he shifted in his chair and looked briefly off-camera—but not to where he’d been reading off his cue cards. It was almost like he was glaring at someone, projecting frustration on someone else there in the room with him. He did the same thing when he mentioned the money.

“Brice?” Thompson had his phone pressed to his ear. “Yeah. Did you get that? Okay, run everything you got on it ASAP. Voice analysis, light reflection of the eye to determine location, anything and everything. I want to know what you find in ten minutes, got it? Good. Call me back.”

Chaos had already erupted in the center of the room as everyone tried to advance their ideas. Two men even had to be separated before their argument progressed to throwing punches. After a minute of shouting and chest-pounding, one of the Homeland Security division heads climbed onto the table and put his hands in the air.

“Enough!” he bellowed. “This isn’t going to do us any good.”

Thompson leaned close to Connor and whispered, “That’s Deputy Director Sean Harold. He’s one of the few Homeland guys we actually don’t have a problem dealing with.”

“We need to break this down into target groups,” Harold said. He pointed. “NYPD, you guys are heads down keeping a curfew. After people get wind of this guy’s message, you’ll have a panic on your hands. National Guard, you work with the police on how best to deploy your numbers. Audio, I want to know if there’s anything we’re missing: background noise, other voices, the works. Where are our tech guys at? Break it down and put it back together. I want to know everything about this clip, what