Intercept Page 29

  Canaan! He’d just been thinking about that—the ancient town of Mamre in the desert, now known as Hebron, where the Jews first came to Israel. Now here was its twin, a small town in Connecticut, also called Canaan, right in the middle of the mountains.

  Mack knew this was a Damascus moment, “kinda like that Greek son - ofabitch in his bathtub.” The Greek word “Eureka !” entirely escaped him, for the moment at least. But Mack knew, he was, at last, on to something. He was closing in on Abe’s Place. That meant he was closing in on the terrorist target. And, if he wasn’t wildly mistaken, Ibrahim, Yousaf, Ben, and Abu Hassan were already in Mountainside Farm, or on their way.

  He stood up from his chair and walked over to the receptionist, who was reading the paper. “Ma’am,” he said, “can you tell me if there’s an important school or college in the town of Canaan?”

  “Well, there is one,” she replied, “But it’s nearer to here than the town. Canaan Academy. It’s a very expensive boarding school, like Choate, or St. Paul’s.”

  “Hmmm,” said Mack. “I never heard of it.”

  “Well, it’s a kind of specialist place, I believe,” said the girl. “It’s somehow attached to a Judaic Study Center. I think the students are mostly Jewish, and rich. It’s really a boys’ school, but I think there are some girls there.”

  “Is it big? I mean not just a place for a coupla dozen potential rabbis?”

  The girl laughed. “Hell, no,” she said. “It’s huge. I think there are about a thousand students. We never see them here. I think they are allowed into Canaan about once a semester or something.”

  “Aside from that, they keep ’em locked up, right?” said Mack.

  “Guess so. Keep those guys hammerin’ away at the Old Testament.”

  Mack chuckled. “Where is it exactly?”

  “Straight along the main road out here—that’s Route 44 toward East Canaan. About two miles, on the right. Big entrance, stone pillars, with lions on ’em. Iron gates, long drive. Can’t even see the school from the road.”

  Mack planned to visit the following morning. But right now he had a long night ahead of him. He retreated to his room for a hot shower and a glance at the television news channels. He guessed, correctly, that the usual menu of bombs, death, shootings, failed medical care, cancer, rape, misery, and remorse mostly delivered by reformed beauty queens who smiled in the wrong places, would depress the hell out of him.

  The hotel was a warm and cheerful place, and Mack wore just an open shirt with his light blazer down to dinner. He ordered a beer at the bar and then settled down to a grilled swordfish steak, which he loved, along with French fries and spinach. He’d listened for years to health-fanatics telling him there was a danger of too much mercury getting into the swordfish population. But he’d never heard a Maine fisherman agree with that, and they knew a lot more about deep-water fishing than anyone else.

  And those swordfish were often caught in the turbulent tidal rips of the Grand Banks fishing grounds, eight hundred miles off the northeast coast of the United States. Mack never understood how there could possibly be mysterious drifts of chemical mercury out there as he dove with relish into his perfectly grilled white fish.

  He had a fresh fruit salad for desert, with just a single scoop of vanilla ice cream. Then he sipped a large black coffee for a half-hour, and watched the end of the Yankees playoff game. As a loyal Red Sox fan, he hoped the Yanks would get beat, and was irritated when they won 9-1.

  At 11 p.m. he returned to his room and changed back into his outdoor gear, adding a woolen Navy scarf and gloves. Waiting for the upstairs corridor to be empty, he slipped out, down the stairs and out of the back door, not wishing to be seen looking like a renegade from a mountain rescue team. Not tonight.

  Mack fired up the Nissan and set off to cross the Blackberry River. It was no distance, but he did not turn back toward the entrance to Mountainside Farm. Instead he went the other way, and found a narrow lane that he guessed ran up the north side of the property next to the long line of woods. He estimated the direct line across to the house and deliberately drove a half-mile further on. He found a secluded spot, pulled off the road, and parked the Titan out of sight in a copse.

  Once more Mack slung the powerful binoculars around his neck, zipped up the parka over his scarf, and began walking back along the narrow lane, the way he had come. He slipped back into the woods on his right, and set off through the dark trees, walking somewhat noisily, but certain he was alone.

  When he reached the end of the wood, he stood on the edge of a wide field and trained his binoculars on a cluster of lights he could see in the distance, some eight hundred yards away. When his eyes became accustomed to the darkness, he could see the farmhouse from a different angle from the one he had studied in the afternoon.

  It was a bitterly cold night, and he could sense the frost forming on the grassland in front of him. There was a crunch to the ground as he moved toward a big tree and took up position leaning on the trunk, steadying his glasses.

  There was no one in the yard. He could see no guard. And the barn doors were closed. But all the lights were on in the downstairs floor of the house, and there were lights in a couple of the bedrooms, one of which he now guessed contained the guy who’d tried to jump him. Poor bastard.

  It was almost midnight now, and Mack decided this was as good a time as any to get a look into Mountainside Farm, check out whether any of his prime suspects were in residence. Plainly he could not charge in there with a machine gun blazing. At least not tonight, since he did not carry any firearm. Nonetheless he might consider taking them out one by one if they were taking turns going outside. The only weapon he carried, the sheath jammed down the back of his pants, was his SEAL combat knife, which had proved very useful on Ilkley Moor, in England.

  The field in front of him was wide, flat, and devoid of trees. No cover for Mackenzie Bedford. So he just started walking, striding out beneath the stars and a bright moon. He knew he would be invisible from the house, because moonlight gives a false dawn. It’s never as bright as you think. It’s just a pale reflector, romantic but subdued, nothing like the sun. Mack knew a lot about moonlight.

  He kept striding out, going for the back of those barns, aiming, as always, for the shadows. It was like patroling Baghdad without the SEAL recon units. But a lot of it was exactly the same.

  Mack’s senses had gone up tenfold as he moved into the darkest places, using what SEALs call the “dead space,” the areas the enemy cannot see. He stayed behind the biggest barn, and tried to get a clear view around the end wall, assessing the distance to the house. But he did not dare move too far in case there was a guard out here, standing silently. He picked up a sizeable rock and tossed it out into the empty yard, knowing this would bring someone running if there was a sentry on duty. But there was nothing.

  Mack trained his binoculars on the farmhouse window, straining to see if there was anyone inside he might recognize. He could see the flickering blue light of an old television inside the room, and, through the glasses, the back of someone’s head. He guessed they would all be facing the television, away from him. “Fuck,” he muttered.

  He waited for two or three minutes and then made a decision. He would cross the yard and make for the east wall where there was a wide window. It was dangerous, but if he made it without an uproar, would save a lot of time. Just in case, he unsheathed his combat knife and, crouching low, raced across the yard, his soft desert boots making no sound on the rough ground.

  Mack crouched below the window, his heart pounding, as he tried to decide whether to peer around from the left or right side of the glass. Which way would provide the best and fastest view of the men in that room? Because he was never going to stand straight up and perhaps be noticed immediately. There were no curtains, thanks to the cheapskate botanist.

  And it was all very bright. There were outside lights on the porch, and outside lights on both barns, none of which were as bright as the light
flooding out of the house. Mack, crouching in the tiny shadow below the window, was breaking about seven SEAL codes right here, ones that dealt with risk. Unnecessary risk. And he knew it. He was acting impatiently, a taboo in the Special Forces.

  Then something truly terrible broke out. There was a sudden, distant roaring sound, and it was growing closer by the second. Sonofabitch sounded like a combine harvester or a fishing dragger revving into its jetty. This was a big powerful engine, and for a moment Mack thought it might be a helicopter.

  And then it seemed to slow down, but revved forward again, with big headlights illuminating the woodland down by the entrance. Whatever it was, it was heading straight for the house. “Jesus Christ,” murmured Mack, aware that the first thing those lights were going to illuminate was a Navy SEAL with a fucking dagger in his right hand, hiding under the living room window.

  There was only one course of action. He had to get out of there and quickly, because that goddamned truck was coming up that blacktop real fast, and he had no idea how many people were in it.

  Mack spun left and bolted around the far side of the house, away from the headlights. Big mistake. This was uncharted territory, and therefore a SEAL no-go. He reached the back door area and ran headlong into a guy carrying an armful of logs into the house. He knocked him flying, with logs everywhere.

  The man was too surprised even to cry out, and he’d whacked his head hard on the concrete. Mack never even looked back, never saw the blank face of Abu Hassan, eyes shut, trying to regain his feet.

  Mack knew only that the huge truck was roaring its way into the farmyard, perhaps with a delivery. And he did not want to be caught in its headlights. He raced across the yard, gratefully into the darkness behind the barns. Only when he was well concealed did he risk a look out, and even then it was difficult to see, because the truck’s lights were head-on to Mack, and they were so bright everything behind them was blackness.

  He could however see the frenzied activity among the residents of the house. One by one, they came running out, each man toting a Kalashnikov. Two of them were heading straight for the big barn. Two more were talking to the driver. Mack saw two more, both with rifles, emerge from the house, and again he felt that old familiar feeling of the one-man army against the world.

  Basically he could not remain in this hornets’ nest. He had no firearm, and if they caught him, or even saw him, he was as good as dead.

  It was more or less at this point that he decided to skulk away across that field, and live to fight again another day. Swiftly he headed for that frosty grassland, running hard, crouched low, covering the ground in the sinister gait of the fighting SEAL, deceptively fast, and difficult to see from a distance. He went straight back to the woods, back to the lane that would lead him to the hotel.

  Behind him he heard the truck rev up a few more times, and he heard the hiss of its air-breaks. When he reached the woods, he turned around to take one more look through the binoculars. But there was nothing. No people, and no truck. The outside lights were off and the barn was closed.

  On the way back to the hotel, Mack found himself wondering precisely what was in that barn. And whether the big truck had left. He certainly could not see it, and he had not heard it depart. And still he could not identify one single resident of Mountainside Farm.

  It had been a dangerous night, he decided. Big risk. No reward.

  IBRAHIM SHARIF was in a quandary. He sat with his team around the botanist’s ancient table and reflected that everything had gone more or less to plan. They had the explosive, the bomb conversions were going nicely. The school bus was in the barn, tucked away behind the bales, essentially disguised as a haystack. They had three more guys in place, the Hartford-based Sleepers who had bought the bus at the auction and then driven it across New York State to the farm. There had been little to stand in their way as they moved forward to conduct the greatest Islamic Day of Glory since Osama’s men hit the Towers.

  Ibrahim had been briefly concerned that whoever had broken Ali’s right hip may have been working for some subversive U.S. security agency. But surely if that was the case, something would have happened by now. Someone official would have been in touch, probably with Faisal al-Assad himself. But that had not happened. If it had, Faisal would by now either have been in contact or arrived here in person. He was, after all the owner of the property, and he had no criminal record.

  No, what was vexing Ibrahim was the sight of a groaning, moaning Abu Hassan Akbar, who swore to God he had been knocked flying by a huge running man, of superhuman strength, who could have walked through a brick wall. “He could have killed me,” said Abu. “It was like being hit by King Kong.”

  “Who’s King Kong?” asked Ibrahim.

  “I seen a film,” grunted Abu, unhelpfully.

  Ibrahim was concerned. Each set of events on its own was feasible. Attacker number one, who crippled Ali, may just have been in the woods and fought back when Ali challenged him. The guy who flattened Abu may just have been taking a shortcut across the property and collided with Abu in the dark as he tried to avoid detection when the bus arrived.

  But it was the coincidence that bothered the al-Qaeda leader. Were these men one and the same? Was there some unseen enemy out there trying to screw up their plans? In Ibrahim’s judgment this was impossible, because such a person must have been official, and in that case, something would have happened by now—a search, a raid, even a bomb, or a visit from the police, the FBI, the CIA, the military, even the detested Mossad. But there was nothing except a dead Ali, and a bump on Abu’s head.

  Ibrahim had been uncertain of his ground when the conversation started, and he still was.

  MACK AWAKENED early and tried to assemble his thoughts. Whatever his suspicions, whatever his knowledge, he could not “go official” on this mission. That was a major part of the operation. He couldn’t go to the police and tell them that a bunch of maniacs holed up in a local farm with several tons of dynamite were about to blow up a local school. His orders were plain: He was to take out Ibrahim Sharif, Yousaf Mohammed, Ben al-Turabi, and Abu Hassan Akbar, and without letting anyone know that he and some of the most senior security chiefs in the United States had been involved.

  Mack had a light breakfast and set off along Route 44 at nine the following morning. When he reached Canaan Academy, he was mildly surprised to find the big iron gates were open. There was no guard. Not even a gardener in sight. He swung into the entrance, driving between what he assumed were the mighty stone Lions of Judah on the gateposts.

  The drive was almost a half-mile long, surrounded on both sides by vast lawns, which formed a parkland with tall oak trees set at a generous distance one from another. Up ahead was the enormous main building of the school, with a high clock-tower, and ramparts along the south side of the roof.

  Mack guessed this building housed the majority of students, and probably all the classrooms and principal halls of the school. Set around this gray-stone fortress were a half-dozen further buildings, same stone work, and almost certainly places for specialized study—laboratories, art rooms, or, perhaps, even the school library.

  On second thought, Mack decided there would be no outside library. This was the kind of place where the library would be front and center, in the middle of the main building, a showpiece of knowledge and learning.

  He parked the Nissan alongside a row of yellow school buses, and walked toward the main double doors of Canaan Academy. Mack turned the big brass handle and pushed open the high, left-hand wall of stained red oak. He entered a cavernous front hall with a wide staircase, a balustrade forming a gallery all around on the first floor, and corridors leading off in several directions.

  Mack spotted a sign for the school office and headed in that direction. When he arrived, he saw that was no door, only a wide entrance. Inside was a large desk where a forty-ish woman with swept-back dark hair and glasses sat. She glanced up with the practiced air of one who is used to people strolling in and out of
her domain any time they felt like it.

  “Good morning, sir,” she said. “How can I help you? I’m Marie Calvert, the school secretary.”

  “Thank you, ma’am,” replied Mack. “I’m sorry to intrude like this, but I’m trying to locate a cousin of mine, a mathematics teacher who I believe may be on your faculty.”

  “Oh? What’s his name?”

  “Frank Brooks,” lied Mack.

  “Brooks? I’m very sorry but we do not have any member of staff by that name. A few years ago we had a kitchen assistant named Doris Brooks. But I think she died.”

  “Hope it wasn’t food poisoning,” said Mack, boldly testing the sense of humor of the Canaan school secretary, who did not, incidentally, have one.

  “Most certainly not,” replied Marie Calvert. “It was a road accident.”

  Mack decided to change the subject. “The only thing I remember Frank told me was the headmaster was named Abraham,” said Mack. “Tell the truth, I can’t recall whether it was a first or second name.”

  “Well, that could not be us,” said Ms. Calvert. “Our headmaster is Mark Jenson. I’m sorry I can’t help much.”

  “Did you ever hear of a Connecticut headmaster named Abraham?” asked Mack, “Possibly another school. Frank definitely said it was a large boarding school with Judaic connections.”

  Ms. Calvert thought for a moment, and then replied, “There are not many establishments like this outside of New York City. But we do fraternize and I honestly cannot think of one place with anyone in authority called Abraham.”

  “How about Abe—or Abie?” persisted Mack.

  “I don’t think so,” said Ms. Calvert, slightly haughtily. “Not for a headmaster, surely.”

  “Well, I guess not.”

  Mack was slightly disappointed. He accepted that “Abe’s Place” could merely have meant Canaan Academy in veiled speech. But the great Arnold Morgan would not have liked that, on the grounds of vagueness, not enough bite, or likelihood of truth.