Chapter 15

Back in Chicago, I monitored Winston's actions in his office, and he was doing exactly the kind of job I wanted him to do. He was going after Al Qaeda cells right and left. I gave him copies of all of the intelligence that we had gathered, including stuff from outside his jurisdiction, so that he could pass along anything that looked worth while to other offices. If Winston stayed on his current path, he should have the terrorist situation in the Chicago sector under control within six months.

I decided to see what I could do for the New York sector, so my wives and I arranged for a New York City vacation. We had no information on activities in this sector, but we figured that there had to be something going on. All we had to do was to dig for it. Our first night in the city, I donned my Avenger uniform and TKed to the Federal Building where the Homeland Security office was located. Damn! This place was no better run than the Chicago office had been before I took Winston Montgolfier over. At least, there was a guard, but his main job was to keep homeless people from moving in. OK, I was going to have to pay the office a visit during office hours tomorrow morning. I TPed back to the hotel suite.

After a quickie with Nancy and breakfast, we pulled the same kind of scam we had run in Chicago to get into see the man in charge. His name was Oscar Overdorf, and he was another career political hack, much the same as Winston had been. I took him over and got down to business.

Overdorf's main job was to keep a lid on the political implications and not to rile up any political group, especially the Moslems. I searched his brain and found that he had no intention or interest in ever doing anything that ran counter to his boss' orders. From the looks of things, Overdorf was a lost cause.

I fished around among the minds of the senior deputies and found one that looked promising. This was John Meyer and he had been recruited to run the intelligence operation. He was doing a good job, considering the situation, but he was being ignored every time he tried to tell Overdorf of something that he had uncovered. I took over Overdorf and ordered him to follow Meyer's recommendations. Of course, Overdorf didn't want to do that, but he had no choice when it came to a direct order from me.

I decided on a trial run, so I had Overdorf call Meyer into his office for a conference. I was hiding in Overdorf's private washroom that opened off of his office. Meyer was startled at the summons and even more startled at the order to bring in his latest intelligence analyses. Not quite sure what to expect, Meyer gathered up his stuff and entered Overdorf's office.

Meyer's first surprise upon entering was that his reception was cordial. Overdorf even stood up as Meyer came in. This had never happened to Meyer before, and he was immediately suspicious. Nevertheless, he laid out what he had that he thought was of interest and made a short presentation to his boss.

The most recent surprise of the morning was that Overdorf appeared to pay attention, and he even asked some intelligent questions! I was listening, of course, and a couple of the cells mentioned by Meyer scared me to death! It looked like there was a planned bombing of the Holland Tunnel scheduled for 10 days away. Meyer believed that the threat was genuine, and the terrorists could actually do what they planned.

The attack plan was really very simple. The terrorists would load a large truck with enough explosives to crack the ceiling of the tunnel and blow it up when the truck was approximately halfway through the tunnel. Naturally, it was a suicide run, but nobody was concerned about that. They planned to arrive at the precise moment of the shift change among the guards, and drive in while the guards were distracted by that. Even if they didn't succeed in damaging the tunnel enough to shut it down, the publicity would still show how important they were and how important it was for the Saudis, etc., to support them so that they could succeed in their next endeavor.

Meyer wanted to raid the terrorists' workshop immediately before they had time to complete their bomb. I ordered Overdorf to tell Meyer to work up an attack plan and present it tomorrow morning. Still wracked with surprise, Meyer rushed out to begin work on his plan.

I ordered Overdorf to follow up on some other things I found interesting for the rest of the day, and to call me on my cellphone if anything important came up during the day. Also, I ordered him to give me a report on all of the day's activities before he left his office this day. Once that was done, I TPed myself back to our hotel suite; I had already sent my wives back so that they could relax in comfort.

John Meyer was a real find! He knew of seven different terrorist cells. Five were Al Qaeda related, one was a militant group of Blacks, and another was a gang of skinheads. I felt that the Al Qaeda cells were the most dangerous, but I planned to check out the other two gangs before I quit.

A telephone call from Overdorf early in the afternoon filled me in on the progress of Meyer's plan and I was very pleased. That man knew what he was doing. They were going to hit the bombers on schedule tomorrow morning. The only hold up was from the local cops who were afraid of making noise in an otherwise quiet neighborhood. That had a suspicious sound to me, so I figured that I better check out the local police situation.

Dammit, there was the hold up. The police captain who was in charge of the precinct was the one afraid to move. He was close to retirement, and he didn't want to make waves. It looked like I was going to have to intervene. I stepped my way through the minds of the people running interference for him until I found Capt. James Hudson. Time was running out, so I simply moved in and took him over. Capt. James Hudson, you are now my slave. You may speak to me with your mind. Remain silent so that we will not arouse outside attention.

Yes, Master. What do you want from me?

You will approve the combined operation with Homeland Security tomorrow. Otherwise, your actions will be what is normal for you so there will be no suspicions aroused. Get to work on the project immediately. I will release you from direct supervision at this time, but I will be checking back to be sure that everything is going well. Have someone call Homeland Security to tell them that you will be cooperating with the raid.

Yes, Master. I will start immediately.

I left Hudson at that point. He needed to be free to do what was necessary without me jostling his elbow. Hudson knew much better than I did all of the details that had to be covered. I figured that he would do the job well now that he had the necessary push in the right direction.

Now that things seemed to be moving in the right direction, I decided to check in on the terrorists. They were working diligently on their truck bomb and did not seem to have any idea that their plot had been discovered. It looked to me like we were just in time. Much more delay would have literally been fatal. The one important thing that came from this little visit was an increase in my wish to understand Arabic. I didn't care about speaking the language, I just wanted to be able to understand it when I heard or saw it.

I decided that I had fiddled around long enough and needed to get my ass in gear. I spoke to Mary and Tami about hiring a tutor to teach me the language. Mary went through pretty much the same routine that she had used to find Tami, but she had no success. People who spoke Arabic and were qualified to teach it were in such demand that there were no prospects that showed up in that first week.

Meanwhile, the raid against the bomb builders went off so well that it was hard to believe. Nobody was killed on either side. The terrorists were expecting to beat the charges because they had so little respect for the US judicial system. Frankly, I had a strong inclination to agree with them. It turned out that none of the plotters knew enough English for me to question them. These guys were going to get off with minimal sentences, and there was nothing that I could do about it! Shit! Well, I needed to find a way around the impasse.