Chapter Eighteen
Ty
“I went shopping,” Lula said as she walked around the plane handing out sealed bags. “Because I sweat the details, none of your clothes are new. They may look bad, but I promise you I washed them many times. Many, many times. So you don’t need to be worried about cooties.”
Ty opened his bag and pulled out a pair of jeans that had definitely seen better days.
“You need to fit into this particular neighborhood. I will say that the farther north I go, the easier it is to find clothes—and shoes—that will fit men your size.” With her last bag handed out, White stood in front of them with her hands on her hips and a look of satisfaction on her face.
“I think I did a good job. You should try them on and make sure, though. We may have to trade some things around.”
As the men took up a place in the aisle, they stripped down to their boxers, then tried on each of the two outfits White had packed, a basic non-descript blue uniform with a random name tag sewn over the breast pocket—apparently Ty was going as Louis—and what might be mistaken for the clothes of a minimally housed person, at least in his case.
There were degrees of poverty represented amongst them.
Ty noticed that while his tennis shoes had stains, they had solid soles with good traction, and his pants had some elasticity. White wasn’t trading the visual aspect of their undercover wardrobe for functionality.
The team moved back to their seats as White opened her computer. Picking up her remote, she began moving through the stills and video that would help them understand the scope of this mission.
“The cell members have made themselves safer by keeping their distance from one another. Their apartments are on the upper floors, with winding stairs and no elevators.”
“Go back, please,” Havoc said. “You said that you got into all the apartments when you were checking for radon. The production apartment doesn’t have footage.”
“We tried and were refused,” White said.
“But you saw boxes inside?” T-Rex asked.
“We broke into the apartment above and drilled down with a camera. The targets have painted their windows black. Inside this apartment, they have set up what looks like a large camping tent.” She flipped to a blueprint and then moved to stand near the screen.
“The boxes are along this wall and this wall.” She pointed.
“A tent in the middle of the apartment?” Ty asked. “To what end? What’s the fabric?”
“Tent fabric?” White shrugged. “Since the windows are blacked out, I don’t know why it would be useful other than they’re in their Peter Pan era and refuse to grow up.”
“Or they’re trying to shield something from view if the super comes in to make a repair,” Nitro suggested.
“No, I met the super. He’s glued to his gaming chair,” White said.
She flipped to another blueprint. This one showed a hallway.
“The stairwell is here. Single stairwell. Tight. You’d have to move furniture up the outside wall with a pulley.
No one’s getting a couch up those stairs.
Luckily, we’re not moving anything out of this place. ”
“Do you think the tent is for heat?” Ty asked.
“How’s that?” White leaned forward.
“What if they aren’t using a heat source?” he continued. “Maybe they don’t want their names on the utility bills for that apartment.”
“That’s possible,” White said. “We lowered different probes to get what information we could. The temperature was consistent with the outdoor temperature. It’s been a cold March. The room is about five degrees Celsius.”
“Because they have something volatile that is more stable at a low temperature, maybe TATP,” Nitro said.
“Well, that wouldn’t be good.” Jeopardy scowled.
“Nitro, tell me about TATP in this instance?” White asked.
“Triacetone Triperoxide is just acetone peroxide. We saw it a lot in IEDs. Because there’s no nitrogen, most detection technologies miss it. It’s highly sensitive and can be set off by most anything—friction, heat, even static electricity.”
“Could they make it themselves in a cold apartment?” White asked.
“Yeah,” Nitro pulled at his earlobe, “they can put it together with stuff they can get at any hardware store and pharmacy. It’s acetone, hydrogen peroxide, and some strong acid to use as a catalyst.”
“It’s stable, though?” White asked. “Stable enough for shipping?”
“They’d need it in some kind of packing material, say sand or something that would act as a shock absorber. I’d still be soiling my britches every inch of that boat. Are they keeping it cold on the trip out?” Nitro asked.
“As a matter of fact, they’re using a refrigerated seafood boat that travels back and forth along the Seine to the Atlantic,” White said.
“If you know that,” T-Rex said, “you know their exit date.”
“Which corresponds with about the time when Phossy Jaw has his next operation. They’d be leaving him behind if they’re leaving with the boat. If we have to, we can grab old Phossy when he’s knocked out on pain meds.”
“When’s that?” Havoc asked.
“Sooner than we expected. That’s why I gathered you up tonight.” White scanned the men’s faces. “Not a second to waste.”
“So cold must be important to them because that’s not cheap when it comes to boats,” T-Rex said. “How cold, Nitro?”
“TATP? They’d want to keep it around freezing, say four degrees Celsius is good.”
“Nitro, you said TATP is hard to detect because it doesn’t have nitrogen,” White said. “That makes sense because those probes we put down through the ceiling hole into the room didn’t get any useful data about any kind of circulating gas.” White turned toward Ty. “Could Rory detect TATP?”
“Dogs are the best method we have to find it,” Ty turned to Rory’s crate, where he was knocked out on his travel meds and snoring up a storm. “Rory has about a 92% detection rate, which is slightly better than average for a bomb sniffing K9. No dog is a 100%."
“What else could it be, Nitro?” Havoc asked.
“Nitroglycerin, maybe? But I’d run on the idea of TATP, that’ll keep our team scared of singeing their eyebrows, and it’s more likely because if these tangos were thinking they had forty mill for an adventure and ended up with nada, this is a cheap—and dangerous as goddamn—but relatively easy means to an end.
A very effective end. If I were hellbent on making myself known and being able to get away with it, that’s how I’d do it. ”
“Biggest dangers if we walk into a TATP lab?” T-Rex asked.
“If you get too close to a heat source, or even a static spark, it can create a flash fire. But mostly, if you anger the TATP gods,” Nitro said, “you won’t be worried about anything because vapor don’t worry.”
“Okay, possible IED production using TATP, they keep the whole of the apartment cold, but keep themselves warm enough to function by using a tent to hold their body heat in? To lower the risk of static electricity?”
“Maybe they have hot potatoes in their pockets to warm their fingers,” Jeopardy said, lifting a water bottle to his lips.
“We’re speculating, putting ideas in the air,” White reminded him.
“I enjoy a good speculation,” Jeopardy said. “I’m not thrilled with the idea of nitroglycerin or TATP.”
“What do you think, White?” Ty asked. “Is this political? Religious?”
“We have no evidence of either. We’re working on the theory that this is about retribution, and that the retribution was always aimed at the U.S.
It just became more complicated for them without the prize money from finding the red diamond ring.
They also lost about half their crew when they were ambushed in Germany, and now another member is down for the count with phossy jaw.
” White shifted around to lean into the back of a seat as they moved through some turbulence.
“Lynx speculated that the cell might have killed Phossy because he became a liability to the group when they needed to escape Morocco. Luckily, his friends were loyal. If they had killed him and dumped his body, we’d never have found this crew. ”
Quiet descended on the group. Each had been trained and believed in “no man left behind.” Expediency wasn’t part of that calculus.
“Given their new reality, they’re getting creative,” White said. “I can’t find an affiliation with a place of worship, university, or the military. I’m not sure how they got together or trained.”
“Here’s a question,” Ty said. “Why are they putting things together here and shipping them to the U.S. if the components and production are as easy as Nitro says?”
“My team has asked ourselves the same thing. Of course, we don’t know what they’re up to.
We still don’t. Explosives, as Nitro pointed out, are a possibility.
We know they intend to bring their product to the United States along these lines.
It could be that they’re producing things here because the cell members have no intention of going to America and already have group members in place on the other end.
It could be that whatever they’re doing would cause more concern and attention in the United States than it does here.
The most probable reason, though, is that they have a specific date in mind for an American attack.
They needed to be here for Phossy Jaw. He’s doing much better, but at first he needed round-the-clock care from his comrades.
So they did the work while caring for Phossy, and they’ll ship the work.
It doesn’t matter where the work is done.
It matters that it's at the right place at the right time. And for us, it matters that these guys are in a hole answering questions and there’s no one to make the delivery. ”
“That room is part of our mission only to gather data for the interrogation team?” T-Rex asked.
“That’s the whipped cream on the sundae,” White said.
“I’ll be satisfied with the six of them hog-tied and on their way to a black site.
But it would be a nice thank-you gift to the French government if we could tell them what was in those boxes.
And I’d like to be gracious if it doesn’t impede our goals. ”
“All right,” T-Rex said, reaching for the remote. “Thank you, ma’am. We’re going to work on getting a timeline together, so we’re ready to jump as soon as we land.”