Stone - 25 - Collateral Damage Read Online Free PDF

States in the country’s history,” the bomb chief’s voice said, as the view zoomed in farther to the building containing the suite, then traveled into the bedroom, where a closet door opened to reveal a Louis Vuitton steamer trunk.
    “This is the suite occupied by this man”—a photograph appeared on-screen—“born Ari Shazaz, but known to others as Hamish McCallister, who was born of a Scottish mother and an Algerian father, then raised in Britain and educated at Eton and Oxford. We now know that his father, who was divorced from his mother and remarried, fathered another son and a daughter, and was a close associate of Osama bin Laden from a time when they were both students together in Saudi Arabia. Mr. Shazaz was caught up in a sweep of al Qaeda operatives by CIA and MI-6 personnel in a house in Cairo and was almost immediately transported to the naval base at Guantánamo, Cuba. He was held there for nearly three years, during which time he never disclosed his identity, in spite of enhanced interrogation. He died there of a stroke, after having been waterboarded more than fifty times. His sons and daughter, all of whom had had intensive Islamic education, became radicalized by his capture and death.
    “Al Qaeda operatives made contact with them, and a cell was formed, funded by Osama bin Laden personally. After bin Laden’s death in a Navy SEAL raid last year, they dedicated themselves to perpetrating a monumental terrorist attack on the United States in revenge for the deaths of their father and bin Laden. They enlisted this man”—another photograph appeared—“Dr. Ahmed Kharl, who had been a highly placed scientist in the Pakistani nuclear program and who later worked on both the Iranian and North Korean programs. When the Pakistani program was shut down, he became a freelancer. He designed a device that would fit into a large trunk and had various parts machined at diverse shops, so that no one person ever knew what was being constructed. The parts were smuggled into the United States, along with three kilograms of enriched uranium, and Dr. Kharl traveled to Palo Alto, California, where he met with the three Shazaz siblings and assembled the device in an apartment rented by them.
    “The device and three smaller, non-nuclear bombs were transported to Los Angeles from the San Jose airport to a hangar at Santa Monica Airport. The three smaller bombs were assigned to McCallister’s three coconspirators, all of whom had gained employment at The Arrington. We now know that their purpose was purely diversionary—to make us think the attack was a conventional one. The device in the trunk was transported to The Arrington in a hotel vehicle by one of the three coconspirators and placed in the suite reserved by McCallister.
    “As you know, the presidents of the United States and Mexico were resident at the hotel for a conference and the signing of a treaty on security and immigration. Hundreds of other prominent people were either resident in the hotel or taking part in its grand-opening festivities. Two of the three smaller bombs were discovered by our teams before they could be detonated. The third was detonated in the Santa Monica Airport hangar, destroying the Caravan and killing its pilot and the third coconspirator. We believe this was the work of McCallister, who was covering his trail.
    “McCallister then set the bomb to go off at eight-thirty in the evening, near the end of a concert in the Arrington Bowl, attended by fifteen hundred people. He left the bomb in the closet, as you see it, then was driven to LAX and boarded a flight for London.
    “A magazine reporter who had met McCallister and had had sex with him in his suite accidentally saw the trunk in question and that evening, when she heard that we had been searching for a large piece of luggage, informed Mr. Freeman and Special Agent Rifkin of the presence of the trunk in Mr. McCallister’s suite. You all know what transpired after that. The