The Global War on Morris Read Online Free PDF Page B

called “the Fairbanks smile”: thin lips pressed together, angular jaws clamped forward, cheeks clenched. As if their faces had to be bolted on tight to contain the volcanic anger within. The Fairbanks children looked angry just like Daddy.
    He removed the only item from his in-box. It was a copy of the DHS NEW YORK REPORT, the department’s monthly newsletter.Fairbanks despised it. Every glossy issue taunted him with graphic reminders of his current predicament. There was a photo of McCarthy, the female director of the Buffalo office, announcing the break-up of an attempted border infiltration from Canada. There was Schiff, at a press conference with the Governor, announcing a bust in Binghamton. Binghamton, for Christ’s sake! Serrano in the Bronx, and Bishop in Syracuse. But no room for Fairbanks. As if his office wasn’t even a part of the department. As if they weren’t on the map. As if nothing ever happened on Long Island.
    Marie’s lethargic knocking rescued him from his anger. “You told me to remind you. So I am,” she whined.
    Fairbanks stared at her. “Remind me about what?”
    Annoyance spread across her face. “Your conference call. It starts in fifteen minutes.”
    As if the employee newsletter isn’t bad enough.
    It was the weekly ITACCC—Interagency Threat Assessment and Coordination Conference Call. It would be like all the others. He would sit at his desk, holding the phone with one hand as if to choke it, while beating a pen against his desk with the other hand. Each of his colleagues would report on the latest threats in Buffalo and Brooklyn and Onondaga and Oneonta and Saugerties and Syracuse. Threats here, threats there, threats everywhere. There would be all the hoopla about what happened in Albany. Two leaders of a mosque had been arrested for participating in a terrorist conspiracy. In Albany! Sting operations and investigations and threats everywhere except Long Island. Cut off from the United States by some damned glacier eons ago, cut off now from the color-coded warnings, advisories, and alerts that rolled in from Washington every morning. And at the end of the conference call, the senior agent would ask, almost like a set-up joke in a nightclub comedy act, “How ’bout you, Long Island? You got anything out on Long Island? A break-in at the mall? Not enough low-fat skim milk at the Starbucks? Bada-bing!”
    Still, there was some hope. Maybe something came up over the weekend.
    Fairbanks had two ways of finding out.
    â€œSend in Agent Russell. When’s he’s back from his little stroll through the parking lot,” he ordered Marie.
    Russell appeared minutes later, panting and disheveled, his blond hair blown in all directions across his head, his tie flipped over his shoulder. He hugged a thicket of unruly files against his chest.
    â€œYou’re late,” Fairbanks snapped. “I have my conference call in ten minutes. And you’re late.”
    â€œI was moving my—I’m sorry sir.”
    â€œWhat do you have for me? Anything?”
    Russell repositioned the files against his chest and struggled to pull one out. “Actually, sir, I think this time we do have something.”
    Fairbanks’s eyes widened. “Really?”
    Russell rarely saw his boss pleased. And right now, he seemed on the brink of pleasure. “Yes, sir. We received a call from the county police. One of their undercover guys picked up some intel at a mosque in Bay Shore Friday night. Next week, the Long Island Council of Islamic Clerics will be hosting a meeting with a special visitor. So special, that he is on the watch list’s offfff . . .” his voice trailed as he pulled another paper from the stack against his chest “. . . the NSC, the DIA, the JSC, the BFIA, Interpol, Mossad, the Saudis, the Paks, . . . and us.”
    Jesus, Mary, and Joseph! “Who is it?”
    â€œWe