Disclaimer and beta thanks in Part 1. Constructive criticism and nitpicks welcome!

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Chapter 2
Tuesday, November 15, 2005
1:05 P.M.
FBI Field Office

"So, have we got a line on these guys yet?" Don looked at the team members assembled around him.

David spoke up first. "All we know is that they entered the country two weeks ago on fake passports. Those names didn't register with the airline security databases, so they had no trouble boarding their flight from London. Once we knew they were here, we were able to go back and check the security cameras at Heathrow to see what flight they were on, but that's pretty much closing the barn door after the horse is gone."

Don nodded impatiently. "So where are they now?"

"The surveillance cameras at Union Station picked them up this morning," Megan answered. "The security guard watching the cameras thought they looked suspicious, and when he ran their images through our database, he came up with a match. But by the time he did that, they had left the station, and no one seems to know where they went."

"Great," Don said. "So you're telling me that we have two known terrorists running around Los Angeles, and no idea where they are."

"Actually," David said, "we have two people whose names are on a no-fly list running around Los Angeles. Strictly speaking, it hasn't been verified that they actually are terrorists." At Don's glare, he went on, "But, yeah, we're doing everything we can to find them. Colby's out trying to track down other surveillance cameras in the vicinity of the station, and I'm just about to run through a list of known contacts."

"Do we know of any particular targets that they might be trying to hit?"

Megan shook her head. "Like David said, these guys haven't officially been described as engaging in terrorist activities. Because of that, we have no way of knowing what kind of target they might be interested in, what kind of methods they might use, anything like that. We're working to share information with a few European agencies, but we're just getting started on that."

"All right," Don said, leaning back in his chair and sighing. "I want to hear back from you in four hours, no matter what you've found. There's a lot of pressure coming down on us to find these guys fast, before they can even think of doing anything on American soil."

"Sure thing," David replied. "We'll be back at five."

Don rubbed a hand over his eyes. He'd gotten a phone call a few hours ago from the LAPD, passing along information from their control room at Union Station. Usually, they didn't contact the FBI so quickly unless a crime had already been committed. But in this case, two men of questionable intentions had been spotted loitering in the station, which was on a watch list as a relatively hard target within Los Angeles. While Don had always been slightly amused to see No Loitering signs in Union Station (what else was a waiting room designed for?), he appreciated that the police had been able to tell the difference between two men waiting for a train and two men scoping out the train station.

Especially since it was unlikely that these two men in particular were simply waiting for the commuter train to Riverside. As David had said, they didn't have any sort of official record; they were just British citizens with family ties in the Middle East. However, they had been linked to the same mosque as the one the London subway bombers had frequented. He didn't know if that was enough to get them on the no-fly list alone, but it wasn't up to him to determine those circumstances, it was just up to him to find the two men.

Still, the fact that they had used fake passports to get into the country was a pretty good indication that something serious was going on. Now, it was up to Don and his team to find them and figure out what they were up to, along with any potential colleagues of theirs, before anything could happen.

A soft beep sounded from his computer, and he turned to see the e-mail icon blinking. When he opened the program, he saw a message from Charlie reminding him that he was supposed to be going over to the house tonight to help clean out the attic. Upon becoming owner of the house, Charlie had discovered a huge amount of stuff in the attic: old papers, mementos, boxes of things from their childhood that they'd never had to sort through because there had always been enough room. Being a hyper-responsible new homeowner, Charlie was concerned about the fire hazard that so much paper posed, and had asked Don and Alan to help him sort through it all. He had reluctantly agreed, but with what had come up this afternoon, it looked like they were going to have to go ahead without him.

He typed a short response to Charlie, and was not surprised when his cell phone rang a few minutes later. "Hey, Charlie," he said after flipping open the phone.

"So what's going on?" his brother answered without preamble.

"Something just came up that I really have to be on top of here. I know I said I'd be there, but this really has to take priority. If you want to go ahead and get started, just don't throw out any of my stuff, okay?"

"Do you need any help?" Charlie's voice was a little hesitant, like he knew he should ask but didn't really want to.

"Not yet, no. We just need to do some old-fashioned legwork here to bring in a couple of guys. Look, I'll try to stop by on the weekend, okay?"

"Yeah, okay. Good luck with whatever it is."

"Thanks. See ya." Don flipped his phone shut without giving Charlie a chance to pry further. Charlie didn't often get overly inquisitive about his cases, but sometimes he'd drop little hints like saying "whatever it is" that meant he was not-too-subtly fishing for more information.

"Hey, Don. You should take a look at this."

He looked up as David approached, holding out a manila folder to him. "What is it?"

"Some of that infamous chatter that Homeland Security is always talking about. It's a transmission picked up yesterday, talking about activation and something to do with Los Angeles. It just came in by courier."

The folder open in his hands, he looked sharply up at David before he'd read anything. "Activation? You mean, like of a sleeper cell?"

The dark-skinned agent shrugged. "That's all they have right now," he said, gesturing to the folder. "But it does seem like a pretty big coincidence that this message was picked up on the same day that our two guys show up in the area."

"Yeah, it does. What kind of information does DHS have about sleeper cells here, anyway?"

"If they had information, don't you think they'd share it with us?"

David's question sounded almost naïve in the light of their earlier interactions with the Department of Homeland Security. He must have realized that, for he hurried on, "I know they don't tell us everything they hear, but in this case I think if they had something substantial, they would have let us know."

"I would hope you're right," Don replied. "Okay, thanks. I'll look this over."

David and nodded and hurried away. Don started paging through the four pieces of paper in the file. It was the transcription of an intercepted message, though he noticed that nowhere did it mention how the message had been intercepted, or the location of the speakers. Most of the message was an innocuous-sounding conversation between two men about their families in New York. When he went back and read it a second time, however, he began to notice some of the things that stood out and had probably flagged this conversation for further review. The word "activate" that David had mentioned earlier, which was not something that one normally used in conversation, unless there was a cell phone plan involved. And there were references to a couple of things in New York that didn't match his memories of visiting there: mention of a theater in a neighborhood that Don knew to be largely industrial, or a discussion about the length of city blocks in New York that came up with the incorrect answer of eight blocks per mile.

Of course, they simply could have gotten their numbers wrong, either the street or the number of blocks. In some way, it was ludicrous to think that just a few facts like these were enough to flag a conversation for review by the FBI. But again, he didn't know who the people were who were speaking, or why they had been chosen for interception in the first place, and it wasn't his place to worry about those things.

Don picked up the phone and dialed Peter Osmond at DHS. The man owed him a big favor, and a little more information about this transcript would go a long ways towards repaying it.