Michael Ainslie from our New York office was the senior agent in charge. He was a tall, reed-thin, good-looking man with loads of experience in the field, but I had the distinct impression he would have been more comfortable on a tennis court than in the middle of a dangerous mess like this one.
"Here's what we have so far from surveillance," Ainslie told the group. "One of HRT's snipers picked up a couple of images and then we shot some more. We think it's all pretty good news. Take a look for yourselves."
The visual images had been downloaded to a laptop, and Ainslie played them for us. The video stream was a series of wide and tight shots showing half a dozen windows on the east side of the building.
"We were concerned that these windows haven't been covered up," Ainslie pointed out. "These little shits are supposed to be smart and careful, right? Anyway, we've identified five males and two females inside the building. I'm sorry to say that Colonel Shafer hasn't shown up on any of the surveillance tapes. Not so far, anyway.
"We don't have anything on him leaving the building, either, just going inside. We're using thermal imaging to see if we might have missed him or any others." The Washington PD hadn't been able to afford thermal, but I'd seen it work since coming to the Bureau. It picked up heat variances, hot spots, which allowed surveillance to see right through walls.
Ainslie pointed to the close-up shot that was on the laptop screen now. "Here's where it gets interesting," he said, and froze a shot showing two men seated at a small table in the kitchen.
"On the left is Karim al-Lilyas. He's number fourteen on Homeland Security's hit list; he's definitely al Qaeda. Suspected of involvement in the 'ninety-eight bombings of our embassies in Dar es Salaam and Nairobi. We don't know when he arrived, or why, but he sure as hell is here now.
"The man beside al-Lilyas, Ahmed el-Masry, is big number eight on the list. He's hot. He's also an engineer. Neither of these bastards was on earlier surveillance tapes.
"Both must have just snuck into town. For what reason? Under ordinary circumstances we'd be in that kitchen with them right now, making mint tea for everybody, getting ready for a nice long chat.
"They have these same pictures downtown and in Washington right now. We ought to hear something soon, one way or the other."
Ainslie looked around the room and finally cracked a smile. "For the record, I recommended that we go in, make some tea, have that chat."
The small room broke into loud applause. For a brief moment there, it was almost fun.
Chapter 48
Some of the more devil-may-care, gung-ho guys from the Hostage Rescue Team, which is just about all of them, call this kind of dangerous operation "five minutes of panic and thrill. Their panic, our thrill." The very personal thrill for me would be bringing down Geoffrey Shafer.