Date: Tue, 17 Apr 2007 08:28:17 -0700 (PDT)
From: Jack Santoro <jacksantoro1@yahoo.com>
Subject: Arrest Record, Part 14, Adult Friends, 14/?

Arrest Record, Part 14
By Jacksantoro1@yahoo.com

	The others had left, but Ed had asked Barton to stay
behind, as he wanted to clear up a few details that
might be important in the future. Harold and I lounged
on the couch while Ed and Barton occupied armchairs.
	"About these cell phones that can't be traced," Ed
began. "Can't we single out terrorist conversations,
anyway? Then we get an idea of the area where they're
operating. I know that a few years ago the NSA
(National Security Agency) developed a super-computer
that can scan millions of telephone conversations and
pick out key works such as bomb, gas, WMDs, explosive,
and the like."
	"That technology still exists, and in fact NSA has
improved on it. Now they can monitor and scan billions
of telephone calls and do it in several languages.
Unfortunately, we're getting less material these days
because the countermeasure is childishly simple. The
terrorists copied what organized crime did decades ago
when they realized that the FBI was tapping their
telephones. They use code words. Instead of using the
word `bomb' they'll say `package.' Instead of saying
`terrorist cell' they'll say `study group' instead.
These are a couple of the substitutions we've learned
that they use, and you can see how this makes the task
immeasurably harder."
	"Yes, the possibilities are endless," Harold mused.
"They can say `theater' instead of `target' and make
it sound like an entirely innocent conversation. You'd
need a human being to listen to millions and millions
of phone calls containing these words, trying to
figure out their real meanings from the context."
	"Yes," Barton conceded. "As you can see, I wasn't
exaggerating the difficulties. Rather, I was
understating them." Barton's candid and scholarly
manner was very appealing, and even a few minutes
after meeting him we were chatting like old friends.
	"I can see why we're going to be more dependent than
before on people such as Ted and Paul," I offered.
	"Yes, they have special skills that can develop
information we can't obtain any other way," replied
Barton.
	"Ted seems like such a nice guy," Harold said. "I
can't understand how he can torture people."
	"I've known Ted for years," Barton explained. "He
actually is a very decent and even compassionate man."
As Barton said this, I remembered that Ted was the one
who had given the homeless man a slice of our pizza.
"He sees what he does as necessary to prevent a
greater evil. To his way of thinking, and mine, he
takes lives of the guilty to save even more innocent
lives. I don't know if he told you but he lost his
wife during the September 11 attack."
	"No, he hadn't told us, but we'd figured it had to be
something like that," Ed said. "All members of the
task force lost somebody."
	"It worse than that," Barton continued. "Ted's wife
was pregnant." I saw tears in his eyes as he said
this.
	"We-didn't-know," Ed choked out. I averted my eyes.
	"In any event," Barton added, "Ted doesn't do much
torture. He can get a lot out of them with drugs these
days. There are mind-altering drugs for this purpose.
I don't know the specifics but some drugs are very
effective in making unwilling subjects disclose
information."
	"I'd read that administering a paralytic agent, such
as synthetic curare, can stop a person's breathing for
a couple of minutes and absolutely terrify them,"
Harold contributed. "They'll talk to avoid going
through that again."
	"That might be," Barton admitted. "As I'd said, I
don't know the specifics. Ted and I never discussed
this."
	"Well, I hope you can keep us up to date about what
you get from the local taps," Ed told him.
	"I've got something that will be instrumental in
keeping you informed," Barton said as he reached into
his rather large briefcase. Extracting a flat black
box about a foot square he continued: "This is a
satellite phone that can also receive e-mails. It
works a bit like a laptop, in that it displays
messages on an LCD screen. I'll keep in touch with
that device while you're on the road." With that he
got up to leave. We said our goodbyes and he walked
out.
	"Well, let's get showered and changed," Ed said. We
undressed and I noticed that Harold had a condom on
his penis. I was glad of this. After last night's
demonstration of his increased sensitivity he was
enthusiastic about wearing the condom 24/7.
	On the road Harold sat in back, studying the manual
on the operation of our new satellite phone/e-mail
device. He powered up the phone and keyed in a few
functions.
	"Okay, here's what we've got so far," he said after
reading several screens. "Barton's people have
installed two more taps to land-lines, based on
intercepted calls. They also picked up a couple more
calls to the untraceable cell phones, but can't tap
those. So far they've identified three people they're
sure belong to the local terrorist cell, and two more
possibles. Judging from the context of the
conversations, they think there's going to be a
coordinated attack in one week." That seemed
consistent with what we knew, that Amir was to
complete his deliveries within five days. Harold
passed me a wire ending in a plug that fit into the
cigarette lighter.
	"Can you plug that in so that we can keep this thing
charged?" he asked. I nodded and inserted the plug
into the socket on the dashboard. Nothing much
happened until we arrived in Pontiac, where we checked
into a hotel. We arranged ourselves in the usual
pattern, Adams and Spicer with Amir, Ted and Paul down
the hall, and Harold, Ed, and me next door to Amir's
room. Six agents from the Detroit office took rooms on
the floor below. Our judgment was that the canister
Amir was to deliver the next day would be employed in
Detroit or the vicinity.
	Our room was crowded, as all of us including the
local agents had gathered for a quick conference. Ed
led the briefing:
	"Look, we've had our share of surprises during this
operation, so I can't tell you specifically how it's
going to come down tomorrow. It might even come down
this afternoon. We'll have to be ready for anything,
including a rotating mobile surveillance if the
delivery takes place on the street. We'll keep in
close touch and be ready to react quickly as it
develops." With that, the others left.
We stripped down and showered, and I noted that Harold
removed the condom before getting into the shower and
how diligently he put it back on after drying himself.
We dressed again, as Ed had suggested we might have to
be ready to move that evening, but by ten, when
nothing at all had happened and Amir had gone to bed,
we decided to call it a night. If Amir's contact
called him, he would delay the meeting as much as
possible by telling him that he'd been sleeping and
had to get dressed. This would give the rest of us
time to get ready.
Harold turned on the satellite phone and was soon
summarizing the latest news from Barton's people:
"There was one phone call to a land-line in Detroit.
The caller said that the laundry would be ready for
pick-up at the Vagabond Cleaners store tomorrow. This
is the Vagabond Hotel. The Detroit office has agents
staking out the location right now. They'll follow the
contact when he comes here." Harold got on the radio
and relayed the information to the other agents.
"Well, it looks like it's set for tomorrow," Ed
concluded. He turned to Harold. "How would you like to
do Princeton tonight? That way, you can stroke each of
us off."
"You know how I love to handle a cock with skin on
it," Harold replied with a broad smile."  We quickly
undressed and took our places on one of the beds.
Harold took off the condom with the open end and I
lubed him with Astroglide and rolled a regular one
onto his prick. He'd hardened under my touch and was
very ready. I was not quite hard yet.
He grasped my prick at the base and his tongue flicked
out, licking at the end of my foreskin's nipple. The
light delicate touch around the orifice, where the
outer skin meets the inner lining, was very exciting.
I sighed in delight as Harold continued the light,
teasing touch around the tender nerve endings with his
warm tongue. Now I felt the tip of his tongue
insinuating itself into the nozzle at the end, probing
for my weeping teardrop slit. My helmet was swollen
and the meatus already pouting when his tongue touched
it and began drilling into it, making me cry out
suddenly. He worked his tongue inside my fleshy hood,
producing a delicious stretchy feeling in my
foreskin's nerve endings. This heightened my arousal.
"Okay, let's do it," he said as he lifted his head. I
lay on my left side and lifted my leg, and felt his
prick slide between my thighs. Ed placed a folded
towel under my prick, which Harold was now squeezing
rhythmically.
Harold lovingly stroked my long foreskin as it filled
with my erection. I felt him thrusting between my
thighs, the blunt end of his prick nudging my scrotum
with each forward lunge. All three of us were keyed up
from the anticipation of our mission and the long
periods of inactivity, because the waiting had set our
nerves on edge. Because of this tension, I felt that
we'd be having our orgasms more quickly than usual.
I saw that Ed was rock-hard, although neither Harold
nor I had touched him. However, he'd been watching the
action, and I was sure enjoying what Harold had been
doing to me vicariously. He'd been working himself up
just by rolling the nipple of his foreskin between
thumb and index finger, and now the bulge of his
helmet filled the end of his fleshy tube. The outline
of his flaring corona was clearly visible through the
tightly stretched foreskin, and the pucker at the end
was wet and dripping.
Harold worked my foreskin up and down my helmet in
long tight strokes, inflaming the nerve endings to
match his rapid thrusting. I didn't counsel him to
slow down, as we both needed relief from the nervous
tension. I think Ed understood this as well, because I
saw him holding a small cigar shaped vibrator in his
left hand.
"In a few seconds I'm going to hit the underside of
Harold's cock with this," he said. "You look like
you're really close, from the way your tip's so dark."
He was right. My helmet felt really congested, full of
blood, and I knew the rim was flaring out because of
the way my foreskin felt as it rode over the swollen
ridge.
I knew Harold was close to the brink from his rapid
breathing. Now his strong fingers gave my supple hood
a twist each time he snapped it over my thick rim, and
I felt an intense tickle begin in my corona. My
breathing was shallow and rapid like Harold's, and as
my eyes closed I saw Ed's hand bringing the vibrator
down to slip under Harold's thrusting penis.
I heard Harold yelp as the hot buzzing filled his
glans with sensation and his fingers tightened on my
straining prick, starting the hot tingle that would
trigger my climax. I cried out as a hot spark shot
down my shaft to the root, and a hard contraction deep
inside sent me into ecstasy. Hot sperm boiled out of
my prick as I moaned helplessly, and I felt Harold's
hard thrusting prick throbbing against my perineum as
he shot his load into the enveloping condom.
Harold and I grunted in unison as our bodies strained
against each other. His body slammed against mine with
every thrust, heightening my sensations as I
discharged my fluids. Now Harold's grunts took on a
higher pitch as the intense buzzing of Ed's vibrator
continued to fill his hot thrusting glans with
sensation. We both strained with the frenzy of our
orgasms, until we were drained.
I slowly recovered from my daze, but Harold was still
in the depths of his afterglow as I opened my eyes. Ed
was still sitting in front of me, slowly stroking his
foreskin and occasionally touching the vibrator to the
puckered tip of his nipple. I knew he needed relief,
and I pulled myself away from Harold and took the
vibrator from Ed's hand. As I grasped Ed's prick
around the middle of the shaft to stroke his hood over
the head, he picked up the towel and wiped my prick,
milking it t squeeze out the last drops.
Now I worked his foreskin in slight strokes, placing
my mouth near the end of his prick, inhaling the
delicious fragrance of his foreskin. Each time I
pulled his hood back far enough to uncover his long
slit, I touched my tongue to it. I also pressed the
vibrator against his hot spot, under his glans. I saw
that Ed's scrotum was drawn up tightly against his
body, signaling that he was close to climax. I drew
the foreskin back to his rim and saw that his helmet
had turned the characteristic dark purple that
precedes the explosion. My tongue tasted the thick
clear honey that flowed from his long slit, and I
drilled my tongue-tip inside it to search for more,
stretching the lips and making him gasp. His glans
felt rock-hard against my tongue.
Now Harold had revived and moved next to Ed, his
fingers between Ed's thighs, tickling the hairs
sprouting from the tight scrotum. Ed's breathing was
rapid, and he began to grunt each time I pumped his
foreskin, making it ride over the swollen corona. I
knew he'd be discharging joyfully within seconds, and
I pressed the vibrator harder into the triangular
groove under his swollen helmet as his legs began to
tremble.
Ed's sharp yelp pierced the air as his prick throbbed
between my tightly encircling fingers, and a heavy
torrent of cream shot from his gaping slit into my
waiting mouth. I swallowed hard, just in time to
receive another hard jet of juice from his throbbing
glans. I pulled his foreskin back hard to bare the
entire helmet down to the rim, running the vibrator
under the eaves as my lips closed over his ront dome.
Ed's cried of joyful agony filled the air as his
chlorine scented sperm poured into my mouth. I felt
each throb in my fingers as well as in my lips. I
relished the beauty of his orgasm as I continued to
swallow his semen, but no I backed off because his
helmet was becoming too sensitive. His throbs
continued, but his jets were weaker. Finally his
orgasm subsided and Ed became utterly inert, exhausted
by his biological storm.
It was 11 P.M. and we were more than ready for sleep.
I quickly milked the last drops from Ed's prick while
Harold threw his cream-filled condom into the toilet
and applied the one he'd removed before, to keep his
circumcised glans protected and moist. We then
gathered in each other's arms and went to sleep.
 	We were up at six the following morning, still
groggy from sleep, but room service delivered an ample
supply of coffee and the usual extra breakfasts, which
I brought to Amir's room as soon as the waiter had
disappeared. Even though I was pretty sure that the
waiter was not part of the terror network, we were not
relaxing our precautions.
	We were showered and dressed by seven, and now we
waited. Harold checked the satellite phone, and gave
us the news that the surveillance team had reported
that the person at the suspect number in Detroit had
appeared, leaving his apartment at eight and
proceeding to make a phone call from a public phone. A
moment later the radio buzzed and Spicer told us that
Amir had received a call from his contact. The contact
would be at his door at ten. Ted, Paul, and the other
agents quickly gathered in our room for a conference.
	"I think we ought to revise our tactics," Ed began.
"This time, let's wait until the contact is actually
walking out the door with the canister. That way we
won't risk taking down an innocent person." Ted saw
the wisdom in that:
	"Yeah, the hotel manager would have no reason to pick
up the canister and walk out with it. At least we
won't be making that stupid mistake again."
	"There's no risk in letting him get his hands on the
canister," Paul contributed. "We all know it's a
dummy, anyway." As we all seemed to agree the others
dispersed back to their rooms.
	A couple of minutes past ten we heard a knock on the
door of the room next door, where Amir was staying. I
picked up the radio, buzzed the others on the net, and
said:
	"Showtime." Then we went quietly out the door. Ted
and Paul were approaching from the other end of the
hall, and we took our places beside the door. I knew
that the other agents were standing guard inside the
staircase and by the elevator.
	The door opened and a short stocky man walked out
with the canister in his hand, throwing a comment in
Arabic over his shoulder. Ed and I were on him
instantly, and had him on the floor before he could
react. We handcuffed him and Ted slipped a syringe
into the vein on the back of his left hand. The man
went limp, and we knew he was heavily sedated.
	"I guess we can take him into custody," Ted said. "He
seemed to be operating alone. They won't miss him for
a few days." This was wishful thinking, I thought. I
personally did not know that he had no arrangement to
report the pickup of the canister. We'd simply made
that assumption throughout the investigation, until
the incident in Chicago, when we'd discovered that
more than one person was involved in picking up the
canister from Amir.
	Ted and Paul walked the man to the stairwell. The
plan was to take him downstairs and out a back exit to
a car, provided by the local agents. Their executive
jet was waiting at the local airport, and the
interrogation would begin as soon as the man was
strapped down in the plane.
	We went back to our room, where I expressed my
concerns to Ed and Harold:
	"I'd hate to see us blow this investigation because
we didn't allow for the possibility that the contacts
would have a backup or have to report the pick-ups.
All we need is one slip and the network will be
alerted."
	"Remember our ace in the hole, Jack," Ed countered.
"All the canisters are dummies, so they can't do
anything with them. In any case, the only one we let
out of our hands is the dummy with the GPS tracker
inside."
	"Yes," Harold said. "Think of what Barton told us.
That's really scary. There might be a hundred sleepers
out there that we don't know about." I knew what
Harold meant. A "sleeper" was an agent who posed as a
student or other member of the community, making no
overt move until someone from the terrorist
organization contacted him with orders. Sleepers could
stay in place for years, remaining totally undetected.
They could be anybody; students, janitors,
businessmen, blending in with other people so as to be
totally undetectable.
	"That's true," Ed replied patiently. He understood
that Harold wasn't being confrontational, but merely
voicing the concerns that were evident to all of us.
"Those terrorists have known for years that we had the
ability to monitor some of their communication. The
NSA has been listening in to their cell phone and
satellite phone communications for years. That's why
they don't use electronic communication at the highest
levels, even in Afghanistan. They use couriers, a
low-tech method that's invulnerable to electronic
interception."
	"Well, now it seems that they've discovered another
method of electronic communication that's maybe not
totally invulnerable, but almost impossible for us to
detect, with those throw-away cell phones," I pointed
out.
	"Not much worse off," Ed said, answering my question.
He went on: "We've been pretty successful so far,
given the global picture. Although we've assumed after
September 11 that another mass attack was just a
matter of time, we've managed to prevent it so far."
	"Yeah, we've all known that it wasn't a question of
if, but when," I echoed dejectedly.
	"That's right, and it puts us in a bad situation," Ed
said. "Implicitly, the terrorists can make mistake
after mistake, and still be successful in the end. We
have to slip up only once."
	"That's scary," Harold added. "One slip and thousands
or millions could die."
	"Yeah, that's what we face," I said. "Good thing
we've got people like Ted and Paul on our side."
	"That's why I have no problem with what they do,"
said Ed. "In principle the idea of torturing and
killing prisoners is awful, but I always remember that
the people they handle are not shoplifters and
burglars. They're people who are prepared to kill
millions, and perfectly willing to give up their lives
in the attempt." At that point the portable radio
buzzed and Harold answered. He listened for a couple
of minutes and then rang off.
	"Ted's on his way back here," Harold summed up. "He's
got important news." An hour later Ted arrived and
without preamble, began speaking:
	"This guy's name is Moammar and he spilled his guts.
We didn't have to put any pressure on him. The most
important thing he said was that he doesn't have any
backup here, and doesn't have to report in that he got
the canister. That's one important worry out of the
way."
	"Why did he open up so fast?" Ed interrupted.
	"Because he's scared shitless," Ted answered. "He
said he volunteered to be a martyr because he thought
they'll kill him if he refused. He accepted their
standard offer, that if he died a martyr his family
would receive fifty thousand dollars. That's the same
deal Amir told us about. Now Moammar has a mother
still alive and three sisters, and they're living in a
hellhole refugee camp in Palestine. Without money
there's no way they'll ever get out. That's the
motivation the terrorists accepted. But the real
reason was that he was afraid for his life."
	"So not all these terrorists do it out of idealism,"
concluded Harold.
	"Shit no!" Ted agreed. "In some ways the terrorists
are like the mob. Behind the religious trappings they
rule with fear and intimidation. Anyway, there's a
third reason. Moammar was a dead-end kid in Palestine.
He would have been that way the rest of his life,
living in a tent, no running water, lousy food, and
all that. Volunteering was his ticket out of that, and
a way to bring his mother and three sisters out of it
too. Meanwhile, he'd be living in comfort in America.
I guess I'd have to say relative comfort. He was
attending college, and he was getting a stipend of
five hundred dollars a week, and the cover story was
that the money was coming from a rich relative. Five
hundred doesn't buy you a life of luxury, but it's a
hell of a lot better than living in a vermin infested
refugee camp."
	"So what else happened?" I asked. Ted's account was
riveting, and we all wanted to hear more.
	"Well, he was living here, under deep cover, and
enjoying life. He didn't have to do anything but
attend school, and didn't even have to get a certain
grade level. Nobody bothered him, and he began to get
used to the easy life. This lasted for three years.
Then the call came. Suddenly, he knew that the good
life was almost over. His assignment was to pick up
the canister and wait for further orders. They'd told
him that when he got the order, he was to go to
Metropolitan Airport, go no farther than outside the
security zone, and shoot the contents of the canister
into the air conditioner return grill. He'd be able to
get a good blast into the air conditioner before
anybody would be able to stop him. Even if a cop was
nearby, he'd be able to release enough to infect the
entire building before getting shot. If he got shot
dead, he'd be instant martyr. If somehow nobody
noticed, he'd be infected himself, and would be a
martyr a couple of weeks later."
	"So when he found out that D-Day was close, he really
got scared?" Ed prompted.
	"Exactly," Ted confirmed. "I really don't know if he
would have gone through with it if we hadn't caught
him. He told us he was thinking of running, but he
also knew that the organization would spare no effort
to track him down if he betrayed them. He was screwed
in the end, whatever he did." Ted paused.
	"Anything else?" I asked.
	"Yes, there is," Ted said. "It's no surprise. It's
not really anything we couldn't have figured out. He
said that they'd told him that the virus was designed
to have an incubation period of a week. That way,
shooting it in an airport would infect people who
would be literally all over the country even before
anyone knew that they'd been infected. This was an
essential characteristic. We wouldn't know we'd been
hit until it was too late to do anything about it.
Multiply that by about a dozen targets and the effect
would be horrendous."
	"Yes, I can see that," Harold said. He was very quick
on the uptake. "If it had been a chemical agent or a
fast-acting infectious agent, the damage might have
been limited. We might have had a chance of setting up
quarantine. With a week's incubation, it would be
beyond control. Even when the first people fell ill,
it would take days to figure out it was the result of
a deliberate biological attack, and even longer to try
to take countermeasures."
	"So we ducked the bullet again this time," Ed
reasoned. "Well, we'd better set up a conference as
soon as possible. We can't afford any fuck-up that
exposes our investigation now. We want to get not only
all the contacts in custody, but discover as many of
the sleepers as possible. As long as they're out
there, there's always the prospect of another attack."

	"I think this means we might have to let the contacts
walk away with the canisters," I said. "Then we keep
them under surveillance and see who they contact."
	"That sounds like a plan," Ed said. "The interesting
part will be when D-Day comes and they spray. How long
will it take them to figure out the attack didn't
work? How long will it take them to figure out why?
They'll probably be running around like chickens with
their heads cut off for awhile. They'll probably want
to send at least one of the canisters back for
analysis if they think that the virus got inactivated
somehow. "
	"They'll be facing a crisis," I said. "They might get
really careless in their panic. That might give us
some openings we could drive a truck through."

Continued in Part 15