MANO

CHAPTER 13

Hakim should have left well enough alone.
The aborted hit on Mano not only alerted the cops in Hawaii to the potential threat, but it drew the attention of the Federal Bureau of Investigation who immediately set up a task force of one hundred agents whose first job involved checking flight manifest lists in and out of the state of Hawaii. The heat was on, and in a big way. When the Feds learned later that day that the hit might be related to terrorists who were planning a dirty bomb attack against Honolulu, a further nine hundred agents were assigned to the case. That was a lot of manpower and they were bound to pick up on something.

They did. They latched onto the fact that Hakim had flown to San Francisco on the fifteenth of the month.

Agents were sent to Frisco to investigate. They talked to everyone: taxi people, bellows, waiters and waitresses, restaurant owners, hotel staff, even barbers. They checked hotels and motelsand car rentalplaces. It wasn't long before they began to build up a picture of their suspect. They backtracked everything including credit card receipts and within days they had an address under surveillance. Discreet photographs were taken, and warrants secured.

They went in during the early hours. It was after four
in the morning, a time when most people's bodies shut down. It was a time they were most vulnerable and a time when they could be expected to put up the least resistance.

The Fed's knew their business.

They were cops with business cards, but at heart they were cops. They had the instincts of cops.

"Federal agents. Open up."

Fathi had feared this day ever since setting foot on

US soil. He had enjoyed his years living in America. In many ways, the country had grown on him, but Hakim had been wrong about him in many respects.

He had never quite forgotten where he was from and

the loyalty he felt towards his own homeland. It was
that loyalty which made him reach into a special pocketof his pillow and he had already bitten into the cyanide pill by the time the federal agents came crashing through the door.

His body was as still as ice as the first agent reached
him.

He was gone, and as they said in the movies: Dead

men tell no tales.

It was a setback for the Feds.

Some days just went like that.

* * *

Mano had to wonder about lighthouses at times. They always seemed to be shrouded in dense banks of sea fog.
Perhaps that was why they were there in the first place, he mused. Still, they could have done without new setbacks as the chopper came in to land. A man was waiting for him as he alighted.

"You Molina?" Mano shouted above the roar of the

rotors.

The man gestured for him to follow, and Mano followed suit. As they neared the Makapuu Point lighthouse, the man turned and extended a hand to Mano.

"Captain Molina," he said. "It was my men who found the body."

"The lighthouse keeper?"

"His name was Ryan. Irish guy seemingly. He worked in lighthouses all over the world. He was a legend seemingly, back in the day, among his own community."

"Thought all these things were automated now?"

Mano asked.

"Most are," Molina confirmed. "Including this one, but Ryan was employed on its upkeep and showing tourists around."

"How was he killed, captain?"

"Two shots to the head. We figure a .38."

"Anything missing?"

"Place was ransacked, especially the stores. I've no idea what they expected to find but it looked like a hurricane had swept through.

Mano remained silent. He had a fair idea what they had been looking for.

Things had gone up a notch.

It looked like Hakim had secured the chemicals needed to make his bomb a dirty one.

The stakes had just gone through the roof.