Countdown, page 22
Damn.
He hits Redial.
He has a lot to report, but there is still no answer.
“Ladies and gentlemen, again, good morning,” comes the voice from the attractive blond British Airways woman at the counter. “We will now board First Class, Club World, Club Europe, and World Traveller Plus passengers.”
One of the perks of working for a man like Rashad is first-class travel, but Marcel stays behind for the moment. Once he boards, he won’t be able to use his cell phone, followed by an eight-hour flight without any type of secure communication.
Unacceptable, he thinks, nearly bumping into a yawning American businessman who steps by him, carrying a copy of that day’s Financial Times and a Starbucks coffee container.
Barbarian. He thinks again of what Rashad has planned in four days. I’ve got to make that call, have got to get things confirmed.
“And, ladies and gentlemen, we will start boarding…”
Another phone call placed.
Another phone call unanswered.
Marcel pauses, thinking furiously.
He has to keep to the plan.
Has to.
Because if he doesn’t arrive in JFK in eight hours, Rashad will accept no pleading, no excuse.
“Ladies and gentlemen, this is the final boarding call for British Airways Flight 203…”
The decision is made for him.
He will leave.
He grabs his carry-on, picks it up, and with his boarding pass in hand he approaches the smiling blond woman at the gate. His thumb hits Redial one last time.
And by the time he reaches the gate and displays his boarding pass, Marcel disconnects the call again, bitterly disappointed.
For God’s sake, why won’t MI6 answer their damn phone?
Chapter 73
I’M SITTING on a bolted metal chair in front of a bolted table in an empty square sterile concrete room, my arms and lower legs fastened to the chair by chains. There’s a sore spot on my neck where I was injected with a sedative, my left eye is throbbing, and I’ll probably end up with a black eye by the end of this dark day. My ribs also ache from a good pounding I got from my two captors when I tried to make a break for it as they were chaining me to this chair.
Up in a corner of the ceiling, a little black plastic dome tells me I’m being recorded. There’s a chair on the other side of this dull-gray metal table, and a door in the wall; the door opens and my old boss Ernest Hollister comes in and sits down, an iPad in his hand.
He looks tired and angry, and I’m sure I’m responsible for both of those moods, and I’m fine with that.
He opens the iPad and says, “You’ve been a very bad girl, Amy.”
I say, “Sorry, Ernest, I haven’t let anyone call me a girl since I raised my right hand and swore an oath to support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic.”
He shrugs his thin shoulders. “Semantics, Amy. Just semantics.”
“Then semantic this,” I say. “Why in hell did you smoke me?”
“You went rogue and disobeyed orders.”
“I was responding to an emerging threat.”
“What threat was that, Amy?”
I know he’s trying to get under my skin and I’m pissed he’s succeeding.
“Rashad Hussain,” I say. “Saudi national and businessman, terrorist financier. He’s planning a massive attack on New York City on May 29.”
“Oh,” Ernest replies. “Says who?”
“Says MI6.”
“I see,” he replies, voice still bloodless, like that of a bureaucrat kept alive over decades, designed only to implement long-dead policies and throttle any risk-taking or important decisions. “And was that all of MI6? Was it one of their intelligence-assessment committees? Or was it just a single individual?”
I’m getting angrier as I see the cold logic in his voice. “One MI6 officer that I’ve deployed with three times in the field, and whom I trust. Which is more than I can say of you.”
“So you trust this Jeremy Windsor that Rashad Hussain is on a mission to attack New York City, kill tens of thousands of people? Correct? The same Jeremy Windsor—who with an equally deranged friend from the French foreign-intelligence service—thought that Rashad Hussain was delivering a Russian-made nuclear device to a runway in France? When it turned out to be a container of medical waste and smoke detectors from Romania?”
I pull against the chains on my legs and arms. That’s all I seem able to do.
“There’s more to it than that,” I say. “There’s a French microbiologist missing from the Pasteur Institute. She’s been weaponizing anthrax.”
Ernest says, “That’s the allegation, isn’t it? So far the French have told us that they have the matter under control, and there’s no firm evidence connecting her to this hidden terrorist of yours.”
My former boss opens up his iPad, rotates the screen so I can see it, and starts toggling through a variety of photos.
“So you believe this Saudi businessman and philanthropist, Rashad Hussain, has designs on the United States.” He slides a finger. “Rashad, here with the vice president last November.”
Another swipe of the finger.
“Rashad, here with the Secretary-General of the United Nations.”
One more swipe.
“And here, with the head of the International Red Cross.”
“I don’t trust the photos,” I say. “I trust Jeremy.”
“Oh,” he says, smirking, and then turns back to the iPad. “I trust that you do. And I also trust that Jeremy has vengeance on his mind: to kill the man who he believed killed his own father. That may be honorable and right, but it’s not the problem of the United States.”
I say, “For Christ’s sake, Ernest, you’re giving up? Just like that?”
“No, I never give up,” he says. “I look at the facts, beyond the photos I’ve just showed you. For example, this same Rashad Hussain has been a confidential field asset for us, providing information that led us to prevent three terrorist attacks on American soil.”
I say, “You moron, he’s been fooling you—sending out sacrificial goats so you won’t respond to this latest intelligence.”
He slaps the iPad shut. “Some years ago, I had the honor of serving in Iraq with one of the finest men I’ve ever known, General Malcolm Rooney. Innovative tactician and expert in logistics. He was able to achieve his military goals during the 2003 invasion with a minimum of casualties—on both sides. And when the Iraqi army collapsed in his area, General Rooney worked very hard with the local tribal leaders to achieve some sort of peace and political autonomy.”
Ernest suddenly gets up. “And it was for nothing. Nothing! This general and his troops, they were wasted, they were stuck in a quagmire, good boys and girls getting blown up by IEDs and crippled by snipers because the intelligence agencies failed them—failed us. Every one of them. No weapons of mass destruction, we weren’t greeted as liberators, and deep down those people weren’t craving a Jeffersonian democracy.”
He heads to the door. “And when I went to work for the general at the Agency, I vowed that never again—never!—would hunches, guesses, and lousy intelligence have a hand in anything I do. Just facts.”
I say, “So what now?” I strain again at the chains. “When do you haul me onto a black flight and take me back?”
A thin-lipped smile. “How about never? How does never sound?”
“You can’t get away with that.”
“Why not?” he says. “You’ve been smoked. You don’t exist. You’ve caused me lots of heartburn and stressful days, girl, and you’ll stay here until I get tired of punishing you.”
One more step from him and I say, “Ernest? Ask you a question?”
He’s at the door. “Why not?”
“The men and women who captured me, the ones holding me here, the ones who assaulted me while putting me in this chair.” I rattle the chains for emphasis. “Are they Agency or contract?”
“Contract,” he says. “What difference does it make?”
I say, “I guess I still have some loyalty to the Agency, despite what you’ve done to me.”
“And?”
“And when the time comes, I’m going to kill each and every one of them.”
Ernest looks at me with pity. “Aren’t you the considerate one?”
I say, “I’m not that considerate, Ernest. Because when the time comes for you, I won’t care who you’re working for.”
Chapter 74
TODAY IS the day, and Nadia Khadra is surprised at how calm she feels. She has spent her first two days in America staying at a Howard Johnson’s near the JFK airport, and despite eating at a local Burger King and McDonald’s, she still feels refreshed and ready.
She’s standing on a crowded platform at the Rockaway Park–Beach 116th Street New York subway station. In her right hand is her special metal carrying case, in her left the handle of her roll-on luggage.
Nadia glances down at the black dress she is wearing, with its leather belt and gaudy red clasp. Around her are working-class members of the American petite bourgeoisie, smelly and ill-dressed, and she feels out of place wearing such a formal dress. Before leaving that dingy hotel an hour ago, she had considered wearing something else—until she thought of the mentor who had changed her life, had set her on this noble path.
So here she is, wearing the party dress her mentor had specified, waiting for the A Train to take her to Manhattan. The trip should take an hour.
Should.
But this is America and the trains, and the trash, and the jostling, noisy, dirty, and filthy people…all part of a greedy, grasping empire. When the taxi had dropped her at the station, a small part of her wondered if she could go through with her task, knowing there was a very good chance the people she would ride in with this morning would shortly be dead—all because of her.
From a small compartment at the top of her carry-on luggage, she takes out the programmed cell phone Rashad gave her in Paris, pushes Dial, and raises it to her ear.
It rings once.
“Mike,” comes the strong male voice.
“It’s Nadia,” she says. “I’m at the subway station in Queens.”
“Excellent,” Mike says. “I will be waiting for you at the southern end of the park.”
His voice is confident, and she blurts out, “These trains…they may be late. Just so you are aware.”
Mike laughs. “I know American trains. No worries. You are worth waiting for. I will see you soon.”
He disconnects the call and Nadia stows the phone, knowing she will use it only once more.
That voice, that man.
Even from this short conversation, she feels the same shared sense of justice and mission.
Nadia stands a bit straighter among these workers, crabby children, and homeless, and she feels no guilt at all.
When Mike Patel started work at One World Trade Center nearly a year ago, he had been concerned that his skin color, his accent, would cause him increased surveillance attention from the NYPD and the American intelligence services. But save for a few awkward glances and half-heard insults and jokes here and there, the people he has met have generally left him alone. He performs his work quietly, efficiently, and ahead of schedule, which means his supervision is practically nonexistent.
He is in a men’s restroom on the sixth floor of One World Trade Center, changing out of his work clothes into a simple pair of Levi’s blue jeans and a white T-shirt, preparing to absent himself from his day’s work to ensure that most of the people he has met here over the months will soon die an agonizing death, choking on their own fluids.
He fastens the jeans.
They should have paid closer attention to him.
Freddie Farrady is strolling the streets around the base of One World Trade Center, remembering the conversation he had last night with his MI5 supervisor.
Patel is up to something, he had said. He left work and went to a railway yard in New Jersey.
And?
And that’s out of character, he had said. He’s never skipped work like that—not ever.
Did you see if he met anyone?
No, he had said.
Did he do anything illegal in New Jersey?
I bloody well couldn’t tell, now could I? he had said. He was behind a tall fence in a secure railway yard.
Then maybe he has a part-time job over there. Just keep watching.
Yeah, Freddie thinks, stretching his legs once more, conducting a roving surveillance of the four entrances and exits at One World Trade Center. He walks west along Fulton Street, goes up the busy corridor of West Street, east along the relative quiet of Vesey Street, then takes Greenwich Street back to Fulton.
Wash, rinse, repeat, he thinks. On what passes for a normal day—except for that jaunt into New Jersey—Patel goes to work in the morning and leaves in the late afternoon.
Staying outside all day is a waste of time. What he should do is talk to Patel’s coworkers, to his fellow tenants at his apartment building in Queens. But Portia Grayson of MI5 will have none of it.
“Observation,” she keeps on saying. “That’s all you’re going to do. Observe and report. See if he meets with anyone.”
So a-roamin’ he keeps goin’, sometimes resting on a bench, conscious that the World Trade Center Memorial is within a stone’s throw—and that somewhere in this vicinity, so many years ago that an entire generation has grown up without knowing about it, his terrified cousin Malcolm had leaped hundreds of feet to his death, his clothes and hair on fire.
He crosses his arms.
Lunch, soon.
Time to try the sidewalk vendor he had sampled three days ago—the Egyptian selling a kind of Middle Eastern gyro-meat sandwich on folded bread. It had been a nice change of pace from his usual hot dogs.
Freddie uncrosses his arms.
What the hell?
Mike Patel emerges from the Vesey Street entrance, turns right, and starts briskly walking east. He’s not wearing his typical work uniform, and his hands are empty. He’s moving at a good pace, like he’s about to meet someone.
Freddie waits a few seconds, then stands up and starts walking as well.
What the hell one more time.
The trip to New Jersey—and now this?
Mike Patel is definitely up to something, and Freddie is determined to find out what.
As he walks, there is the comforting weight of his illegal Glock 26 9mm pistol on his ankle, and that is a good feeling indeed.
Chapter 75
WALTER WILCOX is sitting in a dusty living room with dreadful pink wallpaper in this old English farmhouse, yawning and watching the two television monitors set before him on a low counter. There are actually four, but only two are live: one shows the basement cell containing a Nigerian man who spends most of the day sitting on the floor, moving back and forth and praying to himself, and the other an American woman, a traitor who appears to be going nuts.
Walter sips from a cup of coffee. Blah. He has been in this cold rainy country for nearly a year and has yet to get a decent cup of coffee. Before this he worked in the Pentagon Force Protection Agency—guarding VIPs within the Department of Defense—until a shooting incident in Karachi kicked him loose, to be scooped up by Triangle Executive Solutions, a private security force that overlooked his drinking and other illegal activities to give him this job.
He’s dressed casually: dark-blue polo shirt, khaki slacks, and a holstered 9mm Beretta 92FS at his side. Before Walter on the counter sit a handheld Motorola radio, a phone system, and a computer terminal. The radio is hooked up to the three other security guards stationed here: Frank Quinn, in the small kitchen preparing dinner; Henrietta Diaz, out on sick leave; and Desmond Hope, upstairs deep in sleep.
All of them are heavily armed and well-paid, and all of them are here from the Island of Misfit Military Screwups.
On one screen the Nigerian is still praying. On the other the American traitor lies curled up on her simple bed. Walter has enjoyed watching her the past four days. The woman has paced her small cell, cursed, torn at her hair, and shouted up at the hidden camera and microphone she knows are in the room.
She’s been stripped of her shoes and jacket, is wearing only a white blouse and black slacks, and her undies. Somewhere in an encrypted folder on his personal PC, Walter has some hot videos of dark-site prisoners better looking than this bitch who had desperately stripped and performed sex acts on themselves in the hope of being set free.
But not this woman.
Not yet.
Eventually she will break, like the rest. She’s on Confinement Regimen Four, meaning that a thermostat program will randomly vary the temperature from 50 to 95 degrees F. and that the lights will randomly dim to dark for periods ranging from two hours to twelve. The food slid into her cell will be two breakfasts in a row, then a heavy stew, a sandwich, and three breakfasts in a row. All designed to screw up one’s internal clock, making the prisoner susceptible to future interrogations or punishments.
Another sip of this damnable coffee. He surveys the woman’s simple cell: door, bed, combination stainless-steel sink and toilet. One of the other security personnel here—Quinn, the chef—likes to keep videos of the women prisoners squatting on the throne. Walter is pretty openminded, but that’s a weirdness too far.
The woman is wailing. She’s pulling her blouse over her head and chanting something that sounds like the Lord’s Prayer—only she’s repeating “Our Father” over and over again, and nothing else.
Walter is not impressed. This one is a former Army captain and CIA field officer, and the way she’s collapsed and has been wailing the past couple of days only reconfirms Walter’s belief that women deserve but two jobs: in the kitchen and in the bedroom.
The woman suddenly springs to her knees, facing the camera.
She’s holding up her wrists.
Dripping blood.
