Countdown, page 9
“Merci,” Nadia says, brushing past her landlady to undo the three locks on her door. (An additional deadbolt had been installed at Nadia’s expense last year.) Madame Therien is just starting to say something more when Nadia closes the door behind her. Her landlady isn’t a bad sort, just lonely, and she loves to gossip and advise—from her lengthy life experiences!—on how to find a man.
“And keep him!” she would insist.
Nadia has never had the courage to tell her that she has no time for a man in her life, not at this moment. When her work is done, then she will find the right man for her—a man to love and cherish for the rest of her life.
A few minutes later, Nadia is in the cellar, feeling at ease. The door to the apartment is locked. The door to the cellar is firmly closed. She turns on the overhead fluorescent lights, click-clicking into life, as she looks with satisfaction at her homemade laboratory and facility.
Two refrigerators, brought in when her landlady was on vacation in Provence. Four autoclaves. A long metal table with various tools and instruments. Centrifuge. Respirator masks, elbow-length rubber gloves, clear plastic face masks. Piles of round agar dishes for growing spores. A waste cabinet, securely fastened, plus an open biosafety cabinet where she has carefully worked these past months to remove and process what she has been growing.
A stolen gift from the Institut Pasteur.
Anthrax, which she has carefully and methodically processed into a biological weapon.
Nadia steps forward to the table, where a number of metal trays each hold scores of glassine envelopes containing a gray powdery substance.
She gently touches the envelopes.
And hears footsteps overhead.
Oh, no!
Nadia walks quickly across the cellar floor, but no—the door from the kitchen opens, and thump, thump, thump Madame Therien comes down into the cellar. “Ah, my girl, I was hoping you could join me later for…my dear, what is this? What are you doing here?”
Nadia swallows hard, tries to keep her voice light. “Like I told you before, Madame, this is part of my—”
Her landlady brusquely pushes by her, starts speaking rapidly: “You said, ‘some little pieces of laboratory equipment’…this can’t continue…I will call my son and have him start pulling—”
Nadia picks up the small hammer she used to bend pieces of the ventilation equipment, gets right behind Madame Therien, and hits her in the back of her head. The first blow seems to stun her—she turns her head in surprise—then Nadia hits her again, and again, and again.
At some point Nadia stands, breathing hard, her right hand warm and sticky. Madame Therien lies dead on the cellar floor.
Nadia wipes at her face with her other hand, looks to the collection of carefully constructed and placed envelopes in their trays.
One death.
And here, before her, made from her own hands, enough weaponized anthrax to kill tens of thousands, if properly spread and distributed in an urban environment.
Nadia looks down at her sweet dead landlady, blood pooling about her battered head on the concrete floor.
So what will one more death matter?
It won’t.
Chapter 26
HORACE EVANS of MI6 works late this day and decides to take another long stroll along the grounds of Lindsay Hall before going home.
Ten minutes into his walk he sees his assistant, Declan Ainsworth, coming toward him, and he’s pleased the boy isn’t running, isn’t huffing and puffing in his desire to meet up with Horace. Such things simply are not done.
Horace clasps his hands behind him and turns down another gently paved path. After a few measured paces with Declan at his side, he asks, “Have we received any news about our Jeremy and Oliver?”
“Yes, sir, we have,” Declan says. “Davies and Windsor were captured and taken to a farmhouse used by militants in the area. I’m afraid Davies was killed—beheaded, in fact.”
Horace sighs. One more death in the field that will never, ever be fully told or revealed, save in red-bordered file folders held and seen only by a fortunate and burdened few.
“Damn,” Horace says. “Damn these barbarians.”
The path they’re on is now under a spreading grove of oak trees, and the suspicious part of Horace is pleased he can’t be viewed by overhead assets, either satellites or drones controlled by those damnable Russians.
“Go on,” he says. “What about Jeremy?”
He listens as Declan briefs him on the complicated resolution that saw two Americans eventually exfilled by a BP helicopter, with Jeremy and the American woman pressing on alone.
“And where are they now?”
“They hiked to a village, where they met up with an asset of ours who provided them transportation to Beirut.”
Jeremy, he thinks with pride and pleasure, my dear boy.
“Do we know why he’s headed to Beirut?”
“Not officially, no.”
“Then tell me unofficially.”
“I checked with General Communications for any traffic intercepts in that area. They managed to locate a short cellphone conversation with that Lebanese asset. He briefly mentioned a Brit and an American and how they were looking for someone named Rashad.”
Horace halts. “You’re sure of that?”
“Quite, sir, and after a records check…it would appear the man is our Rashad Hussain. That is quite the—”
Horace cuts him off. “Enough.” He resumes his walk. Will the American woman contact her superiors and tell them about Rashad?
Horace resumes his walk. The buildings of Lindsay Hall are coming into view, and this section has buildings open to the public. There are vehicles and tour buses parked to the left, and a long line of tourists ready to go inside.
“I suppose our friend Ernest has been trying to reach me.”
“Yes, sir,” Declan says.
He takes in the peaceful lines of tourists from here and away, waiting to explore and look at the treasures of a past empire.
“Declan, do you know your history of Lindsay Hall? About the men and women who trained here?”
“Some, sir,” Declan says.
“There were times when the trainers here spent long weeks and months training Poles, Free French, Czechs—all in preparation for parachuting them behind Nazi lines.”
“Yes, sir,” Declan says.
“But there were some unfortunate moments when the higher-ups realized that some of these very brave men and women—they were parachuting to their doom. The resistance cells on the ground, waiting to greet them, had been turned by the Nazis. Yet the parachute drops went on. You know why, of course.”
“Ultra,” Declan says.
“Quite,” Horace says softly. “We had broken the Enigma. We read most of their secret messages, including their successes in breaking up resistance cells. But if scheduled parachute drops had been called off, well, the Germans would be suspicious something was amiss. And that couldn’t be risked. So at nighttime, these brave men and women would line up to board their aircraft to be dropped over occupied Europe, and some of the same officers who had trained them smiled at them and wished them luck, knowing that they would be captured within hours, tortured, and killed.”
Declan stays silent.
Horace says, “Can you understand being so cold-blooded in your job?”
“Based on our work these past several months, I understand it all too well.”
Horace says, “True. Like our predecessors, we have to look at those tour buses and imagine knowing one is packed with C-4 and ball bearings—and choosing to do nothing. Because doing so would alert the terrorists that we had penetrated their network…and in saving those civilians, we would allow many, many more to die down the road, because we would lose our intelligence source. That’s the cold heart and hard mind we need to possess in our business.”
Then he turns and heads back toward his office. “When Ernest of the CIA reaches out again, wanting to know what’s going on…”
“Sir?” Declan asks.
“Keep him away from me.”
Chapter 27
THERE’S A touch on my leg and I instantly come awake and snap out with my left hand, grabbing someone’s ear, then follow it up with my right hand, holding my SIG Sauer pistol, which I shove underneath someone’s chin.
I blink my eyes.
It all comes racing back to me. Getting into a BMW sedan, the outside dirty and rusty, the interior clean, with fresh flowers in a glass vase attached to the dashboard. A long drive with Rami, another nephew of Nassim’s. Rami practicing his English on Jeremy and me as he goes southbound on Highway 51, which hugs Lebanon’s coastline.
Jeremy…
Sitting right next to me in the rear seat, motionless, with my left hand twisting his ear, and my SIG Sauer jammed up into his beard.
“Sorry,” I say, dropping my hands. “Habit.”
“A good one,” he says dryly.
I look around, taking in the lights and buildings of an airport as Rami drives us along the side of a paved runway, with chain-link fencing topped by razor wire nearby. “Beirut airport?” I ask.
“Yes,” he says, leaning forward and turning his head to look at the utility lights, the hangars, the parked aircraft. “Although its official name is the Beirut–Rafic Hariri International Airport.”
“A mouthful,” I say. “Who was Rafic Hariri?”
“Business tycoon. Former prime minister of Lebanon. Helped rebuild Beirut after their civil war made it look like downtown Mogadishu.”
“So they named an airport after him—nice,” I say, rearranging my pistol in my lap. “I bet he appreciated it.”
“Doubtful,” Jeremy says. “Like most politicians in this part of the world, he was taken out by a car bomb. Rami, over there—to the left.”
“Over there” turns out to be a small hangar with a two-engine jet aircraft nearby, painted white with red and blue markings, the tricolor of France painted on its tail. Rami slows down and stops the BMW. Armed men in tan uniforms wearing red berets stand by the roll-up stairway to the aircraft.
“Here we go,” Jeremy says, opening his door. I follow, and both of us sling our MP5s over our respective shoulders. There’s not much else to carry, but I put my SIG Sauer in my waistband as Jeremy talks low to Rami, shaking his hand. I go over to Jeremy and Rami extends his hand. When I take it, Rami quickly kisses my own, then steps back, laughing.
I decide not to slug him.
It’s warm here, the salt smell of the nearby Mediterranean mixing in with the heady tang of aviation fuel, and I enjoy stretching my legs. Up the way are two Airbus passenger jets bearing the cedar-tree logo of Middle East Airlines.
Jeremy gestures to the two-engine jet. “Our flight out of here.”
“Very nice,” I say. “A charter?”
“A favor,” he says, as we walk toward the ramp. From the open door to the fuselage, a young woman in a black skirt and a white blouse with captain’s epaulets quickly descends. Her hair and eyes are black. Her skin is tanned. She doesn’t smile as she gives us both the once-over.
“We need to leave,” the pilot says, speaking English with a slight French accent. “The control tower is wondering what’s taking us so long. So move, please.”
“Sorry, dear,” Jeremy says, but she’s having none of his charm offensive. She points to us and says, “I won’t have those machine guns on board. Leave them behind with our guards.”
I feel like putting up a fight, but I follow Jeremy’s lead as he takes off his MP5 and hands it to the nearest guard. I follow up and say, “We’re going to bill MI6 when this is done.”
“Stand in queue,” Jeremy says. “There are many unpaid bills in front of you.”
He trots up the stairs and I follow him.
I enter the cabin and just stand for a moment, taking in the luxury. Padded light-brown leather chairs. A pair of couches with throw pillows. A small dining table. A vase with fresh roses in it. A plasma-screen television hanging from the bulkhead. Luxurious white carpeting beneath our grimy feet. It looks like someone imported a suite from the Waldorf and slapped wings on it.
“You guys must have one hell of an expense account to charter something like this,” I say. “This looks like an Embraer Lineage…made in Brazil.”
“Our expense account is nearly nil,” Jeremy says, taking off his dirty and bloodstained coat, wincing as he does so. “But our favor bank is nearly always overflowing. This private jet belongs to a senior official at Total SA in France. Last year an SAS squadron helped the French rescue his son and two other hikers who’d gotten lost in Libya.”
“Hell of a place to get lost.”
“True,” Jeremy says. “Still, it was a good job all around, and the senior official said he was eternally in our debt. Corporations love stability and open borders. They hate terrorists and their supporters as much as we do. When they can, big business passes along information to us, the French, and no doubt Langley.”
No doubt, I think, though I wonder what the average Frenchman filling his Renault with petrol costing about $5.50 per gallon would think of his nation’s largest oil company springing for a luxurious flight like this.
There’s a cheery bonsoir, and a male steward comes forth, holding two shopping bags that he places on the floor. He’s slim and smiling, but his nose wrinkles for the briefest of moments and I wonder just how foul Jeremy and I must smell to this young man in black shoes, slacks, white shirt, and a necktie featuring the swirling, colorful logo of Total SA.
There’s a quick flicker of French between Jeremy and the steward—Jean-Paul—about when we’re to take off and other flight details, then Jean-Paul goes forward.
Jeremy picks up the two shopping bags and hands them to me with a grin. “For you, courtesy of Her Majesty’s Secret Service.”
One bag has a KM logo on its side; the other says Clarks, a shoe company. I’m impressed that Jeremy got someone to go shopping on my behalf during our road trip to Beirut, and now I remember his seemingly innocent comment about my shoe size back up in the mountains.
Good tradecraft.
“For real?” I ask.
He gives a quick point to the rear of the aircraft. “If you head aft, there’s a loo available for you. Have a go—change into something clean and comfortable.”
I carry the bags with me and walk a couple of feet, then plop my tired butt onto the nearest couch.
I smile up at Jeremy. “Once we’re at cruising altitude, I’ll do just that. I’d hate to be in the loo while you run out to get some lamb shish kebabs just as the jet decides to take off.”
He says, “Still don’t trust me?”
“Please, Jeremy. I don’t want to hurt your feelings in public.”
Chapter 28
JEREMY TAKES a seat across from me and sighs, then Jean-Paul comes out and helps us fasten our seatbelts for takeoff. A number of minutes later, there’s a ding and we both release our seatbelts.
Jeremy leads me to the rear of the aircraft, past another luxurious suite of comfortable chairs, a wet bar, and another couch. He unlocks a door at the rear and says, “All yours.”
“Thanks,” I say, brushing past him. “Just so you know, if the door locks behind me and I can’t get it open, I’ll shoot my way out. And to show you how grumpy I am, I’ll shoot out a couple of windows, too, just to see what the hell happens next.”
Then I close the door on him, turn, and drop the bags on the tiled floor.
Damn.
The bathroom here is larger than the one I have at home with Tom and Denise, and this is the first time I’ve ever seen a shower in an aircraft. I examine the shower stall, which is padded inside and has plenty of handrails and a corner where you can sit. There’s also a marble counter with rounded, padded edges, along with a toilet and a bidet.
I open the two shopping bags, examine what I have, and pull out a two-piece black pantsuit, a plain white cotton blouse, knee socks, beige panties, and a standard-looking white bra with underwire support. I like the fact that Jeremy didn’t lean on his French comrades to get me something frilly, girly, and utterly useless in the field.
The shoe bag has three pairs of black Clarks, in different sizes: 38, 39, and 40.
“Sure are being thorough,” I whisper.
Then I start to smell myself, realize there are soaps, shampoos, and hot water within reach. I sit on the toilet, take off my boots and socks, and rub my sore feet. Then I slip out the creased photo of my Tom and Denise.
A minute later I strip out of everything else, leaving the damnable elastic band around my chest for last.
I unsnap that little torture device, then for the next few moments rub, scratch, and move around my soft lady parts in a way that makes me feel like I’m a mama bear, stretching out after a winter’s worth of hibernation.
I look at myself in the mirror.
Hair a mess, dirt around my face and arms, scratches on my hands, welts along my chest and side. On one hand and the side of my face, the faint brown of dried-up blood. It comes back to me in a long flash of hard memory: the shooting at the farm, the shooting on the mountain trail. I’ve killed at least four men, and I bear their blood on my skin.
And now I’m on an unauthorized quest to find and kill one more.
I hug myself and think of my sweet Denise and my brave Tom, wondering how they are, what they’re doing. Then, in the private and quiet interior of this beautiful bathroom in this luxurious private aircraft, I start to clean myself up.
The few seconds I’ve spared for my family are enough for now.
It’s time to think about killing again.
Chapter 29
WHEN A phone starts ringing, Tom Cornwall looks at the illuminated clock on the nightstand by his too-empty bed, sees it’s 3:00 a.m., and switches on a light, fumbling around. Two of his burner phones are on the nightstand, and it takes him long and precious seconds to realize that it’s his house phone that’s ringing.
He tries to pick up the handheld receiver, knocks it off its base instead, curses, and fumbles on the bedroom floor to pick it up before the ringing wakes Denise. In this day and age, having a landline seems like an anachronism, but Amy has insisted that they keep one in the event the cell-phone networks get overwhelmed or their cell towers get sabotaged.
“And keep him!” she would insist.
Nadia has never had the courage to tell her that she has no time for a man in her life, not at this moment. When her work is done, then she will find the right man for her—a man to love and cherish for the rest of her life.
A few minutes later, Nadia is in the cellar, feeling at ease. The door to the apartment is locked. The door to the cellar is firmly closed. She turns on the overhead fluorescent lights, click-clicking into life, as she looks with satisfaction at her homemade laboratory and facility.
Two refrigerators, brought in when her landlady was on vacation in Provence. Four autoclaves. A long metal table with various tools and instruments. Centrifuge. Respirator masks, elbow-length rubber gloves, clear plastic face masks. Piles of round agar dishes for growing spores. A waste cabinet, securely fastened, plus an open biosafety cabinet where she has carefully worked these past months to remove and process what she has been growing.
A stolen gift from the Institut Pasteur.
Anthrax, which she has carefully and methodically processed into a biological weapon.
Nadia steps forward to the table, where a number of metal trays each hold scores of glassine envelopes containing a gray powdery substance.
She gently touches the envelopes.
And hears footsteps overhead.
Oh, no!
Nadia walks quickly across the cellar floor, but no—the door from the kitchen opens, and thump, thump, thump Madame Therien comes down into the cellar. “Ah, my girl, I was hoping you could join me later for…my dear, what is this? What are you doing here?”
Nadia swallows hard, tries to keep her voice light. “Like I told you before, Madame, this is part of my—”
Her landlady brusquely pushes by her, starts speaking rapidly: “You said, ‘some little pieces of laboratory equipment’…this can’t continue…I will call my son and have him start pulling—”
Nadia picks up the small hammer she used to bend pieces of the ventilation equipment, gets right behind Madame Therien, and hits her in the back of her head. The first blow seems to stun her—she turns her head in surprise—then Nadia hits her again, and again, and again.
At some point Nadia stands, breathing hard, her right hand warm and sticky. Madame Therien lies dead on the cellar floor.
Nadia wipes at her face with her other hand, looks to the collection of carefully constructed and placed envelopes in their trays.
One death.
And here, before her, made from her own hands, enough weaponized anthrax to kill tens of thousands, if properly spread and distributed in an urban environment.
Nadia looks down at her sweet dead landlady, blood pooling about her battered head on the concrete floor.
So what will one more death matter?
It won’t.
Chapter 26
HORACE EVANS of MI6 works late this day and decides to take another long stroll along the grounds of Lindsay Hall before going home.
Ten minutes into his walk he sees his assistant, Declan Ainsworth, coming toward him, and he’s pleased the boy isn’t running, isn’t huffing and puffing in his desire to meet up with Horace. Such things simply are not done.
Horace clasps his hands behind him and turns down another gently paved path. After a few measured paces with Declan at his side, he asks, “Have we received any news about our Jeremy and Oliver?”
“Yes, sir, we have,” Declan says. “Davies and Windsor were captured and taken to a farmhouse used by militants in the area. I’m afraid Davies was killed—beheaded, in fact.”
Horace sighs. One more death in the field that will never, ever be fully told or revealed, save in red-bordered file folders held and seen only by a fortunate and burdened few.
“Damn,” Horace says. “Damn these barbarians.”
The path they’re on is now under a spreading grove of oak trees, and the suspicious part of Horace is pleased he can’t be viewed by overhead assets, either satellites or drones controlled by those damnable Russians.
“Go on,” he says. “What about Jeremy?”
He listens as Declan briefs him on the complicated resolution that saw two Americans eventually exfilled by a BP helicopter, with Jeremy and the American woman pressing on alone.
“And where are they now?”
“They hiked to a village, where they met up with an asset of ours who provided them transportation to Beirut.”
Jeremy, he thinks with pride and pleasure, my dear boy.
“Do we know why he’s headed to Beirut?”
“Not officially, no.”
“Then tell me unofficially.”
“I checked with General Communications for any traffic intercepts in that area. They managed to locate a short cellphone conversation with that Lebanese asset. He briefly mentioned a Brit and an American and how they were looking for someone named Rashad.”
Horace halts. “You’re sure of that?”
“Quite, sir, and after a records check…it would appear the man is our Rashad Hussain. That is quite the—”
Horace cuts him off. “Enough.” He resumes his walk. Will the American woman contact her superiors and tell them about Rashad?
Horace resumes his walk. The buildings of Lindsay Hall are coming into view, and this section has buildings open to the public. There are vehicles and tour buses parked to the left, and a long line of tourists ready to go inside.
“I suppose our friend Ernest has been trying to reach me.”
“Yes, sir,” Declan says.
He takes in the peaceful lines of tourists from here and away, waiting to explore and look at the treasures of a past empire.
“Declan, do you know your history of Lindsay Hall? About the men and women who trained here?”
“Some, sir,” Declan says.
“There were times when the trainers here spent long weeks and months training Poles, Free French, Czechs—all in preparation for parachuting them behind Nazi lines.”
“Yes, sir,” Declan says.
“But there were some unfortunate moments when the higher-ups realized that some of these very brave men and women—they were parachuting to their doom. The resistance cells on the ground, waiting to greet them, had been turned by the Nazis. Yet the parachute drops went on. You know why, of course.”
“Ultra,” Declan says.
“Quite,” Horace says softly. “We had broken the Enigma. We read most of their secret messages, including their successes in breaking up resistance cells. But if scheduled parachute drops had been called off, well, the Germans would be suspicious something was amiss. And that couldn’t be risked. So at nighttime, these brave men and women would line up to board their aircraft to be dropped over occupied Europe, and some of the same officers who had trained them smiled at them and wished them luck, knowing that they would be captured within hours, tortured, and killed.”
Declan stays silent.
Horace says, “Can you understand being so cold-blooded in your job?”
“Based on our work these past several months, I understand it all too well.”
Horace says, “True. Like our predecessors, we have to look at those tour buses and imagine knowing one is packed with C-4 and ball bearings—and choosing to do nothing. Because doing so would alert the terrorists that we had penetrated their network…and in saving those civilians, we would allow many, many more to die down the road, because we would lose our intelligence source. That’s the cold heart and hard mind we need to possess in our business.”
Then he turns and heads back toward his office. “When Ernest of the CIA reaches out again, wanting to know what’s going on…”
“Sir?” Declan asks.
“Keep him away from me.”
Chapter 27
THERE’S A touch on my leg and I instantly come awake and snap out with my left hand, grabbing someone’s ear, then follow it up with my right hand, holding my SIG Sauer pistol, which I shove underneath someone’s chin.
I blink my eyes.
It all comes racing back to me. Getting into a BMW sedan, the outside dirty and rusty, the interior clean, with fresh flowers in a glass vase attached to the dashboard. A long drive with Rami, another nephew of Nassim’s. Rami practicing his English on Jeremy and me as he goes southbound on Highway 51, which hugs Lebanon’s coastline.
Jeremy…
Sitting right next to me in the rear seat, motionless, with my left hand twisting his ear, and my SIG Sauer jammed up into his beard.
“Sorry,” I say, dropping my hands. “Habit.”
“A good one,” he says dryly.
I look around, taking in the lights and buildings of an airport as Rami drives us along the side of a paved runway, with chain-link fencing topped by razor wire nearby. “Beirut airport?” I ask.
“Yes,” he says, leaning forward and turning his head to look at the utility lights, the hangars, the parked aircraft. “Although its official name is the Beirut–Rafic Hariri International Airport.”
“A mouthful,” I say. “Who was Rafic Hariri?”
“Business tycoon. Former prime minister of Lebanon. Helped rebuild Beirut after their civil war made it look like downtown Mogadishu.”
“So they named an airport after him—nice,” I say, rearranging my pistol in my lap. “I bet he appreciated it.”
“Doubtful,” Jeremy says. “Like most politicians in this part of the world, he was taken out by a car bomb. Rami, over there—to the left.”
“Over there” turns out to be a small hangar with a two-engine jet aircraft nearby, painted white with red and blue markings, the tricolor of France painted on its tail. Rami slows down and stops the BMW. Armed men in tan uniforms wearing red berets stand by the roll-up stairway to the aircraft.
“Here we go,” Jeremy says, opening his door. I follow, and both of us sling our MP5s over our respective shoulders. There’s not much else to carry, but I put my SIG Sauer in my waistband as Jeremy talks low to Rami, shaking his hand. I go over to Jeremy and Rami extends his hand. When I take it, Rami quickly kisses my own, then steps back, laughing.
I decide not to slug him.
It’s warm here, the salt smell of the nearby Mediterranean mixing in with the heady tang of aviation fuel, and I enjoy stretching my legs. Up the way are two Airbus passenger jets bearing the cedar-tree logo of Middle East Airlines.
Jeremy gestures to the two-engine jet. “Our flight out of here.”
“Very nice,” I say. “A charter?”
“A favor,” he says, as we walk toward the ramp. From the open door to the fuselage, a young woman in a black skirt and a white blouse with captain’s epaulets quickly descends. Her hair and eyes are black. Her skin is tanned. She doesn’t smile as she gives us both the once-over.
“We need to leave,” the pilot says, speaking English with a slight French accent. “The control tower is wondering what’s taking us so long. So move, please.”
“Sorry, dear,” Jeremy says, but she’s having none of his charm offensive. She points to us and says, “I won’t have those machine guns on board. Leave them behind with our guards.”
I feel like putting up a fight, but I follow Jeremy’s lead as he takes off his MP5 and hands it to the nearest guard. I follow up and say, “We’re going to bill MI6 when this is done.”
“Stand in queue,” Jeremy says. “There are many unpaid bills in front of you.”
He trots up the stairs and I follow him.
I enter the cabin and just stand for a moment, taking in the luxury. Padded light-brown leather chairs. A pair of couches with throw pillows. A small dining table. A vase with fresh roses in it. A plasma-screen television hanging from the bulkhead. Luxurious white carpeting beneath our grimy feet. It looks like someone imported a suite from the Waldorf and slapped wings on it.
“You guys must have one hell of an expense account to charter something like this,” I say. “This looks like an Embraer Lineage…made in Brazil.”
“Our expense account is nearly nil,” Jeremy says, taking off his dirty and bloodstained coat, wincing as he does so. “But our favor bank is nearly always overflowing. This private jet belongs to a senior official at Total SA in France. Last year an SAS squadron helped the French rescue his son and two other hikers who’d gotten lost in Libya.”
“Hell of a place to get lost.”
“True,” Jeremy says. “Still, it was a good job all around, and the senior official said he was eternally in our debt. Corporations love stability and open borders. They hate terrorists and their supporters as much as we do. When they can, big business passes along information to us, the French, and no doubt Langley.”
No doubt, I think, though I wonder what the average Frenchman filling his Renault with petrol costing about $5.50 per gallon would think of his nation’s largest oil company springing for a luxurious flight like this.
There’s a cheery bonsoir, and a male steward comes forth, holding two shopping bags that he places on the floor. He’s slim and smiling, but his nose wrinkles for the briefest of moments and I wonder just how foul Jeremy and I must smell to this young man in black shoes, slacks, white shirt, and a necktie featuring the swirling, colorful logo of Total SA.
There’s a quick flicker of French between Jeremy and the steward—Jean-Paul—about when we’re to take off and other flight details, then Jean-Paul goes forward.
Jeremy picks up the two shopping bags and hands them to me with a grin. “For you, courtesy of Her Majesty’s Secret Service.”
One bag has a KM logo on its side; the other says Clarks, a shoe company. I’m impressed that Jeremy got someone to go shopping on my behalf during our road trip to Beirut, and now I remember his seemingly innocent comment about my shoe size back up in the mountains.
Good tradecraft.
“For real?” I ask.
He gives a quick point to the rear of the aircraft. “If you head aft, there’s a loo available for you. Have a go—change into something clean and comfortable.”
I carry the bags with me and walk a couple of feet, then plop my tired butt onto the nearest couch.
I smile up at Jeremy. “Once we’re at cruising altitude, I’ll do just that. I’d hate to be in the loo while you run out to get some lamb shish kebabs just as the jet decides to take off.”
He says, “Still don’t trust me?”
“Please, Jeremy. I don’t want to hurt your feelings in public.”
Chapter 28
JEREMY TAKES a seat across from me and sighs, then Jean-Paul comes out and helps us fasten our seatbelts for takeoff. A number of minutes later, there’s a ding and we both release our seatbelts.
Jeremy leads me to the rear of the aircraft, past another luxurious suite of comfortable chairs, a wet bar, and another couch. He unlocks a door at the rear and says, “All yours.”
“Thanks,” I say, brushing past him. “Just so you know, if the door locks behind me and I can’t get it open, I’ll shoot my way out. And to show you how grumpy I am, I’ll shoot out a couple of windows, too, just to see what the hell happens next.”
Then I close the door on him, turn, and drop the bags on the tiled floor.
Damn.
The bathroom here is larger than the one I have at home with Tom and Denise, and this is the first time I’ve ever seen a shower in an aircraft. I examine the shower stall, which is padded inside and has plenty of handrails and a corner where you can sit. There’s also a marble counter with rounded, padded edges, along with a toilet and a bidet.
I open the two shopping bags, examine what I have, and pull out a two-piece black pantsuit, a plain white cotton blouse, knee socks, beige panties, and a standard-looking white bra with underwire support. I like the fact that Jeremy didn’t lean on his French comrades to get me something frilly, girly, and utterly useless in the field.
The shoe bag has three pairs of black Clarks, in different sizes: 38, 39, and 40.
“Sure are being thorough,” I whisper.
Then I start to smell myself, realize there are soaps, shampoos, and hot water within reach. I sit on the toilet, take off my boots and socks, and rub my sore feet. Then I slip out the creased photo of my Tom and Denise.
A minute later I strip out of everything else, leaving the damnable elastic band around my chest for last.
I unsnap that little torture device, then for the next few moments rub, scratch, and move around my soft lady parts in a way that makes me feel like I’m a mama bear, stretching out after a winter’s worth of hibernation.
I look at myself in the mirror.
Hair a mess, dirt around my face and arms, scratches on my hands, welts along my chest and side. On one hand and the side of my face, the faint brown of dried-up blood. It comes back to me in a long flash of hard memory: the shooting at the farm, the shooting on the mountain trail. I’ve killed at least four men, and I bear their blood on my skin.
And now I’m on an unauthorized quest to find and kill one more.
I hug myself and think of my sweet Denise and my brave Tom, wondering how they are, what they’re doing. Then, in the private and quiet interior of this beautiful bathroom in this luxurious private aircraft, I start to clean myself up.
The few seconds I’ve spared for my family are enough for now.
It’s time to think about killing again.
Chapter 29
WHEN A phone starts ringing, Tom Cornwall looks at the illuminated clock on the nightstand by his too-empty bed, sees it’s 3:00 a.m., and switches on a light, fumbling around. Two of his burner phones are on the nightstand, and it takes him long and precious seconds to realize that it’s his house phone that’s ringing.
He tries to pick up the handheld receiver, knocks it off its base instead, curses, and fumbles on the bedroom floor to pick it up before the ringing wakes Denise. In this day and age, having a landline seems like an anachronism, but Amy has insisted that they keep one in the event the cell-phone networks get overwhelmed or their cell towers get sabotaged.
