by Tim Tigner
Chapter 38
Washington, D.C.
“WHERE WAS THE bloody orange phone?” Wiley cursed as he inspected the hissing labyrinth. Embarrassing as it was to admit, he had never before ridden the Washington Metro. Was the Orange Phone something all regular Metro users would know, like the Green Monster at Fenway park? It was worth a try. He said “Excuse me,” to a well-dressed young man walking past with a lawyer’s briefcase. “Do you know where I can find the orange phone?”
The man said, “Try Toys-R-Us,” without slowing his stride.
Wiley raised his arm and said, “Thanks.”
The three payphones visible from the base of the F-Street escalator all appeared to be the standard stainless steel and black. Was he missing something? He repeated Ayden’s order again to himself from memory. “Use the F Street entrance to Metro Center. At precisely six o’clock, approach the orange phone. I’ll instruct you further on our meet.”
Approach the orange phone, Wiley repeated. That seemed unambiguous enough.
Given the simplicity of this mundane meet, he was beginning to appreciate the strain that sophisticated deep cover ops must put on his men. He was starting to lose it and he was the bloody Director of the FBI. By the same token, Ayden must be a wreck.
Looking around, Wiley concluded that Ayden had probably given the staging of this meet some serious thought. Perhaps he had just read a few John Le Carré books, watched a few James Bond videos, and worked it out from there. Or perhaps he had been coached. In either case, if Ayden knew the truth he would be much more relaxed. Despite Wiley’s title, this was the first time he had donned an operative cloak, and he did not even own a dagger.
Wiley circled the station, getting increasingly flustered as he searched for a less-obvious fit—a picture, a toy, two orange-juice cans and some string. He found nothing that fit any variant of the orange phone description while circling Metro Center, so he returned to the base of the F-Street escalator. Then he saw it. While he was away, someone had placed an orange sticker on the receiver of one of the payphones he had first seen. “Of course.”
Ayden must have arrived early, waited to see if Wiley was alone, and then watched to see if he spoke into his collar or anything like that as he walked around in frustration. Once Ayden was comfortable that Wiley was truly alone, he put the sticker on the payphone. He had probably hopped straight onto the up escalator from there, and was now poised to make a call from the busy bank of phones up top. Wiley looked up the tunnel just in case, but all he saw was the backside of a dozen raincoats. Ayden had set up a good meet, ideal really for one man working alone.
Wiley guarded the orange phone, waiting for it to ring. He did not have to wait long. “Hello.”
“What’s your favorite color?”
“Orange.”
“Give the boy your cell phone battery, and put on the pink carnation.” Ayden hung up.
Wiley looked around for a boy and spotted a twelve or thirteen year-old in a dirty green coat riding down the escalator and holding out a flower. Little Green Coat walked over to Wiley, and held out his empty hand. Wiley released the battery from his cell phone and handed it over. The boy said, “Thank you,” and gave him the pink boutonnière. As Wiley pinned it on, the boy pulled a slip of paper from his pocket and read. “Ride the last car of the blue line to Capital South, get off, and wait right there on the end of the platform.”
“Can I have the note, I might forget?” Wiley asked.
The boy said “No,” and shoved it in his mouth.
Wiley was glad to see Ayden taking precautions. Ironically, Ayden’s paranoia made Wiley less nervous. Still, he was glad that he had chosen to wear one of the special suits the Secret Service had tailored. It was lined with a fabric that could not be punctured by small-arms fire. A bullet fired at him could still pierce his flesh, but the fabric would catch it before it penetrated very deep. He also sported his never-walk-the-street-without-it bulletproof vest. Wiley smiled at the boy and said “Tasty?” before turning to do as he was told.
Nobody was waiting for him at the Capital South Metro stop, so he stood alone at the end of the platform and waited as instructed. He was getting tired of breathing the stale ozone air when the arrival of another train caused him to hold his breath. The last person to get off that train was another boy. This one wore a faded Mighty Ducks cap and held a yellow rose in his hand.
The Mighty Duck spotted Wiley’s pink carnation and approached. “Trade you, Mister.”
“Okay.”
Wiley gave the boy his pink carnation and pinned on the rose boutonnière. Once he was suitably attired, the boy said. “I have a message for sale. The price is twenty bucks.”
“Did the man tell you to say that?”
The boy nodded.
Wiley hated to take his wallet out in a place like this, but he and the boy were the only people at that end of the platform. He gave the Mighty Duck a twenty-dollar bill and received a horse-like flash of white teeth in return. The boy then cleared his throat, but instead of pulling a slip of paper from his pocket, he read a message off the palm of his hand. “Exit to First Street and walk north to Union Station. Enter the Metro, find the phone, and answer it before the second ring.”
Wiley nodded.
The boy licked his hand and rubbed it on his jeans.
It took Wiley twenty minutes to reach Union Station by foot on a route which took him between the Capital and the Supreme Court. Even in October this really was a beautiful city, he noted, promising himself to walk more often.
This time the orange phone was ready and waiting. Two minutes later it rang. “Hello.”
“What’s on your lapel?”
“A yellow rose.”
Ayden said, “Take the Red Line to Rockville—sit in the last car,” and hung up.
Wiley was getting tired of this, but he focused on the bright side. This experience would help him relate to his field agents. Ironically, it would also help him relate better to the men they were trying to catch. Wiley felt afraid for his life, and he was just going to a talk. Thieves and drug dealers went through this routinely to swap their duffel bags of contraband for briefcases of cash. Both parties in those transactions had to have either a gnat’s brains, a shark’s nerves, or a bull’s balls. It was no wonder someone often freaked out during a swap and provoked everyone to empty his automatic into his neighbor.
Three stops into the trip the mechanical voice announced “Next stop, Metro Center.” Only then did Wiley realize that he had completed a triangle. Now he was being sent to the suburbs, having been deemed clear.
Rockville was still thirteen stops away, so he sat back to wait. Everyone not standing was either reading, sleeping, or listening to music. He had neither book nor radio, so he tried to blend in by closing his eyes. That also made it less conspicuous for him to keep his hand in the pocket of his wool overcoat—wrapped tightly around the walnut handle of his Colt.
Wiley wondered why he had not been disarmed along the way, at least not yet. He decided that Ayden must have figured that whatever he did, the Director of the FBI would have access to enough special gadgets to get something past him. And he was right. Given that, Wiley reasoned, Ayden would just level the playing field by showing up armed as well. He might even try to tilt the odds in his favor by bringing a friend …
Wiley opened his eyes in reaction to that last thought. What if he was simply walking into the sights of Odi’s next hit? He wondered, realizing that he had been so caught up in his own moves that he had not given much thought to Ayden’s. It was the same amateur mistake he always made in chess.
Wiley was considering calling off the meet, just standing up and getting off the metro at the next stop, when the Rastafarian sitting across from him reached out and put his hand on Wiley’s knee. Wiley pulled the trigger in shock. He heard an empty click. Thank goodness for safeties, he thought. He peered through the disguise of the man he might have killed and recognized a familiar face.
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�So, what is the mutual interest your aide said you were so eager to discuss?”
Chapter 39
Annapolis, Maryland
CASSI LOOKED OVER at the bedside clock. It was two A.M. Her mind and body were exhausted but her nerves forbade sleep. She had nearly drifted off a few times only to be awakened by the annoying bing of the elevator bell. She would be sure to request a room farther down the hall next time, although that was little consolation now. Judging by the elevator traffic, there was some kind of party happening on her floor. She closed her eyes and waited for the next installment of the business-traveler’s equivalent of Chinese water torture, the cursed elevator bing.
She eventually drifted off again, dreaming of endless dark hallways and brightly lit elevator doors. Then lightning struck as one door opened and she bolted upright in bed. She knew where Odi was hiding! The clue had been there in the background during his call, a very different kind of bell.
~ ~ ~
Two hours later Cassi parked her rental car at the Lever’s, knowing that Thelma and Morton were always in Fort Meyers this time of year. She had driven the last quarter mile without the aid of headlights, but she still gave her eyes a few minutes to adjust to the darkness after slipping quietly from the car. The sea breeze, the pine scent, the rustling of reeds and sea grass—everything about this place was calmingly familiar. Only the man now sleeping in Aunt Charlotte’s bed had changed.
She stuck to the moon’s shadows as she crossed the three intervening lawns and made her way silently toward Charlotte’s long front porch. She was afraid that Odi would slip away if he heard someone approach, not realizing that it was her. There were boat, truck, trail, and even hang-glider options available for escape. Odi would surely have an evasive route or four planned.
She studied the two visible sides of the cottage as she executed her silent approach. No lights were on, the shutters were closed, and nothing was parked in the drive. Cassi began to worry that she had dreamed the buoy sound. Lord knows she had been sufficiently drunk on wine. What would she do if Charlotte’s cottage was undisturbed? She had not a clue, but guessed that it would involve puddles of tears.
As her spirits fell, Cassi realized just how desperate she was to see her brother. She needed him as much as he needed her. Over this past month she had endured more shock and disappointment than one person should ever have to bear. She needed this victory, this confirmation, this release. And she needed to bury herself in Odi’s problems so that she could forget about her own.
Cassi bypassed the second stair knowing that it liked to squeak and stepped silently onto the wooden porch. She stood there in silence for a moment, listening to the night. She took a deep breath, and tried to steady her nerve. So far, so good. She reached behind the decorative net and red-striped buoy hanging on the wall and felt for the crevice in the cork that concealed the key to the front door. She found it. The key’s presence was good news, but a bad sign.
She kissed the key before sliding it slowly into the lock. In the early-morning quiet she could hear each individual click as it displaced the five spring-loaded pins. She turned the handle slowly and then applied pressure to the door while willing the old hinges to refrain from protest. As the door cracked beneath her gentle touch, a fragrant whiff told Cassi that she had gotten it right. The garlic and sausage scents of Odi’s famous spaghetti sauce greeted her nose. Another drop of adrenaline hit her blood. Despite her tension and exhaustion, she began to smile. Some things did not change.
When the opening was about a foot wide, she slid sideways through the gap and pushed the door quietly closed behind. She found the inside of the cottage darker than it was outdoors, as the hurricane shutters were closed all around, blacking out the moonlight. So she stood motionless with her heart pounding and ears peaked, waiting for her eyes to acclimate.
Aware that the information flow was still one way, Cassi moved with caution. “Odi? Odi, it’s me, it’s Cassi. I’m alone.” She spoke softly at first and then raised her voice, not wanting to startle him awake. “Odi, it’s Cassi. I just came to talk. I’m alone.” Her ears strained to detect the slightest noise or pressure shift coming from the hall that led to the master bedroom, but nothing seemed to change. Keenly aware that her brother had always been the type to set booby-traps, she realized that she would be foolish to grope around blindly in the dark. She reached back slowly with her right hand and turned on the overhead light.
As the light went on, Cassi heard a scraping sound behind her and spun about only to find that nothing was there. The noise must have come from the other side of the door. She reached instinctively for her gun but found herself grabbing at air. Her mind caught up with her hand as it patted her side and she remembered that she had intentionally left her weapon in the car.
She tried to crack the door to find the source of the sound, but the door would not budge. The sound had been a bolt, a bolt that locked her inside. Cassi felt like a rat suddenly trapped in an oxygenless cage. She needed to escape.
Escape might not be easy, she realized in a panic. In response to the wild hurricane seasons of recent years, Charlotte had installed storm shutters, the tough metallic kind that roll down from above. They were designed for keeping two-hundred-mile-an-hour winds out, but they could just as effectively keep people in. She moved to the window beside the door and felt for the shutter switch without taking her eyes off the hallway to the bedroom. Cassi found the switch and slid it up. Nothing happened.
What did you expect? She wondered.
As she stood there cursing her bad luck, the sound of a computer booting up drew her gaze back to the kitchen. She began to tiptoe in that direction. “Odi, what’s going on?” She asked, her voice just below a shout.
An annoying “beep ... beep …” from the computer was the only response.
Cassi spotted a laptop sitting on the kitchen table. For some reason, the sight of it sent a chill scurrying up and down her spine. She assumed that her reaction was just the paranoia born of too many late-night movies—until she moved around the counter and got a look at the screen. Then she learned that it had been intuition.
The computer displayed the picture of an antenna with green waves radiating out. Cassi recognized the enlarged icon. A wireless network was in use. The other image on the screen indicated the reason. To the right of the icon were the cascading red digits of a large digital clock, followed by the words “Seconds until BOOM.”
Cassi felt her intestines turn to water as she stared in shock and disbelief at her brother’s devious work. 00:53 ... 00:52 ... 00:51 ...
Chapter 40
Baltimore, Maryland
“TWENTY-FIVE. TWENTY ... five.” Odi kept repeating the number to himself, shaking his head as he worked. That was a lot of senators.
Tearing a paper towel off the roll without removing his protective yellow gloves, he dabbed the sweat from his brow. Time was running short. Dawn was approaching, and he needed to be gone by first light. He wished he had not had to come to Johns Hopkins a second time. If it weren’t for the need to super-cool the nitric acid, he could have used Aunt Charlotte’s kitchen instead of the graduate chemistry lab.
He had perfected the Creamer’s formula while preparing for the Potchak hit. He had the chemistry down cold. So aside from the potential of being blown to bits, he found no excitement in the task. Although the final product was magical, the production of Creamer felt mundane as chicken à la king. It boiled down to measuring and mixing, heating and cooling, filtering and separating—for hours on end. Because he had a lot of things to occupy his troubled mind—twenty-five to be exact—neither the tedium nor the physical danger bothered him. Still, he was afraid. He was afraid of getting caught. Although breaking into his old lab was not a serious crime, if caught he would be identified. Then his Iranian alibi would dissolve faster than the sugar he now poured, and he would go to jail for murder.
Odi tried to focus on the bright side as he stirred. The graduate lab had state-of-the-art equipm
ent, so it was faster and easier to make Creamer here. It had temperature-controlled variable-speed mixers, electronically calibrated pipettes, and programmable centrifuges—everything required to get each stage of the twelve-step process just right. Working in a proper lab was safer than a basement too, and that was of no small concern. His perspective had been changed by his government’s betrayal, but he still valued his vision and thumbs.
An added bonus of working here was that the university lab stocked many of the ingredients he needed, including distilled water, concentrated nitric acid, and acetone. He had acquired the rest for cash at area drug, hardware, and grocery stores, under the cover of a simple but effective disguise. Those purchases included hexamine, urotropine, methenamine, calcium-magnesium powder, powdered cream, sugar, and the omnipresent artificial flavoring.
He watched with satisfaction as the viscous white mass began to bubble slowly in the thick ten-liter beaker. It looked like a bleached lava lamp and it certainly was volcanic. Come to think of it, Odi thought, so was Ayden’s plan.
Ayden had a sympathetic friend who was an aide to a senior member of the Senate Armed Services Committee. Sheila, he claimed, was certain that she could exchange the Half-n-Half served at a committee meeting for Creamer.
“How soon will she be able to do it?” He had asked Ayden.
“The Senate Armed Services Committee is going to be locked in conference tomorrow evening. It’s a marathon effort to finalize the naval budget before recess. Everyone will be there, and unless something changes they will be alone in the building. It’s perfect.”
Odi thought that it sounded almost too good to be true. Still watching the bubbles, he wondered if there were video cameras in congressional meeting rooms. He had not thought to ask about that although Ayden probably would not know. He doubted that there were. Few people treasured their secrecy more than elected officials. But then, politicians also loved their security. He decided that there would likely be video surveillance, but no sound.
