The American

by Andrew Britton

  But it was incomparable to the view that greeted him when he walked back into the room. The woman he loved was still turned away from him, but it didn’t matter; she was beautiful from any angle. He could not help but admire the way her skin glowed in the soft light of the suite, as the stunning curves of her body seemed to perfectly complement the elegant atmosphere that suffused the room.

  Seeing her in this way, Ryan came to a sudden realization. He would put up with these petulant tantrums forever. He didn’t care if she grew out of it or not. If that was the price of knowing her, then it was a small price, and he would pay it gladly.

  A few minutes passed. Katie tried to push the worry out of her mind and go to sleep, but her skin was still tingling from his touch. Her gaze drifted down to the diamonds that twinkled on the third finger of her left hand. The last of her resolution disappeared, and when she turned over to face him, her heart lifted when she saw that his attention had not wandered. That was all it took. “Well, come on,” she said with feigned impatience and a precocious grin. “You’re not going to give up that easily, are you?”

  His smile lit up the room. Three steps later he pounced on her, and she was shrieking with laughter until his attention became too much, and her cries of ecstasy spilled out into the night.

  CHAPTER 23

  NORFOLK • WASHINGTON, D.C.

  When Will Vanderveen arrived at Norfolk International Terminals late in the afternoon to collect his consignment, the last-minute rush in the container yard rendered him almost invisible to the workers who hustled over the broad expanse of rain-slicked cement.

  It was how he had planned it. The change in shift allowed him to blend easily into the crowd, and it was not a coincidence that his navy blue coveralls, steel-toed boots, and wool knit watch cap closely resembled the outfit worn by many of the lower-level NIT employees.

  The cement was littered with hundreds of 20- and 40-foot containers, stacked four high and seven deep, as port regulations required. Towering above the identical metal boxes were the rail-mounted gentry cranes that were in constant motion, depositing one container after another onto an endless procession of flatbed trucks.

  As he crossed the open space, he approached three men standing next to a row of containers. One was holding a clipboard and a Styrofoam cup of steaming coffee, and his uniform identified him as a captain in the Virginia Port Authority.

  Vanderveen studied the captain, an older man with iron-gray hair cut close to the scalp and hard ridges carved into his face. His pale blue eyes were almost unnaturally clear. Vanderveen was almost certain that he was an ex-Marine, most likely an upper-level NCO.

  “ ’Scuse me,” Vanderveen said as he approached. No one noticed him, and he gave it a minute before tapping the man on the shoulder. “ ’Scuse me, sir.”

  The captain turned with an annoyed expression on his face. “Yeah, can I help you?”

  Vanderveen set his jaw, narrowed his eyes slightly, and carefully added a generous measure of hard Southern inflection to his own voice. “Sorry t’ butt in.” Fishing some paperwork out of his folder, flashing the captain a sincere but unapologetic smile. “I need to get m’ consignment, but I’ve never used NIT before. Can I bring m’ own truck in here?”

  “No, I’m sorry, son,” the man drawled. He paused. “Well, hold on jes’ a sec. Yer gettin’ it l.c.l?”

  “Yes, sir, I sure am.”

  “Well, now, that’s another story. They might let you bring ’er in.” He pointed to a barrier in the distance. “Other side a’ that fence, there’s an access road to the l.c.l yard. You jes’ show ’em your ID and ya bill a’ ladin’ and you’ll be set.”

  Vanderveen nodded his thanks. “Well, I ’preciate it, sir. Hey, where can I get me some a that?” he asked, pointing to the man’s steaming cup.

  The captain laughed and spit noisily on the ground. “Hell, you don’t want none a this, son. Tastes like shit.”

  Ten minutes later, Vanderveen was pulling a rented U-Haul cargo van up to the gatehouse outside the smaller yard reserved for l.c.l shipments, otherwise known as less than container loads. These, as the name implied, were exports that did not require the use of a whole container. It was an excellent way for small companies to save money on shipping.

  It was a very useful tool for people in certain other lines of work as well.

  The gate guard stuck his head out the sliding window when Vanderveen pulled up.

  “Help ya?”

  “Jes’ here to collect some crates.” Falling straight back into the role. “Got m’ license if ya need it.”

  “Gotta see ya bill of lading, too.”

  Vanderveen frowned. “I ain’t got one a them, buddy. Got m’ waybill, though. They tole me that was good enough.”

  “Yeah, that’ll work. Lemme see it.”

  When he was satisfied that everything was in order, the guard turned to his computer and pulled up the Yard Management System. Then he handed back Vanderveen’s ID and waybill, both of which identified him as Timothy Nichols. “Okay, sir. Ya already been cleared through Customs. They got yer crates in Warehouse Three. Can’t have no personal vehicles in the yard, though.”

  “Aw, come on now.” He was laying it on thick. “How else am I gonna get m’ stuff out?”

  The guard nodded sagely. “I hear ya. They don’ tell people shit around here. Happens all the time.” A brief hesitation. “Tell ya what. You jes’ go on ahead… I’ll take care of it fer ya.”

  Vanderveen allowed a relieved expression to slide over his face. “I ’preciate it, buddy. Jes’ down here, ya say?”

  “That’s it. Two rows down, then take a left. Can’t miss it.”

  “Gotcha.” The thin wooden barrier lifted and he drove through, following the guard’s directions until the warehouse came into view. He pulled up next to the enormous metal structure and hopped out of the van, ambling into the brightly lit interior of the building.

  Almost immediately, he was approached by a slightly overweight, middle-aged woman, wearing a hard hat and a frown. Looking her over, Vanderveen’s eyes drifted down to the identification badge pinned to her clean chambray shirt: Bobbie Walker, Warehouse Manager.

  “Sir, you can’t be in here without a hard hat. Can I help you?”

  She was clearly not a Southerner, but he couldn’t stop now. There was no way of telling how well she knew the captain and the gate guard. He gave her a rueful grin. “Sorry ’bout that, ma’am. Man at the gate tole me t’ come on up here and get m’ crates. Didn’t say nothin’ ’bout the hard hats.”

  Her face softened a little bit. “Well, that’s okay.” She took a few steps and snagged one from the top of a nearby locker. “Put this on, please. Now, you have your documentation on you, Mr….?”

  “Nichols, ma’am, Tim Nichols. I sure do.” He handed her his driver’s license and the waybill. Her forehead creased as she considered the name, but her mind couldn’t quite make the leap.

  They walked across the warehouse floor past heavy piles of aluminum girders and rolls of wood pulp. She was checking numbers against her list when they stopped in front of a stack of small wooden crates.

  “Here we go: forty crates, seventy-five pounds each. That’s a heavy load.” She looked at him curiously. “Whatcha got in here, anyway?”

  “Jes’ some computer stuff, far as I know.” The lie rolled effortlessly off his tongue. “Can’t really tell ya, t’ be honest. Company just puts m’ name on there for convenience. I do what I’m told, Ms. Walker. Nothin’ more, nothin’ less.”

  She laughed, her small blue eyes glittering with amusement. “Everyone works for the man, Mr. Nichols. That doesn’t surprise me at all.”

  Vanderveen was looking around the warehouse. He didn’t spot any watchers, but they didn’t get the job by being obvious. If they had a line on him, they would make their move in the next few minutes. “So, Customs already through with me, huh?” He tried to pass it off as a casual question, but he watched her reaction carefully.


  “Yeah, they just do a spot check most of the time.”

  “So they didn’t open ’em up, then.” She’ll lie to you. If she lies, kill her. Do you have your knife? His hand involuntarily drifted back to an object hooked to his belt. Yes, there it is. Use it now. Now. NOW NOW NOW NOW NOW.

  She was shaking her head. So was he, but for very different reasons. “Things have been crazy around here lately, what with the terror alert and all. We got people from OSHA and Customs all over the terminal. Cause more problems than they solve, you ask me. They don’t bother too much with us, though. Spend their time looking at the dry-bulk and open-top containers on Pier Two. Government don’t got time to be looking through everything that comes out of our little yard.”

  She seemed sincere. He breathed a very soft sigh of relief and nodded along with her. “They’s troublemakers, all right. Ms. Walker, you think I might pull m’ van in here t’ get this stuff? Only take me ’bout twenty minutes, tops.”

  She looked reluctant. “I don’t know… It’s against policy.”

  Another smile. “Come on now. Think I don’t know a woman in charge when I see her? Hell, you’re th’ one makin’ the rules around here anyway, right? Anyone gonna break ’em, might as well be you.”

  She blushed very slightly and touched his arm. “You’re a charmer, I’ll give you that. Okay, you bring it on in. Twenty minutes, though, and that’s it. Fair enough?”

  “I’ll be in and out b’fore ya know it.”

  She giggled like a teenage girl at his choice of words. “I don’t think so, Mr. Nichols.” Her face was a deep scarlet now. “In fact, I highly doubt it.”

  Twenty-five minutes later Vanderveen rolled out of the gate. A cold can of Coke rested in the cupholder next to him, a parting gift from the blushing Bobbie Walker. A brief wave to the gate guard and he was leaving Terminal Boulevard, taking the right turn onto Hampton, a smile on his face and 3,000 pounds of SEMTEX H in the cargo hold of his rented van.

  Eight days to go, he thought. In eight days he would change the world.

  David Brenneman watched as a gentle rain drifted over the gardens spread out before him. He was seated in a simple chair in the Blue Room, sipping steaming coffee from a delicate china cup. For once he was alone, and he took advantage of the solitude to admire the beauty of his surroundings.

  Brenneman knew that many of his predecessors had grown tired of the mansion’s elaborate trappings, thinking it more like a museum than a home, but he had become only more fascinated with the history of the place as time wore on. The Blue Room was his personal favorite by far — a large, oval space that offered a sweeping view of the South Lawn. The center of the royal blue carpet was dominated by a marble table purchased by James Monroe in 1817. Hanging above it was an elaborate French chandelier dating from the early-nineteenth century. When he closed his eyes, he was pleased to hear only the gentle tap of the rain against the lead-lined windows.

  The brief reprieve would have been much more enjoyable, though, if he didn’t have to return to the situation brewing on his doorstep.

  A week earlier, the FBI’s Explosives Unit had finished its analysis of the residue collected at the Kennedy-Warren blast site. The explosives were identified as SEMTEX H, originating from the Czech Republic. When these results coincided with the findings of an independent lab, it became clear that the main charge had been smuggled into the country, which meant that Customs was first on the firing line.

  Of course, there was plenty of blame left over for the man in charge of it all. His approval ratings had dipped six points in one week, and supposedly there had been quiet talk from the new Senate Majority Leader about pulling support for the incumbent in the upcoming election year. Brenneman believed the rumors to be true, and was astounded and angered at the speed with which his own party had dismissed his chances for reelection.

  He was startled from his thoughts by a Secret Service agent standing at one of the entrances to the room. “Excuse me, Mr. President. Deputy Director Harper is here to see you.”

  Brenneman waved a hand absently. “Thanks, Dan. You can send him in. Oh, and could you call the kitchen and have them send some more coffee over?”

  “Of course, sir.”

  The agent withdrew, and Brenneman stood as Harper entered the room. “John, good to see you. How’s Julie?”

  “She’s fine, sir. Thank you for asking.” Harper never ceased to be amazed by the man’s prodigious memory and sheer graciousness, especially considering the pressure he was currently under.

  Brenneman gestured to the seat opposite his own and glanced at his watch. “Take a seat. I’m supposed to be at a meeting with Patterson from Treasury, but you’ve got my full attention for the next twenty minutes.”

  “I’ll get right to it, then, sir,” Harper said as he sat in a mahogany chair. “You’re familiar with the file on Jason March?” He received a brief nod in return. “Then you’ll know that March is not his actual name. Two of our officers have just returned from Pretoria, where they were able to discover his true identity.”

  The president leaned forward with interest. “And?”

  “His name is William Paulin Vanderveen, a South African national, thirty-nine years old.” The deputy director handed him a briefing folder, which the president immediately opened. The pictures were the first thing to catch his eye. “The South African authorities believe that he was responsible for the murder of one Joseph Sobukwe in 1975. Vanderveen was eleven years old when Sobukwe was killed. Vanderveen’s sister died under unusual circumstances as well, but he was never officially tied in with that.”

  “Jesus Christ.” Brenneman leaned back in his chair and perused the contents of the folder. The picture began to unfold over the next several minutes: Francis Vanderveen, a South African general even more ruthless than the policies he enforced; William, the general’s brilliant, misguided son, wholly devoted to his father; a broken promise of American money and support; a fiery helicopter crash on a warm December morning. The president was absorbed as a Filipino steward glided into the room and poured coffee from a silver carafe. The room was silent until the man was gone and the door closed behind him.

  “So this man, William Vanderveen. He blames us for what happened to his family, is that right?”

  “That would appear to be the case, sir. We found evidence in South Africa — letters — that suggest William Vanderveen knew plenty about the general’s antipathy toward us in the last days of the Angolan campaign. Then you have his sister’s death and his mother’s subsequent suicide… It doesn’t take a great stretch of imagination to see how this might have played out.”

  “And we trained him.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Jesus Christ.” The president leaned back in his chair and closed the folder. “So what are we dealing with here, John? How can we use this information?”

  “Sir, to be perfectly honest, this kind of information is useful for shoring up a case against him when he’s caught, and that’s about it. There’s a reason the Department of Transportation keeps coming up empty on the airport surveillance tapes. Vanderveen probably has at least two airtight identities, everything from driver’s licenses down to birth certificates. That’s the only way to explain his ease of movement in and out of the country.”

  The president nodded slowly as he lifted his cup. “I’m sure you’ve heard that some of my advisors are pushing me to reconsider the military option. They think Tehran’s involvement is clear enough to justify air strikes.”

  Harper lifted his open hands. “Sir, we know who is directly responsible for these attacks, and we know that he’s not hiding out in a training camp. It would be a—”

  “So where is he?” Brenneman interrupted. “What are your people saying? This, uh…” — he looked around for his briefing folder — “Kealey. Is that right?”

  “Yes, sir. He was one of the officers involved.”

  “What does he think?”

  “In his opinion…”
/>   Brenneman lifted an eyebrow. “Out with it, John.”

  “He thinks that Vanderveen is coming after you, sir.”

  The rain beat against the windows, but there was no other sound in the room. The president shifted in his seat, but the expression on his face did not change. “May I ask how he came to that conclusion?”

  Harper hesitated once again. “Vanderveen hasn’t failed here yet. Kealey thinks he’s going to set his sights higher.”

  “That’s it?” Brenneman looked skeptical.

  “No, sir.” Harper went on to tell him about Gray’s final words, and the same confluence of facts that Ryan had pointed out during their recent meeting with Director Andrews.

  “So where is Kealey now?”

  “Something came up that he could only take care of today. Naomi Kharmai, the only other officer directly involved in this case, is with him, if I’m not mistaken.”

  Brenneman ignored the circumspect answer. “What exactly do you need from me, John?”

  “Sir, I’ve got my best people working on this, as does the Bureau. It’s just a matter of time, really, but any adjustments that could be made to reduce the threat to your own security would be—”

  “You want me to hide in a corner, is that it?”

  Harper hesitated, unsure of the other man’s reaction. “As a precautionary measure, I believe — as does the director — that it would be a wise decision to cancel any high-profile events for the next couple of weeks. Especially those for which details have been released by the White House press secretary.”

  “If I’m hearing you correctly, most of your argument stems from this man Kealey’s instincts. You must have a lot of faith in him.”