In the true heart of the state, far from the bustling cities of Richmond and Norfolk, beyond the comfortable rurality of the Blue Ridge Parkway and the scenic views offered by winding ribbons of road, lies the heavily forested land of rolling hills that remains largely untouched by the time and wallets of transient tourists.
At night, the air is pierced only by the gentle songs of birds and crickets, or the rushing wind as it follows the jet stream and pushes northeast through the uppermost branches of leafless trees.
For November, Virginia is experiencing a certain anomaly. The state has earned a dubious honor by surpassing the prior record for most days with measurable precipitation in any month of the year. It has rained for eighteen days and nineteen nights, and Will Vanderveen, as he sits hard at work in the steeped shelter of the barn behind his modest home, is beginning to understand how Noah must have felt.
When he thinks of the ark lifting in the great flood, he is buoyed as well, but not by the prospect of salvation.
The interior of the barn has undergone no grand revisions in the short time that he has occupied it; in fact, it remains largely the same. There are only a few noticeable differences: A large swath of broken straw has been cleared from the cement, pushed to the sides to make room for the white Ford Econoline van that now dominates the open space. Against the far wall, on the opposite side from the sliding door, a large wooden table has been erected. A myriad of tools and materials can be found on the rough surface, patiently awaiting his ministrations.
In addition to the materials purchased at Watters’s Electrical Supply, Vanderveen has managed to find a portable workstation with a lamp and optical magnification, which will be crucial for the more delicate parts of the job. The workstation sits on top of the table next to a soldering gun, rated at 20 watts, accompanied by two ounces of Antex solid wire flux.
Beside the soldering iron rests a digital ammeter and 30 feet of pliable conduit. All of this equipment combined would be useless without the pair of Verizon cell phones that Vanderveen has purchased on the outskirts of Richmond, along with three months of nationwide service. He will not need more than a few weeks from the phones, but to deviate from the plan is to attract notice, to attract attention…
Sitting in his hard wooden chair, listening to the gentle patter of rain on the roof overhead, Vanderveen’s mind is far away as his hands move with speed and confidence. Far from the intricacies of solder joints, far from the strained relationships between voltage, current, and resistance through a circuit.
He is troubled by the fact that the money was not routed directly to him. They could have easily routed it through the Caymans instead of their own intermediary. It would have cut out a great deal of unnecessary risk, although the woman has done well so far in making the funds readily accessible.
For the most part, though, his mind is occupied by the other woman, the realtor.
On reflection, he can concede that it was a mistake. Deep inside, a small voice tells him that he is making a great many mistakes these days. A sweaty afternoon spent in the straw of the barn was not worth even the slightest chance of detection. By giving her what she wanted, by easing the quiet desperation, he had granted her access. Access to him, and access to what he is doing. Now, it was not inconceivable that she might choose to stop by unannounced.
He was grateful for the lock on the sliding door. At the same time, he recognized that it was a temporary impediment.
He thought that he was weak because, before Washington and Mashhad, he had spent two weeks with Sadr’s advisors in Najaf, and before that, seventeen weeks in the fear-drenched killing grounds of Ramallah. If he had been trusted in those places, he would have been given a woman. As it was, he was tolerated but not accepted. He was only recognized later, when he was gone, when he was no longer a danger to the respective organizations.
After all that time, five months of forced abstinence, the night with the realtor was like salve on an open wound.
And now it was a serious threat to his freedom and his life. Afterward, with her naked form wrapped around him in the soft straw of the barn, she had spoken with undisguised contempt of her husband. He had recognized a need in her, a need that would not be satisfied at home.
If he could satisfy that need, as he had done once before, then the woman was a threat to his freedom and his life.
Vanderveen pushed those thoughts aside. It was done, and he could not change it. If it was a weakness, to need a woman, then it was a weakness he thought he could live with.
The copper wire turned in his hands. Back to the task at hand, he ran through the schematics in his mind. It would begin at the power source, running from the battery to the terminals on the switch. The battery would not be hooked up until the last minute, though. He still had to determine how long the circuit could remain closed before the battery was drained of power and unable to provide the requisite 12 volts. That would come later.
From the switch, the two-cable copper wire would run out to the exposed circuitry of one of the cell phones, and then on to the number 6 blasting caps.
For the moment, the copper wire hung limp over the side of the wooden table.
Vanderveen surveyed his equipment with satisfaction. The crates that had been retrieved from the Norfolk Terminals were well hidden beneath the straw in the barn, but the inquisitive mind of the realtor was always in his thoughts, as was the scheming mind of his former commanding officer.
Kealey… Vanderveen did not often think of him. He had discovered, through a discreet inquiry, that the man had been present at the Kennedy-Warren just before it blew. How much more convenient it would have been if Kealey had died in the explosion, he mused. Vanderveen did not think it likely that his old friend posed a serious threat to his plans.
All the same, he knew that the problem of his former commander’s involvement would have to be addressed. His work could not be compromised because his work, at any given moment, had the unlimited potential to instill fear, to feed the paranoia that was spreading like a plague throughout the American public.
When the towers crumbled on 9/11, it was as if he had been reborn. The weeks after the attacks had seen blame thrown toward every corner of the globe, but it was bin Laden and his organization that received the brunt of it. And when it was narrowed down, when it was a certainty, only then had Vanderveen sought to expand his own horizons.
At the time of greatest danger, when new volunteers were considered with the greatest unease, Vanderveen had slipped effortlessly into the organization, because the hatred that he felt toward his adopted country could not be feigned, and the hatred was not satiated by the death of three thousand Americans.
Ever so gently, he touched the grounded tip of the soldering iron to the mechanical joint on the single-pole switch. In its final state, the two-wire annunciator cable would form a parallel circuit. It would be necessary to check the current moving over each detonator, because he knew that a single cap would require between 2 and 10 amperes to function correctly. The voltage would not be a concern, as that was the only common parameter in the circuit he had devised. He had decided on four detonators; only one cap was actually required, but he would not risk the chance of a misfire.
He worked into the early-morning hours, his hands moving steadily, the device taking shape. Six months ago, it was a dream. Four months ago, the glimmer of an idea. Two months, a working plan. Now it was a certainty. The wire was warm beneath his fingers, running in its predetermined path until Vanderveen decided otherwise. It was his creation, and he had little doubt that it would function as intended. Still, there were days to go, and no limit to what might go wrong.
North was the first to leave the parking lot, his mud-spattered 4Runner bouncing out onto Mill Road, followed soon thereafter by a spirited squeal of rubber as he took the sharp right turn onto Eisenhower Avenue. Ryan turned the key in the ignition as soon as Naomi clambered into the passenger seat. Then they were pulling out of the lot in another squeal of tires, Rya
n making full use of the car’s six gears as the engine roared in approval. First he headed south, navigating his way down Huntington until it merged with Route 1. Then he pushed the vehicle back up to the Jefferson Davis Memorial Highway, which he followed for several miles as he threaded his way back into Washington.
“What the hell was that all about, Ryan?” She was turned in her seat to face him, the anger glowing in her eyes and cheeks.
“We needed results, Naomi. The way you had it planned wasn’t going to work—”
“How would you know that?” she asked, her voice rising again. “You didn’t give my way a chance, did you?”
“He gave it to me, Naomi. Elgin gave me the name. He took the waybill from the terminal because he wanted something to deal with later, just in case. He didn’t know at the time how big this was going to get. The name was insurance, that’s it.”
“How did you get him to tell you?”
“That’s not important. The second person on that missing waybill was George Saraf. Judging by the surname, I think you’ll find it’s another identity for Michael Shakib. Not as good as a direct line to Vanderveen, but it’s still something.”
“How did you get the name, Ryan?”
A light drizzle had returned to the city, the gentle touch of a storm system that was lingering over central Virginia. There were very few other cars on the highway, and he was glad of the open road as the distinctive white markers of Arlington National Cemetery flashed by in the dark.
Ryan turned to look at her, knowing that she wouldn’t stop until he said the words. She would know soon enough anyway. “I beat it out of him, Naomi.”
Her eyes widened, perhaps a millimeter or two, but she did not respond. It was what she had expected to hear.
A lengthy silence ensued. She settled back in her seat, glad of the truth, thinking that the explanation was over. She was startled when he continued speaking, almost as though he hadn’t stopped in the first place.
“But he still wouldn’t talk, you know? When it’s a piece of shit like Elgin, you think it’ll be easy, but sometimes they surprise you. Sometimes they surprise themselves…” Ryan told himself to let it go, to spare her the details, but the words kept coming, seemingly of their own accord. “I only had a few minutes, Naomi. We were at a standstill. You know it, and I know it. I have piles of paper at Langley, you have even more, but sitting behind a desk isn’t going to get us any closer to Vanderveen.”
There was an edge to his voice. She turned to stare out the window, but he wasn’t done. His left hand dug down between his back and the warm leather seat. She didn’t see what he was doing until the knife was extended at arm’s length, handle first. “You wanted to know, right? You asked the question… This is how, Naomi. This is how I got him to talk.”
She recoiled at first from the proffered weapon, but a strange curiosity took over as she watched her own hand reach out to accept it. She could see that Ryan had dismantled the wooden grip, presumably because the rivets would have set off the metal detectors inside the building. To make it a usable weapon, he had wrapped electrical tape around the exposed handle. The slick black surface was still shiny and damp with sweat.
Turning it over in her hand, the light from the streetlamps caught and illuminated the blade.
She saw a streak of red on her palm.
The knife fell out of her hand and away from her body, the light weapon bouncing once before coming to rest on the floorboard at her feet.
“I had to convince him, Naomi. I had to show him I was serious. It was the only way. Naomi?”
“Take me home, Ryan.” The words were small and pitiful. She felt small and pitiful. The blood was sticky and wet on her hand, and she was looking around desperately, but there was nothing in reach with which to remove it.
He couldn’t see her hand, or her face in the shadows. He hesitated, unsure of her reaction. “I need you to follow up on this. I’ll probably be out of the loop when Harper—”
“I know.” The words were almost inaudible. She was kicking at the weapon with her heel, pushing it back under the seat and out of her sight. “Just take me home.”
She lived on a crowded row of town houses on M Street, uninspiring structures with crumbling brick facades and weathered Georgian detail. When the heavy sedan glided up to the curb, she pushed the door open quickly without saying a word. Ryan watched her run through the gentle mist of rain and disappear into the house as a number of emotions fought for room on his face.
Ryan believed that he had shown her something new, and he was not proud of it. It might make her stronger, smarter in the end, but there was a price to be paid for the experience: despite what she knew of his past, she would never again look at him in the same way. Knowing that he was now less in her eyes irritated him, rubbed at his emotions like sandpaper on sunburnt skin, and he wondered why that should be when they had known each other for less than a month.
The anger was a slow burn as he turned the BMW back into the heart of the city. He picked up the cell phone lying on the passenger seat and tapped out a number from memory. Katie answered on the first ring.
“Hello?” For some reason, they did not often use their cell phones to keep in touch. He was not surprised that she didn’t recognize his number.
“Katie, it’s Ryan.”
“Hey! God, I’ve been so worried! When are you coming back? I’m starving, so I thought we might—”
“Listen, I need you to get your stuff together and check out of the hotel right now.” The urgency in his voice was hard to miss, but she asked it anyway.
“Why? I have to—”
“Don’t ask questions, Katie! I’ll tell you later. Just get your stuff and go, okay? It’s important.”
There was a long silence. When she finally spoke again, the words carried a toneless resignation. “Where will you meet me?”
“I can’t stop in front of the hotel. Turn left out of the front doors and walk three blocks. Only take what you can carry. I’ll replace whatever you leave behind.”
“I don’t want you to replace my things, Ryan. I want you to tell me what’s going on. I’ve been waiting here all day, and now you just—”
“I’ll explain it to you later, I promise. Fifteen minutes, okay?”
He absently snapped the phone shut without waiting for her response, and then cursed under his breath when he realized that he had hung up on her.
Ryan didn’t know how bad it would get. The room at the Hay-Adams was reserved under his name, and he knew that once the story got out, reporters would be cold-calling the local hotels to get a sound bite and video for the morning news. He didn’t want his name in print or his face on television, and he didn’t want Katie to suffer those indignities either. Refuge might still be found at Langley, but he wasn’t yet ready to face Harper or the man’s recriminations. Kealey needed time to frame his words, time to shape an adequate explanation as to why he had nearly killed a prisoner in Federal custody.
The prize was a name, but it was not a guarantee. In this case, he didn’t think the prize would be enough to salvage his short-lived career at the Central Intelligence Agency.
That was fine by Ryan; he had made a promise to Katie, and he intended to keep it.
Through the thin veil of rain, the glittering facade of the Hay-Adams appeared in the distance. He hoped that she had managed to find a raincoat in the small store in the lobby, but knew that it wouldn’t do him any good either way. Whether she reached the car dry or drenched with rain, he was almost certainly in for another argument.
Without thinking about it, he took the knife out from under the passenger seat and slid it under the floormat beneath his own feet. Naomi Kharmai, as prepared for it as anyone could be, had been exposed to violent death twice in the last month. In the case of Stephen Gray, the death had been one of necessity. Some might have said, and he thought a case could be made, that it was actually one step behind outright murder. If it was murder, though, then it was understandabl
e, even justifiable. What could not be rationalized was the random, senseless death she had been forced to confront in the broken remains of the Kennedy-Warren.
Ryan could do nothing for her now; she had touched the cold, sharp edge of reality and would sink or swim in her own time. He thought he recognized in her the strength to set it aside, to push it away and carry on with the task at hand.
If he could have kept it away from her altogether, he would have done so gladly.
It was his strongest desire that Katie should never have to endure the same. It was the reason he wanted her out of the hotel, and it was the reason he pushed the knife under the mat. If he was hard on her, if he told when he should ask, it was done out of fear that she might one day be forced to carry the same burden, year in, year out, until it crushed her spirit and her life with its weight.
Just as he would give anything to have her close, he would give anything to protect her innocence.
He would never have expressed these thoughts to her; it wasn’t in his nature and the words would have come out awkward, clumsy, and wrong.
He hoped she knew it, though. He hoped she felt it. To Ryan, only one thing took precedence, and soon, Katie would be everything, the only thing. When that day came, he knew that he would finally be able to put the past to rest.
CHAPTER 26
WASHINGTON, D.C. • LANGLEY
A day trip to Washington, to look at the route and consider the options.
It was a fine day for the journey. Away from the clouds that hung over central Virginia, away from the monotonous calculations and mind-numbing work with the soldering iron. He took his most recent acquisition, a four-year-old Honda motorcycle, a VT1100 Shadow, all chrome and glistening metallic paint. He preferred not to use the van until it was absolutely necessary. Had he driven it into the heart of the city and been stopped for a traffic violation, the vehicle would have become useless to him.
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