Neser’s smile faded, and he tried to cross his arms. “I’ve got nothing to say.”
“You have nothing to say now; that’s about to change.” Stanley nodded to the med tech. “Last chance.”
Neser hesitated, the blood draining from his face as the tech began to swipe the IV with alcohol, preparing it for an injection. “What are you giving me?” His voice trembled very slightly.
“Sorry, we don’t need informed consent here. Tell me who you killed and when.”
The tech hung a second smaller bag of IV solution, only this was colored red.
“We’re going to need to restrain him better before I can give it to him,” the tech said to the director.
“For comfort or for effectiveness?” Stanley asked.
“This is bullshit,” Neser jeered. He didn’t think they would go through with it, but he was starting to have his doubts. Technically, even starting an IV was a violation of his rights, and they had done that without hesitation. Maybe this was more than just an elaborate bluff. He wasn’t a fanatic; he wasn’t even a believer. He was just good at what they needed.
“Effectiveness. I assumed comfort wasn’t going to be an issue today,” the tech answered, a little concerned that he had misread the director’s intentions.
“Definitely not,” Stanley said.
Two more men wrapped Neser in leather restraints, and he started kicking and biting. It took them two minutes to fully secure every joint in his body, and only after that did they force a bite block between his teeth.
“I believe that you are a terrorist, and you have been convicted of a felony in the United States. The American people no longer have permissive views towards people such as yourself. As a result, we have developed this technique to drain you of any secrets you are reluctant to share. It was derived from a compound used in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Cuba—only this is a more effective form. It does have a few side effects, however, hence the need for restraints.” Stanley nodded a second time and the new IV was opened. The red solution began to flow into Neser’s veins, burning them. He began to shake and scream. “I’m told it burns a little going in.” When Neser’s eyes and screams took on a different tone, Stanley stopped the infusion himself. “Something to say?” As if on cue, the bite block was taken out.
Fifteen minutes later, they had a list of seventeen names and dates.
“You’re a little scary, do you know that?” Stanley’s assistant director said to him just before they reached the elevator. “Would you really have given it to him?”
“I was a little disappointed that he broke so quickly. I wanted to see if it really worked.”
“It may have killed him.”
“It may have,” he said. They rode in silence to the top floor, and Stanley could see that a small crowd of people was waiting for him.
“Six matches,” a tall silver-haired man said. “We have them all in custody.” Six of the names Neser had just “volunteered” were among the 161 names on the “missing” list. “We’ve sent additional teams to search their homes.”
“If all six are correct, and we subtract Maria Belsky that leaves us with ten unaccounted for.” Stanley’s words burst the bubble of excitement that was floating through his office. It was the first break in the case, but they still had a long way to go. “How many of the 161 do we have?”
“That number is down by two. Rachel Hill and Peter Bilsky are accounted for,” a silver-haired man said. Stanley met him with a questioning gaze. “The man who assassinated the governor of Colorado. Of the remaining 159, we have 121 in custody. Most check out. Some were covering up felony convictions, and then we have eight who remain uncategorized. All six matches came from the uncategorized group.”
“So potentially we hold two more?” Stanley clarified.
“Yes. The search teams should have something soon.”
“Call me when you get something. Now let’s all get back to work.”
We’ve covered less than half of New York City, and there’s only twenty-five hours left, Oliver thought as he walked up Eighth Avenue, just north of Greenwich Village. Greg and the two FBI agents were getting a few hours of sleep after eighteen hours of fruitless searching. Oliver couldn’t sleep. The stress, the consequences of failure, and the thousands of voices that assaulted him from every direction prevented even a moment’s rest. At least he could get a decent cup of coffee here.
“Thank you, Mr. Reisch, wherever you are,” said Oliver, toasting the sky and sipping the hot coffee as New Yorkers by the hundreds hurried past him. He pushed his way through the crowd like a local and had made it almost all the way back to the hotel when he felt a hand slip into his overcoat and pluck out his wallet. He knew what was happening even before it happened, and as the hand cleared his lapel, Oliver grabbed the wrist and twisted. His wallet fell to the sidewalk with a plop, and so did the well-dressed man in his thirties, but with a scream.
“You’ve got to be kidding. How old are you?” Oliver asked the struggling man. He was probably thirty years his junior, but Oliver held his wrist with a grip that would bend steel. The flowing stream of humanity had parted, and a crowd had begun to form. Even to jaded New Yorkers, the sight of a sixty-two-year-old priest maintaining a wristlock on a prone man half his age was worth a moment.
The pickpocket let out a string of profanity aimed at Oliver, and several people yelled to get a cop. Oliver finally let go of the man’s wrist, but kept a foot on his back. It took less than a minute for a patrol car to pull up, and two of New York’s finest began to wade through the crowd—except only one of them was from New York.
“A cop?” Oliver screamed three times, and the crowd began to back away from the suddenly irrational priest. “You disguised yourself as a cop? You fucking son of a bitch!” Oliver launched himself at the smaller of the two patrolmen. Several of the onlookers grabbed Oliver before he could reach the man’s neck. He was screaming obscenities that would make the pickpocket blush. “He’s not a cop!” Oliver finally yelled, and now the cop began to back away. “His real name is Essen Mohammed. He’s one of the terrorists.”
Oliver never knew how he got free. One minute he was being held by four men, and the next minute, there were over a dozen people sprawled out across the sidewalk. Mohammed had been thrown against a lamppost and had slid down onto the back of a parked car. He was alive, and Oliver was filled with a blind fury. Everything around him except Mohammed had disappeared, and righteous anger filled his heart. For a moment his mind was filled with glorious images of this man in the throes of a violent death; his agony feeding a hunger Oliver never knew existed. He stared at the wounded man and smiled. I’m going to enjoy this, he thought cruelly, and out of habit reached for his crucifix for strength. The feel of the well-worn metal broke the spell, and Oliver shrank back into his weary sixty-two-year-old body. A vision of Amanda and understanding both blossomed in his mind.
Oliver’s face softened and he approached Mohammed. The terrorist saw Oliver advancing and freed his weapon. Without warning or hesitation, he fired. Bullets tore into Oliver’s chest and shoulders; it was like being hit by a sledgehammer covered in velvet. People were frantically crawling and diving for shelter as the cop shot the priest over and over again.
Mohammed’s partner watched the man he had known as John Curry fire his weapon into the unarmed priest. He drew his .45 for the first time in his career, and after a moment of indecision, aimed it at his partner. “Put it down, John!”
Mohammed saw the gun and calmly resighted his aim at a real New York City cop. They both fired at the same time, and both had aimed well. The two cops hit the ground a moment after Oliver.
“So we’re down one terrorist, and light one priest,” the president said to Kyle Stanley. “Are they going to make it?”
“The patrolman’s fine. Bullet hit him smack in the forehead and ricocheted off. He’s going to have a hard time living that one down. The priest was shot several times at pointblank range. It’s a miracle they got hi
m to the hospital alive.” Stanley didn’t want to add that the ER doc had already told him that Oliver’s wounds were far beyond repair, and that it was simply a matter of time. He had already been given the last rites. Stanley wanted to give him a medal.
“If he survives, he’s going to be one helluva security risk. That is, if we survive.” The president hadn’t meant it as a joke, and no one laughed.
“We have approximately twenty-four hours left and four more terrorists still out there.” Stanley had already told the president that four of Neser’s matches had indeed been part of the eleven, and that the rest had been found using the “missing” list. “But we are out of leads.”
“What kind of damage can four of these bastards do?”
The secretary of health and human services was better prepared than this morning. “We’ve made a number of assumptions, but worst-case scenario is 128 million dead. Best case scenario is seventy-seven million.”
“That doesn’t make sense. You told me we could treat this thing!” The president was shocked and angry. The secretary had called him two hours earlier and proudly exclaimed that one man had survived with standard medical treatment.
“We have medical resources for only about two million people. They will survive, but once the supplies are gone, people are going to die.”
“Stop saying that. I’ve heard it all day,” the president snapped. “What about this paper thing? Have we looked at it from that angle?” They had recovered six of the vials, all in various stages of reformulation, along with some unusual parchment.
Stanley said, “It’s not really paper. We think that after it has been complexed with the virus, it becomes stable. Light and heat then release the virus.”
All of them had visions of an army of sanitation workers dressed in isolation suits picking up every tiny piece of paper from coast to coast. “Anything else?” the president asked.
“The survivor, the one the secretary talked with you about earlier; he’s being sent to Los Angeles to try and do the same thing that Father Oliver did in New York,” said Kyle Stanley.
“Good, maybe we’ll get lucky a second time. What about the bastard who started all of this—Klaus Reisch?”
“He seems to have disappeared. We believe that he has a vial of virus, and a vial of vaccine. He stole them from Jaime Avanti,” Stanley answered.
“So, even if by some miracle, we manage to find these other four, we’re still not out of this?”
They had told Greg that Oliver was dying; only he didn’t feel like it. It hurt, it hurt like hell, but he could breathe. He could feel his heart beating. It was a little fast, but it was strong and regular. He moved his feet and hands, which seemed to work just fine. So, how was he dying? He was strapped to a board, and his head was taped to something, so all he could see was the bright light shining down on him. He tried to reach up with his hand and move it out of the way, but his arms were tied as well.
Okay, he thought, just a little nudge. He extended his mind towards the theatre light, and it swung on its rotating arm so violently that it snapped off at the joint. The aluminum and glass dome sailed across the room and exploded against the back wall. Everyone in the ER jumped, except Oliver. He was laughing through the oxygen mask. “Boy, I stink at this,” he said to himself.
Faces appeared over him. “Let me up. I’m fine.” Hands began to restrain him, and somehow his arm restraints were off him. He pushed people away and then brushed off the mask covering his face.
“I need to speak to Greg Flynn,” he repeated enough times until someone listened. Greg’s face appeared. “Please tell them to let me up. I really don’t want to hurt anyone.”
Greg began to undo the remaining restraints. “You should be dead,” he whispered.
“I should be, but I’m not. Listen carefully. Mohammed met with two other terrorists a year ago. One of them is here in New York and the other is in Boston. The local one is Michael Moore.”
“The movie guy?” Greg had his pen and pad out and began scribbling down the name.
Oliver didn’t make the connection. “No, he’s a clerk in the county welfare office. I know where he lives; it’s about ten miles from here.”
“Give me an address.”
“No, get me closer and I can take care of him. I should have been smarter with Mohammed.” Oliver sat up, and for a moment, his head swam. “Get the FBI guys to help. We don’t have much time.” He dropped to the floor, and after an unsteady moment, rose to his full five-foot-four inches. “That’s better,” he said, and with Greg’s help began to dress. “Frick and Frack are here,” he said as the agents pulled back the curtain. “Load up the car, boys, we’re going for a ride. We gotta line on terrorist number two and number three.”
Frick looked at Frack, and then at one of the flustered ER nurses. “What did you give him?”
“Never mind that,” Greg said, annoyed and relieved at the same time. “We’ve got to go, now.”
Thirty minutes later, the four of them were stuck in midtown traffic. Oliver had told the agents everything he knew about terrorist number three, and he hoped that the Boston bureau was having better luck than the one in New York.
“We can walk from here,” Oliver said impatiently and then opened the car door and slowly climbed out. He was bleeding again, but he still felt okay. “He’s leaving his apartment,” he shouted to Greg. “He knows what happened to Mohammed, and he has the virus!” Oliver tried to run down the sidewalk. Greg and the two agents abandoned the car and followed the wounded priest for nearly a mile.
“Oliver, you’re bleeding everywhere. Just tell us what he looks like, and we’ll take him.” Greg had taken his arm and tried to guide him into a storefront. For a second, Oliver resisted, and then stopped.
“Thank God,” he said in a breathless voice. “He’s coming this way, about a block down that way.” He motioned with his head, but all Greg could see was a sea of faces.
“Did you both hear that?” Greg asked Frick and Frack. They nodded as one, just as Greg had expected. “He’s got the virus with him, so be careful what you shoot.”
Oliver sat down on a step, his face pure white. Okay, so I don’t feel so good, he thought. Terrorist number two was less than a hundred feet away, and Oliver grabbed his mind.
Greg heard the scream and saw the telltale disruption in the flow of human traffic. He pulled out his now-defunct police badge and forced his way through the crowd to the stricken man. He didn’t find what he had expected. Number two was clean-shaven, mid-fifties, and obviously a woman. Oliver had missed.
A gunshot drowned out the woman’s screaming, and people began running in all directions. Greg looked up to see Frack sink to his knees, blood beginning to stain the lower portion of his nicely tailored black FBI suit. Frick returned fire, and a man dressed in a North Face ski parka dropped to the concrete, a shower of blood spraying the overcoat of the man behind him. Greg watched as the whole scene developed before him. Frack was down and bleeding, the North Face man was down and bleeding, and then the man with the stained overcoat looked up at Frick and shot him in the head. Frick had missed as well.
The overcoat man began to turn toward Greg, but then suddenly dropped to his knees, his hands clawing at his head. He tried to scream, but fell over backward instead. Greg watched the man go down and become still. He waited a second longer and then moved carefully toward the fallen terrorist. He reached down and scooped up the fallen weapon, all the while keeping his eyes trained on the man’s oddly shaped head. He moved closer and rifled through the stained overcoat. His fingers found a set of keys and a wad of paper in his chest pocket, but no other weapon. Frack had tossed him a pair of plastic wrist cuffs, but they weren’t necessary. The man was already very dead. His eyes had ruptured, his face was swollen, the skin was stretched tight and covered in small petechial hemorrhages, and what looked like bloody brain oozed from both of his ears. In his left hand was a small blue vial.
Greg stood and walked back over to Oliv
er. The priest was praying, and Greg sat next to him waiting for him to finish.
“I don’t know how well it will be received, but I just gave myself Last Rites.” The priest’s voice was barely a whisper. “Sorry, Greg. I screwed up.” He looked over at the still body of Frick. “It happened so fast. I think I passed out a little and then got so scared that he was going to get away that I grabbed the first mind I could.” Oliver was crying. “He shot them, and I couldn’t stop him. I tried.”
“You did stop him. He’s dead. We have the vial.” The ubiquitous New York City sirens were getting louder.
The vial was getting warm. No, it’s getting hot, Issam Rahim corrected himself. He knew that if the vial was warmed too quickly the yield would be low, so he turned the lamp down. He picked up the instructions for the twentieth time in an hour, but they still didn’t tell him anything new. His Arabic was only passable, so his particular set of instructions had been written in English; only something had been lost in the translation.
It started raining again, and the drops drummed on the slate roof and Issam’s nerves. It was always raining in Seattle, and he didn’t have a clue what the rain would do to the processed paper. Part of the reconstitution process involved immersing the paper in a tub of water for five minutes, but then—and the instructions were very clear on this point—the sheets were to be dried and kept dry. He looked out the window as spring rain turned his steep driveway into a small river. Like Izhan Ahmed in Los Angeles and the other fourteen fighters, Issam had been chosen for his ability to think independently and adapt to changing circumstances. The special paper would never work here, and with each passing moment, Issam knew that his opportunity for shahada was slipping away. For more than three years, he had dreamed of his glorious martyrdom. With one act, all his offenses would be wiped away, and he would find himself sitting close to the throne of the Almighty, living in the most beautiful house in all of paradise, the dar al-shuhada, the house of martyrs. Now, the rain threatened all of that.
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