Day of Reckoning (Shadow Warriors)
Page 47
“Not yet.” It was only a matter of time—they both knew that. D.C. was the city of leaks.
“Keep me in the loop…on everything, Ian. We can’t have our intelligence community compromised again. Shapiro has to be found.”
6:57 A.M. Pacific Time
The oilfield
Tehachapi, California
“You can trust him,” Harry observed, placing his equipment bag in the trunk of the car, underneath a tarpaulin.
Tex straightened, looking him in the eye. The sun was just beginning to stream over the hill overlooking the oil field. “What do you mean?”
“Saw the way you looked at Sammy. I know how you felt when he left the team.”
The big man shook his head. “Doesn’t matter how I feel. Trusting him again is another story. Not even sure I can trust you.”
“Yeah.” Harry closed the trunk with one hand, zipping up his leather jacket against the cold. “About that. I never intended to draw you into this.”
“I know,” came the slow reply. “You were following orders, same as always. But what happened to that boy in Beverly Hills?”
“I didn’t kill him.”
“I know…that’s what Carol told me. Still your op.” Tex paused. “We’ll roll with your play for Powers. Long drive, longer odds—but it might pay off.”
He could feel the tension. Harry let out a deep breath, watching it billow into the chill morning air. “Thank you,” he said finally. Didn’t seem like much of anything else to say.
“I don’t have any other options. Just pray it works.”
“As ever.” Harry had just started to turn away when the Texan spoke again.
“How’d it ever come to this?”
“One betrayal at a time…”
10:04 A.M. Mountain Time
FBI Regional Headquarters
Denver, Colorado
“Look, D.C. is breathing down my neck…the freakin’ director is dead, and you want me to go hunt down a wrong number?” The look on Greg Buhler’s face was one of incredulity.
Marika crossed her legs, wiping a fleck of dirt off her jeans. She hadn’t taken the time to change. Hadn’t seemed like a priority at the time.
“No. I’m following up on a lead,” she replied, favoring the S-A-C with a cold glance. “What do you have to lose? Las Vegas was on your potential targets list. If Russ and I can confirm that…we’ve just found your needle.”
Buhler ran a hand across his forehead. “They warned me that you were a pain in the butt.”
Her face never changed. She had heard it all from men at the Bureau over the years, every name in the book and quite a few too obscene to be put in a book. Didn’t matter.
At length, he looked up, realizing that his comment had failed to provoke a reaction. “Fine,” he relented, a heavy sigh escaping his lips. “But I can’t spare a chopper—they’re all combing the mountains. You and Russell will have to take the next commercial out to McCarran. If you go off the reservation again…well, it will be Powers’ problem, not mine.”
“Powers?”
“Trent Powers, the Vegas S-A-C. Give him my best.” Buhler smiled. “On second thought, don’t mention me as being responsible for sending you. He still owes me drinks.”
“I’ll keep that in mind,” Marika responded, rising from her chair. She knew Buhler’s type—politicians all the way. Comfortable so long as nothing threatened their bureaucracy.
“Good hunting.”
Indeed.
1:03 P.M. Pacific Time
The warehouse
Las Vegas, Nevada
“We’ll approach from the north entrance,” Tarik Abdul Muhammad noted, tapping the map with a forefinger. “You have everything in readiness there, don’t you?”
“Yes,” came the imam’s reply. “Your concern will be getting your weapons in.”
“That shouldn’t take long,” Jamal replied, the confidence of the college student asserting itself. He could feel the eyes of the shaikh on him, listening to his words. “The entire floor is handicap-accessible—so that wealthy old Americans can gamble away their children’s inheritance. Gambling…a work of Satan, as it was written of the Prophet.”
“You had a point, Jamal?” Abu Kareem asked, clearing his throat.
Jamal flushed, feeling the unspoken rebuke. “Yes. What I have are the cylinders of the nerve agent rigged with explosives surrounding them—each of them weighing roughly twenty pounds. Hard to handle while fighting our way in, but we can roll them quickly across the casino on one of the hotel’s luggage carts. Only one man needed for their transportation.”
The shaikh smiled. “Well done, Jamal. That will be advantageous. The Americans have security at the door—here, and here. We will need to take them down before advancing on the theatre.”
“Time?” Jamal looked behind him to see one of the mujahideen speaking. His English was rough, but he was an experienced fighter. Jamal had even heard whispers that he had been involved in the planning stages of Lashkar-e-Taiba’s assault on Mumbai.
It was a crucial question.
The shaikh glanced at his watch. “From the moment the first shot is fired…we need to have secured her within two minutes. They will make an effort to lock us out of the theatre—we have to be prepared for that.”
“We will be,” Abu Kareem interjected, the older man’s countenance taking on a look of serenity. “Insh’allah.”
4:30 P.M. Eastern Time
Theodore Roosevelt Island
Washington, D.C.
The sun was setting, slipping behind the clouds in the west—a chill wind blowing off the water. Bernard Kranemeyer stood off to one side, his dress shoes half-buried in the silty mud of the beach.
The glare of a crime scene investigator’s flashbulb briefly lit the gathering darkness, all eyes focused on the body lying there in the mud. Michael Shapiro.
“On the face of it, looks like he washed in with the tide,” the DCS observed, speaking to an FBI agent standing nearby.
“That it does.”
“Who is going to have jurisdiction of the investigation…the Bureau? Or D.C. Metro?”
“We will,” the young man replied without blinking. “National security.”
Indeed. “Make sure you keep me in the loop on this one, all right?”
“I’m sure you’ll be informed on a need-to-know basis,” came the stiff rejoinder.
Kranemeyer took a step into the agent’s zone, his dark eyes snapping. “Mike…was a friend. More importantly, his death leaves me the acting director of the CIA, serving at the pleasure of the President. I need to know everything. Am I making myself understood?”
“Loud and clear.”
2:17 P.M. Pacific Time
Summerlin, Nevada
“You know what you are supposed to do, right?” Harry asked, glancing in the rearview mirror above his head.
“Yes,” Thomas replied from the backseat of the car. “I do. All too well, matter of fact.”
Harry shook his head. “We’ve been over this, Thomas. It’s the only way to establish contact.”
“I know.”
Carol cleared her throat from the passenger seat beside him, her words clipped. “According to her Facebook wall, she left for the grocery store fifteen minutes ago. I can monitor Foursquare, but that’s not gonna give us her location in real-time. You need to get in there.”
A nod from Thomas and he stepped out onto the sidewalk as the car slowed.
A roll of the dice. That’s all this was, Harry realized, watching in his rearview as he pulled back out onto the road, heading out of the housing development. Long odds.
“What did you mean?”
He took his attention off the road for a brief moment to glance over at Carol. “About what?”
“You said that you needed me.”
He’d known the question was coming, didn’t mean that he was prepared to answer it…honestly. It felt as if there was a wall between them, a wall he had erected.
“Once this is done…I have to get out. Leave all of it in the past. Everything I’ve fought for—I have to experience it for myself. I want to have a normal life. A family. Kids.”
The American dream. He could feel her eyes on him, felt as if he was naked before her. Stripped of the lies.
Suddenly vulnerable.
It was a long moment before she spoke again, and when she did, her voice was soft. Barely above a whisper. “Do you think you can…leave it all in the past, I mean?”
The impossible question, and his heart whispered a lie. Yes. The easy answer, what he wanted to tell her.
The truth…was never so easy.
His headset crackled with static before he could respond. Han’s voice, intruding on his thoughts. Drawing him back to the reality at hand. “We’re at the back door. Prepping for entry.”
“Roger that,” Harry replied, his mission voice returning. “Standing by.”
2:31 P.M.
McCarran International Airport
Las Vegas, Nevada
Nothing. Marika ran her calloused thumb over the phone’s screen to remove the “No missed calls” message, cursing under her breath.
So much for hope. She looked up to see Russ emerge from the line behind her, a bag over his shoulder. “Flying two days before Christmas…never a good idea.”
It hadn’t been. Buhler had been forced to pull strings even to get them seats. “No calls.”
“I don’t know if you should have expected one,” the negotiator replied, his voice calm. Gentle, even. “Do you really have a plan, Marika?”
She hesitated for only a moment. No sense in trying to fool Russ. “No, I don’t. No plan. Just a gut feeling.”
“What kind of feeling?”
Marika looked off into the city, thousands of windows glimmering in the afternoon sun. “That it all happens here.”
Chapter 24
3:37 P.M.
Summerlin, Nevada
Betrayal. It never got old, no matter how many times you had done it before. Using people—getting close to them, learning them, using that knowledge against them. Exploiting their mistakes. Their sins.
And there were times even you didn’t know what you were doing, or what it would become. Like now.
One night had brought him to this. Just one night. A fling. And now it was their leverage.
Thomas picked up a framed picture off the coffee table, glancing into the eyes of a wife. A loving husband. Soon-to-be parents.
“Her checkin just placed her at a gas station three miles away,” the voice in his ear informed him. Carol. “Be ready.”
Right.
He knew when she entered the driveway, the chime of an alarm going off within the house. Heard her footsteps on the stairs outside in the garage, fumbling with a key in the door.
Showtime, and just like any good show, it was made of lies.
The fluorescent in the kitchen came flickering on, catching her in its light. The photo…hadn’t done her justice. She was more beautiful than he had remembered—radiant in the flush of her pregnancy.
Thomas waited for her to set down her purse on the counter, laying her phone beside it.
“Hello, Nicole,” he said, moving from the shadows of the family room. He saw her face go white at the sound of his voice, her voice trembling as she began to speak.
“W-what are you doing here? I told you it was over—it was a mistake. I told you never to call me again.” The words came tumbling out of her mouth in almost a panicked rush.
“So I didn’t call you,” Thomas replied calmly, eyeing the distance between her and her cellphone. “I just came. You weren’t that hard to find.”
She made no move toward it, indecision in her eyes. “What if Trent comes home—finds you here?”
“I’m counting on him doing just that,” he replied, a note of sadness in his voice. “In fact, I want you to call him, just to be sure he does.”
“Why? We’ve been happy these last few years, I’m expecting his child—and yes, don’t look at me like that—it is his child,” she retorted angrily. “I can’t allow you to ruin all of that.”
“And I won’t,” he lied, knowing it was an impossible promise. “You know I work in homeland security. I need to talk to him—can’t use normal channels. I just need you to get him to come home.”
She stood there, a look of disbelief on her face. “How?”
Thomas took a deep breath. It was Harry’s playbook, all the way to the bitter end. “Tell him you’re in labor…”
3:56 P.M.
FBI Field Office
Las Vegas, Nevada
“Special Agent Altmann,” Marika announced, flashing her badge. “We just flew in from Denver—you should have received a flash from the S-A-C there. We’re following up on a lead in the Abu Kareem case.”
“We did,” the young woman behind the desk responded, barely looking up from her work. “What can I do?”
“I was ordered to liaise with Special Agent Powers. Can you direct me to him?”
“You’ll have to speak with me instead.” The woman got up from behind her desk, setting aside a stack of papers. “Agent Chase, a pleasure to meet you.”
“What’s the problem?”
“Powers just went home. His wife is expecting a child.” A smile, for the first time. “Apparently she just went into labor. Men…they have no idea what we go through, do they?”
If you say so, Marika thought. “What are you doing concerning the threat?”
“The LVMPD has been brought into the loop as much as we’ve deemed necessary and the resorts have been notified that Abu Kareem is a person of interest.”
“Is that all?”
Agent Chase half-turned, looking into Marika’s eyes. “This city deals with terrorist threats several times a year, Agent Altmann. We’ve even had chatter that suggested Lashkar-e-Taiba sympathizers might be operating in the city. That was over a year ago, but we don’t let our guard down. The resorts—their facial recognition software is more advanced than ours and interfaced with the DMV databases, in addition to ours and Interpol’s. If Abu Kareem darkens their door, we’ll know within minutes.”
7:09 P.M. Eastern Time
Vienna, Virginia
The pale glow of the laptop was the only light illuminating the library, a cold light absorbed in the dark furniture, the towering oaken bookshelves.
Roy Coftey lowered his empty glass to the desk, still tasting the rum on his lips. The way forward was…unclear, to put it mildly.
His hand slid across the smooth mahogany of the desktop, tapping gently on the computer mouse. It was all there—everything, all the evidence of treason. E-mails dating back over the course of nine months, back to the time when Hancock’s campaign had first encountered trouble.
Coftey remembered it well. Remembered the late night teleconferences with Ian Cahill. You have to deliver Oklahoma, Roy.
With the Sooner State’s electoral votes numbering a scant nine, he’d known they were desperate at that point. Known they’d be pulling out all the stops.
He just hadn’t known how many stops there were to pull. Voter fraud was one thing—they’d done it for years, no big deal. Just the way the game was played. But this…this was beyond the pale.
His shirt was damp with sweat, the tie loose around his throat. He ran a hand through his greying hair, the memories flickering across his mind’s eye.
Waist-deep in a rice paddy, the sun burning down. Even now he could smell the burning, sulphurous stench of gunpowder, hear the sound of slugs splashing into the water around him.
They’d been out in the open that day in Cambodia. On their own. Deniable.
Just like Kranemeyer’s team in Israel. Betrayed by their own leaders. Politicians.
Coftey shook his head, favoring his empty glass with a weary glance. That was why he’d come to Washington those many years ago, wasn’t it?
To be better than them. To
make a difference. And somewhere along the way…he had become like all the rest.
Thirty-four years was enough to corrupt a saint, and he’d never qualified in that category.
What had he become?
He cast another long glance at the evidence onscreen, his lips curling up in a sneer of disgust. Not that.
His hand slipped out, fingers encircling the bottle of rum as he poured himself another glass. Taking Hancock down would require going up against his own party, depriving them of their chance to retake the White House.
In all likelihood, it would be the death of his political career. Of everything he had worked to build over the decades.
He could feel a presence and he looked up to see Melody standing in the doorway of the library, her slender form draped in a robe. “Planning to join me?”
“Yeah,” Coftey replied, a slow smile passing across his lips. “Just as soon as I finish my rum.”
He watched her go before turning back to the computer—remembering his words to Kranemeyer.
“Let’s burn it down.”
Indeed, and his own fortunes with it. He shook his head, pulling the USB drive from the side of machine.
Let it burn…
4:17 P.M. Pacific Time
McCarran International Airport
Las Vegas, Nevada
“Welcome to Vegas, Congresswoman. It’s a rare pleasure.”
Laura Gilpin smiled, taking the proffered hand as she descended the steps of the LearJet onto the tarmac. Fifty-three and unmarried, she was known in D.C. as the “Iron Maiden”, as much for the physical discipline of her daily jogging as her heated debates on the floor of the House.
She could have passed for at least five years younger, maybe ten—depending on how prejudiced the eye.
“The pleasure is all mine, Steve, but there was really no need to send your own jet,” Gilpin laughed easily, displaying the effortless Texas charm that had swept her into office twice. “We’ll let the media play with that ball of yarn for a few days, shall we?”
“So long as you’re willing to break the President’s embargo of Vegas,” Steve Winfield responded, answering her smile with one of his own. The casino owner glanced up the stairs into the darkened interior of the Lear. “Don’t you usually travel with your own security, Laura?”