Rules of Attack

by Christopher Reich

  A sneaky fellow. The boss lady using that upper-class accent he knew so well from the university-educated camel jocks he’d met over in Iraq and Afghanistan.

  And how the hell did she know that about the shed and the alley? Taylor wondered with grudging admiration. Probably the same way that she knew Connor was under house arrest and had just returned from questioning at FBI headquarters. The same way she’d known about his visiting Mr. Malloy at the NGA. The boss lady had someone inside Division. Someone deep inside.

  “Take out Connor,” she’d said. “Not your usual way. It must appear natural. He has a heart condition. It shouldn’t be too hard. But be careful. He’s a cornered animal, and cornered animals are dangerous.”

  He’s also pushing sixty and has a belly the size of a boulder, retorted the Ripper silently. Frank Connor would not be a problem.

  The Ripper turned left up 33rd Street, then left again at P Street, taking his time to circle round and eventually finding a parking spot two blocks from Connor’s place. Opening the glove compartment, he removed a chamois cloth, balled it up, and shoved it into his pocket. For good measure, he took his carpet cutter, too.

  Exiting from his car, he pulled his navy workman’s cap low over his forehead and dug his hands deep into the pockets of his pea coat. Setting off up the brick sidewalk, he looked no different from any undergraduate en route to the Georgetown University campus, a few blocks away. He turned right on N Street and spotted the address of Connor’s neighbors. He let himself in the side gate and came upon the shed at the back of the garden.

  Though the shed abutted the back fence and appeared to belong to the neighbor’s home, it was in fact linked by an underground passage to Connor’s house. The Ripper jimmied the shed’s lock and slipped inside. The beam of his flashlight shone on an old stone stairwell leading steeply downward to a low, damp tunnel redolent of the Potomac River, which flowed barely fifty yards to the south. A door blocked his way at the far end of the passage.

  “No alarm,” the boss lady had said. “The tunnel is Connor’s secret. If he doesn’t acknowledge it, no one else will.”

  The Ripper defeated the double-action bolt lock inside thirty seconds. With infinite patience, he turned the knob and opened the door. He stepped inside, his feet landing on a hardwood floor. His hand withdrew the carpet cutter from his pocket, and he advanced the triangular razor from its metal sheath. He wasn’t disobeying orders. As far as he was concerned, suicide was a natural cause. Disgraced spy-masters killed themselves all the time.

  Step by step, he climbed to the third floor. Step by step, his heart beat faster as he closed in on his kill.

  The Ripper marveled at how much blood spilled out of a wrist when you cut the vein properly: vertically, long and deep; never horizontally.

  72

  Frank Connor paced the floor of his secret study like a condemned man. His phone had been confiscated and his landline restricted. Likewise, technicians had disabled all Internet access, both Ethernet and wireless. Even his cable TV had been cut off. His isolation was complete. He might as well be in prison already.

  Pouring himself a glass of bourbon, he threw off his jacket and loosened his tie. His initial interrogation by the FBI had been brief and to the point. He’d decided up front to tell the truth. Piece by piece, he’d revealed the operation. The unauthorized attempt on Prince Rashid’s life with the explosive bullets was the first strike against him. Nine innings’ worth more followed. There was no point in lying. If he hadn’t already, Erskine would offer up his own version of the events. Connor’s every action of the past six months would be put under the microscope—every phone call, every e-mail, every meeting. His only hope was for the WMD to be found inside the hangar. Results meant exoneration. Failure meant punishment. Frank Connor was a big boy. He knew the drill.

  Connor pulled up the section of floorboard and unlocked his private safe. Inside was a stack of virgin BlackBerries. Terrorists weren’t the only ones who didn’t want the government eavesdropping on their calls. He chose a phone and called his assistant, Lorena.

  “Did they find it?”

  “I have no idea,” she said. “Mr. Sharp made me leave right after you.”

  “What about Ransom and Danni? Any word?”

  “I don’t know, Frank.”

  “And Haq?”

  Lorena started crying. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I couldn’t find out anything.”

  Connor hung up, walked through the closet to the bedroom door, and opened it an inch to make sure none of the marshals were nearby. Satisfied that he was alone, Connor called his colleague at the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network. “Got anything?” he whispered.

  “As a matter of fact, I do.”

  Connor’s spirits lifted. “Shoot.”

  “I checked Erskine. He’s clean.”

  “I thought you said you had something for me.”

  “Hold on to your pecker. I’m just getting started. It’s our policy not only to check the primary suspect but to look at everyone around him. So anyway, Erskine has a home equity account linked to his payroll account. That’s normal. I do, too. But Erskine’s always taking money out of the home equity account and never putting anything back in.”

  “That sounds about right,” commented Connor.

  “Here’s where it gets interesting. There’s a second account linked to the home equity line of credit—Erskine’s wife’s. Check this out: it’s his wife who’s making the occasional repayments, keeping the line of credit at a manageable level.”

  “I know her. They just got married six months ago. She’s a nice gal. Lina.”

  “Lina Zayed Erskine.”

  Connor felt the floor shift beneath him, and a sharp pain radiated from his chest. “Go on.”

  “Except that she’s putting in twenty, thirty, forty thousand at a time.”

  “That seems kind of steep for an attorney over at Justice.”

  “A GS-12. Annual salary of $74,872 before taxes. Obviously, that nugget got my attention, so I decided to look a little closer, see where she might be getting all that disposable income if it wasn’t courtesy of Uncle Sam.”

  “And?”

  “Turns out the money was wired into her account from a certain bank domiciled in the Cayman Islands that we here at FinCEN are very familiar with. This establishment turns up much too often in connection with some of our shadier targets—drug dealers, arms traffickers, even the occasional link to our friends in Islam, if you get my drift. Naturally, it was a numbered account. No name, no nothing. Knowing that this might be important, I gave the head of the bank a call myself. He was none too happy to hear from me. When I mentioned the account in question, he practically had a coronary. One of my best clients, a man of unrivaled reputation, a humanitarian. If I didn’t know better, I’d think he was talking about the Good Lord himself. Finally this jerk tells me that if I knew what was good for me, I would never mention this account again. End of discussion.”

  “The client sounds more like Pablo Escobar than Jesus Christ.”

  “Bingo. First thing I did after I hung up was put this numbered account through our tracking system.”

  “Any results?”

  “Big time! We got a dozen hits right off the bat, all of them linked to some very questionable characters.”

  “All right, I’ve still got my pecker in my hand, and you’ll be happy to know it’s hard as a rock. A real diamond cutter. Just tell me who the account belongs to.”

  “I don’t have a definitive, but there’s one name that keeps popping up.”

  “Who?” Connor listened to the name and felt his chest tighten. It was suddenly difficult to breathe. “Frank … you there?”

  “Yeah,” said Connor, finally drawing a breath. “Forward what you’ve got to my BlackBerry. I’ve got a new number. Here it is.”

  There was a knock on his bedroom door and Connor hung up, hurrying from the study and stuffing the phone into his pocket. He unlocked the door, and one of the
marshals peered inside. “Would you like something from your kitchen before bed, sir? I know chow down at the J. Edgar Hoover Building ain’t so great.”

  “How ’bout a tuna sandwich and some coffee,” said Connor.

  “Yes, sir.”

  The door closed and Connor locked it. Hurrying back to his safe, he withdrew $50,000 in neat packets of hundreds, and with them two clean U.S. passports in the names of Donald Maynard and John Riggins. Connor was a Jets fan from way back, but he drew the line at Emerson Boozer. Finally, reaching deep into the safe, he withdrew a polished oak box. He unclasped the lock and removed a sleek stainless steel semiautomatic pistol, a Ruger .380. The sight of guns made him nervous, and he handled it clumsily, struggling to insert the clip and chamber a round.

  Satisfied that he had everything he needed if circumstances forced him to become a permanent fugitive, he closed the safe, turned off the lights, and walked across his bedroom to fetch his gloves and overcoat.

  It was then that he felt the icy breeze skirt his ankles and send an ache through his bad leg. He turned to find a trim, dark man standing ten feet away. The man wore a pea coat and a longshoreman’s cap, and he held a very large, very sharp carpet cutter in one hand.

  “Hey, Frankie.”

  A picture of Jim Malloy and his wife flashed through Connor’s mind. Fear gripped him. Still, he reacted as taught. Reaching into his pocket, he drew the compact Ruger .380 and unlocked the safety with a flick of his thumb. He raised the pistol and took aim. But suddenly his eyes wouldn’t focus. His arm began to waver as the pain in his chest worsened. He tried to squeeze the trigger, but his hand would not obey.

  And then it was too late. The man was on him, knocking his arm away, flinging the pistol to the ground.

  “Just you and me here, Frankie,” he said, his face inches away. “Time for a little fun.”

  The intruder grabbed Connor’s arm and drew it toward him, ripping back the shirtsleeve. “Soft as a baby’s belly. We’re not going to have any problem at all.”

  Connor tried to talk, but his breath wouldn’t come. His entire body felt as if it were being crushed inside a vise.

  “This won’t hurt a bit,” said the intruder.

  Connor watched the blade touch his wrist.

  There was a sound like someone spitting and something tore into Connor’s shoulder and the man stopped what he was doing. His eyes widened, and he said, “What the …?” Connor looked down and saw that his own shoulder was bleeding, and he knew that somehow he had been shot. And then blood streamed from the man’s mouth and he fell to the floor and didn’t move.

  Emma Ransom stood at the top of the hidden stairwell, a silenced pistol in her extended hand.

  “Hello, Frank. How long have I been telling you to put a proper lock on that shed?”

  73

  “I didn’t betray you,” said Connor.

  “I know that now,” said Emma, hurrying forward and kneeling at his side. “Sit down. Take a deep breath.”

  Connor collapsed into a chair. “How did you find out?”

  “I’ve been a busy girl. All those dirty tricks you taught me came in handy.”

  “What the hell’s going on? Did we get the bomb? Was Haq inside that goddamned hangar? Is Jonathan alive? They haven’t told me a thing.”

  Emma opened his shirt and examined the wound. “Yes, Jonathan’s alive. He’s on a flight to New York right now.”

  “What about the warhead and Haq?”

  Her eyes rose to his for a second, no longer, then skipped back to his shoulder. “I’m sorry about this, Frank. I didn’t have any subsonic rounds. Usually I would have gone for a head shot, but I couldn’t afford a miss. One of the rounds went right through the bastard.” Emma pulled a wallet from the corpse’s back pocket. “Jacob Taylor,” she said, reading from his driver’s license. “Know him?”

  Connor said that he didn’t, but he knew who had sent him.

  Emma found the killer’s phone and scrolled through the numbers. “You’re right,” she said. “Goes to show you never can trust lawyers.”

  She texted a short message and sent it.

  “What did you do?” Connor asked.

  “I told the bitch you were dead. Now stay put.” Rising, she went to the bathroom and came back with hand towels. She folded one neatly and pressed it against the bullet wound. “You shouldn’t have used Jonathan.”

  “He was the best choice.”

  “Even so.”

  “He did a good job.”

  “He always does.”

  Connor tried to sit up, but a wave of pain overwhelmed him. “Why are you here?”

  Emma sat back and stared at him. Her cheeks were still wind-kissed from her trek in the mountains, and her eyes shone as if lit from within by an eerie green light. “Insurance,” she said finally.

  “What does that mean?”

  “You’ll figure it out.”

  “You think saving my life is your ticket back?”

  Emma shook her head, smiling earnestly. “It’s not about work. We both know I’m not coming back. I saved your life because I like you.”

  “I can fix things.”

  “Not this time, you can’t. Besides, I want out. I have to stop while part of my soul is still alive.” She stood, handing Connor a clean towel to hold against his shoulder. “You need to get to a hospital. I don’t know where that bullet went, and I think you’ve had a wee bit of a heart attack.”

  Connor worked it all through in his mind, and a new and terrible knowledge imprinted itself on his features. If Emma was here, it could be for only one reason. “Haq,” he said. “God, no—you won’t let him do it. You’ll stop him?”

  Emma leaned down and kissed Connor on the cheek. “I’ll always be your girl, Frank.”

  “Yeah,” said Connor. “That’s what I’m afraid of.”

  Emma headed to the concealed stairwell. “You’ll give me a few minutes?”

  Connor nodded. He wanted to say “Good luck” or “Godspeed” or even just “Thanks,” but he knew that something had changed. Emma was no longer a prize to be fought over, an asset coveted by every side. She had broken too many rules to go back. She knew that, and her actions said she no longer gave a damn. She had turned her back on all of it. From here on out, Emma Ransom was on her own.

  A rogue.

  And this, Connor realized with a chill, made her more dangerous than ever before.

  74

  The information passed to the air force attaché at the United States Embassy in Jerusalem originated from a small but respected department within Mossad. An agent had knowledge that a certain wanted terrorist, currently the target of a top secret operation run out of the U.S. Department of Defense, had boarded an aircraft in Islamabad belonging to the United States Army Materiel Command inbound to Ramstein AFB, Germany. Tail number N14997. Said terrorist was reported to be in possession of a small-yield nuclear warhead. The information was graded high: actionable.

  From Jerusalem, the information was forwarded to the commander of United States Air Forces in Europe, and then on to USAF intelligence at Headquarters Air Force, Washington, D.C., the Central Intelligence Agency, the Office of Nuclear Energy of the U.S. Department of Energy, and the International Atomic Energy Agency in Vienna. Four hours elapsed before the information reached the hands of the commander of Ramstein AFB, Germany. By then it was almost too late.

  Ten vehicles swarmed the C-141 Starlifter as it began its takeoff at the head of runway 29. The condor-winged aircraft braked violently, smoke billowing from its tires. Military police hit the ground with weapons raised, ready to fire at the slightest provocation. A mobile staircase was pushed against the fuselage. The forward door opened, and the police rushed inside.

  All this Sultan Haq watched with tense detachment from a separate aircraft parked a good distance across the tarmac. Sitting back in the plush seats, he sipped from his glass of ice-cold Coca-Cola and swallowed another painkiller.

  “How is your inju
ry?” asked the handsome, elegantly dressed man seated across the cabin.

  “I’ve had worse,” said Haq. “It will not affect me.”

  “I am pleased to hear that,” said Prince Rashid. “I imagine there will be a delay until we are allowed to take off. Get some rest. Tomorrow promises to be an eventful day.”

  75

  Pakistan International Airlines Flight 333 outbound from Islamabad and Karachi to New York City cruised at an air speed of 590 knots at 39,000 feet over the snow-covered plains of central Europe. Arrival was foreseen at seven a.m. Eastern Standard Time, fifteen minutes ahead of schedule, with weather in New York forecast to be in the mid-thirties with snow flurries.

  Seated in row 22, Jonathan relaxed with a Dr Pepper. PIA was a Muslim airline and carried no alcohol on board.

  “Where do you think he was going?” he asked Danni, his head lolling against the seat.

  “Haq? It’s always New York City. They all want to top 9/11. Did he give you any clue as to his final target?”

  “None.” Jonathan sipped his lukewarm soft drink. Not only was there no alcohol, but there was no ice either. “Who gets custody of him?”

  “It’s your cruise missile he stole. I imagine he’s in the hands of the military right now. I hope they put him in a black hole and let him rot.”

  “Amen,” said Jonathan, a little frightened by the depth of his conviction. “All my life I’ve tried to keep out of politics. My dad was a bean counter for the General Accounting Office—those are the guys who figure out how much money the boys in Washington are really spending—and he was always complaining about the government. But for all his arguing, he never did anything about it. He just bellyached. He used to say that you couldn’t do a darned thing to change Washington. I chose to study medicine for exactly that reason. I wanted to do something where I could make a difference. For a long time it’s made me happy. Maybe it’s made me feel important, too. But now, working with you, with Connor, I feel differently. It’s like I was dodging my responsibility.” Jonathan frowned, contemplating the bullet the world had dodged. “It’s scary to think what one determined man can do.”