“Hang on, hang on. What are you talking about?” Jill, if it was the Jill I thought he was referring to, was the Washington bureau chief of the Chronicle.
“I got a call from our friend on the Security Council a few minutes ago. He said he didn’t have a good phone number for you. He would like to see us again, along with his boss—the national security adviser—and the White House press secretary.” Hyde paused. “It appears they’re pulling out the big guns to try to persuade us not to publish. I thought it best not to mention you haven’t actually written a single sentence yet.”
“But—what story do they think we’re about to run with?”
“It seems your visit this afternoon triggered quite the extraordinary chain of events, Ms. James. He told me—this is strictly off the record—he told me they’ve identified the woman beside you on the plane. Her name was Polly Murphy. Irish citizen, thirty-five years old. She worked at a bank. No criminal record. Nothing out of the ordinary about her. The proper autopsy will take a bit, but they know what killed her. Her blood samples came back swimming with barbiturates and potassium chloride. That’s—well, obviously—it’s deadly.”
I gave a little gasp. “Potassium chloride? Isn’t that the stuff they use . . .”
“In lethal injections, yes.” He paused again. “You do realize why they told me this? And why I’m telling you now?”
“Because I was the one who discovered her?”
“Yes, and because it does seem likely, as you’ve already suspected, that the injection was intended for you.”
I swallowed. It felt very cold suddenly in Elias’s basement kitchen.
“That’s not all, I’m afraid. The man you’ve been chasing. Nadeem Siddiqui. He was on a US counterproliferation watch list. They keep tabs on the people who work at Pakistan’s nuclear labs when they travel. Standard practice. I suspect so they can try to recruit them to spy for us. I don’t know if it worked in Siddiqui’s case. Or if he’d done anything in particular to arouse suspicion. At any rate—” Hyde stopped for a moment. “At any rate, he’s dead. Nadeem Siddiqui is dead. His lab in Pakistan apparently reported it yesterday.”
37
Shaukat Malik leaned into the Oval Office and smiled.
He was delighted to find it looked as he’d imagined it, as he’d seen it so often on TV. Through long windows he could see the Rose Garden and beyond it the emerald lawn unspooling. Inside, carefully arranged, stood emblems of power: the thick carpet with its presidential seal, a pair of richly decorated flags, and of course the famous desk. He couldn’t help a little shiver of excitement from traveling down his spine.
“Very nice, very nice,” he said respectfully, catching his guide’s eye. “What a great honor.”
This was his last task. The last time he would personally face danger. All the hours, all the sweat, all the roads, had led to here. He and the man posing tonight as his grandfather would be engaging in an elaborate performance. They each had specific roles to play. This morning they had rehearsed in Malik’s hotel room, practicing where to stand, what to say. Malik was cast as the eager tourist, the older man as the senile patriarch of the family. It was all scripted. If they could pull this off, the rest would be out of Malik’s hands.
He had held his breath on the way into the White House, as guards inspected his passport photo and scanned the bar code into their machine. He willed himself to look casual, to keep the beads of sweat from appearing at his temple. No matter. It was a hot night. Everyone was sticky. He felt rivers of sweat roll down his back.
“What a scorcher, huh?” asked one of the guards, motioning him through the metal detector and then handing back his wallet and belt. The guard was sweating too. Malik nodded. Everything was in order. They made him leave his cell phone behind. No electronic gadgets or cameras allowed on West Wing tours. Not even these private, after-hours, friends-and-family visits.
But he had known about this. It was taken care of. Another phone was already waiting for him, inside. He found it right where it was supposed to be, taped under the seat of the second-from-the-left chair in the West Wing waiting room. Easy. He made as if to tie his shoe, leaned over, unpeeled the tape, and slid the phone into his pocket.
He wanted to test it, and this proved easy too. He waited until their guide appeared and introduced himself as Daniel. Then Malik made an embarrassed gesture and asked for the men’s room. Inside the stall he tapped in the password he’d been given. The phone lit up. He clicked on the camera and selected VIDEO. The recording light glowed. He hit pause and stuffed the phone back in his pocket. He was ready.
Daniel turned out to be disconcertingly eager and chatty. This, despite the fact that giving after-hours tours couldn’t rank among his more thrilling duties as a White House aide.
“Well, you two excited? Here we go,” Daniel chirped. “Now, we’re not going to be visiting any of the fancy formal state rooms. That’s for the regular tourists. The hoi polloi.” He winked and led them to the press briefing room, then steered the men to seats in the front row. Daniel ducked behind the podium and mimed the daily ritual of the grilling of the White House press secretary and other senior officials. Malik nodded politely. What a strange country.
“All right, down these stairs now.” Daniel swept ahead of them. “Here we are. The White House mess. They do a mean breakfast taco here. At least I hear they do. Only senior staff eat here. Anyway, where you guys from? How you liking this heat?”
Malik marveled at the seemingly bottomless American capacity for small talk. “We’re from Baltimore,” he replied. “Not originally, but that’s where we live now. The whole family’s there.” This was the cover story they had rehearsed.
Daniel seemed to buy it. “Cool. Baltimore. The harbor there is really cool. And your grandfather? He, uh, doesn’t speak much English, I guess?”
Malik looked at the elderly man. He was smiling in a vaguely demented way and studying a lunch menu tacked to the wall.
“No, but Grandpa picks up more than he lets on.” Malik hoped this was the case. Before this morning, he had never actually met the man now playing his grandfather.
“But, so how did you guys get on an insiders’ tour?” Daniel persisted. “These are pretty hard to get, you know. You must know somebody high up.”
“It is my grandfather’s dream—since he became an American citizen—to come see the president at his home, and thank him,” Malik lied smoothly, ignoring the actual question that had been asked.
Daniel laughed. “Yeah, well, I don’t know if we’ll be meeting the president tonight. But we’ll get you close.”
Malik and the old man feigned interest at the locked door to the Situation Room (“Sorry—even I can’t go in there”), and then, finally, they were headed back upstairs. Daniel led the way down a corridor and around a corner. They passed the stately Cabinet Room, then the Roosevelt Room. Malik pretended to admire the portraits on the walls. Daniel waved hello to a Secret Service agent tucked behind a workstation.
At last they stopped. “All right,” said Daniel. “Time for the grand finale. The most famous room on the tour. Are you two ready?”
Behind Daniel’s back, the old man cocked his head and raised his eyebrows at Malik. Malik nodded, almost imperceptibly. Grandpa nodded back. Together they turned and looked into the room.
The Oval Office was brightly lit, immaculately neat, and empty. A velvet rope prevented them from actually stepping inside. But that was no matter. Malik could see everything he needed from the doorway. His fingers closed around the phone in his pocket. He would only have a minute, perhaps less.
Just as they had rehearsed, the old man began to mumble, “Maaf karna . . . ” Then, louder: “Maaf karna, my wallet, must have dropped . . .” Grandpa shuffled with surprising agility back toward the Cabinet Room.
“Hang on, you can’t—” Daniel streaked after him. The Secret Service guard stood up. As he rounded the corner the old man dropped to his hands and knees, cursing loudly in Urdu. Dan
iel and the guard swore in surprise and followed.
Now.
Malik yanked the phone from his pocket. He undid the pause button, and the video began recording. He swept the camera around the room behind him, so there would be no mistaking where he stood. Then he zoomed in and locked the picture tight on his face. There was hatred in his eyes. He had memorized what he would say, timed it so he would not stumble and lose his place. He spoke quickly now, in a low voice and directly into the microphone.
“As-salaam alaikum. My brothers, my sisters, do you see where I am tonight? Do you see where the mujahideen have reached?
“America, do you think you can send your spies into our country, send your drones to kill our people, send your assassins to kill the great sheikh inside his own home? Well, here we are inside your home. Inside your White House. Who is powerful now?
“Inshallah, we will take our revenge. You will see the power of a Muslim bomb. God willing, Islam is coming to the world.”
As he said the last words, he heard the crash of something being knocked from a table and hitting the floor. The old man was still cursing loudly, a calculated attempt to mask the sound of Malik speaking. It sounded like he was being pulled to his feet. Malik was out of time. He hit stop and shoved the phone deep into his pocket. He prayed the file would save correctly.
Daniel appeared red-faced at the door. “I think we need to go now. Your grandfather’s had quite enough for one night.” The Secret Service agent had the old man’s arm twisted underneath his own. His radio was crackling. Two more guards appeared.
“This old geezer?” one of them asked.
The two were whisked back to the main waiting room. The guards stepped aside and conferred. There appeared to be some discussion as to whether the commotion in the Cabinet Room required follow-up. Daniel stood tensely off to the side.
Then the old man began to chuckle softly. He held up his hand in the air. He was clutching a wallet.
Malik played along. “In your pocket, Papa? The whole time?”
“But different pocket, wrong pocket,” the old man croaked. He shrugged his shoulders in an apologetic way and let the glazed look creep back over his eyes. His mouth hung slack. He looked ancient, feeble.
The guards appeared to reach a decision. “Enough already,” one of them snapped. “Thanks very much for coming. Out you go. This way, thank you, gentlemen . . .”
Malik caught Daniel’s eye and mouthed a thank-you. Then they were walking back down the driveway. There was no security check to exit the White House. Malik dropped his temporary ID in a bin and collected the phone he’d had to check on the way in. He put it in his pocket next to the new one. They spun through a revolving gate and walked together in silence down the block to Seventeenth Street, just in case anyone was watching. At the corner they turned and faced each other.
“You recorded the video?” the older man asked in perfect English.
“Yes.”
“Good.” He turned and walked swiftly away.
Malik stood still and looked up at the starry night sky. It was still warm outside. The smells of bus fumes and fresh-cut grass hung in the air. A few tourists wandered past.
He allowed himself a small smile. He had done it.
38
Lucien Sly hunched over his desk and studied the contents of the folder. This latest assignment was bizarre, even by the standards of his line of work.
Photographs of Alexandra James were fanned across his work surface. They captured her smiling in her official picture on the Chronicle website . . . in profile walking into a terminal at Heathrow Airport . . . sitting two days ago outside a café on Old Compton Street in London. In this last one she was staring in the direction of the camera, a feisty look on her face, as if she knew she was being photographed. It was disconcerting.
When the classified file on Alex James had landed in his in-box yesterday, his first thought was that it must be a joke. Some of the blokes down at Vauxhall Cross taking the Mickey. Perhaps someone had spotted them together at the Eagle pub the other night and decided to have a laugh.
But this had turned out not to be the case. Incredibly, Alex appeared to be a legitimate surveillance target for MI6. Awkward to be asked to monitor someone when you were in fact already sleeping with her.
What was not clear from the file was why she had been singled out for surveillance. Yes, she had been asking questions about Nadeem Siddiqui. And, yes, Lucien had stupidly made a few phone calls for her. Trying to impress her, showing off. But it had seemed a lark, calling the fruit company, not something that touched on Lucien’s real work. Siddiqui was leaving England, going home. His folder was about to be closed. Honestly, who cared why the Pakistani liked his bananas?
Spying on an American civilian was not something British intelligence would enter into lightly, so Lucien could only assume the CIA was involved or at least being kept informed. But again, why? His request for further information had been rebuffed; the answer that came back from headquarters boiled down to You don’t need to know so could you just shut up please and get on with it.
He frowned and switched on his espresso maker. It was so bloody typical.
His father had warned him that a career with the Secret Intelligence Service would prove frustrating. It was a bit . . . common. And the history of the service was riddled with scandal and failure. Remember that whole sordid business with the Cambridge Five spies, his father had argued—who wants to get mixed up with that lot? But then, his father was a duke. It wasn’t as if he were ever actually going to work for a living. The same was true for Lucien’s eldest brother, and arguably, even the middle one. But the third son of a duke . . . well, he could find himself with time on his hands.
And so it had come as a relief when the master of Lucien’s undergraduate college had discreetly invited him for tea during his final year. He had glided through university, was about to finish with a first in languages, but he had no clear idea what to do with his life. The master had quizzed him in French, then Italian, then German—then asked how he might feel about picking up Arabic. Love to, Lucien replied. Good. There were some gentlemen he should meet in London, the master had said. Things happened quickly after that.
Two years later, life as a spy for MI6 was proving nothing like Lucien had imagined. He was aware, thank you very much, that James Bond was a work of fiction. But was it too much to ask for a small crumb of adventure, given that all over the world at this very moment arms deals were probably being struck, terrorist plots hatched, dictators covertly toppled? And here he was, stuck in rudding Cambridge, where the most radical idea put forward all week was whether to banish the Latin blessing at formal hall.
Lucien longed to travel. It was what MI6 did, for God’s sake; the agency’s raison d’être was to collect foreign intelligence. Affairs on British soil were supposed to fall to their rather less glamorous sister spy service, MI5. And Lucien had traveled a bit, in the beginning. But it became apparent that he suffered an unusual disadvantage: He was too well connected in London society. He could move in circles no other recruit could penetrate. His assignments soon trended toward dinners in Belgravia with Russian oligarchs, Saudi princes, German financiers. Lucien moved with ease at their parties because they were the type of parties he would have been invited to anyway. He was simply too valuable at home to be sent abroad.
His cover was not exactly creative. He was supposed to be a graduate student at Cambridge, pursuing his PhD in the department of Middle Eastern Studies. His Arabic was coming along quite well, not that it looked as if he would ever have the chance to use it. And from this post he was free not only to travel regularly to London, but to investigate the many people of interest who passed through the university.
Pakistani nuclear scientists, for example. He had been asked to watch Siddiqui months ago. Standard operating procedure. Pakistan was currently generating terrorists and nuclear weapons at equally alarming rates. Despite their public protestations of confidence, neither Lon
don nor Washington were at all convinced that Pakistan’s weapons were safe. Thus almost anytime someone with knowledge of the nuclear program traveled to the West, he was monitored. Probably approached too, with an eye to persuading him to sell his country’s secrets. Whether this had happened in Nadeem Siddiqui’s case, Lucien did not know. That was above his pay grade. He was just supposed to keep an eye on the guy.
This had not been difficult. Siddiqui kept a low profile. He got up to little worth reporting. Lucien had noted his budding friendship with Thom Carlyle. It seemed an unlikely pairing, the golden-boy jock from America and the taciturn Pakistani. The two had met for lunch a couple times. Lucien did not know what they had discussed. He began keeping tabs on Carlyle as well. That had had the fringe benefit of bringing Petronella into his orbit. An enjoyable if not entirely professional detour. Lucien had felt guilty the first few times his job had led to trysts. But he was learning that MI6—an agency that broke the law in other countries as a matter of routine—did not pass judgment when its officers indulged in the occasional moral lapse.
Now, though, Thom Carlyle was dead. And the whole situation with Alex—it was one twist too many. It was one thing to meet someone through your work and end up in bed with her. It was quite another to meet someone through your work, end up in bed with her, and then have her photograph appear on your computer screen as your next surveillance target. He was having trouble sorting through the ethics implications. No, forget the ethics—he was having trouble sorting through the basic mechanics of what was going on. The Crispin Withington encounter, for example, struck Lucien as extremely odd. Who had that man really been? The choice of such a clumsy cover identity seemed amateur for an intelligence agency. But who else could it be?
He reached for his coffee. It had gone cold. Then he looked again at the file. Now that Alex had left the UK, he was supposed to submit a short final report on where she had gone and whom she had spoken to while here. Tricky, given that she’d spent half her time in bed with him. He was also required to provide his professional assessment of the subject’s state of mind.
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