by Stuart Woods
“Recently, an attempt was made by al Qaeda to place and detonate a nuclear device in our country. The location will remain classified, but I’m glad to tell you that, because of cooperation among our intelligence services, agents of the Secret Service and others were able to learn of the plot, find the device, and disable it. The plot was attempted by a small cell of al Qaeda operatives, which included a foreign expert in the design of bombs. You should know that al Qaeda no longer has the capability of carrying out such an attack, because all the people who were a part of the plot, including the designer and builder of the device, were killed while resisting arrest—all but one.”
A passport photo appeared on-screen. “This woman is Jasmine Shazaz. She is of Middle Eastern origin and was educated in Britain, and she is the chief suspect in a series of recent bombing attacks in London and New York. She has no capability of building a nuclear device, but she does have access to powerful explosives, and she is being sought by the CIA, the FBI, and the New York City Police Department as we speak. A five-million-dollar reward has been offered for information leading to her capture, and anyone with information concerning her whereabouts may telephone the toll-free number displayed on the screen and offer that information with the assurance of anonymity.
“Besides New York, she may have contacts in the following cities: Boston, Chicago, Los Angeles, and Atlanta, so citizens in those cities should be watchful. She is certain to be carrying false identification papers, and it is possible that she has taken steps to change her appearance.
“I wanted you all to know that your security forces are working hard and effectively to protect the nation from such plots, and that, once again, we have foiled and weakened al Qaeda. Thank you for your attention and good night.”
The anchorman came back to the screen. “Well, that was a breathtaking announcement,” he said. “Anybody have any thoughts about why the president went public with this?”
“Scott,” the White House correspondent said, “I’m inclined to think that he made the announcement because he thought the story might break anyway, and he wanted to get out in front of it. And that’s just what he has done. I think it’s reassuring that the president seemed so relaxed in saying what he did—not even sitting behind the Oval Office desk. He seemed perfectly comfortable and confident. And I have to say that I can’t remember any time, ever, that a president has promoted a manhunt—or, in this case, a womanhunt—for a fugitive terrorist. I expect they must want her very badly.”
The anchorman nodded. “And I expect that the president’s participation will make it much harder for this terrorist to elude the authorities. Her photograph has already been widely circulated in New York, and the president has just made it impossible for her to feel safe anywhere in the United States. Every law enforcement officer, airline ticket agent, and gas station attendant in the country is going to be checking every face that appears before him, not to mention ordinary citizens who are interested in collecting a five-million-dollar reward.”
Stone switched off the TV. “Well, he was right, it was a breathtaking announcement. I expect Kelli Keane is already on the phone to her editor, dictating her story.”
“No, she isn’t,” Holly said. “The court order permanently enjoined her from ever speaking or writing about the events in L.A., and right this minute, I can assure you, she is wringing her hands and bemoaning her fate.”
“How about Jim Rutledge?”
“He was enjoined as well, and they both took it seriously. I have it on good authority that, after I left their apartment, they swore never to discuss the events with anybody, even with each other.”
“And how could you know that?”
“Let’s just say that there was a witness to their conversation.” She set down her glass. “I’m hungry,” she said. “Let’s go out for some dinner.”
“We’ll celebrate,” Stone said, joining her.
Habib watched from across the street as a man and a woman left the Turtle Bay house and hailed a cab. He sat in a parked black Lincoln Town Car, hundreds of which infested the streets of Manhattan and the suburbs, and many of which could be hailed and taken anywhere. The owner of this particular car rested uneasily in the trunk, bound and gagged, as Habib started the car and fell in behind the taxicab.
The journey led past the black SUV, with government plates, parked in front of the house, around the block to Third Avenue, then uptown, past Bloomingdale’s a block or two, where it stopped and disgorged its passengers into an Italian restaurant called Isle of Capri.
—
Holly looked around as they were seated. “Somehow it feels like an earlier decade,” she said. “Late twentieth century.”
“It’s one of the last family-owned Italian restaurants alive in this city. There are two, maybe three generations at work here.”
The owner came and greeted them and, with their drinks, a waiter brought chunks of Parmigiano-Reggiano, olives, and a jug of extra virgin olive oil and balsamic vinegar.
“There’s enough here for dinner,” Holly said.
“Think of it as your first course.”
“Is the veal good?” she asked.
“Everything is good,” Stone replied. “Order whatever you feel like.”
“I feel like veal, maybe the piccata.”
“Good choice. I’m having the osso buco, in memory of Elaine.”
“That’s where we would be now, isn’t it? If she were still alive?”
“Certainly. It used to be that we didn’t have to think of a place to dine, we just went to Elaine’s. I went to her memorial service at a concert hall on the West Side last November, and Bill Bratton told a wonderful story about her.”
“Bratton, the former police commissioner under Giuliani?”
“Right—the one Giuliani forced out because he was getting the credit for his own work, which was making New York the safest big city in the world. Giuliani hated that he went to Elaine’s, because Bill’s picture would turn up on Page Six along with a description of what a great job he was doing, and that drove Giuliani crazy.
“Anyway, on Bill’s last day at work, Giuliani stopped by his office and gave him the key to the city. Bill and his wife, Rikki, were headed to Elaine’s for dinner with friends, and Elaine sat down with them and asked what was in the box on the table.
“Bill told her that Giuliani had given him the key to the city. She opened the box, looked at the key, and said, ‘I’ll bet the son of a bitch has already changed the locks!’”
“Oh, that sounds just like her!” Holly said, laughing.
—
Habib, looking through the restaurant window, saw the couple perusing the menu, and he got back into the Lincoln and drove back to Turtle Bay. The black SUV was still parked in front of the house, and its two occupants were reading newspapers.
He double-parked the Lincoln two blocks away and got a cab back to the West Side. Not wanting to get shot, he phoned Jasmine as he got out of the cab. “I’m home, honey,” he said. “Don’t blow my head off.” He inserted his key and let himself into the apartment.
Jasmine looked up from her Wall Street Journal. “Hey, you look great without the beard. How’d it go this evening?”
“Problematical,” Habib replied. “Do you know this Turtle Bay?”
“No.”
“I Googled it. It’s a neighborhood on the East Side that includes the United Nations, which is built on land created when the old Turtle Bay was filled in. Turtle Bay Gardens, which is where this Barrington lives, is a fashionable enclave of town houses built around a common garden. The actress Katharine Hepburn used to live in one of them. And this CIA woman, Holly Barker, is living there. We can’t get at her in the CIA building, but we can get at her at this house.”
“So, what kind of target is it?”
“The security on the place is holding. There are two men in a black SUV apparently permanently stationed out front, and our one successful foray into the garden turned up a man stationed
at the rear door.”
“What are its vulnerabilities?” Jasmine asked.
“There is an office on the ground floor. If we could get past the security and the house’s security system and pack it with explosives, it would bring the house down, along with the one next door, as well, but we can’t breach the outside door while those two agents are guarding the front of the house.”
“I have an idea,” Jasmine said, and she told him what it was.
“That could work,” Habib said. “But it would have to be in the middle of the night, and we’d have to block traffic at the corner for a short time, in order to accomplish what you want.”
“Where would the Barker woman and Barrington be in the middle of the night?”
“In bed at the upper rear of the house, I reckon. But if we brought down the building, they’d come down with it.”
“That’s the idea,” Jasmine said.
Jasmine woke up having discovered and, perhaps, solved a problem while she slept. She showered and dressed and walked into the living room, where Habib was having breakfast.
“I like the short haircut,” she said, joining him at the table and helping herself to the food.
“So do I,” Habib replied, running his fingers over his smooth face. “I don’t know why I didn’t do this sooner.”
“It’s a good thing you waited,” she said. “Made it easier to make a big change in your appearance.”
“I expect you’re right.”
“I thought about the Turtle Bay house last night,” she said.
“And?”
“We have to rethink it.”
“Why?”
“The way it’s set up now, we have to kill the two guards in the SUV out front, which may not be as easy as we think.” She held up a hand to stop him before she was interrupted. “And then we have to get the downstairs office door open quickly, which also may not be as easy as we think, and then we need to set up the device inside, run, then detonate it.”
“So?”
“Houses like that come with security systems, perhaps even very elaborate security systems. What does this guy Barrington do?”
“He has a cover as a lawyer, but he’s CIA.”
“How do you know that?”
“Because the assistant director of the CIA is living there with him.”
“Habib, did it ever occur to you that they may just be fucking?”
Habib stopped eating. “No,” he said. “A prominent woman like that?”
“Your thinking is very old-fashioned,” Jasmine said. “Prominent women need sex just as much as everyone else.”
“Well, we have a photograph of him entering the CIA office building with her. That says to me that he’s CIA.”
“Okay, so he’s CIA, but that helps make my point. If he is with the Agency, that house is going to be a fortress. Look at what happened when we tried to blow up the CIA building—almost nothing.”
“Do you have a solution to this problem?”
“How much of the plastique do we have left after the other two explosives?”
“A little over a hundred kilos.”
“That’s about two hundred and fifty pounds.”
“Yes, enough for many more jobs. We used only a kilo on the restaurant explosion.”
“Then we’ll use all of it for the Turtle Bay job.”
Habib’s jaw dropped. “Are you serious?”
“Entirely. How do we move it?”
“In a van. It’s in one-kilo blocks. We’d pack them into boxes holding about ten kilos and stack them together.”
“How do we detonate them all at once?”
“The detonators we have will set off a kilo block, then the resulting shock and heat from that explosion would be more than sufficient to set off the whole lot. It would happen so fast as to seem like one huge explosion.”
“And we can set off the one-kilo explosion with a cell phone?”
“Correct. The small electrical charge is enough to set off the blasting cap or detonator, which sets off the plastique.”
“I see.”
“Do you? I mean, do you have any idea what a hundred kilos of that stuff will do?”
“A very great deal, I should think.”
“It will take out not only Barrington’s house but at least half the houses in the block. Maybe all the houses in the block. The fireball created would set anything standing on fire.”
“How do we get it in place?”
“We drive a van into the block, already loaded and prepared, then we retreat several blocks away and call the number of the cell phone connected to the detonator.”
“Or we have a suicide bomber do it.”
“I’m not sure that the people available to us can be trusted to go through with it.”
“The others did it.”
“We used the best candidates first.”
“All right, we don’t need them, we’ll do it ourselves.”
“It’s entirely possible,” Habib said.
“We set it off from our escape car, then we head west.”
“All right,” Habib said.
“You still sound doubtful.”
“It’s just that I’ve never made and detonated a bomb this big before.”
“The bigger the bomb, the bigger the effect,” she said.
“If you like.”
Jasmine smiled. “I like.”
Lance Cabot stood on the far side of the Oval Office from the president’s desk and listened as he made his address to the nation. Once again, he was impressed at how Will Lee could project informality and sincerity in a talk on television. The president always spoke perfect standard English but still managed to engender an intimacy with his audience. Lance noted that there was no teleprompter present. Finally, he said good night, and a moment later the lights were turned off and the crew began removing equipment from the large room.
Kate Lee, who had been standing closer to her husband, in the doorway to his secretary’s office, walked over, kissed him on the lips, and whispered a few words in his ear, then the two of them, holding hands, walked across the room to where Lance stood.
“That was a remarkable job, Mr. President,” Lance said, offering his hand.
“Thank you, Lance. Hungry?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Then let’s head up to the quarters.”
“After you, sir.” Lance followed them out of the Oval Office and to the elevator. Once in the living room of the quarters, the president shucked off his jacket, and Lance was surprised to see that his shirt was soaked through with sweat.
“Let me slip into something more comfortable, and I’ll be right back,” the president said, then left the room.
“Let me get you a drink, Lance,” Kate said. “We’ll be having one.”
“A scotch on the rocks would be welcome, ma’am.”
“A blend or a single malt? We have, let’s see, Laphroaig and Glenfiddich.”
“The Laphroaig would be just fine.”
Kate poured the drink, then poured two bourbons and handed Lance his drink. “You’re not married, are you, Lance? How come?”
“Oh, I’ve had a couple of close brushes, but I’ve managed to stay out of serious trouble.”
Kate laughed. “That’s what Will used to say before I got him into serious trouble. Got a girl? Or a boyfriend?”
“A girlfriend. She lives with me most of the time.”
“Good for you. By the way, I was kidding about the boyfriend.”
“I know, ma’am.” She liked to needle him once in a while.
The president returned to the living room wearing khakis, a sport shirt, and loafers, then accepted the drink from his wife. “That’s better,” he said, sipping the bourbon. “I allow myself one before dinner. You never know when I might have to make a complicated decision.” He waved Lance to a chair. “Make yourself comfortable, Lance. Dinner will be another half an hour.”
Lance slipped into a soft armchair, and the first
couple sat on the sofa facing him. He noticed that they sat close together rather than at opposite ends. It was the first time he had dined in the family quarters, and he was surprised how at ease they were with each other.
Kate poked Will in the ribs. “Speak,” she said.
“Oh, yes, I almost forgot—must be the bourbon. Lance, I’ve decided to appoint you director of Central Intelligence.”
Lance nearly dropped his drink. He had thought this might be an interview, but he hadn’t expected an outright offer. This meant that Kate must be stepping down. “I accept, Mr. President, with gratitude.”
“Good. Got that out of the way. Your turn, sweetheart.”
“Here’s how it’s going to go,” Kate said. “First, we have to get this Jasmine thing out of the way. When that’s done, I’ll resign, and Will will appoint you. He’ll announce the two things simultaneously in a small ceremony in the White House briefing room, on live TV.”
Lance nodded. “Yes, I should think you’d want Jasmine behind you before you step down.” He wanted it that way, too; he definitely did not wish to inherit that problem.
The president spoke up again. “I’ve spoken with Senator Jeff Barnes, whom you know from your occasional testimony before the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, and he sees no obstacle to a smooth confirmation process. By appointing a career professional we take politics out of the equation, so there should be little if any opposition from across the aisle. And, of course, we need only Senate confirmation.”
“I understand, sir.”
“Both Kate and I admire the way you’ve conducted yourself since becoming deputy director for operations,” the president said, “and I mean that as much for how you’ve dealt with Senator Barnes and his committee as for the operations you’ve conducted. The committee is well versed in how you’ve handled that part of your job, and because virtually everything you’ve done is classified, there won’t be any public testimony. I expect questioning will be mostly on what sort of future you see for the Agency, especially the new domestic part of it. You and Senator Barnes will have an opportunity to talk in depth about that, and I think you would be wise to incorporate some of his views into your testimony.”
