But now the president was asking about nuclear retaliation. The president believed this bomb might go off. And if he believed it, Duto had to believe it, too. A nuclear bomb on American soil.
“I want a show of hands,” the president said. “If you believe nuclear retaliation is justified, raise your hand.”
There were seven of them in the room, not counting the president and his chief of staff. Seven hands rose. “Now, what if it’s a Russian nuke but we can’t be sure the Russians were involved? What then?”
Christ, Duto thought. Can I? Can we? But he kept his hand up. There could be no excuses. No honest mistakes. Someone would have to pay. And as he looked around the room, he saw he was in the majority. Only the secretary of state and the director of the FBI had lowered their hands. Five-to-two in favor of retaliation.
“Doomsday it is,” the president said. He didn’t smile.
34
N°. Bashir heard a voice, not inside his head but a real voice, a man speaking. Had he fallen asleep? The clock said 1:58, so he must have. But he hadn’t. He was sure. He sat up and looked around, but the room was empty. It had spoken with such power. Allah? Muhammad? Whoever had spoken, he needed to obey.
No. He couldn’t allow it. He would go to the stable and take the the uranium and disappear. Maybe he would go directly to the police. Or he would simply vanish. In a day or two, he’d call Thalia and tell her to go back to Egypt, call Nasiji and Yusuf and tell them to leave, that the police would be raiding the house and the stable.
Either way, Washington would still be standing tomorrow. Yes. He breathed slowly, inhaling and exhaling five times, a step he sometimes took before entering the operating room. He waited for doubts but felt none. He was making the right decision. He touched his wife’s forehead and she stirred in her sleep. And then he rolled out of bed and noiselessly padded to the rocking chair—a relic of the house’s previous owners—where he’d stacked his jeans and sneakers and sweater.
HE PADDED DOWN the second-floor hallway, sneakers cradled in his hands, trying not to set off the creaky wooden planks. He edged past the bedroom where the Repard kids had once lived and where Nasiji and Yusuf now slept in twin beds decorated with Star Wars blankets.
A plank groaned lightly and Bashir pulled his weight off it and leaned against the wall waiting for Nasiji or Yusuf to rouse. But the rhythm of their breathing didn’t change. So Bashir slipped down the stairs and pulled on his shoes and walked out the kitchen door and—
Creak!—
How had he forgotten the soft plank on the porch? He waited for the house lights to come on, for Nasiji and Yusuf to emerge. I heard something outside. I wanted to check.
The house stayed silent. After a minute, Bashir headed down the path connecting the house and the stable, a river of brown brick between the snow-covered ground on either side. Yusuf cleared the path every day. He seemed to enjoy shoveling. Bashir wondered what Yusuf thought of the bomb. He’d never said. He reminded Bashir of a tiger at the zoo in Cairo, a big lazy beast. Once the tiger had strolled to the front of his cage and pushed himself up on his hind paws and leaned against the bars. He towered over Bashir, three meters from his paws to the black tip of his nose. He yawned and turned his head and looked Bashir up and down, slowly, almost gently. Meat, his eyes said. And I’m hungry.
Yusuf had eyes like that. Bashir would be happy never to see them again.
IN THE STABLE, Bashir flicked on a penlight, followed its narrow beam to the Spear round with the uranium cap attached. It sat on a steel workbench beside the bomb, just where he’d left it. He would need less than a minute to grab it, get to the Suburban, be gone. He fingered his car keys, safe in his pocket. Good.
Was he sure? He was. He walked across the stable, picked up the cap.
He was halfway back to the door when the lights clicked on—
And Yusuf walked in, pistol in hand.
Bashir froze. “Yusuf,” he said. “I was worried. So stupid of us to leave it out—”
“Hush.”
“You must have the wrong idea.”
“Thalia said this might happen. She told Sayyid.”
Bashir found himself shaking his head. “Thalia . . .” My Thalia? My wife?
His wife had betrayed him? Impossible. But apparently not, because here came Yusuf, stalking toward him, blocking the door—
And Bashir ran.
Not for the door. Running for the door meant running toward Yusuf. He ran for the blue tarp they had put over the hole in the stable wall, the hole blown open when they tested the dummy bomb. The hole was narrow and splintery and Bashir wasn’t sure he would fit but it was his only chance. If Nasiji had wanted to talk things over, he would have come, too. Instead he’d sent Yusuf, gun in hand, with one order and one order only.
Yusuf didn’t shoot when Bashir started to run. Bashir guessed he was afraid of hitting the bomb. Bashir dropped the uranium plug and tore at the tarp, tugging it from the nails that held it to the walls. He squirmed through, the splinters from the wall cutting at his hands—
And heard Yusuf ’s pistol bark and felt the burn in his right shoulder at the same time. The impact of the shot shoved him through the hole and into the snow behind the stable. He landed hard, and when he tried to catch himself with his right hand, a blast of pain shot up his arm and through his shoulder and stole his breath. He couldn’t even scream.
Then he heard the second shot. It missed, scattering the snow in front of him, giving him the strength to pull himself up and run for the woods. A few hundred meters to the south, on the back side of this hill, a narrow creek marked the boundary between the Repard property and the state park behind it. Eventually the creek reached the state road that connected Addison and Corning. If he could just get to the road . . .
He blundered through the woods, cracking branches and scattering snow with every step. He knew he was leaving a trail, but he couldn’t help himself. His shoulder still hurt, but instead of an electric charge, now he felt a solid lump of heat and pain, as though a charcoal briquette had been sewn into his back.
Behind him, and not far, he heard Yusuf, blundering through branches. His one hope: Yusuf wasn’t used to this terrain either. Every thirty seconds or so, Yusuf’s flashlight caught Bashir, but each time Bashir ducked and turned sideways to escape. He forced himself not to look back. Whether Yusuf was ten meters away or a hundred didn’t matter. The creek. And then the road.
Even so, Bashir felt himself fading as he topped the hill and made his way down to the creek. The snow was thicker here, and Bashir’s jeans and sneakers were soaked and his feet had turned to blocks of wood. Though he wanted to run, he had to step carefully. He couldn’t risk a fall. Yusuf would surely be on him. His shoulder was still leaking blood, a warm trail down his chest and right arm.
“Stop,” Yusuf yelled behind him. “Stop running. Let’s talk about this.”
“The tiger speaks,” Bashir yelled back, but his breath was faint and he wished he’d said nothing.
“What?”
Bashir saved his breath and ran, step-step-step, through the woods, lifting his legs as high as he could, thinking of the soccer drills that he’d done as a kid, bouncing the ball off his knees. A thin cloud cover had blown in but the stars still threw off enough light to reveal the contours of the rolling earth under the snow.
Step-step-step . . .
“Stop!” Yusuf yelled again, his voice stronger, angrier. “You can’t escape. Be a man.”
The truth. No false promises of safety. The glare of Yusuf’s flashlight caught Bashir again, more powerfully now, and Bashir knew he must be only a few steps ahead. A surge of adrenaline and fear powered through him and his steps came more quickly, and though his shoulder and arm and chest were slick with blood, somehow he drew away. Behind him, he heard Yusuf stumble and curse, and for the first time since the stable lights had snapped on he thought he might live. He reached the bottom of the hill and the creek and turned and—
His rig
ht leg slipped through the thin creek ice and onto the slick stones underneath. He lost his balance and fell and landed square on his shoulder and the charcoal in his back burned hotter than ever. He screamed, a vicious sound that seemed to come from somewhere outside him, and he knew he needed to try to stand, but the pain was overwhelming . . .
The flashlight caught him and he heard Yusuf coming down the hill. He made one more try, grabbing the trunk of a birch beside the creek with his good left hand and pulling himself up. He reached his feet and stumbled forward in the thin snow alongside the creek . . .
But the light got stronger and stronger and he knew the tiger had him now . . .
Then his feet were kicked out and he crashed down and knew he wouldn’t be getting up again. His burial ground would be a bed of pine needles in a country that wasn’t his.
“Turn around,” Yusuf said above him, and Bashir didn’t argue. The time for argument was through. He pushed himself against a log and rolled over and stared into the blinding glare of Yusuf’s flashlight. Behind the light, Yusuf’s breaths came fast, and despite his terror Bashir congratulated himself for making Yusuf run.
Yusuf reached down for him and Bashir promised himself that whatever happened he wouldn’t beg and then—
Yusuf reached under his good left arm and pulled him up and frog-marched him back to the stable, retracing his steps. Bashir could hardly see the path and twice needed to lean against a tree to rest. He supposed he was going into shock from the blood he’d lost.
The third time he tried to rest, Yusuf reached over and squeezed his bad shoulder and the pain brought him back to reality for a few seconds. “Coward,” Yusuf said. “We’re almost there.”
IN THE STABLE, Nasiji waited for them.
“Sit down, Bashir,” he said, and Bashir stumbled gratefully down.
“Stable floor,” he said. “No better or worse than pine needles.”
“Shut up and look at me,” Nasiji said. Bashir raised his head. “Are you a spy, Bashir?”
“No. Are you, Sayyid?”
“Then why?”
“It’s too much,” Bashir said. “Much too much.”
“So you tried to destroy all we’ve done? All of us, you included? Yusuf always said you were weak.”
Bashir’s head drooped. But he did mean to ask something. What? Then he remembered. “Did Thalia—”
“Tell us? Of course she did.”
Bashir closed his eyes. “Do what you want with him, Yusuf,” Nasiji said, and Bashir heard him walk away. And then Yusuf’s steady breathing was the only sound in the stable.
“You shouldn’t have run,” Yusuf said. “I would have made this easier. Traitor.”
Bashir opened his eyes to see Yusuf whetting a blade.
“Don’t worry, Yusuf,” he said. “It’ll be easy enough.”
And when Yusuf kneeled astride him and dug the knife into his gut and tore open skin and sinew and arteries—
And then repositioned himself and raised and lowered the blade into Bashir as rhythmically, mechanically as a jackhammer cutting concrete.
Bashir didn’t argue, didn’t even scream. He just closed his eyes and saw the tiger in the Cairo zoo. And, sure enough, the pain rose like the whine of a teakettle and then disappeared.
THEN ONLY A MAN and a corpse were left in the stable, twined as lovers, and Yusuf’s breath came fast and hot as he worked the knife into Bashir’s throat and face. Yusuf chopped until the body underneath him no longer had a nose or ears or eyes or a mouth. Even then Yusuf wasn’t satisfied, even then he wanted to do more, but he couldn’t think of anything else. So he dug the blade into Bashir’s chest and left it there and stood and walked out of the stable and into the clean white snow.
35
Wells opened his eyes and woke, as sharply as a bat snapped in half over an angry batter’s knee, to find Exley standing over him. He didn’t know how long he’d slept but he felt strong and ready, his reflexes fueled by the sure knowledge of combat to come.
“Time is it?”
“Eight.” Six hours. He’d been out longer than he thought.
“Did you sleep, Jennifer? You shouldn’t push like this.” She looked slack, exhausted, her face shiny with sweat. Even as he stood up, she sagged against his desk.
“We tracked them into the country,” she said. “They flew from St. John’s to Newark. January 13. Canadian passports.”
“We’re sure.”
“Checked their pictures with the crew on the Juno. It’s them. They came in under the names Jad Ghani and Kamel al-Bachary. From Montreal. The Canadians have addresses and are waiting for our go to kick down doors up there. That’s the good news. Bad news is there’s nothing on this end. The airlines and rental agencies don’t have anything in their databases. They used other names for the rentals, or didn’t fly or rent a car. Or didn’t use a national agency.”
“These guys.”
Exley closed her eyes. “FBI has every agent between Boston and Washington hitting rental companies, see if anybody recognizes their pictures. They’re trying to get them done by noon, then on to hotels and motels. Meanwhile we got a warrant for the credit card companies. But those databases are so big it’ll take some time to check their names.”
“Anything else?”
“All the toll takers at the bridges and tunnels into New York and up and down Ninety-five have their pictures. Though if they have an E-Z Pass, it won’t make a difference. We put some radiation sniffers on the Beltway and the tunnels, too, but if the bomb’s properly shielded, they won’t do much. Specially if it’s HEU and not plutonium.”
“So basically if we can’t find them before they leave whatever safe house they’re at . . .”
Now Exley looked at Wells. “The odds are bad, yes. Not impossible, but bad.”
“The Germans get anything yet?”
“The kid, Bernard’s son, Helmut, he’s talking, confirms he saw one of them. The guy who came in under the Jad passport. Says the guy spoke German and that Bernard always called him Sayyid. But nothing more, no phone numbers or e-mails or anything.”
“How about Penn State? Anything there?”
“Nothing yet.”
“So when do we go public?”
“Hasn’t been decided.”
“What about the Russians?”
“We gave them the names and pictures and they said they’ll get back to us. Last I heard, they still haven’t told us what’s really in the crates or even confirmed these guys are connected to the missing material. The president’s going to talk to Medvedev directly as soon as possible, but who knows what that’ll do. And the White House is trying to figure out whether they should cancel the State of the Union tonight. So there’s your update.”
Wells laid the back of his hand on Exley’s forehead to test her temperature and found her running a fever. “You ought to lie down, Jenny.”
“I’ll sleep in the infirmary for a couple of hours.”
“Why don’t you go home?”
“Why don’t you come with me?”
He was silent. Her eyes went wet and then her cheeks and eyes hardened, her face becoming a mask, the emotion disappearing inch by inch. Say yes, he told himself. You don’t have to do this. But he did.
“You know,” she said. “I’ll go home, wait for you. You don’t even have to come. If you can promise me one thing. Promise me when we find these guys, you won’t go after them. You’ll sit tight here with Ellis.”
“It’s my op.”
“They’ll put half the army in the air. They don’t need you. You’re in the way. And it goes off, what then? You going to outrun the fireball?”
“I can’t ask someone else to take a risk I won’t take myself.”
She put her arm around his neck. A peace offering. “You’ve taken enough risks. Some might say you’ve gotten greedy. Let someone else have this one. Come home.”
He didn’t know how to convince her. Probably because she was right. After a minute of sile
nce, she ran her hand down his arm, took his hand.
“This thing you have in you, this thing that won’t let you stop, I have it, too,” she said. “I came back here. I swore I wouldn’t, but I did. The difference between you and me is that I have some other things, too. My kids. I thought I had you. You, you just have this.”
“I have a son. I have you.”
“You haven’t seen Evan in how long? And you don’t have me, John. You don’t.” She stood and kissed him on the lips, a wet openmouthed kiss that brought him back to their very first kiss, barely two years before, on a day when she’d saved his life and nearly died in the process.
The kiss went on and he closed his eyes and pulled her to him. But she put a hand on his face and pushed him away. And without another word, she walked out.
THE CALL CAME three hours later. An FBI team had found the Avis office in Morristown, New Jersey, where “Jad” and “Kamel” rented their car. The agent who’d been working on January 13 wasn’t at the office when they arrived. But when they tracked him to his apartment, he immediately recognized the photographs. Jad had rented a Pontiac G6, dark blue, 11,347 miles, for a month. He’d used an international driver’s license and a Turkish passport and a MasterCard, all in the name of Dawood Askari. How exactly he’d gotten those useful items was a question they’d answer later.
For now they had the name he was using in the United States. And something even more precious. Avis equipped its vehicles with LoJack, the antitheft system, which could be activated remotely to broadcast a stolen car’s location. According to the system, the G6 was parked on a farm outside the town of Addison, New York—three hundred miles from Washington, and slightly closer to Manhattan. The farm belonged to a surgeon named Bashir Is’mail, who worked at a hospital in Corning.
The Silent Man Page 34
