by John Case
He considered knocking out a satellite, but rejected the idea. For one thing, he wasn’t sure he could do it. For another, the incident might not be publicly reported. Then, too, he didn’t want to interfere with airline traffic before Irina arrived.
Yet another target, and a tempting one, was the Church of Latter-Day Saints – the Mormon Temple. For one thing, it was close, a straight shot, maybe four hundred miles east on the loneliest road in the world. More to the point, he had a grudge with the Mormons: They’d all but run the Paiutes off their traditional lands. It would be wonderful and fitting to trash the genealogical archives that were the Church’s bedrock. But it wouldn’t have much of an impact. Mormon researchers would be inconvenienced, and forced to work with paper until the records were restored. That would lead to fewer baptisms in the short run, but if you weren’t a Mormon, why would you care? Wilson didn’t.
That left SWIFT.
This was the acronym by which the Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication was known. A nearly invisible enterprise of massive import, SWIFT linked about 8,000 financial institutions in 194 countries, processing messages among them involving transactions adding up to more than six trillion dollars per day. And it wasn’t in New York.
It was in Culpeper, Virginia, a sleepy town in the shadow of the Blue Ridge Mountains. Even better, Culpeper would be a twofer, because another important financial institution was located there – the so-called Culpeper Switch, the central node in the U.S. Federal Reserve banking system. Why these two important institutions had chosen such an obscure place to call home was a mystery. But it was a bonus for him. More buck for the bang, you might say.
He was guessing that in Culpeper, sightlines would prove no problem, and what’s more, he’d be using the weapon in the same way he intended to use it on June 22.
It was fun to think about where to strike. The beam was flexible, and he hadn’t decided exactly what degree of damage to inflict. Certainly, he didn’t want to create a new Tunguska – not with these targets. That would draw too much attention, too soon. Ideally, the tests should be less than catastrophic, a little ambiguous, even a bit subtle. Let people wonder: Was this an accident? Some kind of natural occurrence – or what? How had it happened? Once he deployed the weapon in the tower, everything would come apart at the seams – and America would know that it was under attack. Or had been. Because, by then, the war would be over. And there would be nothing subtle about it. (Nor would there be anything subtle about what was going to happen to Robbie Maddox. But that was different. That was personal.)
All of the hard physical work had transformed Wilson’s body. After two months at the B-Lazy-B, he was ripped. A healthy diet, along with the lifting and climbing and hauling, had turned his body hard. He’d never been this fit, not when he was running track and playing ball – not even when he was lifting weights in Allenwood.
It was a good time. Moving from one thermal pool to another at the end of the day, it occurred to Wilson that in many ways he’d never been happier. Lying back in the water, he luxuriated in its heat, the air on his face crisp and cold, redolent of pine and sulfur. Looking up through a canopy of trees, he saw a jet sliding silently across the sky, heading west – and the future flashed before his eyes, like so much spatter. Because, of course, it was going to be an abattoir. There was no way around it. He was an instrument of the past. Nothing more, and nothing less – the fulfillment of a prophecy.
He had been named for the man who created the Ghost Dance. At least, that’s what he’d been told. He’d never lived on a reservation himself, though Mandy had taken him to a few, insisting that he should be proud of his heritage – but that was wishful thinking. Until he’d gone to prison, he’d more or less seen his Indian identity as something to overcome, a stigma.
Mandy had to drag him to the one ritual that truly made an impression on him – the reenactment of the Sun Dance. At the time he’d complained about it. Getting up at dawn? Watching a bunch of old men sing and dance? But to his surprise, something about waiting in the cold and dark, something about the solemn anticipation in the midst of so many others who looked like him, had been a powerful and exhilarating experience.
It seemed as if he’d been almost ready to claim his cultural inheritance – but a few weeks afterward his life came apart and the opportunity was lost. The State took him away from Mandy, and he got caught up in trying to survive at his new foster home, with its God-squad parents and seven foster siblings. The closest he got to the Sun Dance again was to write a paper about it.
Until he’d gone to prison, “Jack Wilson” was just a name, a nod to history – like George Washington or Martin Luther King.
This changed once he found himself behind bars, stripped of his invention and his future. Then he realized there was a reason for the name: He was the reincarnation of Jack Wilson. He was the Ghost Dancer.
Suddenly, he understood that what happened to him wasn’t an aberration. It was a logical extension of the earlier genocide of Native Americans. Wilson’s imprisonment was inevitable. If anything, he thought, he was doubly doomed – once for his heritage, and again for his genius. Because, of course, the invasion had long since turned in upon itself, so that the whites were now devouring their best and brightest. Ayn Rand had taught him that.
Lying in the water with his eyes closed, wearing only the ghost shirt that was his skin, it occurred to Wilson that if revenge is a dish that’s best served cold, after ten years – a hundred years! two hundred years! – the temperature should be about perfect.
Thirty-one
London | May 15, 2005
MIKE BURKE STOOD by himself in a rainy breeze on the corner of South Audley Street and Grosvenor Square, watching a door at the side of the U.S. embassy. The day before, he’d seen a flood of workers pour out that door at the end of the day, avoiding the public entrance at the front. So he guessed this was the exit that Kovalenko would use.
It was almost five o’clock, and Burke had already been there for more than an hour. It would have been easier, of course, to wait outside the FBI agent’s apartment. It was probably somewhere around here, or over in Knightsbridge. But Kovalenko wasn’t listed in the telephone book or in any of the online directories Burke tried. To get an address, Burke would have to hire an investigator or sweet-talk someone who had access to the embassy’s internal directories. That would take a while, and he didn’t have the time.
So here he was, getting wet.
The line in front of the embassy snaked halfway around the block, organized by an airport-style rope-and-pole system. The queue was remarkably patient, almost docile, under a conga line of umbrellas. It was like a temporary village, linked to the outside world via dozens of cell phones. People were eating and playing cards, talking, reading, and changing diapers. Every so often, someone would dart around the block to use the facilities, then jog back to thank whoever it was that saved his place in line.
The day before, Burke had waited three hours to see Kovalenko, only to learn that the Legat was unable to “fit him in.” The soonest an appointment could be arranged, he was told, was in three weeks.
Three weeks! Meanwhile, Aherne & Associates would remain shuttered, the information about Wilson would go nowhere, and the old man would probably finish the job of drinking himself to death.
Burke had returned from his travels to Belgrade and Ljubljana to find Kate’s father wallowing in self-pity. “I’m like a clock that you wind with a spring,” he said with a chuckle, “and I can feel myself winding down …” Lest Burke didn’t get the point, he repeated the phrase with a raised eyebrow: “Winding down.” Burke hadn’t been gone for more than a week, but in that week Tommy had reached a point where sobriety was a foreign state. He’d taken to having an eye-opener with his morning coffee, which was a bit like kick-starting a Harley. Most afternoons, he had to be escorted home by one of his friends.
The way Burke saw it, a meeting with Kovalenko was urgent, regardless of any threat
Wilson might pose.
From where he stood, Burke made repeated calls from his cell phone to the embassy, asking to speak with the Legat. Each time, he was told that Mr. Kovalenko was in conference, or “away from his desk,” or simply not taking calls. Each time, Burke left a message, assuring the assistant that his business was urgent.
But nothing happened.
If it had been up to Tommy, that would have been the end of it. The old man was of the firm opinion that they should leave the matter to the Irish courts. Their solicitor was confident that Aherne & Associates would prevail, since they’d done nothing wrong. But it might take a while for the case to be heard.
“How long?” Burke had asked.
“With luck,” the solicitor replied, “we should be on the docket by the end of June.”
“June!” Burke and Tommy shouted in unison.
The solicitor had winced. “Or July.”
Which was why Burke was standing in a flying drizzle outside the embassy. He’d waited and waited, and called and called. Now, he was stalking the sonofabitch.
He’d met Kovalenko only once – at the “interview” in the Garda’s office. But he’d recognize him in an instant. The doughy face, the purselike mouth, the piggy little eyes … Time after time, he thought he saw the G-man coming out. But it was always someone else.
Surveillance was an odd business. It was deeply boring, except when it wasn’t, and then it was pure adrenaline. It required the same kind of unfocused attention that long drives demanded. You had to be there and not be there at the same time. Like Schrodinger’s cat.
Burke was beginning to feel conspicuous. It was only a matter of time before a marine guard or a bobby would ask him what he was doing there.
To this worry was added the fear that he might have missed his quarry, that Kovalenko had exited through another door. There must be a parking lot somewhere, behind the building or underground. Maybe Kovalenko had a car, in which case Burke might never see him. He’d almost talked himself into giving up, when Kovalenko came around the corner.
Burke was pretty good at spotting cops. There was something about the way they held themselves, the way they walked. And Kovalenko might as well have been wearing a uniform. In a sense, he was wearing a uniform. His hair was actually combed, and combed in a way that the comb’s teethmarks were embalmed in gel. He wore the regulation Dick Tracy suit, blue shirt, and striped tie. In his right hand, just below the requisite Rolex, was a shining black attaché case. His stride was that of a man who was privileged to carry a gun in a country that despised them.
Burke followed him around the corner and into the Nightingale Arms, a small pub that was all mahogany and cut glass. The place was crowded and smoky, with a mix of young men talking equities and Bond Street shop girls being beautiful.
People were two deep at the bar, where Kovalenko stood. Burke watched him catch the bartender’s eye. Money changed hands and, a moment later, the Legat held a glass of red wine. It was obvious from the interchange that Kovalenko was a regular. He probably came here every night after work.
The FBI agent sat down on a banquette at a small table in the corner, next to a young couple staring into each other’s eyes over pints of lager. Burke touched a chair no one was using.
“Okay if I sit here?”
Kovalenko made a magnanimous gesture: Be my guest.
It annoyed Burke that the G-man did not recognize him, but sat where he was, studying his nails. Which, Burke saw, were neatly manicured.
The crowd was a roar around them, the noise rising and falling like a chorus of cicadas in late summer. Inexplicable crescendoes and fades.
Burke leaned forward. “I followed you here,” he said.
Kovalenko’s eyebrows knitted together. He must have misunderstood. Leaning toward Burke, he cocked his head to the side, the better to hear. “Sorry?”
Burke got up from his seat, and squeezed onto the banquette next to Kovalenko, who suddenly found himself boxed in. “I followed you here,” Burke repeated.
Kovalenko blinked. Frowned. His eyes jumped left and right, then came to rest on Burke’s hands. Seeing them on the table, the Legat seemed relieved. “Why did you do that?”
Burke shook his head, and chuckled bitterly. “You don’t even remember who I am, do you?”
Kovalenko lifted his glass. Took a sip. Set it back down. He looked Burke up and down. Then he chuckled. “Dublin,” he said.
“Right.”
“You’re the Ayn Rand guy. It’s Burke, right?”
“Right.”
Kovalenko gave Burke an appraising look. “Okay, so … what can I do you for, Mr. Burke?”
“Well, I was hoping … maybe you’ll recall. You shut us down. My father-in-law’s company. I was hoping we could fix that.”
Kovalenko relaxed. He leaned back against the wall, and all the tension went out of his body. He looked at Burke as if Burke were a pane of glass, and sighed.
Which made Burke even angrier. But he kept it in. Reaching into his pocket, Burke pulled out a three-by-five card on which he’d carefully printed the following information:
Jack Wilson
P.O. Box 2000
White Deer, PA 17887
(Allenwood Prison)
Stanford University
“Calculating Vector Drag in Scalar Pair-Coupling”
“You were right about the guy you’re looking for,” Burke told him, handing the card to Kovalenko. “He’s dangerous.”
Kovalenko glanced at the card. “This is Mr. d’Anconia?”
Burke nodded.
“But I’m guessing this isn’t his current address,” Kovalenko said. “If it was, he wouldn’t be a problem.”
“No, he got out –”
“What’s this?” the Legat asked, holding the card up for Burke to see, snapping it with his finger. “Vector drag – what’s a vector drag?”
“That’s the reason Wilson went to Belgrade,” Burke told him. “He was researching a man named Tesla.”
“The inventor?”
“Right.” Burke was surprised the FBI agent had heard of him.
“So what does Mr. Wilson want with a dead inventor?” the Legat demanded. “Some kind of science project?”
Burke ignored the sarcasm. “I think he’s trying to build a weapon.”
Kovalenko chuckled. “A weapon! Well, that’s just great. Maybe he’ll invent the catapult.”
Burke acknowledged the joke with a smile, and a nod. He wanted to tell the man in front of him why Wilson should be taken seriously, but when Burke began to explain, the Legat cut him off, holding his hand up like a traffic cop.
“So, if I wanted to talk to Mr. Wilson, where would I find him?”
Burke shook his head. “I don’t know.”
“You don’t know.”
“Not exactly.”
“Well, how close can you get?” Kovalenko asked. “Is he in China? Brazil?”
“I don’t know where he is. What I gave you – his name – Allenwood – Stanford – that’s it. And it wasn’t easy to get.” He paused. “Look,” he said, “I think you should take this guy seriously. He’s –”
“Let me tell you something,” Kovalenko said in a bored voice. “I’ve got a lot on my plate. I got terrorist cells – real guys with bombs – up north. I’ve got problems with container ships and dirty bombs, snake-heads and Chechens. Not to mention the Nigerians, who are into everything. And guess what? I’m facing surgery. On my gallbladder! You realize how serious that is?”
Burke wanted to kill him. “How serious what is?” Burke asked. “The bombs or your gallbladder?”
Kovalenko smiled, as if Burke had just given him permission for something. “Let me explain it to you,” he said. “What this is all about – you and me, sitting here together, having a chat like we are – is cooperation. You want your business open? You want the indictment dropped? Help me find the guy.”
“I have,” Burke told him.
Kovalenko shook hi
s head, and sighed, feigning infinite patience. “Not really.” He took another sip of wine. “Truth is, yes! I’d love to have a chat with Mr.” – he glanced at the card – “Wilson. But I got to be frank with you. He’s nowhere near the top of my To Do list. And anyway,” he said, waving the card as if to dry it, “what good does this do me? It’s yesterday’s news.”
“It’s his name. The prison must have records. Stanford … You could find him.”
Kovalenko shrugged. “Maybe. But how does that help you? If I find him?”
Burke couldn’t believe it.
Kovalenko laughed. “You want to reopen, right?”
Burke nodded.
“Okay,” Kovalenko said, “what’s it called?” He frowned, pretending to think hard. “Asshole Associates, right? Something like that. You want to reopen Asshole Associates. No problem. Here’s what you do: You find your client! But find him before I do. Because if I find him first, it doesn’t do fuck-all for you. You understand what I’m saying? Don’t tell me where he was a couple of months ago. Because that doesn’t help me.”
Burke took a deep breath, and counted to five. “Let’s say I do find him –”
“Then we’ll have a deal,” Kovalenko told him, suddenly magnanimous. “I’ll tell the Garda to back off, and you can go back to doing what you do best: setting up fronts for people who cheat on their taxes.”
Burke took an even deeper breath. He wanted to hit the guy. Instead, he said, “How do I know you’ll do what you say?”
Kovalenko shrugged. “Because I always do what I say. Meantime, don’t call me. Don’t harass my assistant. She’s busy, and, as incredible as it may seem, I’ve got other priorities.”
Other priorities. It was all Burke could take. He sat where he was, watching the red mist descend in front of his eyes, trying to decide whether to bitch-slap the guy or head-butt him. It wouldn’t help things, he realized that, but it would give him a feeling of great satisfaction – if only for a little while.
