by Alex Lukeman
"Yes."
"Her plane lifted off and then it did something strange. It kind of joggled. In the air. Then the nose went down, then one wing tipped down and the plane went straight into the ground. It blew up. There wasn't anything I could do to stop it. Anything. I had to stand there and watch her die."
He put his hand over his eyes. "There was nothing I could do. Nothing I could do."
Something broke inside him.
Then he was sobbing and Selena had her arms wrapped around him.
CHAPTER FIFTY-FIVE
The Visitor watched his target walk to the front door of her Georgetown Brownstone. The woman paused in the mullioned yellow light from the antique coach lamps set on either side of the door. She fumbled with her keys and went inside. It was after eleven. The night was cold, the warmth of the day a memory. On the deserted, tree-lined street, all the post-dinner strollers had gone home to the safety of their beds.
The Visitor drove his car down the block. He turned off his lights and pulled into the service alley behind the buildings. He parked. He got out of his car and slipped to the rear of the target's home. He opened a gate in the fence and became another shadow blending into the tall bushes in back of the house.
The scent of wet leaves and the coming of winter filled the night air.
Lights came on in the second story, where the Visitor knew the bedroom was located. He pictured the interior of the house in his mind's eye, the location of the alarm box. He went through how things would happen and repeated the mental exercise. When he felt ready, he moved to the back door, opened it in seconds and slipped inside. He had only a minute to disable the alarms.
A red light blinked steadily on the alarm box. On. Off. On. Off. He took out a small electric tool and unscrewed the cover on the box. He took a device from his pocket and clipped leads onto the terminals. The blinking red light turned green. The Visitor started for the stairs.
Upstairs, Elizabeth had changed into her robe. She was sitting at her dressing table brushing her hair. Her holstered Glock was on the table in front of her, in the midst of an assortment of bottles and containers. After the events of the last days it was always in reach. She looked in the mirror, at the purple bruises around her eyes, her damaged face. She sighed and set the brush down.
Elizabeth tried to take a deep breath and coughed. She picked up the latest lab reports from Johns Hopkins.
Lymphangioleiomyomatosis. She couldn't even pronounce the damn thing. The doctors called it LAM for short. It was rare, so rare she was one of only five hundred some cases diagnosed in the US. It affected only women. It was going to kill her.
For a long time she and her doctor had thought it was a case of nasty chronic bronchitis. Finally, her doctor ordered an MRI and they had discovered the truth. There wasn't any real treatment. She'd already been through heavy antibiotics, but they hadn't done anything except destroy her digestion. Then hormonal therapy, but that hadn't worked either. Then an experimental regimen of something called Rapamycin. Now she was on another experimental drug. Something new, they said. It might work, they said. It might not. It left her with a dry mouth and occasional dizziness. It was too soon to know if it would do the job.
Her lungs were filling up with tissue that shouldn't be there. She was tired all the time, now, although she didn't think the others had noticed yet. She had a powerful inhaler, a bronco-dilator for when she couldn't catch her breath, but she didn't like to use it. Acupuncture brought temporary relief, but it was difficult to find time for visits to the cheerful Chinese doctor. In any event, it wasn't a cure.
At this rate she'd be dead in two years. If the new regimen didn't work, the only possible alternative was a full lung transplant. Elizabeth wasn't holding her breath on that one.
That bizarre thought made her laugh. She bent over the table in a fit of coughing, her hand resting on the Glock.
A movement in the mirror that shouldn't have been there. She half turned and stared into the barrel of a silenced automatic, held by a tall figure standing in the doorway. The man was dressed in dark clothing, his face bland and unremarkable, the face of an assassin. The hand with the pistol was unwavering.
"Please do not move." His voice was soft, neutral, a hint of an accent.
She stopped turning. "What do you want?"
She knew what he wanted—to kill her. The hard black grip of her holstered pistol was cold under her hand. The assassin had come in while she was in front of the mirror. He couldn't have seen the Glock lying in the midst of the bottles and jars on the makeup table surface.
Elizabeth knew there was little time. She would have only one chance. She closed her finger around the trigger. Had she chambered a round?
"To help you," the man said. He moved closer.
Elizabeth spun the Glock around with a swift, fluid motion and pulled the trigger as the intruder fired. She heard the soft sound of the silencer and felt the bullet strike her skull, a sharp, hammering pain that knocked her backwards off the low stool where she'd been sitting.
The Glock bucked in her hand as she tumbled to the floor and she smelled the leather of the holster burning. The assassin staggered backwards as she fired again, then again. His pistol clattered onto the floor and he fell back into the hall. She could see his feet sticking through the doorway. As she slipped into unconsciousness Elizabeth saw that one of the soles of his black, shiny shoes was almost worn through.
CHAPTER FIFTY-SIX
Nick tossed and turned in his sleep.
They come in out of the sun, low over the village, the beat of the rotors echoing in his helmet and hammering inside his head. It's Afghanistan again, back where he will kill a child, back where he'll feel the grenade try to tear him apart.
The dream is different this time. This time, he knows he's dreaming. He tries to wake up but he can't and his Marines jump out into the dusty market street, as they always do in the dream.
Megan is standing in the middle of the street.
"Nick."
He begins weeping. The dream changes, and now he and Megan are standing in front of a building on a street in a strange city, a place he doesn't recognize. Blocks of gray apartment buildings recede into the distance. People hurry past, their faces averted. Something is burning. A man walks by in a round, fur hat, dressed in black, with a beard and long ringlets of hair. He gives Nick a frightened stare as he passes.
Israel. He's in Israel.
"You have to stop it." Megan looks sad.
"Stop what? I don't understand."
Megan points at the building. There's a sign, but the letters keep changing and it's hard to read. He can see words. 'Jaff' then 'Arms', 'toilet', then a phone number in blue. It looks familiar, but he can't place it.
"Call him. Look, Nick, here's a phone."
She hands him a large, old fashioned black phone. It's ringing. He picks up the receiver. "Hello?" he says. "Hello?"
His phone was ringing on the bedside table. He picked it up.
"Yes." The clock on the dresser read 3:04 A.M.
It was Stephanie. "Nick, someone tried to kill the Director."
He came wide awake. "Is she all right?"
"She's in Bethesda. The assassin is dead, she put three rounds in him but she was shot in the head. The bullet was a .22. They're operating as we speak."
He watched the numerals tick over on the clock.
"There's more. Elizabeth is ill. She's got some kind of rare disease. It's fatal. Nobody knew about it, but when they got her to the hospital they figured it out from the meds in her purse. They called her doctor and he confirmed it."
He'd think about that later. "Have you called the others? Selena's not here, she's at her hotel."
"You're the first. How shall we handle this?"
"You're in charge, Steph. What do you want to do?"
"I think we need to notify Rice and meet right away. Something bad is happening and we need to stop it."
You have to stop it.
"I'll be t
here as soon as I can."
While he dressed he thought about the dream. There was something about that phone number. He'd seen it somewhere. The dream had seemed to be set in Israel. An Israeli number? Then Nick remembered where he'd seen it.
On Ari Herzog's card.
It was already past ten in the morning in Israel. Herzog was probably in his office. Nick looked in his wallet, extracted the card. What was he going to say? That he'd had a dream where his dead lover said he should call?
He decided to begin by bringing Herzog up to speed on Harker and what they'd found out about Himmler's plans. He punched in the number.
"Herzog."
"Ari, this is Nick Carter. Are you on a secure line?"
"I'll call you back."
Nick disconnected. Thirty seconds later his phone signaled the call.
"We can talk now. What's up, Nick?"
"I'm not sure, Ari, but a lot has happened here. Someone tried to kill my boss tonight. You need to know what we've discovered."
He ran it down. The raid in the Antarctic, the Nazi sub. Arslanian, Himmler's Nazi Council of Knights and the Vienna Lance. He told Ari about PARSIFAL. He told him about the raid on the safe house and Dysart's death. He told him it went high and that key figures in the government and military were involved. He didn't tell him who they were or that one of them was the VP of the United States. That was Rice's call.
Herzog only interrupted twice as he spoke, to clarify a detail. Nick told him about the attack outside his building and the attempt on Harker's life.
Then he told him about the dream.
There was a long silence at the other end. Nick looked at the phone to make sure they were still connected.
"You are saying that there is a Nazi conspiracy of powerful men in your country and that they wish to destroy Israel."
"Yes."
"Then you tell me about this dream. Do you realize what this sounds like?"
"Like I'm some kind of raving lunatic, yeah, I know. But PARSIFAL is no dream. Something's going down in Israel soon and has to be stopped before it happens. The dream is trying to warn me about it. Warn you. Why else would I see your phone number? Maybe it's only my subconscious putting things together, but whatever it is I think we've got to pay attention to it."
"Tell me again about this dream."
Nick described the street, the man, the building, as best as he could remember.
"I am looking at my computer as we speak," Ari said. "There is an apartment complex in Tel Aviv called the 'Jaffa Road Royal Arms'. It's in one of the older sections of the city. Have you visited Tel Aviv?"
"Never. Only the airport."
"So you would have no way of knowing about this building. Mmm."
"Ari, I know it sounds off the wall. I don't know why I get these dreams. My Grandmother had them, too. I only know they're important. Maybe you could check that building out."
He needed to make Ari understand.
"Are you aware of what has been happening here, Nick?"
"Only that things are heating up."
"We are hours away from all out war. I am dealing with a continuous flood of intelligence. It is necessary to prioritize."
"Ari. We don't know each other well. Please trust me. I have a really bad feeling about what will happen if you don't follow up on this."
Another silence.
"All right, Nick. Keep me informed. I will do the same."
"Thanks, Ari. Good luck, over there." He remembered words he'd seen carved over a Roman tomb. "Don't let the bastards wear you down."
Nick thought he could hear Herzog smile on the other end.
CHAPTER FIFTY-SEVEN
It was breaking dawn outside. Streaks of vermillion and gold and yellow illuminated a shotgun sky filled with rows of puffy gray clouds. Stephanie sat in the Director's chair. It was strange to see anyone else sitting there. Harker's silver pen lay silent on the desk. Nick half expected Stephanie to pick it up.
"Elizabeth is out of surgery," Stephanie said. "The bullet bounced off the orbital ridge above her left eye and lodged alongside the skull. She was lucky it was only a .22. If the shooter had used something bigger it would have blown the top of her head off. They got the bullet out and she's in an induced coma while they wait and see if there's going to be any further insult to the brain—hemorrhaging, fluid build up. It's too soon to evaluate her neural functioning, if she's lost any capacity. The doctors are hopeful."
"What about the son of a bitch who shot her?" Ronnie kneaded his knuckles.
"No information yet. No ID. He was dressed in clothes of European manufacture. We're running his picture and prints through Interpol and everyone else. If he's ever been picked up, we'll find out who he was."
"She got off three shots after taking a bullet in her head?" It was Lamont.
Stephanie nodded. Lamont let out a sigh.
"I want to tell you about a dream I had," Nick said, "and a conversation with Herzog in Israel."
When he was done, everyone was silent.
"It feels like everything is coming to a head," he said, "but I'm damned if I know what it is. The thing outside my building—they must have wanted Selena and me alive, at least until I started shooting. Then, going after the Director like that. They're trying to stop us and they've turned up the pressure. It must be something set to happen soon."
Stephanie shifted in Harker's chair.
"We'll continue as planned. Get into Greenwood's house and see if we can find anything linking him to this conspiracy." She turned to Ronnie. "Are we set with the logistics?"
"We are. I got us a phone truck, uniforms, tools, all that stuff, plus some nifty little bugs we can scatter around. We'll be able to hear everything that happens in there after that."
"I pulled up Greenwood's schedule. He's in meetings all day. His wife is back in his home state. The maids don't come today and it's the gardener's day off. If you go in this morning it should be fine."
Stephanie picked up the pen, quickly set it down. She was showing the stress. "What I can't figure out is how these people know so much. We stopped Dysart. That should have been enough. It's like they know everything we're thinking about."
She turned to Nick. "I notified the President about the attack. He wants you at the White House this morning. It looks like a photo op to give you a medal for your actions in Jerusalem. It's a cover for a private meeting."
"What time?"
"At ten. You go in the front way, where the press can see you. The ceremony is in the Rose Garden. After the award, he'll invite you inside for a private chat. No one will think anything of it." She looked around. "Any other thoughts? No? Then we'll meet after Selena and Lamont get back from Greenwood's."
Stephanie stood up and Harker's wheeled executive chair slipped out from under her. She grabbed for the desk and her hand sent the picture of the Twin Towers skittering lengthwise along the polished surface. It flew off the desk and landed at Nick's feet. He reached down and picked it up.
A tiny, black rectangle was stuck on the bottom of the picture frame. Carter swore to himself. He held up his hand at the others, touched his lips and held the picture high where they could see it, pointed at the bug.
He said, "We've got a long day ahead of us. Anyone up for breakfast? I'm buying."
"I'll go with you," said Selena. "Come on guys. Let's all go."
Nick set the picture back on the desk. They left the room. No one said anything in the elevator or out in the parking lot. They drove to a restaurant down the road. The place was slow. They took a corner table where they could see the entrance.
The waitress brought the order. Nick mashed toast into his eggs and thought about the listening device on that picture.
"No wonder they know what we're thinking. They've heard every word, all along."
"The sweeps didn't pick it up," said Stephanie. "It's got to be something new. High tech. How did they get it past all the security?"
"We'll find out." He put more sugar in
his coffee.
"Whoever is listening knows we're going after Greenwood." Ronnie talked between bites. "If he's part of this, he's going to try and stop us. What if we found something in his house that could pin him down? He couldn't risk that."
Everyone nodded. The team was on the same page. Nick looked at Selena and she smiled at him, just a little.
"If Greenwood is dirty," Lamont said, "he'll be waiting for us. He's got no reason to think we'd be looking for an ambush. If I were him, I'd have people waiting outside and inside. We should be able to spot them outside. Then we'd know he's part of this for sure."
Ronnie munched on a piece of bacon. "That would tell us he's one of the bad guys, It wouldn't get us inside his house."
"How about this," Nick said. "If he wants to play rough, he's got to do it out of sight, inside the house. You go out there like we planned. You check things out. You spot someone, plant a bug in his phone box outside, but don't go inside. Then drive away. He thinks you did what you came to do. Then we come back when he's not expecting us."
"That could work." Stephanie pushed her half eaten eggs aside. She made up her mind. "Lamont and Selena, you go as planned. We'll leave the bug in place in Elizabeth's office. We've got an advantage, now. They don't know that we know they're listening"
Carter looked at his watch. "I have to get ready to meet Rice. Steph, as soon as I'm out of there I'll call you."
"Elizabeth briefed the President on those emails we found on Dysart's computer. What I don't know is how he thinks it should be handled. Find out, Nick."
CHAPTER FIFTY-EIGHT
Nick stood next to the President in the Rose Garden. Rice made the requisite remarks about service and duty and presented him with a boxed medal. The cameras flashed. It was a relief when they went inside to the Oval Office.
Rice took a seat behind his desk and motioned Nick to a chair. They were alone except for a Secret Service agent standing by one of the curved doors set into the wall.
