Final Winter
Page 27
He turned to her, just as she closed the door. She tightened the robe around her neck. There were a couple of lights on in the room but the television wasn’t on. He guessed that he had woken her up. He didn’t care.
‘All right, then,’ she said. ‘What’s up?’
Brian said, ‘Lots of things. Let’s start with the first. Why am I here?’
‘You know why.’
‘No, I don’t. Explain.’
Adrianna said, ‘I needed some security assurance, with what Victor was carrying. It was essential that Victor and his package arrived at General Bocks’s office without any difficulty.’
‘Bullshit.’
Her expression didn’t change. ‘That’s not bullshit.’
‘Sure it is,’ he said. ‘Except for our regular meetings, most of us are out in the field, working on our own little assignments, whatever they are. When was the last time I was assigned security for anything? Short answer: never. So. Why am I here?’
Adrianna was silent. Brian stepped up to her, feeling the blood and the anger race through him. ‘You know why I’m here. I’m the super-patriot sock puppet, brought out to help close the deal. The good general was waffling there yesterday and then you went into this God-bless-America routine that mentioned my dad died in the World Trade Center. That’s why you brought me along. Nothing more than that. When it came to crunch time, you trotted out the story of the bereaved New York cop and his dead hero dad. Don’t tell me anything else, Adrianna. Don’t insult my fucking intelligence.’
She pushed at her hair with a free hand. ‘I won’t insult your intelligence, Brian. Security was one aspect of why you are here. And I confess the truth. Your personal history is another reason you are here. For that, I make no apologies.’
‘Well, goodie for you. I’m getting the hell out of here, and the hell back to my job.’
Brian started to brush past Adrianna and she held on to his upper arm. ‘Please. Just for a moment. May I say something?’
When Brian was in a pissy mood like right now, and especially when he was on duty, having someone grab his arm usually meant a quick slap and takedown or something equally violent. All right, but not now.
‘Okay. Say whatever the fuck you want. But I’m still leaving here and paying whatever I have to pay to fly out of Memphis tonight and get back to New York and my boy and my job. And I don’t care if the big nasty Feds cause me to lose a grade on my job or even bust me back to patrolman. So you say your piece.’
Her hand was still on his arm. ‘I used you. For that, I apologize for hurting your feelings, but I do not apologize for using you. Brian, this war has been on for a few years and it is going to continue for a very long time. And if I use what I can to shorten this war, to protect my country, I will do what it takes. If it takes long hours and using trickery and bribes to achieve our objectives, so be it. And if it means causing the untimely deaths of ten thousand of my fellow citizens to save millions, then, I will do it. And if it means using a trusted colleague’s heartbreaking story to help sway a man who can help save millions of Americans, then I will do it. With no more apologies than what I have given you.’
‘All right,’ Brian said, when she was done. ‘Fair enough. Now it’s my turn to say something.’
‘Of course.’
He took a breath, felt the hot hammering in his chest. ‘You talk about my heartbreaking story. You want to hear my real heartbreaking story, princess? Do you?’
Adrianna nodded, her touch still light on his arm. He said, ‘All right, then. Here’s a story for you. A story about a dad who got never higher than a sergeant in the department because he loved the bottle as much as he loved the job. And his family...who in hell knew what he loved there. He beat me and he beat my brother and he beat my sister. My sister is living somewhere in California, don’t ask me where, because when she moved out she never told anybody where she was going. Only California. My brother is a psychologist on Long Island, no doubt because he wanted to learn more about what my dad was like and what made him tick. My father came home mean most every night, and you know what, sure, he died on September eleventh. But he was no fucking hero.’
The breathing was quicker now, and he was stunned that his cheeks were moist, which meant he had to be crying. But why in God’s name would he be crying? ‘And the day he died, like all those others, the story about him going back to look for people was just that. A story. He was in a men’s room, probably sleeping off what had happened to him the night before, and when the plane hit his tower he got up and stumbled out. Knowing drunk old dad, he took a wrong turn and never made it out. That’s the story of my dad, the hero, the story that you wave around like a pair of black lace panties, trying to get your way.’
‘Brian, I—’
‘And one more thing. At my dad’s funeral, I couldn’t cry a single fucking tear, and neither did my brother. But my mother did, she cried these big long bouts of tears, and in the funeral-home car, heading back after my dad was buried, she sat between us, her fists clenched, and she whispered something, something I think she let slip out, because she never repeated it, not once. But you know what she whispered?’
‘No, Brian, I don’t know what she whispered.’
‘“Finally, he’s gone,”‘ Brian said. ‘That’s what my mother said, after burying a man she’d spent nearly forty years with. “Finally, he’s gone.” And this is going to sound like the worst blasphemy, but she’s been a happier woman ever since September eleventh, ever since that old drunk never came home. That’s the story.’
Now Adrianna’s hand went away from his arm, up to his shoulder, up to his cheek, to gently touch the tears, and he took a deep breath and lowered his head and kissed her and kissed her and kissed her, and she moved towards him, and he stepped back, and together they fell back onto her bed.
~ * ~
They drove east, along the long stretch of Interstate 90 that was flanked by forests and rocks and desert and scrub grass, and up ahead the silent and sharp peaks of the Rockies rose. It was night and the grumbling of the diesel engine made Vladimir sleepy. Up ahead, just a few more kilometers, was their destination, a small town in Idaho called Pinehurst. Imad was driving well, he had to give the little shit that, but the boy’s smell and his incessant singing irritated him no end. There was a radio in the truck but the country and western twang-twang shit that they all played out here was enough to make him prefer Imad’s singing.
Imad yawned and said, ‘Such a big country.’
‘Not as big as ours.’
Imad laughed. ‘Still pissed at losing the Cold War, eh?’
‘We didn’t lose the Cold War. We were betrayed.’
‘Bah. Same outcome, that’s all. Your country humbled and prostrate. America astride the world. And here we go, fighting for what is right.’
‘What is right. . . what do you think is right?’
‘Me? What is right? I’ll tell you this. What is the meaning of Islam, eh?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘Islam means submission, submission to God and his holy word, through the Koran. Submission. The world will be at peace only when all submit to God’s will, when all are believers. Islam. When the black flag of Islam flies over the White House and the baseball fields and football fields and schools here and elsewhere, then there will be peace. And I am fighting to secure this peace. This is what is right.’
After leaving the highway, they passed a street sign: WELCOME TO KIRKLAND: POP. 1661.
‘We are almost there,’ Vladimir said.
‘And you? What do you fight for?’
‘Later,’ he said. ‘Later. Find the address. Here.’
From his leather folder, Vladimir pulled out the directions for their destination. Imad eyed them and soon buildings appeared, one- and two-story buildings - how depressing to be out here in the middle of this desolate area. How to survive? How to live? And how did these odd people in this even odder country get the energy and the drive to accomplish ever
ything they had done?
‘Slow it down,’ Vladimir said. ‘I don’t want some constable or deputy sheriff pulling you over for speeding.’
Imad muttered something. Vladimir knew it was an obscenity and didn’t care. Imad took a left and they headed out from the center of town to a small shopping plaza. It was late and the stores were closed, but there was one place, well lit. The Space Station. Shoshone County’s Finest Self-Storage Area.
‘There,’ Vladimir said. ‘Pull over.’
The truck grumbled to a halt and he opened the door, stepped down, wincing as a cramp shot through his left leg. They were at a chain-link fence and a central gate, secured by a keypad. Vladimir punched in a series of numbers and there was an audible click. The gate automatically creaked open, its electric motor whining. When the gate was fully open, Imad shifted the Freightliner and the truck drove into the large parking area. Ahead of them were four low-slung buildings made of concrete blocks with slanted metal roofs, and with rolled-down doors that were secured by locks. Imad drove over to the furthest building on the left and Vladimir followed. Imad pulled ahead until the rear of the trailer was adjacent to one of the locked doors.
Vladimir walked up to the door, took the combination lock in his hands. The metal was cold. He waited for a moment before working the tumbler. For the past several months, his unseen handlers out there - he doubted it was a single man, for who could have done this all by himself? - had enticed him from his self-imposed exile in Central Asia, across Asia to Shanghai and elsewhere, paying him and pleading with him, and easing his way out here. From money transfers to package deliveries in out-of-the-way post offices, he had secured his fake identification, the travel papers, even the trucking documents that had gotten him and Imad through Canada.
At first he had thought the whole thing was an elaborate trap, to pull him out of his exile and to place him in a position where the American Special Forces could seize him and what he’d made...but that no longer made sense. They could have gotten him and Imad days ago - hell, weeks ago! If he had been left unmolested by the desire of some intelligence agency out there to find fellow travelers or co-conspirators, then by now the intelligence agency must know that they didn’t exist. There was just him and Imad, the driver, and when this was through he had plans for Imad.
So.
Vladimir jiggled the lock in his hand. To carry on, or to walk way? There was enough money in his Cayman Islands account for him to live comfortably for the next decade or so, but he wanted more. And the ‘more’ he wanted wasn’t just money. _
Imad stuck his head out of the passenger’s side window. ‘What are you doing?’ he called down. ‘Have you forgotten the combination?’
Vladimir didn’t bother to reply. He started turning the tumbler. There was a chance that it would all end here, that when the lock was unsnapped - like now - and the lock was pulled away - like now - and when he rolled up the metal door, black-suited American military men would tumble out, seizing him and Imad and beating them to the ground, and—
The door rattled up. From the outside illumination he could make out a light panel. He flipped on the switch.
Save for three black plastic cases, about a meter long and a half-meter wide, the storage compartment was empty.
So we go on, Vladimir thought. We go on.
~ * ~
Late at night in Maryland, Darren Coover sat in his easy chair in his condo unit, his NSA-issued laptop on his lap, the encrypted-data line working just fine, and everything was just fine, save for the throbbing headache he had at the base of his skull.
He was ego surfing, something most people did by keying in their names to Google and other search engines, to see what was out there on them. Big deal. He was ego surfing in a whole ‘nother realm, trying to find out just how much weight his Tiger Team was carrying under the Final Winter scenario. He did that by searching through the various classified message boards out there to see what references there were for either Final Winter or Tiger Team Seven. Little-known fact after the cluster-fuck known as 9/11 was the extent that information sharing was going on among the various intelligence agencies and groups out there. Oh, the heads of the intelligence agencies would troop up to Capitol Hill every several months to get grilled by the senators and congress-critters on why intelligence sharing wasn’t proceeding, how come agencies weren’t talking to each other, haven’t we learned anything since September 11 — and the whole damn thing was a fake and a fraud.
Truth was, communications had improved, communication was taking place, but why in hell would you want to publicize it? So it wasn’t publicized, even as it grew. Poor intelligence-agency heads. Darren was certain that in their classified job descriptions there must be a sub-section or paragraph that stated, ‘When required, the Director of Central Intelligence (or fill in the blank here of whatever agency you would like) will proceed to Capitol Hill, to experience filibustering and questioning from a group of people with the collective inquisitive intelligence of a tree sloth, and during that time the Director will express shock and dismay and will promise to do better concerning the state of his intelligence agency.’
Blah. Hope they got tidy bonuses for putting up with that shit.
So. Here he was, this late night, going into secure chat areas and message boards, trying to see what was there in preparation for Final Winter. And what he saw there terrified him.
There was nothing.
Nada. Zilch. Nothing.
Key in Final Winter and there were old reports about the anthrax-attack scenarios that Adrianna had previously outlined, and really old reports about Japanese attempts to bomb the Western (US) mainland with bubonic-plague-infested fleas during the Second World War by using huge helium balloons, but now...Anything about Final Winter and what was coming down the pike shortly, which had caused him and his Tiger Team such heartache and grief?
Nothing. Except a cryptic comment in a minutes report for a Tiger Team meeting held last week at Andrews Air Force Base, where it was stated that A. Scott had briefed the Director about Final Winter, and that authorization had been granted to proceed.
Authorization? All right, then, but where in hell was everybody else? The security hunts for the Syrian teams supposedly moving in the States, with their rental cars and plastic baggies of anthrax spores? Where were the public -health and CDC teams? Hell, where were the classified call-ups of certain National Guard and Reserve units?
Nothing.
It was like Final Winter didn’t exist.
Darren paused, chewed on a thumbnail.
But if it didn’t exist, what in hell were they doing? What was going on?
Puzzles and questions. As a proud member of the NSA, he hated them both.
~ * ~
Adrianna Scott rested her head on Brian’s shoulder, her heart still pounding, still reeling a bit from what had just happened. It shouldn’t have happened, couldn’t have happened, it threw a lot of things in the air, it put a lot of things in jeopardy. Just a few minutes ago, when their breathing had eased and things had calmed down, the two of them had had The Talk about how this was a mistake and it shouldn’t have happened, enjoyable as it had been, and things were too hectic and Final Winter took precedence over everything, and after The Talk she knew everything should have been fine. But it wasn’t.
Adrianna could not help herself, but something about this New York City cop was calling to her, was making her giddy like a schoolgirl, a feeling she had not experienced for many, many years, all the way back to that sweet young boy in Baghdad and—
‘Hey - you okay?’ Brian asked her, in the darkness of the room.
‘Yes, yes, just fine,’ she said.
‘Okay,’ he said, squeezing her shoulders with his strong arms, kissing the top of her head - ah, how sweet the touch -and he said, ‘You shook there for a moment. A tremble. Like you were falling asleep and suddenly had a bad dream.’
A bad dream, yes, a dream about Baghdad...and she pushed that thought away.
‘About what?’
Adrianna rubbed her face against Brian’s hairy chest. She liked hairy chests. She said, ‘Work, what else? I think the team should come out to Memphis. Stay close to here and oversee the project at AirBox. Perhaps we should take rooms in the hotel.’
She sensed his smile in the darkness. ‘Perhaps. And perhaps we will share room keys?’
Adrianna raised her head and kissed Brian on the lips. ‘Perhaps. We will talk about it later...right now, no . . .’
‘Okay,’ he said, pulling her down again with his strong arms. Adrianna felt safe and secure - and puzzled at how this man was affecting her. He said, ‘What do we do now?’
She snuggled into his arms again, feeling content and sleepy, and smiling at the thought that this was the first man she had slept with in a very long time that she had not killed. It was an odd and glorious feeling.