Primary Target

by Jack Mars

  It was now or never. Rita was going to wait five extra minutes, then go.

  If it was going to happen, it was all on Elizabeth’s shoulders. As it should be. This wasn’t Rita’s problem. This wasn’t Rita’s part. She had helped Elizabeth concoct the plan, but Elizabeth had to seize the freedom for herself.

  One night. One crazy night of fun, madness, daring, and rebellion, and she would never be able to do this again. From now on, her security would be so tight, she’d be lucky to be able to move from room to room without a big man in a suit, with an earpiece, looking over her shoulder.

  Okay. Let’s do this.

  She stood silently and picked up her bookbag.

  She moved toward the window. She still didn’t have to do it. She hadn’t committed yet. She could turn back at any moment. If the Secret Service man suddenly burst in, she could still explain it away. She was just… standing by the window… breathing in the night air… with a bookbag in her hand.

  And in the bookbag were clothes to go out clubbing.

  Stop it! Just go!

  So she did. She raised a leg and stuck it out the window. The roof was below floor level here, so she had to sit up on the windowsill for a second. She dropped down to the roof with a light thump.

  Oh God! Did he hear that?

  She crouched down and looked back through the window at the front door to her apartment. There was light under the door from the hallway. She felt like she could almost see the shadow of her bodyguard standing out there.

  No one came. The man didn’t knock or make any move to open her door.

  She shrugged to herself, turned, and moved quickly and quietly across the slate roof. It was angled slightly downward. In a moment, she reached the corner. She got down on her knees and felt underneath. The rain gutter was there, just as Rita said it would be.

  Elizabeth looked across lawn, and there, maybe a hundred yards away, a black car was parked in the turnaround, its headlights on, waiting. At night, there was a second Secret Service man stationed at the front door of the dormitory, and she knew that every thirty minutes or so he would take a walk around the building.

  Let’s hope that walk doesn’t happen now.

  She slipped the backpack over her shoulders. Now here came the tricky part. She reached both hands under the roof, then swung her entire body over. Her legs followed her torso and hit the stucco wall hard, scraping her knee.

  That hurt, but she held on—the remnants of her gymnastics training as a young girl were still with her. Now she shimmied down, holding the pipe with her hands, her feet walking down the wall. It was easy.

  Near the ground, she dropped and rolled backward onto her butt on the wet grass. She lay there for a moment, breathing deeply.

  Holy moly! She had just done that. That was some James Bond stuff.

  Then it occurred to her that Rita had already done the same thing at least twice. Okay. She jumped up, turned, and ran across the lawn to the waiting car.

  It seemed to take forever to reach it.

  The rear door popped open as she approached. She practically dove inside.

  Rita was there, inside the luxurious black car. She smiled. There was a piece of paper on her lap.

  DON’T TALK ABOUT IT

  Elizabeth nodded, pulled the door shut, and smiled. Now they were inside the car and behind smoked glass. No one could see them in here.

  “You ready?” Rita said.

  Elizabeth was out of breath, but tried to speak calmly. “Finally.”

  The car rolled slowly across campus. Elizabeth looked at the driver behind the glass partition. He was piloting the car with extreme caution—he probably didn’t want to run over the child of a Russian gangster. He was a blond-haired guy, middle-aged, and didn’t seem the slightest bit interested in either Elizabeth or Rita.

  They approached the gate and the guardhouse. Elizabeth held her breath.

  The guard on duty barely glanced at them. He was inside the lighted guardhouse, doing something with paperwork. He looked up and raised a hand. The wrought iron gate slid open.

  They were out!

  As they pulled away from the campus, Rita squeezed Elizabeth’s hand.

  The driver opened his window a crack and lit a cigarette.

  “Next stop, Geneva,” he said over the car’s intercom.

  Rita looked at Elizabeth.

  “This is going to be a fun night,” she said.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  11:55 p.m. Arabian Standard Time (4:55 p.m. Eastern Daylight Time)

  The Embassy of the United States in Iraq (aka the Republican Palace)

  The International Zone (aka the Green Zone)

  Karkh District

  Baghdad, Iraq

  “It’s a very strange thing.”

  Luke shook his head. “I know it.”

  He was sitting across the plywood conference table from Trudy Wellington and Mark Swann. In the center of the table was a black plastic octopus that up until a few moments ago had been speaking as though it was Don Morris. It was a speakerphone, and Don had patched through on a call from the United States.

  The meeting had just broken up. Ed Newsam had been here, but after the meeting was over, he had left in a huff. He and Luke had been in combat together twice now, had completed two successful missions, and were still no closer to friends. Big Daddy Cronin and his British alter-ego, Montgomery, had been here as well, but they had slid away to whisper together about possibilities.

  That left Luke leaning back in an old wooden office chair, picking the brains of the young intelligence agents still in the room with him.

  The corrugated hut at the desert camp had been full of clothes. Not just clothes, but Western-style clothes—the type of clothes that young people would wear in rich Western democracies. European fashions, American jeans and T-shirt ensembles, leather jackets and boots, sunglasses and jewelry. The jewelry might be very convincing costume jewelry, or it might be the real thing—it was all being investigated, and Luke hadn’t heard anything about it yet. Knowing Iraq, and from what he had seen this morning, he guessed the jewelry was real gold, real diamonds.

  There had also been laptop computers in the hut, along with cell phones, MP3 players, video cameras, and personal digital assistants. There were stacks of maps—in particular maps of downtowns and nightclub districts in places like New York, San Francisco, Berlin, Paris, Madrid, and London, along with a host of more minor cities like Geneva, Bruges, Liverpool, Dublin, and Prague.

  “It’s not that strange,” Swann said.

  “Good, I’m glad to hear it,” Luke said. “What is it?”

  Swann shrugged. “It’s infiltration. Like I’ve been saying all along. The one laptop I got a chance to look at was loaded with language software. French, Dutch, German, English. From beginner to level five conversational proficiency. Like Don and Big Daddy said, when the second team went down below, one of the rooms still intact in the bunker was set up as a classroom. They were training people to assimilate. They were going to, or already have, sent people to Europe and the United States, pretending to be exchange students, native speakers, world travelers, whatever you like.”

  Luke believed that was true. “I think that part is obvious on its face. But what about the codes?”

  Much of the paperwork, and the computer files, were written in complex codes that, at least in the past several hours, no one had been able to break. The concern was, of course, that moles had been sent out into Western countries to prepare for an attack of some kind, or a series of attacks.

  As it was, the camp had been quarantined soon after Luke and Ed secured the place. They had been rushed out of there, and a forensic team brought in. Nearly all the materials onsite had been confiscated and disappeared. Luke assumed that the CIA or NSA had the stuff now. If Big Daddy knew anything about it, he wasn’t saying.

  For his part, Don had commended his team on a job well done, and told them to come on home on the first plane.

  That was g
ood enough for Luke. Nearly dying twice was plenty for one day.

  Swann stood up, as if to go. He shrugged. “The codes explain the operation—they give the aliases and locations of the infiltrators, and the instructions for where and when to launch the attack. Maybe. Or maybe they’re the recipes for killer tabbouleh. Who knows? I guess that’s not our department now. And I’m happy to let the big brains upstairs try to puzzle it out. I’m going to go curl up on a cot in a corner somewhere and get some sleep.”

  He paused just before leaving. He looked down at Trudy and grinned.

  “Care to join me?”

  She smiled. “On your cot?”

  “I’ll find us a nice comfy one.”

  She shook her head. “Sadly, I don’t think there will be enough room for you, me, and your legs.”

  Swann shrugged. His grin faltered only the tiniest amount.

  “Your loss,” he said, and went out.

  Now Luke and Trudy were alone. He stared at her for a bit. She looked like someone who had no business being here in Baghdad. She was very pretty, thin, with big eyes behind her owl-like glasses. She was young, just out of her teens, even though she had graduated from MIT a few years before. Luke knew Don thought highly of her. Don felt that she had the potential to be one of the best intelligence analysts in the business. Actually, Don felt that she had the potential to be one of the best whatever she decided she wanted to be. Luke suspected that Don was a little bit smitten with her, and more than in just a daughterly way.

  Luke could see it. If you looked at her long enough, you began to fall into her deep blue eyes. There was a mystery in there.

  “What about you?” he said.

  “What about me?”

  “What do you think about the camp? Strange place to train young metrosexuals to hang out in Paris nightclubs. No?”

  She paused for a moment, as if gathering her thoughts. She had barely spoken during the meeting. She was the youngest person in the room, and the only woman. Don had prodded her a bit, but still hadn’t gotten much from her. Big Daddy and Montgomery didn’t seem interested in her opinion.

  “Well, yes and no,” she said. “Let’s suppose that camp existed during Saddam’s reign. It was well built, with an extensive tunnel system, air conditioning to protect the computer equipment, and lodging for the trainees. No one built all that on the fly since the war started.”

  True enough. Luke nodded. “Seems fair.”

  “Okay, then that suggests it was Saddam’s government that organized the camp, and that they were training spies, or maybe sleeper cells to carry out terrorist attacks or assassinations in Europe or the United States. It looks like they recruited young people—from the clothes, mostly young men. Maybe they chose them for their intelligence level, or their proficiency with language, or their athletic ability, or maybe even just their looks or their fashion sense. So they bring them to a camp well away from the rest of the society, in the far-flung, inhospitable desert. Why?”

  Luke shrugged and smiled. “You tell me.”

  “Cross training, for one. They can spend most of their time learning to look, speak, and act like Westerners or rich kids from upper-class Arab families. But they can also train with heavy weapons in the desert, far from any prying eyes. They can do survival and extreme climate training. The Western party kid is a cover story, anyway. When push comes to shove, they’re probably going to be called upon to kill people, and be killed, or continue to function while uncomfortable, or wounded and in terrible pain. What better place to be uncomfortable or in pain?”

  Luke raised a finger. “Good. I like it. You said cross training for one. What else?”

  She shrugged and smiled. “Easy. That camp is pretty far from civilization. Far enough away for the trainees to maintain their focus. But it’s a four-and-a-half-hour drive from here—close enough that the trainees can go home and see mom and dad during breaks.”

  Luke returned the smile. “I can see what Don sees in you.”

  A blush crept up Trudy’s face. She shook her head. Then she looked up and stared right at Luke.

  “You want to see if there’s any place still open to get a drink around here?”

  “Are you old enough to drink?” he said.

  Now her blush deepened. “You bet I am, buster.”

  For a split second, Luke entertained the idea. A drink with a beautiful young woman in a far-flung and dangerous place. In another life, he wouldn’t mind seeing where such a drink might lead. But it was after midnight here in Iraq, which meant it was mid-afternoon on the Eastern Shore of Maryland.

  “I’d love to get a drink with you,” he said. “But I need to call my wife before I go to bed. She’s going to give birth to our son pretty soon, and I want to remind her to wait until I get there.”

  Trudy shrugged and smiled, just as Swann had done.

  “Your loss,” she said.

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  May 8

  12:30 a.m. Central European Summer Time (6:30 p.m. Eastern Daylight Time, May 7)

  The Baroque Club

  Rue du Rhone

  Geneva, Switzerland

  The night glittered.

  The car nosed slowly through the crowded streets of Rue du Rhone—the street level stores, now closed, a paradise of the most famous and desirable brands on Earth. Louis Vuitton was here, and Prada, and Omega watches, and Tiffany jewelers. There were chocolatiers and coffee shops, and all the beautiful people, walking and mingling and laughing in sweaters and scarves wrapped around their necks.

  Of course, Elizabeth had visited this street before, but never at night. They were a block from where Lake Geneva emptied into the Rhone River, and she kept catching glimpses of it down alleyways and side streets.

  “They know me here,” Rita was saying. “Just stick close, arm in arm. Act naturally, and follow me in. The sea will part for us, and if you act like it’s the most normal thing in the world, we won’t have any problems.”

  Elizabeth had already stripped down to her underwear and changed her clothes in front of the driver, who pretended he wasn’t looking, but kept taking glances in the rearview mirror. After that little adventure, following Rita into a club should be a snap.

  “They don’t care about our age?” Elizabeth said. She already knew the answer because Rita must have explained it to her on a dozen occasions, but she wanted to hear it one last time. It might help to calm her nerves.

  Supposedly, the age required to enter these bars was twenty-one.

  Rita shrugged. “Age is for the peasants. We are the elite. We do what we want, and we go where we want. The normal rules do not apply.”

  Elizabeth nodded at the truth of this. The idea was disturbing and exciting and troubling and freeing all at once. Millions of people—billions of people!—were leading their normal, average, everyday lives. But Rita was the granddaughter of publishing billionaires. And Elizabeth was the daughter of the President of the United States. Nothing about them was normal, or average.

  They were like exotic birds, flying high above the crowds below.

  The car pulled up across the street from the club. Elizabeth stared out the window at it. There must have been a hundred people waiting to get inside, all lined up along the wall, separated from the street by a red velvet rope.

  “Rita, there’s a lot of…”

  Rita put a finger to her lips. “Trust,” she said.

  The partition between them and the driver slid down. The smell of his cigarette smoke entered their section. Rita handed the man a stack of cash. He didn’t bother to count it—he must know it was more than generous.

  “I will call you,” she told the man. “Maybe four a.m.? Maybe later.”

  He shrugged and nodded. “Is okay. Anytime. I’ll be around.”

  “We’ll leave this bag with you,” Rita said, handing Elizabeth’s knapsack through the opening. The man took it without expression.

  “It’s safe with me.”

  “My ID’s in there,” Elizabe
th said. Her school identification card, her Texas driver’s license, her passport—they were all in the bag.

  “Better if you don’t have it on you,” Rita said. “There’ll be less questions that way. Come on!”

  “Have fun, little girls,” the driver said.

  They crossed the street, arm-in-arm, just as Rita instructed.

  “Laugh like we’re already drunk!” she shouted, as though she was drunk and having a great time.

  Elizabeth did her best to match Rita’s exuberance. They approached the velvet rope. A big man by the front door to the club saw them coming. He pulled the rope aside. Just before they crossed the threshold, Rita turned and pulled three young guys off the line. As Elizabeth looked on, she suddenly realized that one of the guys was Ahmet.

  He wore a black leather jacket and jeans. He had a blue scarf around his neck. He looked at her, then quickly looked away as if he was shy. Then he looked at her again and smiled.

  Elizabeth laughed.

  Suddenly they were through the door and inside the club, a group of five young people, three guys and two girls. The lighting inside the club was purple. Everything was gleaming—the bar, the dance floor, the metal railings. The floor was crowded, people barely dancing, but standing nearly cheek to cheek.

  Loud music pounded, the bass pumping below their feet, the lights pulsating.

  Elizabeth pressed through the crowd, following Rita toward the back. There was a room back there, with tables and sofas, a VIP section, purple lights swirling. That’s where they were headed—to their own private table.

  It was an amazing night already. Everything about it was incredible, impossible, just the most… she didn’t even have words for it. She was having the time of her life. Her mom and dad were going to kill her. She would be lucky if this little adventure didn’t make the newspapers.

  Relax… relax… have fun.

  She tried to remember to breathe.