Covenant

by Jeff Gulvin

  He put the phone down and sat in the silence of his office for a moment. Why would Cyrus Birch call him up over this: the CIA had no jurisdiction on the US mainland, and a small device, which hurt nobody, was nothing to do with them. Unless. He thought of Horowitz at the Israeli Embassy and the extent of his network of contacts. If Horowitz knew about a fly landing in his ointment, maybe he knew the identity of that fly. And if he did, maybe other people did too.

  Harada woke early as he always did, washed his face and body, and dressed in his kimono, before meditating in the lotus position before the Shinto shrine. At seven, he changed into his grey business suit, collected his briefcase and drove the grey sedan down Highway 50, slowing, along with the rest of the rubber-neckers, to watch the gaggle of media vehicles still camped out by Arlington Cemetery. He listened to the radio news as the traffic backed up on the bridge across the Potomac, and it was almost eight-thirty when he pulled off North Capitol Street, across the road from the old soldiers’ home, and into the small self-storage lot. He stopped outside the first unit, got out of the car, unlocked the chain on the roll-over door and hoisted it. Then he got back in the car and drove inside.

  Across the road the old soldier, with no legs and little memory, watched him.

  Harada changed into his overalls, then he took the case from the back seat of his car and transferred three more lengths of plumber’s pipe to the store section at the back of the truck in the next-door unit. He had all kinds of items in there, from a CCTV unit to a video-monitoring system, and alarms with pipes, wires and batteries. He checked that the piping was stowed where it was warm and dry, and closed the doors on the truck.

  Outside, it was hot and it took a little while before the air conditioning clicked in, and Harada found himself sweating. He did not mind: the summers in Tokyo were unbearable for a lot of people, but he had never had a problem with heat. He took it as another metaphorical flagellation, a purging of the failures of youth from his bones.

  He drove down New Hampshire Avenue and made a circuit of the Federal Triangle, monitoring the whereabouts of the cops and the secret service agents, as well as the diplomatic security men outside the State Department’s buildings and along Virginia Avenue. He cruised up 4th Street and pulled over for a few minutes outside the redbrick Federal Museum, directly across from the FBI’s field office. After six months, the black-uniformed Federal Protective Service cops were used to the C U SAFELY truck pausing while the driver made phone calls. Once, a uniformed secret service agent, close to the White House, had stopped him and asked for some ID. Harada had various drivers’ licences, but this one was in the name of Joe Aoki, originally from San Francisco. He also had his full security consultant’s résumé and his college degree certificates from Cleveland, Ohio. That was the one and only time he’d ever had to show his identification.

  He swung the truck in an arc and drove across George Mason Bridge on 395, which took him south of Arlington Cemetery. He had seen the television news and read the reports in this morning’s Post, and knew that nobody had been injured and there had been minimal damage. It was interesting, but unsurprising, that there was no mention of him or any tape of his phone call or coded warning. It was bound to go one of two ways; and he had thought they would prefer secrecy until they had more of an idea what they were dealing with. There were government experts to assist them, as well as people in their organised crime squads, who would be able to recognise the yakuza/samurai connections. Like everyone else, they would believe that the yakuza upheld the old traditions, which he had discovered was untrue. Yes, they had the codes, the black mist and the finger-cutting, but in reality it was as far removed from the old ways as anything in modern Japan.

  He had read the reports thoroughly and remarked to himself on the commentary that came out of the militia movement. There he had sympathy, although they hated his kind, as seemed evident in the disturbance created by the presence of Asians in small-town Oregon. Those men were ninja, the masters of stealth and secret killing techniques. He had read of Pataki dying in Missouri and was reminded of the strange accidents and illnesses of old.

  But the people here had no idea of the master, or what he had created as long ago as 1970. He thought again of that day in November, when the news came through of the siege. The final act of honour from the final honourable man, whose name means ‘snow at the foot of Mount Fuji’.

  A car hooting its horn shook him from his reverie and seemed to prick at his purpose. Ahead of him, a metro transit police road unit was parked across the highway, cutting the lanes from two to one, and the drivers of each vehicle were being stopped and asked questions. Harada smiled to himself, practised the voice in his head and waited for his turn. The officer was young and in uniform. Harada rolled down the window.

  ‘How you doing?’ he said.

  ‘Sir, we’re sorry to interrupt your day, but there was a bombing incident in the cemetery yesterday evening and I have to ask you some questions.’

  ‘No problem.’ Harada leaned his elbow on the doorpanel.

  The officer was looking at the side of his truck and writing the name down, then the licence number. ‘Were you in the area yesterday?’ he asked him. ‘I’ve seen your truck around. Were you downtown yesterday?’

  ‘Not yesterday, no. I wasn’t working yesterday. Gave myself the day off.’

  ‘Business is good, then.’

  Harada smiled at him. ‘In this day and age? You bet.’

  ‘Where were you yesterday?’

  ‘At home. I was a little sick, actually. Stomach flu, I think. I didn’t work at all.’

  ‘So you didn’t pass this area and therefore didn’t see anything or anybody acting in a manner out of the ordinary?’

  ‘No, sir. I wish I could help you. Like you said, I’m normally all over this area. I’ve got clients both sides of the river, but yesterday I was sick.’

  ‘Not today, though, huh?’

  ‘No, sir. Today I’m better and real busy.’ He smiled again. ‘I’m sorry I can’t be more help. Unless you want an alarm fitted to your house.’

  ‘No, thank you.’ The cop glanced down at his notes. ‘You have a good day, Mr …’

  ‘Aoki.’ Harada smiled, shifted the column change and eased back into the traffic.

  He watched the cop hold up his hand for the next driver and pull him over. He laughed then, softly. The man could have searched his entire van, found all manner of things connected with bomb-making, and still not been any the wiser. He made a loop and drove north once more, and parked the truck in Georgetown, close to the university. Then he climbed into the back, selected one of four cellular phones and pressed in the numbers.

  Logan and Swann sat in Kovalski’s office reading the initial reports from the evidence response team. It was late afternoon now and they had been at it since lunchtime. Swann had been on the phone to London and cleared it with the commander to stay in Washington for a few days, and help. He had then contacted the State Department’s course leaders in Louisiana and explained the situation to them. All of which meant he could spend more time with Cheyenne, and that pleased him immensely. All his life he had posed himself the question as to whether or not there was a woman out there with whom he could be totally at his ease, and he had all but decided there wasn’t. He’d had a bad marriage (notwithstanding two delightful daughters) and one abortive relationship after that. Then Logan came along and bingo—all the right buttons were pressed.

  Logan was on the phone to the technical support unit about Triggerfish, the FBI’s system of tracing calls made on cellular phones. On Kovalski’s desk the phone was ringing and Logan gestured for Swann to pick it up.

  ‘ASAC Kovalski’s phone,’ he said.

  ‘Who are you?’ The voice on the other end was clipped and brusque.

  ‘Jack Swann. Who are you?’

  ‘Fachida Harada, the warrior.’

  8

  SWANN SIGNALLED TO LOGAN across the office and she picked up the connecting phone.


  ‘This is Agent Logan.’ The Triggerfish scanner was activated, searching the airwaves for the cellphone identification. ‘What do you want, Harada?’

  ‘I want you to know that I’m serious.’

  ‘I think we figured that already.’

  ‘I don’t think you do. You see, a harmless grenade in a harmless location means nothing.’

  ‘Why choose it, then?’ Logan was desperately trying to keep him on the phone. She signalled to the Triggerfish operator, who shook his head. Swann sat listening on Kovalski’s phone, with his palm covering the mouthpiece. ‘Why a war memorial?’ Logan went on. ‘Why a cemetery, Harada?’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘Was it your way of affirming your message? A former president—warrior in chief?’

  He laughed quietly. ‘You have no idea.’

  ‘But you’re a samurai. The challenge—the cherry blossom. You must be quite a sculptor. Where’d you get the C-4?’

  Swann smiled. Logan had completely taken the wind out of his sails, posed questions that had to be thought about.

  ‘What I have acquired and where I got it is irrelevant. What is important is that we are at war. The reason I have chosen you as my adversary, I will make clear at a later date. In the meantime, it is necessary for me to demonstrate my pedigree to you, in order that when I make my demands, you will be in a position to take them seriously.’

  ‘Mr Harada, we do take you seriously.’

  But he was gone. The phone clicked dead and Logan looked over at the Triggerfish operator. He shook his head. ‘They didn’t get a fix, Chey.’

  ‘No location?’

  ‘No. There’s a helluva lot of cellphone activity in Washington.’

  Logan looked at Swann. ‘What did you make of that?’ she said.

  He moved his shoulders. ‘I’d have thought he would make his demands known now.’

  ‘So would I.’ Logan turned to McKensie. ‘Carmen, get hold of Tom, will you. He’s over at the puzzle palace.’ She sat down at her desk and Swann sat next to her.

  ‘Samurai warrior,’ he said. ‘With access to C-4 explosives.’

  Logan looked up at him. ‘Yet he uses a phosphorus grenade.’

  Swann got up again and went back to Kovalski’s phone, which had an international dialling capacity without going through the central operator. ‘He’s told us he has C-4, Chey, which means, at some point, he intends to use it.’ He phoned Christine Harris in the Special Branch cell at Scotland Yard. He had already asked her to look into Harada’s background for him. She was not there, but he left a message on her voice mail for her to call him back.

  Kovalski came back to the office and he brought with him a selection of experts from headquarters, bomb data, domestic terrorism and organised crime. He then chaired an open-forum meeting in the conference room, where there were sixteen blue chairs with the ‘Integrity Bravery Fidelity’ logo emblazoned on them. The evidence response teams had turned up little else from the crime scene apart from a few more pieces of the timing and power unit, some wire and the melted remains of a bulb for circuit-testing. Swann sat next to Logan, who had her jacket draped over the back of the chair. McKensie sat opposite, minuting the meeting.

  Just as it was about to get under way, Swann was summoned from the room to take a call from London. When he came back, he carried three sheets of fax paper and his face was troubled. Kovalski was in mid-flow, talking about the model of the cherry blossom made out of C-4 explosive. He stopped as Swann took his seat and spread the sheets of paper in front of him.

  ‘That was Special Branch back home,’ Swann said. ‘They’ve done some more digging on Fachida Harada.’ He drew his lips together. ‘MI5 had a file on him. Harada was sokaiya and had visited the UK on two occasions.’ He paused. ‘But we’ve found out a bit more since then.’ He looked at Kovalski. ‘He was in the Japanese Red Army from 1975 to 1990, although, from what we can gather, the organisation was pretty much dormant after 1987. The JRA was formed by Fusako Shigenobu in 1971, when he was a student at Meiji University. He had become very disillusioned with Japan and world politics in general, so he formed his own group. Their first action was a suicide attack on Lod Airport in Israel in 1972, using grenades and machine guns. Twenty-six people were killed. The PFLP employed them to do it on their behalf.’ He glanced at Cheyenne then. ‘That was how it was. They were contract terrorists. They claimed a militant Marxist ideology, but the bottom line was profit. They made a very lucrative deal with Qaddafi after the Tripoli airstrikes in 1986 and carried out a number of acts on his behalf under the cover name of the AIIB anti-imperialist international brigades. Basically, anything that the AIIB claimed was funded by Libya and carried out by the JRA. Harada would have been very much involved by then.’

  Logan looked at Kovalski. ‘In 1986, the JRA attacked our embassy in Jakarta,’ she said. ‘They fired mortars from a hotel bedroom window, which landed in the courtyard but didn’t go off. They did the same thing in 1987 in Madrid, and they also set off a car bomb outside the embassy in Rome. It was all on behalf of Libya.’

  ‘In 1988,’ Swann went on, ‘we know they were planning to attack further US and European sites. Harada was in London, which is where we first came across him. Those attacks were intended to coincide with the anniversary of the military action against Libya, but they never happened. The JRA, like almost everybody else, was based in the Bekaa Valley during the eighties, but they also had an enclave in North Korea. That’s where they disappeared to after they finished with Qaddafi. They haven’t been active since.’

  Kovalski was rolling a pen across the tabletop. ‘In 1996, the Japanese National Police Agency arrested Tetsuya Shikomoto and handed him over to us.’ He sat forward and looked at Swann. ‘He was the only one we could get for the attack in Indonesia.’

  ‘This is all fine,’ McKensie put in, ‘but what’s any of it got to do with cherry blossom and the samurai?’

  Swann glanced at his notes. ‘Harada’s family have a tradition of being samurai,’ he said. ‘In latter generations it died out a bit, but his grandfather was a kamikaze pilot, killed in the Second World War. They were the twentieth century’s embodiment of the bushido philosophy, militarily speaking, anyway.’

  The Cub sat on the balcony of his apartment building, with the phone on the floor alongside him. He was in the southern part of Islamabad, his home for the last year. He was used to waiting. He had done it before and, if he survived this operation, no doubt he would do it again. The city heaved, sweating under a mantle of cloud, which kept the heat close to the concrete, compressing the air into solid blocks of humidity. He looked at the phone. He had been waiting for the call since he returned from Washington. Behind him in the bedroom, there was enough camera equipment to make the most professional photographer green with envy. For the past year he had cultivated his skill and, through the covert contacts set up by The Talent and the Intelligence Support Activity’s network of agents here in Pakistan, a good number of his pictures had found their way into magazines and the sports pages of newspapers. That had been vital for credibility. The Australian had been angry after his usual photographer had gone off to Alaska at such short notice, and a man like Bin Laden, whose influence stretched round the globe, would have scrutinised that in detail. Right now, they would still be checking everything that Terence Morgan, native of South Island, New Zealand, had ever done in his life. The Cub had confidence in his stagehands, however, and when the cue call came he would be ready.

  He considered his target as if gauging a set of statistics. Bin Laden was forty-two years old, one of twenty sons of a Saudi Arabian construction magnate. As far as The Talent had been able to ascertain, the business empire was worth in excess of five billion dollars and the family maintained close links with the kingdom’s royalty. Most of the work they undertook was road building for the government. When Osama Bin Laden was twenty-two, the Russians invaded Afghanistan and he left his homeland to join the fighting. But Bin Laden was no ordinary
mujahedin warrior. He was one with a considerable amount of money at his disposal. He brought in his own trucks and bulldozers, and funded the recruitment, training and transportation of thousands of volunteers—Palestinians, Somalis, Tunisians and Pakistanis. That was undoubtedly a turning-point in his life. If the Russians had stayed away, he might have become something else, but with the invasion he embraced his religion and set the course for the rest of his life. He had effectively been funded by the US, only to blow up two of their embassies twenty years later. Still, it was not the first time that kind of thing had happened and it would not be the last. The Cub thought about the reports in the British press back in February, claiming that Bin Laden had left his Afghan stronghold and that his whereabouts were unknown.

  But he had surfaced: some of his communications had been picked up by the NSA’s listening station in Egypt. The Cub had also received intelligence there in Islamabad that Bin Laden was actually still in Afghanistan, although in a new, secret location. The raids back in the fall of last year had dealt him some serious blows, but if the intelligence was to be believed, he had safe houses all over the world.

  The phone rang and The Cub looked at it, his face expressionless. He let it ring three times and then reached for it. ‘G’day.’

  ‘Terry?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘Jim Moore. I think the eagle has landed.’

  The Cub was quiet for a moment. ‘Do I get my gear together or is this another false alarm?’

  ‘Who knows, mate. But I’m at the Marriott. Get a taxi down here and make sure you bring the appropriate clothing with you.’

  The Cub hung up. The IAD’s intelligence on Moore’s last visit to Bin Laden, prior to the African embassy bombs going off, had him dressed like the rest of them—baggy trousers and knee-length shirt. The Cub had been wearing this garb now for almost a year, finding it considerably more comfortable than western clothing in this climate.

  In his bedroom, he carefully packed his bag and stowed each item of camera equipment into the aluminium case that housed them. He selected two black 35mm film cases and slipped out the film. Then he replaced them with two different rolls of film, sealed the lids and fitted them into the spongy pocket in the case. He took two PP3 batteries, which he had spent a long time cutting, emptying and filling with high explosive before resealing. He had a slavemaster unit set up and ready, and his flashgun. That ought to be good for 800 metres. Out on the street, he hailed a cab.