Abuse of Power

by Michael Savage

  Sara gave Jack a look that said, What can you do? But considering the number of people they’d lost over the last two years, Jack couldn’t blame the guy. He moved to the wall, placed his palms against it, and spread his legs.

  Reinhardt flicked a switch on the wand and started with Jack’s shoes, slowly moving up the inside of each leg, the torso, the neck and shoulders, then up each arm.

  When he waved it over Jack’s right wrist—over his Hamilton Gilbert—the wand began to beep. Loudly.

  The entire room went quiet, heads turning in reaction to the sound. Without missing a beat, Reinhardt produced a gun and pressed it against Jack’s head.

  “The watch,” he demanded. “Take it off.”

  Sara just stood there looking stunned and Jack was flabbergasted.

  With horror, he thought:

  Swain. While I was out, he had my watch. Has he been tracking us all this time?

  “Take it off!” the bulldog roared.

  But before Jack could comply a radio squawked nearby. Brendan Lapworth’s frantic voice came over the airwaves—

  “Shut her down! We’re under attack!”

  As one, all eyes shifted to the computer screen showing the infrared security cameras as a team of black-suited commandos spilled from a van then crashed through the chain-link gate—

  —and shot Ethan and Brendan down in cold blood.

  27

  Chaos.

  That was the only word to describe it.

  The room erupted in shouts and scrambling bodies. Alain quickly moved from computer to computer to shut them down, as people hurried toward windows and doors. Reinhardt’s expression was pure fury. He slammed Jack across the back of the head with his gun, then stepped back and was about to pull the trigger when Sara shouted.

  “No!”

  She smashed into their leader, knocking him against the white board. He went down with a crash and she grabbed Jack’s arm, pulling him toward the doorway.

  “Run!”

  Jack’s head was throbbing as they flew through the hallway, shouts echoing around them. The commandos were inside the building and storming up the stairs, firing indiscriminately at any movement they saw.

  A bullet gouged plaster above Jack’s head and Sara steered him through a doorway into another apartment, pulling him into the bathroom.

  She pointed toward the ceiling. “Up there. Open it!”

  Gunfire echoed in the hall as Jack jumped onto the toilet, unlatched a square hatch above it—an air vent—and threw it open. The space was just big enough for him to fit through.

  “Go!” she said.

  Jack hoisted himself up and through to a slanted slate rooftop. He turned and reached back inside and Sara got onto the toilet and grabbed hold of his hands. He pulled her up, paused just long enough to drop his beloved watch through the opening, then quickly closed the hatch.

  Down in the street, several more vans and French police cars screeched to a stop in front of the building, uniformed officers piling out, weapons at the ready. Whatever lie they had been told—undoubtedly by MI6—they had swallowed it whole.

  The rooftops of Paris were like no place else on earth. For as far as Jack could see in the moonlight there were no flat surfaces, just a maze of slants and protrusions, gullies and pipes and television antennas—visual disorder but beautiful, as if the city had been designed by a mad genius.

  Sara got to her feet and started across the slanted roof, gesturing for Jack to follow. But that was easier said than done. She seemed to have a path mapped out, grabbing onto landmarks along the way—a pipe here, a chimney there, the occasional satellite dish—and Jack could only stumble along after her, his head throbbing, trying his best not to slip and fall.

  When they were halfway across, the hatch popped open behind them and they heard a shout, the voice familiar—

  “Sara! Sara!”

  Coming to a stop, they turned and saw Alain climbing from the hatch as he called to her.

  “I had to wipe all the computers,” he said. “The key—tell me you still have the key!”

  She patted her pocket. “Yes, yes. Now hurry!”

  Alain started forward as a shot rang out behind him. His spine split in a burst of blood, the impact pitching him onto the slanted rooftop. He threw his hands out, scrambling for purchase—more twitching reflex than anything, Jack knew—but then his face went blank and his body flopped and rolled, tumbling over the side of the building into the darkness below.

  Sara screamed, moonlit tears filling her eyes—genuine tears—as one of the commandos hoisted himself through the hatch.

  Jack put his hands on her shoulders and gently nudged her forward.

  “Go! Go!”

  Sara didn’t need further prompting. She turned and continued toward the edge of the rooftop, picking up speed. Jack did his best to keep up with her.

  The adjoining building was only four stories high, but Sara didn’t let that slow her down. She leaped onto it without hesitation, grabbing a fat ventilation pipe as she landed. Jack followed, his shoes slipping from under him as he hit the second rooftop. He fell onto his side and nearly went tumbling, but managed to grab Sara’s extended hand, got hold of the pipe, and steadied himself.

  Another shot cracked, the bullet ricocheting wildly. Pulling himself upright, Jack got back to his feet and hurried after Sara as she yanked open the roof-access door of the building and disappeared inside. A moment later they were on the stairs, spiraling quickly toward the ground floor. When they reached it, breathing heavily, Sara cautiously opened a squeaking door into a narrow, cobblestone alleyway. She looked, then exited. As Jack followed her outside, she stopped and turned, her eyes still full of tears.

  “Give me that bloody watch,” she said, still trying to catch her breath.

  “I left it in the bathroom so they couldn’t track us,” he said.

  She looked at him suspiciously.

  “They were shooting at me, too!” he reminded her.

  “Alain was one of my dearest friends,” she said.

  “I’m truly sorry,” Jack told her. “But I didn’t set you up, if that’s what you’re thinking. You think I want to see another 9/11? I was had, Sara, just like your agents who died in the bathroom, in the alley. Like you were when they killed Abdal. It happens.”

  She looked at him with angry eyes but didn’t seem to have a response. She gestured toward the roof. “They’ll be across soon. There’s a garage around the corner, where Brendan left the van. Let’s hope they haven’t found it.”

  She turned and hurried through the alley.

  Jack followed her, unable to fathom how any religion, any philosophy, any political goal, was worth what this had already cost.

  And it was still just the opening salvo.

  * * *

  They were blasting through the streets of Paris in the Citroën, Sara behind the wheel. She’d found the key in a small magnetic box under the rear bumper, and so far the journey had been uneventful, no sign of anyone in pursuit.

  Sara was angry and heartbroken, but had that slightly shell-shocked look that Jack had gotten so used to seeing during his days in Iraq.

  “They’re dead,” she said. “Probably every last one of them. All because of that bloody watch. All because I brought you there.”

  “Believe me, Sara, I didn’t know about the tracker. How could I? You think they strapped me in that chair for the fun of it? You must have heard my screams.”

  “I was out. I didn’t hear anything.”

  “Then you’ll just have to trust me.”

  “Why should I?”

  “The same reason I trusted you, even when you were lying,” he said.

  She suddenly crushed the brake, pulling to the side of the road. “Get out of the car!”

  “Sara, you’ve got to look past this.”

  “Out!”

  It killed him to see her in such pain. He sat there a moment, just staring at her, wanting her to change her mind, but she did
n’t say another word. Angrily, he opened his door and got out.

  She hit the gas even before he had closed the door, blasting down the street on squealing tires, as Jack watched in dismay. But as she approached the intersection she abruptly stopped, the van’s brake lights glowing in the darkness. The horn let out a short, angry blast and then she just sat there, the engine idling.

  Jack jogged unsteadily to the van, still not quite having found his land legs after their across-the-rooftop run. He opened the passenger door to find her just sitting there, her eyes clouded, trying her best to keep from crying. One death can produce an anesthetic reaction that allows someone to function through a short period of mourning. But multiple deaths are like a landslide: it controls you. The hardened façade she usually presented was starting to crack and it took everything she had to hold back.

  “It’s okay,” he said. “It will be okay if we don’t give up.”

  “I don’t know if I can do this anymore.”

  “I know,” he said.

  “It’s what you said. Every time one of us falls I feel it all over again. The loss, the self-doubt, the questioning, wondering what I might have done to foresee this, to prevent it.”

  “You’re not a professional. Neither am I. We’re making this up as we go along. Those guys.” He indicated the enemy with a backward jerk of his head. “They have years of training, limitless resources, and vastly superior numbers. It’s amazing you’ve gotten this far.”

  His words seemed to cut through the grief and remind her why they were here. She wiped her eyes. The gesture was transformative: he saw the old Sara return.

  He didn’t want to intrude on her sorrow but he knew they couldn’t stay here much longer. They needed to get rid of the van. The alert would have gone out and the police would be searching for them. Terrorists on the run, that’s the story MI6 likely fed them. Dangerous extremists who needed to be shot dead on sight.

  Still, he sat there saying nothing, suddenly aware that despite knowing her for less than twenty-four hours he’d never felt this way about a woman. Not about Rachel or any of the one-nighters he picked up since the divorce.

  And then the sadness seemed to pass. She put her hands back on the wheel.

  “I’m sorry,” she said. “I know this wasn’t your fault. You couldn’t have known what they’d do. But I should have anticipated it.”

  “Shoulda, woulda, coulda. This is where we are. Do we sit here or do we go and get those sons of bitches.”

  “I’m trying to figure out how,” she said. “The team is gone, the computers. All we have is the USB key, and even if we manage to get the information off of it, it could be worthless.”

  “You ever hear of the wasp strategy?” Jack asked.

  “The wasp? Like the insect?”

  “Yeah. How do you kill eighty people and destroy fourteen tons of hardware with something that weighs a fraction of a pound?”

  She nodded. “Set a wasp loose in the cabin.”

  “Exactly. We have to be wasps,” Jack said. “You said you have contacts around the world.”

  “Yes, but we kept all our information on our hard drives. That’s why Alain wiped them.”

  “You told him you have the key—”

  “But I have no idea where he kept the backups,” she said. “I was a field operative, not a techie. I wouldn’t even know where to start.”

  “We still have the encrypted e-mails Alain gave you,” Jack said.

  “Right. But the key word is encrypted. Do you know anyone we can go to?”

  Jack thought about the Reb, wondered if he should call him. But most of his people were in Tel Aviv, and getting there would take too long. Encrypted or not, he didn’t want to chance sending data over the Internet.

  “Not in Europe,” he told her.

  She paused, a sudden light in her eyes.

  “What?”

  “I work at the College of Islam. That was my cover. There’s a student there—a young man who’s brilliant with computers. In fact, if I remember correctly, he’s even done some work with codes. Maybe he can help us. He’s Muslim and he’s very religious, but he’s not like Zuabi. He’s a good man.”

  “Can he be trusted?”

  “I think so. What choice do we have?”

  “None, at this point,” Jack said grimly. “Let’s just hope he agrees to help.”

  “He will,” Sara said.

  Jack didn’t know whether she was alluding to the flirtatious stick or ballistic carrot approach. Not that it mattered.

  Right now, nothing mattered but stopping Zuabi.

  28

  London, England

  It was a cardinal rule of intelligence work that Sara had learned: if your cover has been compromised, either go deep undercover or hide in plain sight.

  Going to ground was not an option.

  Fortunately, Sara and Jack looked a mess and stank of perspiration from the torture, their flight, days without a shower. Any description MI6 might have sent out barely applied to the dirty, disheveled couple who showed up for the train ride back to London. They had taken the precaution of having a drink so their breath suggested a night of heavy partying. And they acted the part as they purchased tickets with the cash Jack had been carrying.

  They reached London without a hitch and cabbed to the school.

  The young man’s name was Faisal al-Jubeir.

  He couldn’t have been more than twenty-six years old, and was an inch taller than Jack, with dark skin and a thick black beard. He seemed a bit irritated as he opened the door at nearly one in the morning. The moment he saw Sara his annoyance evaporated. He didn’t even seem to see Jack, not at first.

  “Ms. Ghadah,” he said in surprise. “Sara. What are you doing here?”

  “I’m sorry if we woke you, Faisal.”

  “Actually, no. I was studying for—” He paused, frowning at her. Like everyone else, he saw and was mesmerized by Sara’s face in those first moments. “Your clothes, your hijab … where are they? Why are you dressed like that?”

  “It’s a long story,” she told him.

  “Are you all right?”

  “I’m fine, but I desperately need your help.”

  He looked confused. “My help?”

  “May we come in?”

  He hesitated, glancing at Jack as though seeing him for the first time. Then he stepped back and opened the door wide. “Of course,” he said. “Come in.”

  “Thank you, Faisal.”

  They stepped into a clean but modest flat full of furniture that looked as if it had come with the rental. Cheap but functional. There was a small kitchenette with a dining table in front of it, the table cluttered with books and spiral binders, illuminated by a reading lamp. It was like being in a neat version of Max’s hacker friend Dave Karras’s place, with one exception: among the books was Fundamentals of Islamic Philosophy. Jack felt his gut tighten ever so slightly.

  Amid the clutter was a laptop computer with a screensaver showing photographs of an attractive Arab woman and a small boy.

  “Faisal, this is my friend Jack.”

  “Assalamu alaikum,” Faisal said, and they shook hands, each man assessing the other, Jack wanting to trust him and fighting the sense that he shouldn’t. He supposed it all boiled down to whether or not this young man’s idea of Islamic philosophy was similar to al-Fida’s and included killing in the name of Allah.

  Sara had assured Jack that Faisal wasn’t a radical, but then Sara herself had spent nearly a year pretending to be something she wasn’t, as had Abdal and God knew how many others. Jack was still trying to adjust to the fact that there was a president of the United States with a middle name Hussein. Who was to say this guy wasn’t pretending as well?

  Faisal gestured to the sofa. “Sit. Please.”

  They sat and Faisal took a chair opposite them.

  Sara leaned forward. “I know it’s late. And I know you’re not used to seeing me like this. I could probably give you some excuse as t
o why we’re here and look the way we do, but you’ve always struck me as a man of principle so I think it’s best to be truthful.”

  “Yes, of course. Islam teaches us to strive always to excel in virtue and truth. But you’re starting to frighten me.”

  “It’s a frightening world,” Jack said unhelpfully. But it had to be said. Everyone was a soldier for one side or the other, whether they liked it or not.

  Sara reached into her pocket and pulled out the USB key. “This,” she told him. “There are some encrypted e-mails on it that I’m hoping you can crack.”

  “Me?”

  “I know how talented you are, Faisal. I know you’ve helped some of the teachers with their computers. Other students. And I know codes are one of your hobbies. I remember it from the essay in your application packet.”

  He shrugged. “I know a few things.” He looked at the key suspiciously. “Who do these e-mails belong to?”

  Sara fixed those beautiful but firm eyes on the young man. “Have you ever heard of a group called the Hand of Allah?”

  His expression became restless, anxious. It was obvious he had. “Now you truly are frightening me. What are you involved in?”

  “Trying to stop them,” she said frankly.

  Jack was watching the young man’s face carefully. Nothing changed. That was a good sign. There was no, “Aha! I’ve got you! You’ve fallen into a Hand of Allah trap!”

  “We believe the e-mails come from a member of that group,” Sara went on. “Someone high within the home secretary’s office.”

  “What?” Faisal exclaimed. “That’s absurd! And why would you have them?”

  That was sincere, Jack decided. He was beginning to feel better about this guy. Now all they had to do was get him to cooperate, to risk his life.

  Sara was quiet a moment, as if looking for a way to explain it all. “Faisal, I’m not exactly who I seem to be,” she said. “You think of me as the quiet Muslim girl who works in the office, the girl you sometimes talk to during your lunch hour, but I only took that job as a cover.”

  “Cover?” He looked nonplussed. “Cover for what?”