The American rk-1

by Andrew Britton

  The director looked around the room, his eyes settling on Jonathan Harper. “Does anyone have an answer for that?”

  “The timetable depends on what kind of weapon he’s planning to use, and that comes down to what kind of vehicle he’s driving,” Harper said. “Obviously, he’ll need a bigger window if he’s trying to bring a bomb into the city. I don’t believe we’ve come up with anything solid on that yet. Emily?”

  Susskind looked up from her coffee and debated for a second, her slender fingers dancing on the rim of her cup. “The only vehicle registered by Timothy Nichols in the state of Virginia is a four-year-old Honda motorcycle. Unfortunately, that doesn’t really mean anything; he could have acquired another vehicle under a different name, or maybe he’s stolen one — there’s just no way of knowing.

  “There’s something else we need to consider, though. Once we had his alias, the link between Vanderveen and Theresa Barzan was quickly established. We still don’t know her real identity, but we do know that, using that name on her Saudi passport, she wired him almost 35,000 dollars over the past several weeks. The funds were routed through the Caymans and the Cook Islands, which made it very difficult to trace. That’s not enough money for a payoff, but it is enough to purchase a lot of expensive equipment.” She paused and cleared her throat gently. “The kind of equipment he would need to construct and conceal a large explosive device.”

  A grim silence ensued as the people around the table considered this news. It was Jonathan Harper’s measured words that finally shattered the calm.

  “There’s a chance he went back to the source, despite the increased security that was put in place after the Kennedy-Warren bombing. Has this information been checked against the records in Norfolk?”

  “I have people working on that right now,” Susskind responded. “We haven’t been able to get in contact with the director of operations or the terminal manager. The highest we could get was an assistant supervisor of the container division, and that particular individual is not exactly the picture of cooperation.”

  It was the superintendent’s sonorous voice that rang out in response. “I might be able to help you with that,” he said. “Our department works pretty closely with the staff over there. I can save you a lot of time if you can get in touch with Gary Thompson and refer him my way. He’s the general manager at NIT.”

  Susskind wrote the name down and nodded her appreciation to the heavyset colonel.

  “Those records are going to be crucial,” Harper said. “If Vanderveen did use the terminal a second time, he obviously managed to get past Customs, or we wouldn’t be in this mess. At the same time, there will be a record of the type and weight of shipment he received. That could go a long way in telling us how he intends to deliver the package.”

  “Getting access to those records needs to be a top priority,” Landrieu agreed from the head of the table. “We need to throw some weight around. It’s going to take us long enough to get a search warrant without wasting any additional time.”

  He turned his attention to the deputy director of the FBI. “Make sure they understand in Norfolk that there’s going to be serious repercussions if they keep it up. We’ll shut their whole operation down if we have to. What about the residence itself?”

  “Surveillance is already in place,” Susskind responded. “The SAC out of Richmond is running the show. Obviously, the Virginia State Police are on the scene as well. The state troopers have both ends of Chamberlayne Road blocked off, and a loose perimeter has already been formed around the house, extending a quarter mile out in every direction. The staging point is a half mile down the road — this part of the state is about as rural as it gets, which makes things a whole lot easier for us in some respects, harder in others. For instance, we can’t bring any choppers in without making our presence known.”

  “Do we know if he’s in there?” McCabe asked.

  “No idea. The lights are off, but that doesn’t mean much; at this time of the morning, he’s probably asleep.”

  “What about infrared?”

  “We tried that, but the windows are too small. We can’t get a good scan of the entire house.”

  McCabe was nodding slowly. “Are there any vehicles on the property?”

  “There’s a fairly large barn,” Susskind responded. “But the doors are closed and we can’t get close enough to see inside without jeopardizing our cover. When we move, we have to be sure.”

  Plesse cleared his throat. “How about roadblocks? I would think, as a precautionary measure-”

  “No way,” McCabe said from across the table. “It’s less than two hours into Washington from that part of Virginia. It would take us at least an hour just to get checkpoints set up on the main roads.”

  “Besides, what would we tell the people manning them?” Landrieu asked. “Let me remind you once again that the president is anxious to avoid drawing any unnecessary attention to this situation. Setting anything up that might approach an effective barrier around the city would mean bringing hundreds of people into the loop. That is completely unacceptable.”

  “Sir, with all due respect, I think we’re past the point of worrying about publicity. By putting this much effort into keeping it quiet, we’re giving Vanderveen a huge advantage.”

  Ryan flinched at Kharmai’s unexpected outburst, and waited for the inevitable reprimand.

  Patrick Landrieu straightened and fixed his gaze on the young woman at the other end of the table. “I’m sorry, miss, I didn’t catch your name.”

  “Naomi Kharmai, sir. I’m with-”

  “Central Intelligence, I know. I served that particular agency for more than twenty years. No offense, Ms. Kharmai, but I think the gravity of this situation is somewhat beyond the scope of your limited experience.” He turned his attention away from her immediately. “Now, if anyone else has any reasonable suggestions…”

  When Ryan tuned the man out and cast a quick glance in Naomi’s direction, he saw that she had slumped down in her seat. Her eyes were downcast, and her cheeks were bright red.

  “Excuse me, Director.”

  Landrieu looked up, surprised and annoyed. “Yes?”

  “Do you know who I am, sir?”

  Landrieu hesitated, a fact that was noticed by everyone present. “Yes, I do, Mr. Kealey.”

  “I would like to point out that Naomi’s efforts at tracking this name down are the only reason we’re even sitting here. If she has something to say, it would be well worth your time to listen to her.”

  Had he been a man of compromise, willing to endure a mild rebuke in the interest of maintaining a positive atmosphere, the director might have shrugged it off. Because he was not that kind of man, however, he chose to bluster. “While I’m sure that we’re all grateful for Ms. Kharmai’s efforts, I don’t think we have time to-”

  “Director.”

  With the single spoken word, Landrieu looked up into the coldest pair of eyes he had ever seen. He almost opened his mouth to speak again, and then decided against it. Landrieu briefly reflected that what he saw in Kealey’s face might well have been the product, at least in part, of his own imagination. As a former deputy DCI, he still had connections at the highest levels of the Agency. He knew all about the man who was seated before him.

  Patrick Landrieu swallowed his pride and cleared his throat. When he spoke, his words were barely audible, despite the stunned silence that had swept through the room. “By all means, Ms. Kharmai, if you have any suggestions, we would be happy to hear them.”

  Naomi was a little shocked herself at what had just transpired. She collected herself quickly enough, though, and unconsciously straightened in her seat. “Thank you, Director. I admit that the political implications of another bombing, especially during a state visit by two national leaders, are way over my head. At the same time, we can’t afford to lose sight of the fact that the president is not the only person at risk here. There should be no doubt that a lot of people are going to die if Vande
rveen manages to accomplish whatever it is he’s set out to do. As you’ve all seen from the copies of the driver’s license, Vanderveen made only minor cosmetic alterations while posing as Timothy Nichols. It’s fair to say that he’s probably already gotten rid of that identity, and has taken more dramatic steps to change his appearance for the final stage of his operation, if this is in fact the final stage.”

  This statement was greeted by the low rumble of unhappy voices.

  “If Vanderveen is still there, then we clearly have nothing to lose by moving in right now. If, on the other hand, he’s already gone, we need to know as soon as possible. Provided that the scene is treated with the utmost care and consideration, and any evidence remains intact, there’s a good chance we might find something useful, something that could tell us what he looks like now. At this point, there is very little else we can do. I think that it’s time to focus our efforts.”

  The unhappy sounds gradually changed to general murmurs of consent. All the same, Naomi was surprised when Landrieu hurried to agree. “That sounds reasonable enough to me. Let’s hold off on the roadblocks. It would take a huge effort to mobilize that kind of force at this time in the morning anyway. Emily, I suggest that you start looking for a judge to wake up. When will you be ready to go?”

  Deputy Director Susskind took a quick look at her watch. “Most of my people are already in place. Once we get the warrant, say… 5 AM.”

  “Excellent.” Landrieu pulled back the cuff of his shirt and looked at his own watch. “That’s three hours from now. Send me an update when you hit the ground in Virginia. There’s no point in waking up the president at this hour. Let’s wait and see if we have something useful to tell him. Whoever’s not on the move will meet back here at 7:00 AM.

  “President Chirac and Prime Minister Berlusconi arrived yesterday, ladies and gentlemen. The boating excursion is scheduled for 9:00 AM. That gives us six hours to catch a man who has eluded us for more than seven years. I suggest you get to work.”

  Five minutes later the room was almost empty. Ryan was one of the last to leave, and he looked around for a minute before he saw Naomi moving down a distant hallway. She was almost running, and he had to move fast to catch up.

  “Hey, where are you-” He caught the look on her face. “What’s wrong?”

  “What do you mean, ‘What’s wrong?’ You know exactly what’s wrong.”

  “No, I don’t.” She was still moving fast, and he was genuinely confused. “Naomi, you give me way too much credit. For the record, I’m actually pretty dumb, and I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

  She didn’t smile. “You shouldn’t have pulled that little stunt in there, Ryan. I didn’t need you to do that, okay? It was embarrassing. I can fight my own battles.”

  “I know that… Naomi, stop for a second.” When she unexpectedly complied, he had to backtrack a couple of steps to face her. “Where are you going, anyway?”

  “I have a seat on the next helicopter to Richmond.”

  That came as a surprise. “With who?”

  “Superintendent Plesse and the deputy director.”

  “Which deputy director?”

  “Susskind.”

  Ryan lifted an eyebrow. “And Harper approved that?”

  “It was his suggestion.” Naomi crossed her arms and stared at him defiantly. Her cheeks were still flushed, and her glossy black hair spilled in riotous waves down around her face and over her shoulders.

  Ryan thought she had never looked better.

  “I’m going, too.”

  She shook her head slowly. “Harper specifically said you were to stay here.”

  “I don’t give a shit what Harper said.”

  Her expression softened slightly, as did her tone of voice. “Ryan, we don’t know for sure that he’s still there, and we need to have both ends covered. You don’t need me to tell you that.”

  He hesitated, knowing that she was right. When she started to walk away again, he caught her arm. “Listen, I’m sorry about what I said in there. I should have kept my mouth shut. It’s just that Landrieu’s such an asshole…”

  “That’s all right. I think so, too.”

  There was a brief moment of silence as they looked at each other. Impulsively, Ryan leaned down to kiss her cheek. “Be careful, Naomi.”

  “I’ll be okay,” she said. “After all, you won’t be there to shoot me this time.” She turned away before he could think of a clever response and resumed her rapid pace to the stairwell. When she stepped out into the icy wind and walked toward the waiting helicopter a few minutes later, she was wearing a wide smile, and despite the cold, she felt warm all over.

  CHAPTER 32

  RICHMOND, VIRGINIA, HANOVER COUNTY

  As soon as the Bell 206 LongRanger touched down at VSP Administrative Headquarters, its three passengers disembarked and moved gratefully toward the stairwell and the warmth of the building. It was bitterly cold outside, and made worse by the frigid gusts of wind that whipped over the roof and penetrated their clothing. From a conversation she had overheard earlier in the day, Naomi knew the worsening weather to be the first gentle touches of a winter storm that had started off the coast of Florida three days earlier and had been working its way north ever since.

  As she followed the two senior officials through the spotless halls, she reflected that they would all be saved a lot of trouble if the storm picked up enough to force a cancellation of the president’s trip on the Sequoia. At the same time, she knew that they would never get off the hook that easily. President Brenneman seemed just as intent on fulfilling the demands of his schedule as Vanderveen was on cutting them short.

  Deputy Director Susskind enjoyed the warmth of the building only for as long as it took her to ride the elevator down to the bottom floor. She had used the time in the helicopter to scream through several conversations over a static-filled line, and arrangements had been made for a car to take her directly to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit, where Judge Lucy Klein was already pouring her second cup of coffee and wondering what she could possibly have done to deserve such mistreatment at the hands of the government she had faithfully served for more than eighteen years.

  While Susskind pleaded her case before the judge, Naomi would accompany Superintendent Plesse out to the staging area, where they were set to meet up with the SAC for the Bureau’s Richmond Office. She followed Plesse through the big glass doors of the Administrative Center less than ten minutes after Susskind’s departure, walking quickly toward the Lincoln Town Car that waited alongside the curb. Soon they were heading east on the Midlothian Turnpike, crossing darkened streets and following the gentle curves of the James River less than a mile to the north.

  At 3:40 in the morning, the roads were virtually empty, and so it wasn’t long before they reached I-95. The driver eased down on the accelerator when they took the entrance ramp, and soon they were pushing toward Hanover County as fast as the car could carry them.

  They were in blackout condition at the staging area, which meant there were only a few light sticks, also known as chemical, or ‘chem’ lights, scattered around the perimeter. The staging area wasn’t much more than a cluster of Bureau vehicles arranged in a vague circle, like a wagon train defending itself against marauding Indians. The side road was marked by a rusty gate that someone had thought to pull back and chain to a tree, thereby making it easier for vehicles to get in and out of the clearing in a hurry.

  Naomi was hit by an icy gust of wind as soon as she stepped out of the Town Car. She blindly chased after Plesse in the dark, passing small groups of huddled agents as he hurried up to an idling Suburban and rapped on the window. When it came down he asked for the SAC, and was rewarded with a vague wave toward the largest vehicle in the clearing, a black Chevy conversion van. Ten seconds later he was pounding on the back door with a gloved fist.

  There were two people already sitting in the overheated interior, which was lit up with communications gear.
Naomi could clearly make out the two monitors displaying feeds from the infrared cameras on the perimeter.

  Brett Harrison, the SAC, was a fair-haired, All-American type with big shoulders and clear blue eyes. Naomi was wary of him right off the bat, especially when she noticed that one of his front teeth was chipped. Football injury, she thought, and frowned. For some reason that she had never been able to figure out, she harbored a mild animosity toward jocks, especially middle-aged jocks who had never gotten over the fact that they weren’t in college anymore.

  Harrison grinned and stuck out his hand, which Naomi reluctantly shook, as did Superintendent Plesse. “Brett Harrison, good to meet you.” He stuck his thumb over his shoulder. “This is Al Maginnes, the HRT commander.”

  “Maginnes?” Kharmai asked.

  The commander smiled. “Ma, like mother, then Guinness, like the beer. Funny thing is, I can’t stand the stuff.”

  Naomi smiled back at him. She didn’t like the heavy Irish brew, either. Maginnes was a lightly muscled man in his early forties, she guessed, with a bald spot on top, a thick brown mustache going to gray, and careful brown eyes. He was wearing camouflage GORE-TEX pants and a black T-shirt. She saw that he had a heavy pistol riding in a leg holster, and there was an M4 carbine propped up next to him. He looked competent enough, and she briefly wondered if Susskind had worked him in to keep an eye on the younger SAC.

  “Where are we at?” Plesse asked, shifting his weight impatiently on the uncomfortable little seat.

  Harrison pulled his headset down around his neck. “Your boys have both ends of the road sealed off, so we’re good there. There’s still no movement inside the house, and we’ve been up and running since… what, Al? A little after one this morning?” The other man nodded. “So that’s just over three hours without any movement. But there is something that I think you should see…”