Fred and DeLeyon nodded.
“Okay,” Maggie continued. “Situation number two: no shots fired and I give you two clicks, “she said, pushing the Talk button on the walkie-talkie twice as she said it. “That means no terrorists, so no Molotovs, no phone calls, and no cops.” She waited for more nods. “Okay, last situation: no shots but three clicks. It means we’ve got trouble. Throw the cocktails and call for help. Any questions?”
“Let’s assume we find no terrorists,” Brent said. “We go get Biddle, right?”
“Yeah,” Maggie said. “But get it through your head—the guy’s got company.” She pulled another sheet of paper from beneath the satellite photo. It was the interior and exterior schematic of a large boat. “This is a Hatteras like Biddle’s,” she said. “There’s probably a fifty percent chance the missiles are onboard, so everyone ought to be familiar with the layout.”
Brent gave the diagrams a quick glance and thought back to a few times when the seas were too rough for fishing and he and Harry had helped friends do maintenance work on larger yachts. He hated the prospect of chasing people through the tight passages and blind passageways of a boat’s interior.
Suddenly the lights began to go out inside the McDonalds. He checked his watch. Ten past midnight. He didn’t have the patience for any more planning. “Let’s get this show on the road,” he said.
FIFTY-EIGHT
LONG ISLAND, JULY 2
BIDDLE SQUEEZED HIS HANDS INTO fists as the gates of his estate swung open. Abu Sayeed had taken Faith hostage! The thought sickened him, buffeted him with guilt and rage. This was his fault! Even worse, the change he’d felt when he slapped Anneliës was still there, and that, too, sapped his confidence.
The car started to move again, and Biddle tried to refocus. As they came around the first curve, he saw the octagonal guard hut and felt a surge of reassurance at the sight of his personal security. His guards knew nothing about the Arabs, of course, yet having them on the property evened things considerably.
A low-wattage light burned inside the guardhouse, and on closer inspection he could see that the building was empty. He squinted into the surrounding darkness. The man was probably nearby smoking a cigarette or taking a leak, but nonetheless he didn’t like it. He expected Anneliës to stop, lower her window, and wait for the guard, but she kept going.
“Stop the car!” Biddle demanded.
Anneliës didn’t look at him. When Biddle reached for her arm, she jerked it out of his grasp. “This is what you wanted!” she hissed. She hit the accelerator, and they picked up speed. The lights along the driveway began to rocket past.
“I’m giving you an order!” Biddle shouted, but he didn’t dare touch her again. They were hurtling toward the fork that would take them left toward the cottages. Anneliës did not slow. The Range Rover yawed as she jerked the wheel, and the tires slid off the pavement and across the grass.
“What in God’s name—?”
She wrested the car back onto the blacktop. Biddle was at a loss. Anneliës loved him! She wanted to spend her life making him happy! Also, wasn’t Abu Sayeed putting his whole mission at risk? Biddle had given him a chance to kill the President of the United States! No terrorist would jeopardize such an opportunity!
Anneliës wouldn’t even glance at him. Her face was grim and hatchet-like in the glow of the dashboard lights, the face of someone he had never met.
He reached out and put his hand on her arm again, gently this time. “Please talk to me.”
They raced past the barn and tennis courts and the headlights slashed through the thick grove of pines that separated the cottages from the broad lawns of the estate. Anneliës braked hard, the antilock brakes shuddered, and they came to a halt on the wet pavement of the small courtyard. Very deliberately, she took his hand and removed it from her arm. “Here we are,” she said with deadly calm.
Biddle looked out at the dark cottage, its shape suddenly squat and sinister. Wind whipped the trees. The courtyard felt foreboding, no longer a place under his domain. Not even a splinter of light escaped the cottage windows, but he felt the lurking presence of evil. It seemed so black and overwhelming that it might have been a dream, a hallucination induced by guilt and anxiety, or by the weather that seemed sent by God, Himself, as a warning.
Anneliës turned off the engine and climbed out into the gale. Biddle continued to sit, realizing that God had brought things to this impasse and stunned by how vulnerable he felt suddenly. After a moment he stepped out of the car. His mind was a jumble, but he registered the coldness of Anneliës’s expression.
“Raise your hands,” a heavily accented voice said from somewhere in the darkness.
Biddle stiffened. He knew the voice—the short terrorist, the one named Mohammed—but he did as the man ordered.
Anneliës stood a few feet away but did not raise her hands. “He is unarmed,” she said in a businesslike tone.
Mohammed stepped out of the trees, wearing a pair black night vision goggles and holding a small machine gun. He spoke softly into a small microphone at his collar, and a second later Biddle heard the cottage door open.
He turned to see the dark-skinned Arab, the one who appeared more African than Arab, studying him with his delicate, almost feminine eyes. The man’s face was scabbed and bandaged as if he’d been in a fight. He swung the door all the way open and waved Biddle inside. Biddle’s fear dissipated slightly as he moved toward the cottage, his mind seizing on the idea that he would be dealing with Abu Sayeed, a man far more civilized than his lackeys.
The moment he went through the door he noted the staleness in the air. It was the odor of dirty clothes, old food, and something else, an acrid stink that seemed a combination of anxiety and expectation. As soon as he smelled it, he found it contagious, and his fear rose back up in his gut. He cast his eyes around the room until they found Abu Sayeed, sitting peacefully in a chair beside the fireplace.
“Mr. Biddle,” the Saudi said with a casual wave of his long fingers. “How nice of you to grace us with your company.”
“Yes,” Biddle said, his throat so dry that his voice squeaked.
Abu Sayeed uttered an easy laugh. “I must admit you surprised me.” He gave Anneliës an unreadable glance. “I had started to think you would not come.”
Mohammed said something to Abu Sayeed in what sounded like Arabic, a question. When Abu Sayeed nodded, the man went back outside, closing the door behind him.
Now trapped in this tight space, Biddle felt his confidence ebbing. “I demand that you let my wife go immediately,” he said, but heard the hollowness in his words.
Abu Sayeed shrugged. “Regrettably, we will not be able to do that.”
Biddle shot another glance at Anneliës. “I thought we were partners.”
Abu Sayeed uttered a gentle laugh. “Please, Mr. Biddle.”
Biddle closed his eyes and took a breath to steady himself. “What do you intend to do with us?”
Abu Sayeed put his fingertips together and appeared to study their shape. He glanced at Anneliës. “It all comes down to endgames, does it not?”
“What are you talking about?”
Abu Sayeed frowned, seeming saddened by Biddle’s lack of understanding. He continued to stare at his fingertips. “You thought the silly Arabs would blow themselves up, while you would go on to your great victory.”
A wave of vertigo washed through Biddle, as though a bottomless chasm had opened at his feet. Of course Abu Sayeed should have followed the plan! He believed with all his heart that God had ordained it… but could he be mistaken?
He looked around the room, at the muted TV turned to an old movie, the plate of half-eaten dates beside the sink, a bowl of hummus on the table, the overflowing garbage can with an empty bag of Ruffles potato chips sitting on top. Suddenly, with a sense of abandonment so complete that it nearly buckled his knees, he realized he was alone. How had he miscalculated? Why was God forsaking him?
When he looked back a
t Abu Sayeed, his feigned pleasantry had dropped away and his dark eyes brimmed with malevolence. “You have been too condescending to see past your nose, Mr. Biddle. For such an intelligent man, your stupidity shocks me.”
He glanced toward the bedroom and snapped his fingers. The dark-skinned terrorist opened the door to show Biddle the sight of his wife bound and gagged on the bed. Faith’s head snapped up, eyes white with terror. Taped into a chair beside the bed sat Fred Wofford, his head hanging and his white shirt stained with blood. Biddle started to say something, but the man closed the door again then stood beside it with his arms folded across his chest.
Biddle’s heart thundered in his chest. His stomach roiled. He turned to Abu Sayeed ready to plead, barter, give him anything he wanted. “Please,” he said.
Abu Sayeed was smiling, as if the whole thing was a wonderful joke. “When I saw this wife of yours up close I feared our insurance policy would be of little value.”
“Let her go,” Biddle moaned.
“She is a filthy creature, foul mouthed and reeking of alcohol and tobacco. She does not honor you. I would not cross the street to save such a wife.”
“She lost God,” Biddle said. “She’s been wandering ever since.”
Abu Sayeed picked a piece of dirt from a fingernail. “A shame.” He glanced back toward the dark-skinned terrorist. “Kill her,” he said.
Biddle couldn’t seem to get enough oxygen in his lungs. Dear Father, he prayed silently, protect me in this hour of my need. His eyes darted to the front door.
Anneliës leaned against the wall beside it, her face a mask. If he could just get her between Abu Sayeed and himself, she would find a way to help him. He was sure of it.
He broke for the door, thinking he could jerk it open and run outside, through the hedge and toward the lights on his lawn. He had read somewhere that lights would blind night vision equipment.
The second he moved Anneliës came away from the wall, but instead of helping, she stepped directly in his path.
He tried to dodge around her, but her foot lashed out, catching him in the side of the leg. Pain wracked him as his knee buckled. He hit the floor hard and lay stunned with Anneliës’s feet just inches away. After a second she turned and went back to the wall. Biddle raised his head, but her expression was like stone.
Abu Sayeed laughed gently. “Mr. Biddle, did you never guess that she was in my employ? You never suspected?”
Biddle could feel his anger and hurt painted on his face. That instant if he had a gun, he would forsake his great mission and kill Abu Sayeed. He would kill all of them. Only, he had nothing. He had come utterly unprepared. How could he have been so arrogant? Father, he started to pray yet again, protect me in this hour of my—He didn’t finish. Outside the cottage a roar erupted, sounding like a big gust of wind, only louder. Anneliës jerked the door open, and Biddle saw the reflection of towering flames dancing wildly in the courtyard. Praise the Lord, his heart rejoiced. He delivereth me!
FIFTY-NINE
OYSTER BAY, NY, JULY 2
BRENT TENSED AS THE WIND whipped his hair and a fresh peal of thunder ripped the sky. The rain would resume any second. He was in position, but the backlit face on his watch showed he was several minutes early. He lay flat in a shallow depression beneath some thick azaleas, his clothing soaked by the wet ground, his nose filled with the scent of fresh mulch. He was pretty sure the bushes would screen him, even from someone wearing night vision goggles.
He checked his watch again. Three minutes. The pistol in his waistband jammed the cut on his stomach. He had a shell in the chamber, and he knew what he had to do—aim, click off the safety, hold his breath, squeeze the trigger. The prospect of shooting someone made him physically ill, but it wouldn’t stop him.
His squirt gun lay beside him, reeking of gasoline. He gave it another shake to make certain the fuel hadn’t leaked, then crossed his fingers that the internal workings hadn’t melted. The test gun had still worked after forty-five minutes. Amazingly, it had only been twenty minutes since they’d left the McDonald’s parking lot, maybe ten or twelve since they’d filled the other squirt guns and started across the wall.
He took a deep breath and listened. He’d made it to the middle of the estate without hearing a sound except the wind keening in the trees and the rumble of the approaching storm. Biddle’s mansion was a little over a hundred yards to his right, and he wondered if Biddle was sitting in his den right now, sipping a brandy. He was even starting to wonder whether Maggie was wrong and the cottages were empty when he saw the headlights.
The vehicle came fast, its engine racing, its beams knifing through the ground mist. At the fork in the drive, it swerved toward the cottages, and Brent pressed down into the wood chips. The car momentarily slid off the blacktop as if the driver was panicked. Was it Biddle’s security or someone coming to warn the terrorists? The car disappeared behind the trees, and a second later he heard its brakes chatter as it squealed to a halt. Its doors opened and then thumped shut.
Brent checked his watch. Ninety seconds. Ahead in the darkness a voice rose momentarily above the wind. The speaker was invisible, the words indistinct, but Brent thought he caught a heavy accent.
His heart thumped as he recalled the face of the man who’d tried to kill him in the garage. Seconds ticked by. He concentrated, listening for every sound. Momentarily he thought he heard footsteps nearby. He gazed into the darkness but saw nothing and heard only the wind and the hiss of rustling leaves. His watch gradually showed forty-five seconds… thirty seconds. Finally, it was time.
He inched out from the azaleas, stood, and aimed his water gun high into the boughs of the nearest pines. He hosed the branches until he could smell gas dripping all around, and then he waited, looking in Kosinsky’s direction. After another second, there was a glimmer of light, and very quickly three or four pines along the edge of Biddle’s property burst into flames.
A second later several more trees, these much closer, also went up, and now he lit his match and tossed it. The instant Whoosh of the igniting gas took him by surprise, and in only seconds the heat knocked him back a step. He stood there, momentarily silhouetted against the night, but then he crouched and began to move toward Maggie and Kosinsky.
At least six trees were burning. The wind whipped the flames, and limbs began to pop as the sap and pine needles caught. Glowing sparks raced off the trees and blew over the lawns, and the roar of the flames overrode even the sound of the wind. He finally saw movement out of the corner of his eye, veered toward it, and found Maggie squatting at the base of a thick oak.
He knelt beside her, shouting to be heard over the fire. “Where’s Kosinsky?”
She shook her head just as three quick shots cracked over the sound of the storm. Brent looked toward the sound but saw only the wind-lashed flames twenty or thirty yards away. Without thinking he freed his pistol and began crawling. Behind him Maggie shouted into the walkie-talkie, “We have shots fired! Fred, throw the bombs and get out right now. DeLeyon, get your ass into town. Copy?”
Brent was already too far away to hear any response, but a second later when he glanced back he spotted a new glimmer of flames in the direction of the main house. He was snaking along the side of the azalea bed, trying to stay low. He hoped he wasn’t too visible, but he didn’t slow. Kosinsky had risked his life for him.
Up ahead a dark shape lay on the grass. He froze as light from the burning pines wavered across the still form. Overhead, thunder boomed. Finally, he inched forward, watching for movement while his mind raced. Was it a terrorist? He remembered Kosinsky’s warning, but even if the guy moved, he couldn’t shoot until he knew for sure.
He was only a couple feet away before he recognized Kosinsky, lying on his back with his hand clamped tight over his left shoulder. Brent could see blood glistening in the firelight. “Steve,” he whispered, “it’s me. I’ll get help.”
“Careful,” Kosinsky groaned. “The guy came up so fast. He’s got
a silencer. I got off a couple shots, but I think I missed.” He fought a wave of pain and closed his eyes. After a deep breath he opened them again. “This guy’s a pro.”
Brent looked out at darkness behind them and the conflagration in front. Which way had the guy gone? Kosinsky seemed to read his mind. He pointed a bloody finger toward the cottage. “Over there.”
The pine trees were burning on their own now, the wind sucking flames along the branches, spreading them to the main trunks. An asteroid shower of burning pine needles rained through the air. Beyond the pines the night was a pool of black ink.
Brent heard a sound behind him. He spun away from the fire and aimed blindly, realizing belatedly that he’d lost his night vision.
“It’s me!” Maggie called as she appeared out of the dark. “Hold tight, Steve,” she said. She pulled a small flashlight from her pocket, cupped the beam, and shined it on his wounded arm and then on his chest where three holes had shredded the fabric around his heart, exposing the bulletproof vest beneath. She clicked off the light and grabbed her walkie-talkie. “DeLeyon, you copy? We need an ambulance. Kosinsky’s hit. Repeat. Kosinsky’s hit. Do you copy?”
Fred’s voice came to her, filled with static from the approaching storm. “I copy,” he said. “I’m calling 911 on my cell phone, and I’ll be there in a second. Where are you?”
Brent snatched the walkie-talkie out of Maggie’s hand. “Fred, stay the hell away from here!”
“Forget it. I’ve got years of first aid. Are you near Kosinsky’s original position?”
Armageddon Conspiracy bl-1 Page 23