Betrayal

by Tim Tigner

  Waiting for stage eleven to ferment, Odi tried to picture the scene that would unfold that evening. Having been on many a stakeout, he found himself taking the security guard’s point of view. The guard who drew duty the first evening of recess would be sitting with his black shoes propped up on a gray metal desk littered with Styrofoam cups containing the cold dregs of bad coffee. There would be a box of donuts somewhere off to the side. He would check it three or four times, although the last cruller would have vanished long ago. Most of the monitors before him would be devoid of life, unless you counted the drone-like cleaners vacuuming rugs and polishing floors. The exception would be the conference room with twenty-five famous faces. That was where the guard would direct the eye not tied to the Post crossword puzzle. If he were new he might even find it interesting, watching famous faces doling out billions to their pet constituents in the name of national defense.

  About forty-five minutes into the meeting, the guard would see a pale senator pause mid-tirade to rub his stomach. If that was interesting enough to draw both eyes, he might even notice that the bellyacher’s fingertips had turned blue. Then the senator would disappear in the blink of an eye. For the attentive guard it would be a perplexing version of now-you-see-him, now-you-don’t.

  The alarm would begin to blare a second later once the blast blew the windows out and in shock he would knock the coffee cups off the desk with his feet. Meanwhile, the senators sitting closest to the deceased would keel over, their bodies impaled by shrapnel made from splintered rib. The non-veterans would scramble up from the floor, their minds failing to comprehend the chaos that engulfed them. Then a second senator would explode in their midst and complete pandemonium would erupt. Slack-jawed but on his feet, the guard would now be struggling to make sense of the muted drama playing out before his eyes.

  Seconds later the conference-room doors would crash open and other guards would rush in only to be shoved aside by terrified senators running out. As the guards looked blankly at each other, clueless about what to do, the explosions of the white-coffee drinking senators would continue in polished mahogany elevators and on stately marble stairs.

  Within hours the world would begin scrutinizing how the SASC carved up the lion’s share of the national budget. Would that change anything? Odi was not sure.

  Although taking out The Three Marks had served justice and satisfied the debt of honor Odi owed his fallen friends, it would not create permanent change. Ayden had been right about that. But making the public aware of how they had been duped, and why … that just might make a lasting difference.

  The big beaker stopped bubbling as Odi pondered that thought, indicating that the penultimate reaction was now complete. For the final stage of the brew he had to slowly mix in a liter of super-cooled nitric acid. Very slowly. This was by far the most dangerous step. This was how many an anarchist had met his maker. He gripped a huge flask with a pair of heavy tongs and prepared to stir its acidic contents into the beaker on the hot plate. Once the two containers were mixed and cooled, he would have just over two gallons of Creamer. Eight liters.

  “Why does she need two gallons?” Odi had asked. “I’d think a quart would be more than enough. Surely twenty-five Senators won’t consume that much cream in their coffee?”

  “She can’t control which carton of Half-n-Half Senate Food Service will take from the fridge,” Ayden had replied. “So she will have to replace them all.”

  “Tell her to find a way. I can’t have six or seven unused cartons lying around. I don’t want any innocents accidentally killed.”

  “We’re lucky to have Sheila, Odi. Let’s not push it. I’ll get her to promise to go back to the kitchen and replace the Creamer with the original containers once the conference room is set up. That will have to suffice.”

  Odi saw Ayden’s point, but he did not like it. “Can’t she just replace the cream after it’s already set up in the room?”

  “I asked her that too. She said it was too risky. Compared to the kitchen, the conference room is much more secure.”

  Odi shook his head. “Okay. But she has to promise to pour the remaining Creamer down the drain right there in the kitchen.”

  “No problem.”

  “And Ayden, I am going to have to insist on delivering the Creamer to Sheila personally, so I can make that point.”

  There was a longer than usual pause before Ayden typed, “As you wish.”

  As Odi began pouring the large flask of super-cooled nitric acid into the beaker, the pager in his front jeans pocket began to vibrate. Maybe it was the fact that he had been up all night. Maybe it was because his nerves were already at their end. Whatever the cause, the shock of the pager was too much. Odi’s hands trembled from the jolt and the liter of super-cooled nitric acid plummeted from the tongs.

  Chapter 41

  Baltimore, Maryland

  AYDEN BOUNCED UP and down on the balls of his feet, listening to the symphony of beeps and boops that indicated his international call was going through.

  “Royal Falafel.”

  “Do you have fresh tabouleh?”

  “Just a moment. Who’s asking please?”

  “Doctor Jones.”

  Ayden stopped bouncing and took a deep breath to calm his nerves. This was really intense.

  “Doctor Jones, how nice to hear from you. Where are you calling from?”

  “I’m at Johns Hopkins University. I ... I’m not sure I can go through with this.” There, he had said it.

  When Arvin’s voice came back on the line half a beat later, it was calm as ever. “Of course you can Ayden. Just look at what you’ve already accomplished. Why, just six months ago you were a desperate doctor burning through his bank account in a noble but doomed attempt to single-handedly bailout an ocean of poverty with a leaky thimble. This evening you had a private meeting with the Director of the FBI to discuss the future of the planet. In the next twenty-four hours you will do more to alleviate world suffering than you could have done in ten lifetimes back in Iran. And that brings up a key point for you to remember, Ayden: you are no longer alone. You have friends now, comrades in arms, support.”

  Ayden found Arvin convincing, but he was not yet there. He decided to lay it all on the table, hoping that his sponsor would erase all his doubt. “I’ve gotten to know Odi over this last month. He has become a friend.”

  “Friends die in war, Ayden. It’s sad, but true. I have lost many. Unless you can get Odi to back off his demand to meet the woman you invented—Sheila was her name as I recall—you have to go through with it. He would see through an imposter, and his Creamer is crucial to our plans. I’m sorry, but there’s just no other way. I truly wish there were.”

  “I just don’t know. I am a doctor, after all. I took an oath.”

  “The men whose corruption you are fighting took an oath as well. Because they have forsaken theirs for years, you must set yours aside for a day.”

  “I’m not sure that I can.”

  “Look, Ayden, I know the burden is heavy. But do not let it slip from your shoulders. By seeking to get out from under it, you will only crush yourself. Think about it. You are one of the few Western doctors who have seen the pitiful, imploring looks epidemic in Third-World children’s eyes. If you turn your back on them now, you will never forgive yourself. Nor will you be able to go back to your old life. If you tried, you would be paralyzed by debilitating guilt. Every time you encountered a child suffering from preventable disease and facing a shortened life of grinding poverty, you would feel responsible. No my friend, your only real option is to move forward.”

  As Ayden reflected on the wisdom of Arvin’s words, his sense of purpose returned like a torch reignited. “Will this really make—”

  “Of course it will make a difference, Ayden. Of course it will,” Arvin interrupted. “If there is one thing that Americans are good at, it’s standing on a pedestal and making noise. Once you rivet the world’s attention to the congressional budget for defense, the
re will not be a literate man, woman, or child on Earth unaware of the poverty and suffering the United States could alleviate with the resources it now dedicates to war. Public opinion will force them to beat their swords into plowshares. Unfortunately, this is the only way to usher in a peaceful new world. These are their rules, not ours.”

  “But it’s so violent, so ... counterintuitive,” Ayden pressed.

  “Think of it as chemotherapy. Yes, when viewed in isolation it is caustic. But the cancers that your therapy ultimately cures will salvage countless lives. This is the day you’ll paint a hundred million smiles.”

  “You know about that?” Ayden asked.

  “Of course.”

  Ayden consciously recognized that the man he knew as Arvin had done a fine job of pushing his buttons, but it did not matter. Arvin had said exactly what he wanted to hear. He did not really want to back out. He just had a case of the jitters, he told himself. Like a bride on her wedding day.

  He thought back to the evening when Arvin first knocked on his door. Arvin had asked him, “If you had the resources, would you be willing to do more?” With those words Arvin had given him hope, hope that kept him going while his resources diminished. And faith, faith that was rewarded when Agent Odysseus Carr landed in his lap. He remembered the pride and trepidation he felt when he used the coded exchange at Royal Falafel for the first time.

  He had made his first call to Royal Falafel just seconds after treating Odi’s shoulder wound and getting him stable. His initiative had paid off. Arvin’s subsequent investigation had revealed circumstances that could not have been more perfectly suited to their cause. Eighteen hours after Ayden had picked up the phone, Arvin had personally delivered the telltale headsets to his door, and the recruitment of Odi Carr had begun.

  Because of his courage that day, three defense industry CEOs, three men who ran cruel and exploitive companies like the one that killed his father, were no longer of this world. By contributing to their demise, Ayden had done right by his father. He had avenged Tigran Taronish. Thinking about that, Ayden realized that he felt better than he had in over twenty years. By honoring his father he had cured himself of a chronic disease. With a flash of blinding clarity he understood that he could not shy away from the opportunity Arvin now presented. This was his destiny.

  “Tell me about your meeting with Director Proffitt,” Arvin continued, sweeping Ayden back into their present discussion. “Was it successful? Did he get you the list?”

  “Your insight proved accurate. Proffitt’s approach is analogous to a pharmaceutical corporation’s. He is making a career of treating the disease of terrorism. So, contrary to the FBI Director’s vociferous rhetoric, the last thing he truly wants is a cure. Yes, he got me the list.”

  “Excellent. When you have the Creamer call me back. I’ll give you instructions for meeting with my twenty-five volunteers.”

  “Twenty-four,” Ayden corrected.

  “There are twenty-five senators on the armed services committee, my friend,” Arvin persisted.

  “I know, but you need supply only twenty-four volunteers. I would consider it an honor to be the twenty-fifth. I will take out the chairman.”

  Chapter 42

  Chesapeake Beach, Maryland

  00:53 ... 00:52 ... 00:51 ... Cassi stared at the screen, counting in disbelief as the final seconds of her life vanished into the ether. An overload of emotions bore down on her as she stared, squelching her ability to think. She wondered how Odi managed it—working under such conditions. As a psychologist, she knew the human species to be remarkably resilient, but fifty-three seconds hardly gave you time to acclimate. Then it struck her. Perhaps Odi had not acclimated. Years of this strain could explain why he had snapped in Iran. It only took a final straw to break a camel’s back.

  00:50 ... 00:49 ... 00:48 ... From her discussions with Odi and the occasional glimpse over his shoulder, Cassi knew much more than most on how to disarm bombs. But this was not a bomb. This was just a computer. The bomb could be anywhere within wireless range. Forty-eight seconds was not going to cut it.

  00:47 ... 00:46 ... 00:45 ... Still mesmerized by the screen, Cassi flashed through her alternatives. Her best move would be to break out of the cottage, but Odi had prevented that by disabling the shutter mechanisms. He had probably accomplished that by simply removing a fuse, or—more cleverly and thus more likely—replacing a good fuse with one that looked good but did not work. Regardless, with just forty-five seconds left on her life’s clock, Cassi did not have time to run down her hunch.

  00:44 ... 00:43 ... 00:42 ... Cassi recalled that the shutters could also be operated with a crank key. It was a safety precaution for times when the power was out. Cassi dashed around the cottage, scanning each window for the presence of a crank key and pummeling all the other switches just in case. Failing to produce any result, she returned to the computer cursing herself for thinking that Odi could be so easily outmaneuvered. The fanciful flight had cost her a priceless twelve seconds.

  00:30 ... 00:29 ... 00:28 ... Realizing that escape was no longer an option, Cassi ran to the bedroom and pulled Charlotte’s quilt off the bed along with three thick decorative pillows. She hauled them to the bathroom and leapt in the tub, burying herself like a mole beneath. Then she remembered the door. It was not solid wood or anything close—just two thin sheets of masonite—but every little bit helped. While climbing out of the tub to close it, another thought came to her. She should pull the mattress off the bed, drag it into the bathroom, and lean it over the tub. How long did she have left?

  As if answering her question with “not much” the computer began an accelerated beep. Was it the final countdown, or something more? Cassi had no time to think, she could only react. She glanced fleetingly toward the mattress as though Brad Pitt lay naked there, and then ran for the kitchen.

  00:08 ... 00:07 ... Cassi saw at once that something had changed. The maddening beep had ushered in a new message. Seconds until BOOM had been replaced by a trick question. She read it aloud. “What’s the best size?”

  Chapter 43

  Baltimore, Maryland

  EVEN AS THE frosty flask of acid slipped from his grasp, Odi contemplated the pager’s implicit message. Someone had entered Charlotte’s cottage. The bomb was now armed. In one minute the sanctuary of his youth would be reduced to matchsticks and his research would be turned to dust—along with anyone caught inside.

  The heavy Pyrex flask crashed down on the desktop gas valve even as Odi lunged to catch it with gloved hands. As it shattered, he rolled to his left and dove for the floor. The reflex saved his face, but acid rain deluged the right side of his torso.

  Odi heard his clothing begin to sizzle and felt his right shoulder start to burn. He scrambled to his feet and made a screaming beeline for the chemical shower by the door. Yanking on the dangling chain like Quasimodo incensed, Odi prayed that he would not emerge looking like the bell-ringer too.

  He had seen acid burns before. Many times. A friend of his from this very lab referred to the cheese-grater scar on his cheek as his birth-control wound.

  Twenty or thirty gallons into the drenching blast, Odi peeled off the protective goggles and heavy gloves. After a quick inspection of his hands, he tore off his shirt.

  His right shoulder had borne the brunt of the splash and even it had seen worse. The blood-pocked patchwork reminded him of a gravel-slide he had suffered after falling off his dirt bike as a kid. If the acid had not been super-cooled or the shower seconds away, it might have eaten through to the bone. Still, between the shrapnel wound in his left shoulder and the acid burn on his right, he would not be breaking down doors anytime soon. Given his luck and the way things were going, that ability was probably about to become important.

  He stripped off the rest of his clothes and stood there two minutes more, using one of his socks as a washcloth to scrub. He was going to be cold and conspicuous crossing campus soaking wet and shirtless in the middle of October. But that beat
looking freakish for the rest of his life—assuming that the-rest-of-his-life lasted longer than a few hours.

  Odi wrung out his clothes as best he could and got dressed. He tried to be mad at himself for screwing up, but found himself feeling grateful for his blessings instead. “Ten fingers and two eyes,” he repeated aloud, recalling his earlier musing.

  Looking over at the smoking green tile floor, Odi remembered the vibration that catalyzed the reaction and his heart sunk. He dug anxious fingers into the wet front pocket of his jeans and withdrew the little black box. The pager was dedicated to the intrusion alarm on Charlotte’s cottage, so its vibration yielded only one conclusion. Boom.

  “Unless someone had dialed a wrong number,” Odi thought aloud. The display dashed that hope. It read 843-7448, the numeric equivalent of THE SHIT, which, as his British colleagues loved to say, he was now in. Barring a robbery or some other equally unlikely coincidence, someone was on his tail. The obvious conclusion was that Cassi had talked.

  The loss of his childhood getaway was a psychological blow, but in practical terms it did not matter. Not in the short run, at least. Come this time tomorrow he would be headed for Iran where he would miraculously awake. Cassi’s split-second sighting would be attributed to a grieving mind playing tricks. No jury in the world would be left without a reasonable doubt. But that was all in the distant future, Odi reminded himself. Today, he had one final but crucial stop to make.