What would it be this time? A high-rise in the heart of Washington? A government building? Another utility? More important eliminations? Kidnapping?
“Thanksalot,” said the girl.
“No problem. Have a nice day.”
The whole exchange was as quick as it was seamless. If anything, there was just the hint of a knowing smile on the girl’s face before she turned away. The mission was gaining momentum. The excitement was palpable between them, though only for a moment of shared expectations.
“Come on,” Hala said. Another red, white, and blue Tourmobile was pulling into the plaza. She took Tariq’s hand and started walking in the opposite direction.
“Where are we going?” he said. “The tour buses are over there.”
“To find a cab. If I have to get back on that bus for one more minute, I’m going to kill someone right here.”
MY CAR WAS quickly becoming my office these days, and there was no way around it. I was shuttling between some ongoing casework I wasn’t ready to drop and the Coyle interviews that the Bureau kept sending my way in a steady trickle. Most days, I worked with Sampson, but now and then I was on my own. The Dragon Slayer.
I kept myself updated on the fly, usually with a phone pressed against my ear — since my Bluetooth was on the fritz and who had time to go to Best Buy these days?
“So what’s the lab saying? They must have something?” I asked. I had my old buddy Jerry Winthrop on the line. He’d been my inside source on the water scare. The rest I got like everybody else — from CNN and the Internet. So far two people had died and the city was close to a panic state. Sampson was off checking other water sources today.
“Looks like the second district line was tainted with high-grade potassium cyanide,” he said.
“Isn’t that —”
“Yeah, it is. Same thing that killed the two suicides out at Dulles. What a coincidence.”
“And no one’s taken responsibility?” I asked.
“Beats the shizz out of me,” Jerry said. “FBI’s not exactly knocking down our door with useful information.”
That was typical. The “open” line of communication between MPD and the Bureau tended to be a one-way street. Jerry told me the official story to the press was that we’d had a chemical overspill and that the problem had been contained. Of course, that depended on what we meant by “problem.”
After I got off the phone, I stopped at a 7-Eleven for some much-needed caffeine. Inside, there was a hastily scrawled no coffee sign taped to one of the pots. I grabbed a Coke instead — and couldn’t help noticing the empty coolers where all the bottled water had sold out.
When I went to pay, the cashier, who had multiple piercings, chinned down at the badge on my belt. “So what’s going on out there, man? How screwed are we?” she asked.
“I wouldn’t close the store just yet,” I said with what I hoped was a disarming smile. “Problem’s been contained.”
The whole idea was to keep the peace — maximum public confidence, minimum panic. But I think that clerk’s real question was the same one we all had. What next?
About ninety seconds later, I found out.
I WAS JUST pulling away from the curb when I picked up a call from Sampson. “Psych ward, hold please?” I answered with a bad joke.
“Alex, you heard the latest?”
“Yeah,” I said. “I was just talking to Jerry Winthrop.”
“He say anything about when they’re going to start the autopsies?” John asked next.
The word autopsies stopped me cold. “What are you talking about? What autopsies?”
“Two more bodies found. At the Harmony Suites on Twenty-second. I’m on my way there now. Appear to be Saudis. What are you talking about?”
“Not that. Keep going. Who was found, exactly?”
“It’s another couple. Middle Eastern. Two empty glasses on the floor. Nobody’s saying suicide yet, but I’ll bet money there’s going to be cyanide in the coroner’s report.”
I pulled back up against the curb. I needed to try and absorb everything for a half second. Coincidences like these are usually a leg up in an investigation, but the more this thing folded in on itself, the scarier it got, the more bizarre and unpredictable. And definitely unprecedented.
“It’s getting too weird around here, Alex,” Sampson said. “I keep thinking what they always say about the next big attack, you know? Not if but when?”
“I know,” I said. “I know.” It was starting to feel a whole lot like when. “I’ll meet you at the bodies.”
IT WAS HOT and humid for one thirty in the morning, too hot for a jacket, but Hala needed something to cover the Sig holstered under her arm. She pulled at the front of the coat, to let in some air, for what it was worth. What she really wanted was to shoot somebody — anybody. She hadn’t known she had this much anger against the Americans, but clearly she did. It wasn’t just the wars they had waged in the Middle East, or the puppet leaders they had supported. It was the insults she had received as a student here.
“Who builds a city on a swamp?” she said. “At least the desert cools down at night.”
“Do you think something’s wrong?” Tariq hadn’t really been listening to her. He was pacing the sidewalk while Hala tried to keep as still as possible.
“They’ll be here,” she said. “Don’t worry the details. You’re the one who always says The Family knows what they’re doing.”
“The instructions clearly said one o’clock.”
“They’ll be here. You’re like an old woman.”
It wasn’t the hour that was bothering him, she knew. It was the sarin gas. They’d never worked with it before, but pointing that out now wasn’t going to do anything to calm his nerves.
Fortunately, the light blue Toyota minivan pulled up to the curb just a few minutes later. The side door flashed open, and a tall, gangly woman motioned for them to get in. They climbed into the backseat beside her as the door closed again, and the van took off. The whole thing took about fifteen seconds.
The feeling inside the vehicle was immediately tense. Besides the woman, Hala, and Tariq, there were three other men on the team. Actually, one man and two boys, Hala realized, each one as tall and thin as the other, with the same sharp, angular features as the adults. Two parents and their children.
Interesting group. To do what, exactly?
They all sat face front, not speaking, until Tariq broke the silence.
“We were waiting quite a while back there,” he said.
“Good for you,” the mother answered. “Here. Put these on.”
She handed back two tactical headsets with transmitters small enough to fit invisibly in their pockets. “Channel twelve. Stay on that station throughout the action.”
“Where’s my case?” Tariq asked. He turned around on the seat to look for it.
“Leave it alone,” the mother said. “It’s fine where it is.”
“I need to check it,” he said.
“I’m not going to have you opening that in here. You can check it when we arrive. Don’t be so nervous.”
Tariq ignored the woman’s suggestion as well as her insulting manner. He pulled a reinforced aluminum alloy briefcase from the back and set it on his lap.
Her hand flew across the space between them in a way that showed some training. In a moment, her fingers were locked around Tariq’s throat, pressing him back into the seat.
But Hala was having none of it. Her Sig was out and against the self-appointed queen’s temple almost as quickly.
“Get your hand off of him,” she said.
“I told you to leave it alone,” the woman said, speaking to Tariq, not Hala.
“Everyone calm down!” The father shouted at them from the front, while the two boys looked on with wide eyes and closed mouths. Tariq stayed where he was, both hands still on the case’s spring clasps.
“Now,” Hala said evenly. “If he says he needs to check the case, he’s going to check it.
We’re all here for the same reason. Isn’t that right, sister?”
She kept the Sig where it was, waiting for her answer. Finally, the mother bitch sat back, though not without a last, searing look at Hala.
“That’s much better,” Hala said. “Use that murder in your eyes for the benefit of The Family. Our enemies are outside the minivan, not in it.”
“Go to hell” was the answer she got.
It was a shame, Hala thought. Here was a woman she could respect on any other night. She was exactly the kind of soldier the movement needed. In any case, this argument meant nothing to the larger picture. It was time to focus, time to kill as many Americans as they could, time to send an unforgettable message.
Tariq worked slowly. He eased open the clasps on the case and gingerly lifted the lid. Nobody spoke as he began taking stock of the small metal canisters inside.
When the van bounced over a pothole on First Street, Hala saw the woman reach across for her younger son’s hand in the dark.
She’s just afraid for her children, thought Hala. She’s a good mother. Better than me.
THEY CAME TO a very sudden, jolting stop on a gravel utility road. Nerves on the part of the driver. To the right, a thick stand of hawthorn shielded them from traffic passing on New York Avenue.
To the left, Hala could see the rail yard through a chain-link fence. Dozens of dark-windowed subway cars slumped in rows on the tracks. Their deadly target for tonight.
Tariq kept charge of the aluminum alloy case. The mother, father, and younger boy each took a different piece of mismatched luggage from the back of the van, and then the older son drove off to circle the neighborhood.
Hala took up a position just to the west, on a pedestrian bridge that spanned the yard. She backtracked maybe thirty yards and climbed the winding metal stairs to the walkway above. Once she was up there, she found that the area was fully enclosed with more chain link. But the bridge still offered a perfect view.
From the center of the bridge, she checked once in each direction. “Clear,” she radioed softly.
It took a few minutes for the others to appear.
They looked like animated silhouettes as they moved out onto the tracks, laterally at first, and then up between the rows of train cars, where they disappeared. Sarin gas, Hala was thinking. This was impressive. It would resonate powerfully around the world.
Several minutes ticked by. Slowly, very slowly. There had been no word about how long it would take to install the material. Hala could actually hear them breathing as they worked, but conversation was held to a minimum.
She kept her eyes moving constantly. They swept the yard, over to Brentwood Road and T Street on the far side, then back again to the utility road nearer by, and New York Avenue beyond. It wasn’t difficult to stay alert. There was plenty of adrenaline for that.
So when a police cruiser appeared on the scene, Hala saw it right away. It eased down the utility road and came to a stop not far from their original drop-off location.
“Up near the bridge,” she said softly. “We may have a serious problem.”
“POLICE AT THE south fence. One car so far,” Hala whispered. “Hold your positions. I’m watching them. I can take them out if I have to. I hope not to do that.”
The cruiser’s passenger door opened, and the shadow of a cop flowed out.
Hala leveled her Sig through the chain link, siting the man’s chest. He was as good as dead, if that was what she needed to do. Yet she felt nothing. As he stepped up to the fence, another surge of adrenaline ran through her. It felt as though her blood was running a race. She wanted to kill him.
The policeman stopped and looked around. As casual as a tourist. Then he leaned back slightly. When Hala saw the stream arcing away from his body, she almost laughed out loud.
“Stand by. He’s just urinating,” she said. “I’m watching the idiot relieve himself.”
As the cop finished up and turned to go, his partner called out something from the car. Whatever it was, the first officer stopped and turned back toward the rail yard. A flashlight came up in his hand.
He shone it through the fence and onto the tracks — where it caught a glimpse of a moving body. Hala saw it too — the younger boy. Just before he darted back out of sight. Imbecile! Amateur!
She didn’t hesitate, squeezing off three fast shots. The flashlight dropped first, then the cop himself. She was pleased with her shooting, the accuracy under duress. This was excellent practice.
“Everyone out of there,” Hala radioed. “Bring the van to the opposite side. Brentwood and T. Do it now!”
Another light, even brighter, came right up in her face!
She realized it was the search beam on the side of the cruiser. Hala fired into it, two more rounds. There was a popping sound — and the night went dark again.
For a brief moment, she couldn’t see anything, but she could hear the second cop. He was radioing for backup even as he ran toward the bridge and his fallen partner. His dead partner, Hala knew.
“Shots fired! Officer down! Request immediate assistance at the Brentwood rail yard! Repeat: officer down!”
That was followed by heavy footsteps pounding up the metal stairs.
Time to run. Time to get everybody out.
The rest of the team was scrambling and directing one another to the pickup point in breathy, frantic voices. Hala ignored all of it as she made for the far side of the bridge.
Then the cop’s voice came again, directly behind her. “Freeze!”
She didn’t.
A bullet ricocheted off the metal cage just over her shoulder. There was nowhere to go but straight ahead. Unless —
Hala stopped short.
She turned and dropped in one fluid motion, firing blindly down the alley of the walkway. Everything else disappeared for two very long seconds. Then the second cop dropped to the ground.
Dead? Almost definitely. She never missed. That was why she had the gun, not Tariq. Then Hala was up and running again.
She hit the stairs on the far side at full speed and almost barreled over the railing. Even now, she felt proud of herself. She was good at this, very skillful.
“We have to wait!” Tariq’s voice sounded over the radio as he scanned the area for Hala.
Then the mother bitch’s answer. “You wait,” she said. “We’re leaving right now.”
As Hala hit the sidewalk, she saw the van pulling away from the curb, its side door still open. A taxi swerved to avoid being hit. The van didn’t slow down. It ran a fast left turn through a red light and was gone into the night.
Tariq was still there, looking around frantically. The poor man seemed lost.
“I’m here,” Hala said. “To your left, Tariq.” Come to mother.
He ran toward her and they met in the middle of the sidewalk.
“What should we do?” he said. “They drove away. They left us, Hala!”
The sound of police sirens was already closing in around the neighborhood. They had no money for a cab, or even the subway, once it started running. If the van was apprehended, it could even be unsafe to go back to their hotel room.
Still, there was one place. Hala wasn’t supposed to know about it, but she did. The question was, Which way from here? She was completely turned around in an unfamiliar part of this large American city, this enemy outpost, their capital. It was impossible to know which way to run.
But staying put was no option. “This way,” she said, picking a direction. They’d figure it out. “Just run. Run as fast as you can, Tariq. Follow me.” I will take care of you, as I always do, my love.
IT’S NOT LIKE my phone rings in the middle of the night all the time — but I’m sure it does more than most. “Alex Cross,” I answered. There was a click, then two short beeps. That meant a secure line of some kind. Whose line?
“Detective Cross, this is Betty Chow with the CIA Directorate of Intelligence. I’m very sorry for the hour, but I’m calling to ask you to come to a
meeting out here at the counterterrorism center in Langley.”
That woke me right up. What had happened now? And what was the CIA suddenly doing in the mix? For that matter, what was I doing in it?
“Can you tell me what this is regarding?” I asked while wiping the sleep from my eyes. “That would help.”
“I’m not at liberty to discuss any details, but you’ll be fully briefed at the center,” she said.
I looked at the clock. It was just after four a.m. “When’s the meeting?” I asked.
“We’re set to convene at five-thirty, Detective. Can I tell them you’ll be here?”
I didn’t even know who Betty Chow meant by “them.”
“I’m on my way,” I said.
“And, Detective? I’m to stress that this is a classified matter and that you’re not to tell anyone where you’re going this morning, under penalty of federal law.”
“Of course,” I told her, and hung up.
I thought about calling Bree anyway. She was still on duty, working the graveyard shift these days, and might even have some idea about what had happened to initiate all this. But then I thought the situation through again. If I was getting secure calls from the CIA on classified matters, there was a good chance — a very good chance — they were already listening in on my line.
I got dressed quickly and left the house in the dark.
Figuratively and literally in the dark.
THE USUALLY LONG drive to CIA headquarters in langley took no time at all without traffic.
What I got off the car radio was that two police officers had been killed sometime overnight at the Brentwood rail yard. Was that why I had been summoned to the CIA? Doubtful. I figured it must be something even worse. But what did they know that I didn’t? I didn’t like being on the wrong side of this mystery again.
Bree, after so many nights on duty, would be exhausted when she got home and would wonder where I was. I missed her like crazy. That’s a good thing, but sometimes it feels so bad.
An escort met me inside the main entrance to the agency’s complex. He took me up to one of the nicer conference rooms on the sixth floor, where most of the two dozen high-backed leather chairs were already taken.
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