by By Jon Land
Twisting the valve off manually, trying to release the smallpox while still on board.
Ben’s stomach heaved again as the roller coaster flashed into the drop, then settled into a straightaway that gave him the opportunity to jerk his safety rail upward and lunge forward one seat at a time.
Buchert didn’t look back until Ben’s final leap brought him into the front seat. By then, Ben had the pistol out and was struggling to steady it when the thrust of the Ripsaw slinging into the next loop cracked his head against Buchert’s. The pistol fell from his grasp and dropped through the tracks below. But Ben maintained the presence of mind to twist one arm around Buchert’s safety rail, while the other fastened tight to the tank’s control valve to hold it in place.
Buchert pounded at Ben’s fingers, tried to wrench them off. Ben saw the loop coming and closed his eyes. The G-forces kicked his legs out wildly, akimbo in the air. They came down hard against the seat and he found himself straddling it, half in and half out. Buchert smashed a fist into his face, and Ben felt something give in his nose. Buchert wheeled for him again, but this time Ben snapped his head forward and butted him between the eyes. Ben could see them glaze over, then sharpen again. Buchert fastened both hands on the tank as the Ripsaw climbed for its final dip.
Danielle took the stairs, flying down them with her nun’s habit billowing behind her. Mall personnel scurried from all directions toward the fountain where the People’s Brigade soldier had ended up. She ignored them, focusing instead on whatever glimpses she could get of the fight between Ben and Hollis Buchert on the roller coaster. Everywhere around her people had stopped to gawk, some of them smiling, even applauding, as if this were some staged event.
Ben seemed to be battling Buchert from half in, half out of the car. Buchert had released his safety bar and had managed to raise a tank of some kind overhead, about to smash it down over Ben’s face, when the car banked into its final drop, pitching him forward and separating the tank from his grasp.
Ben lunged and caught the tank before it hit the tracks, held it with both hands while Buchert started pounding him from behind, trying to drive his face against the rails speeding by below the car’s nose. He bared his yellow teeth in a snarl, his straw-mat hair a wild tangle atop his head. Ben didn’t dare let go of the tank from this high up. He needed both his hands to hold fast to it, leaving him no means to fight back.
Suddenly he felt the car begin to slow, the emergency brakes activated by attendants finally responding to the commotion on board. Ben saw Buchert rock forward, off balance, hands groping for something to hold on to. Failing to find anything, he was jerked forward again.
Ben twisted onto his side and drove the bottom of the tank upward as Buchert’s furrowed face came down. Impact came with a thud that snapped Buchert’s head back violently. His eyes bulged, hands still flailing for something to grab when the second car, its brakes either malfunctioning or never having been switched on, shot out of the final drop and tore forward.
Ben felt the track rumble before he saw it, braced himself as best he could before the second car rammed into the back of his. The jolt pitched Buchert into the air and over the car’s nose. He landed on the track and had just enough time to glance back before the car plowed into him.
Ben thought he heard the start of a scream, then nothing as the car finally came to a complete halt thirty feet from the station. Still clutching the tank, Ben dropped down onto the track and ran toward the loading platform.
Danielle saw the horde of security personnel streaming into Camp Snoopy, guns drawn. Beyond them, still clustered near the main entrance, the attendees of the governors conference and their entourages were being escorted out of the mall by a combination of uniformed and plainclothes officers.
That evacuation gave Danielle an idea, and she spotted a fire alarm covered in a clear plastic housing on the wall to her right. She lunged for it and cracked the plastic with her elbow, then jerked the handle downward.
An ear-numbing metallic chirp began to sound, leading the thousands of mall patrons to flood the exits, catching the bulk of the security guards in the chaos. Danielle fought through the mounting crowd to find Ben. She shoved people aside, forgetting about her disguise until she saw their shocked expressions.
She caught up with Ben in the center of the amusement park amid mothers holding crying children and teenagers snatching miniature Peanuts characters from the arcade games shelves. He was halfway past her when she reached out and grabbed his shoulder.
“Ben.”
He swung, twisting free of her grasp, then did a double take when he finally recognized her in the nun’s habit. “We’ve got to get this out of here,” he said, holding the small tank before him.
“Is that—”
Ben’s face was bloodied from a nasty wound down the center of his forehead. “Yes,” he said, and mopped the blood away with his sleeve.
“Then why are you holding it like that?”
“Because I think it’s leaking.”
* * * *
Chapter 77
D
anielle shielded him as they moved through the crowd. Ben kept his thumb pressed against the part of the valve stem he had felt snap when he smashed the tank against the chin of the late Hollis Buchert, whose body still lay on the Ripsaw tracks beneath one of the cars.
“I feel like I should be praying to you or something,” he said.
“I’ll settle for a confession later.”
They were just exiting Camp Snoopy when he heard a woman scream and looked up to see the last of Buchert’s soldiers shoving bystanders aside, trying to clear a path for a clean shot from his pistol.
“Go!” Danielle ordered, whipping out her own pistol and stepping in front of Ben.
The gunman fired before she could, catching a nearby woman in the back. She collapsed into Danielle, taking both of them down.
Ben tore back into Camp Snoopy, fighting his way through the clutter of families, careful to keep pressure against the valve. But his thumb was starting to throb now, already stiffening, the pain rapidly progressing from a dull ache to full-out agony. He wouldn’t have long before it cramped up on him and curled away from the valve on its own.
He winced from the pain, biting his lip to distract himself. Sweat poured into his eyes. Bodies jostled into him from both sides. The tank seemed to get heavier and heavier, soon to release Buchert’s promised death unless Ben could find a way to—
There, up ahead!
A sign on the wall gave Ben an idea, and he veered toward the cavelike entrance to UnderWater World, the Mall of America’s aquarium.
Ben passed patrons streaming out, having retraced their steps and now handing the personal stereos with which they’d been provided back to a harried attendant. He surged farther down the ramp and instantly had the feeling he was trapped in a sprawling tunnel, surrounded on both sides by glass walls.
UnderWater World began with a walk through a brilliant recreation of a Minnesota forest that spilled onto a moving walkway. Ben sprinted down the rubberized track past more patrons hurrying out, quickly surrounded by glass everywhere, including the ceiling. Around him, all manner of marine wildlife swam about, giving him the uneasy, claustrophobic feeling of being trapped underwater.
The walkway seemed to spiral slightly downward, while through the acrylic walls Ben could now see sharks of various sizes and types swimming directly overhead. The fire alarm hummed shrilly here as well, chasing out the last of those who’d been inside the aquarium when the alarm was triggered.
For a brief moment, Ben thought he might be in the clear. Then he heard rapid footsteps pounding toward him and twisted round to see Hollis Buchert’s final gunman giving chase. The gunman opened fire wildly, his bullets pocking the acrylic walls without breaking them and scattering the fish swimming nearby.
Ben neared the end of the aquarium tunnel and found himself facing a scaled-down reproduction of a pirate ship in an exhibit called Starfish Beach. He rush
ed to a pool-sized tank featuring stingrays swimming about when the gunman lunged over the threshold and steadied his pistol forward.
Before Buchert’s soldier could shoot, gunfire erupted from behind him. The gunman’s spine arched backward, his finger jerking the trigger of his semiautomatic reflexively. The bullets dug wooden shards from the pirate ship as the man dropped to his knees and then keeled over.
Ben watched Danielle enter Starfish Beach holding her still-smoking pistol. Then, hesitating no further, he dropped Buchert’s tank inside the stingray pool. Air bubbles flitted to the surface as it dropped toward the bottom, drawing the attention of a curious ray, which flapped over to inspect it.
Ben turned from the pool toward Danielle, her nun’s costume billowing about her.
“Very becoming,” he said.
“Don’t laugh. I could get used to this.”
Ben called John Najarian’s secure cell line from a pay phone outside a gas station halfway to the airport. The pay phone was located in an old-fashioned booth, the first time he had seen one like it in years.
“Ben, where the hell are you?” he demanded.
“Watch the news; you’ll know when you see it.”
“I’ve had federal agents crawling up my ass for two days now! What were you thinking? The whole damn government’s looking for you!”
“Danielle’s here,” he said, looking at her body squeezed halfway into the booth.
“What? I should have known, for God’s sake.”
“Did they tell you about my mother?”
“Tell me what?” Najarian asked.
“She’s dead.”
“Oh Christ, I’m sorry. How? When?”
“A few days ago. She’s dead because of me, John. Because I let them sucker me into this.”
“I wish I could—”
“Listen, John. It was the People’s Brigade that killed her. They’re involved in this, and they know about Danielle and me.” Ben paused. “That means you could be a target too.”
“I can take care of myself. Just tell me what can I do to help?”
“There’s nothing.”
“Screw that. Let me bring you in. We can meet these people on your terms.”
“Like last time, John?”
“I can get the fucking secretary of state himself on the phone and I damn well will this time!”
“It wasn’t your fault. They were just covering their asses. Nothing new there. The problem is Lewanthall buried his rogue operation so deep nobody can find it. They didn’t believe what I had to tell them then, and they won’t believe what I’ve got to tell them now.”
“Which is . . ,”
“Can you really get the secretary of state on the phone, John?” Ben asked, turning the receiver so Danielle could hear the response as well.
“You’re damn right I can.”
“Then keep this line open. We just might need him.”
“Where are you going?”
Ben looked at Danielle as he replied. “To find the person who’s really behind all this.”
* * * *
Chapter 78
L
ondon?” Director of Homeland Security Stephanie Bayliss repeated, pressing the receiver tight to her ear.
“You know,” said Professor Albert Paulsen, “land of lousy weather, smiling people, and not a single Girl Scout cookie to be found. Got these rock-hard things called scones instead, though. I’ve had three already. I press my stomach hard enough I can feel them sitting there.”
“What’s in London?”
“Reading, actually.”
“What’s in Reading?” Stephanie Bayliss asked.
“The Immutech Pharmaceuticals plant. Sound familiar?”
“The company producing our smallpox vaccine.”
“That’s not the only thing they produced, General. Ever heard of RU-18?”
“No.”
“Nobody has, and there’s a reason for that.”
“You learned this in Ethiopia?”
“The village of Kokobi, where it was tested, where Mohammed Latif visited. RU-18 was supposed to control population growth.”
“I remember something about that now,” Bayliss said. “It didn’t work.”
“Oh, it worked all right, General. It worked too well.”
* * * *
Chapter 79
H
yram Berger closed the door to his apartment in the Watergate complex and fumbled on the wall for the light switch. A lamp sprang to life, illuminating a pair of figures seated in the center of his living room.
“I hope you don’t mind us making ourselves at home,” Danielle Barnea greeted him.
“I thought our business was finished,” Berger said, eyeing Ben Kamal, who was seated across from her.
“And it would have been, if you hadn’t lied to me about my father. You did lie to me, didn’t you, Mr. Berger?”
“What do you want?”
“Two business visas for Saudi Arabia.”
Berger looked at Ben again briefly. “For what possible reason?”
“So I can arrest Layla Aziz Rahani for the murder of an Israeli-Arab woman named Zanah Fahury.”
Berger snorted. “You really think that’s what this is about?”
“Not at all. That’s the point.”
“Leave this alone, Danielle, for your own sake.”
“Why should I?”
“Because you can’t touch Layla Aziz Rahani. It’s a well known fact she manages all of her family’s holdings now. Billions of dollars.” Berger shook his head. “You should leave now, while you still can.”
“Are you threatening me?”
“It’s the truth that threatens you, Danielle. Listen to me and spare yourself that truth.”
She rose from the couch. “I don’t have a choice in the matter anymore.”
Berger frowned. “Your father didn’t believe he had a choice either.”
“Go back to Hanna Frank, the woman who married Abdullah Aziz Rahani as part of Operation Blue Widow. The woman you told me was stoned to death after her eldest daughter, Layla, foiled my father’s plan to rescue her in London.”
“I’ve told you everything.”
“Not quite.”
“How can you be so sure?”
“Because my father would never have left one of his people behind to die that way. He’d rather have died himself.”
“Well, this almost killed him.”
“I only want the truth,” Danielle insisted.
“Lies, truth—it doesn’t matter anymore.”
“Let me be the judge of that.”
Berger’s eyes fell on Ben once again. “You don’t want him to hear this.”
She swallowed hard. “I keep no secrets from Ben.”
“So I’ve heard,” Berger said, not bothering to disguise the disapproval in his voice. “But in this case you’ll want to, Danielle; you just don’t know it.”
Berger had moved to the window, the ice in the drink he had made jangling from the trembling of his hand.
“You and my father stayed close,” Danielle said, prodding him. “You saw him again after London.”
Berger nodded, his reflection sad and drawn in the glass.
“My guess is, no matter what your records indicate, you spent little or no time in a London hospital. You went back to Israel. You remained involved.”
Berger turned from the window. “Keep going. You seem to be telling this story quite well yourself.”
Danielle took a step closer to him, and Ben watched their reflections framed in the darkness of the night. “Hanna Frank somehow survived the stoning, yes or no?”
Berger didn’t answer her.
“You owe me this much, Mr. Berger. I need the truth.”
“I owed your father more, more than I can ever repay.”
“This has nothing to do with my father anymore.”
“And what does it have to do with Hanna Frank?”
“I believe she somehow
got back to Israel, where she lived her life as an Israeli-Arab. Hanna Frank became Zanah Fahury, who was murdered last week by a man working for Layla Aziz Rahani, Hanna’s oldest daughter, who had somehow discovered who she was. Just tell me if I’m right or wrong.”