“What is it, Father? What are you looking for.”
Instead of answering, Father Otto turned his gaze past his foster son, to the west, toward where the proud baroque jewel had once stood on the banks of the Elbe, and wept.
This was an extraordinary thing. The great Skorzeny, the rescuer of il Duce, the bravest man in the Reich, a dashing figure in his SS uniform, his face creased by a dueling scar, was weeping. Emanuel could scarcely credit his eyes.
“It’s over,” he said. “And now it’s time for Operation Greif.”
He handed Emanuel a rucksack. “Everything you’ll need is in there. Clothes, new identity papers, some dried beef. You know how to find food in the forest, I know you do. Keep away from the bears and the boars and you’ll be safe enough.”
“You’re not leaving me here, Father!” he cried.
“I have to. Where I go now you cannot follow. The war is lost and soon all Germany will be under the boots of the Russians and the Americans. We are too far from the western front for me to get you to the Americans, who would take care of you. So I must leave you here for the Russians to find.”
Now it was his turn to weep. “No, Father, no! Don’t leave me here alone in the forest.”
“I must. But don’t worry. Your new identity papers are your old identity papers — do not show them to any German, lest they shoot you on sight. Instead, when the Russians come, and they will, ask for the officer and show him your papers. You are the son of one of the July plotters against the life of the Führer. They will respect and honor you for that.”
Father Otto turned to him. For a moment, Emanuel thought he was going to embrace him, as a real father would, but of course he did not. He had already shown enough weakness for one day.
“You have greatness in you, boy,” he said as he got back into the car and fired up the engine.
“But much anger, Father.”
“Hold on to that anger. Nurture it. Let it nourish you through the long nights ahead. Love nothing except your own hatred, lest you become soft and weak. Do you understand?”
“Yes, Father.”
“Wer reitet so spät durch Nacht und Wind?” Who rides so late through night and wind?
Emanuel answered: “Es ist der Vater mit seinem Kind.” It is the father with his child.
Otto Skorzeny smiled. “May God be with you, Emanuel,” he said, and drove off.
Emanuel watched for a long time until the car was no longer visible. Then he turned back into the forest.
The Erlking, the evil creature who lived in the woods and preyed on children, was waiting for him there. He would find a welcome ally.
Skorzeny was still sleeping when he became aware of the ringing of the secure telephone. Mlle. Derrida lay beside him, indifferent as ever.
He found the phone and looked to see who was calling. It was her. He knew it would be. She had not let him down. He might have just hung up, the information duly conveyed and noted, but he enjoyed the sound of her voice. “Yes?” he said.
“The package has been delivered,” came her voice. The connection must be bad, for it was muffled. But it was unmistakably her.
“And you?”
“I’ll be back soon.”
“Excellent. I shall have Mlle. Derrida prepare us a splendid lunch.”
“What a wonderful idea. See you then.”
She rang off.
Skorzeny rose, pulled on his robe, slipped the phone in its pocket, and stepped out onto the balcony. How different this sunshine was from that horrid winter in Dresden, the winter that haunted his dreams — which were, of course, not dreams at all but memories, the ghosts of the dead summoned up from the eternal wellspring of hatred that yet burned in his soul….
The Russians had found him a few weeks later, cold and hungry. They had treated him about as well as he could have expected, which was to say not well at all — which was why he treated them not at all well in his business dealings with them. Scores were always meant to be settled, right up to the day of final reckoning.
And now that his package was in Tehran, that day was hastened.
His hand brushed his pocket and bumped into the phone. He remembered that he had not turned it off, so he extracted it and pushed the off button.
* * *
Half a world away, at the headquarters of the National Security Agency in Fort Meade, Maryland, the Black Widow made a note of the duration of the phone call, its origin, and its reception; transmitted the audio to one secure destination and initiated a complete transcription, which it encoded; and then signaled to a human operator that its task was complete.
The tech specialist on duty noted the alert and sent it straight to the top, to General Armond Seelye, the DIRNSA, who in turn relayed it to the one man who needed to know about it.
WE’VE FOUND THE BASTARD
In California Devlin looked at the readout and punched back:
WHERE?
BAKU, AZERBAIJAN. BUT WAIT — THERE’S MORE
GET TO IT, OLD MAN
HE WAS TALKING TO HARRINGTON. SHE’S IN TEHRAN MARYAM?
NO CLUE
WILL BE BACK IN WASHINGTON LATER TONIGHT. GOOD. YOUR HOUSE, AFTER 11. EYES ONLY
WHY?
BECAUSE THE PRESIDENT WOULD LIKE TO SPEAK WITH YOU PERSONALLY AND EVEN YOU AREN’T THAT RUDE DON’T BE LATE. I NEED MY SLEEP
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
Kaduna, Nigeria
Mobi Babangida was one of the richest men in Kaduna, from one of the richest families. Of course, here in Kaduna, about one hundred miles north of the capital city of Abuja, rich was relative.
“Babangida,” in the Hausa language, meant “master of the house,” and Mr. Babangida very much considered himself to be just that. Since the founding of the colonial city by the British in 1913, the old provincial capital had been a center of agriculture and trade in central Nigeria, and for a long time, so long as peace was maintained between the Muslims and the Christians, there were fortunes to be made.
But then came the troubles, the riots, the installation of sharia as the provincial law, and things had changed. Neighbor distrusted neighbor. When a newspaper columnist idly wrote of an upcoming Miss World pageant in Abuja years ago that even the Holy Prophet, Mohammed, peace and blessings be upon him, would be tempted by the contestants’ great beauty to take another wife, twenty churches were burned by the Muslims and eight mosques destroyed by the Christians. These were tense, unhappy times.
Still, Mr. Babangida felt no qualms or unease about moving freely between the Muslim north of the city and the Christian south, for in this it was a mirror of Nigeria itself. One could not be a prosperous businessman if one were not willing to visit both sides of town. Whether in mosque or church, Mobi Bagangida, the master of the house, was among his people.
Besides, that’s what well-armed bodyguards were for.
His first thought, when he saw the crowd gathered across from the petrol station at Mohammed Buhari Way and Independence Way, was that there was some sort of official ceremony going on, perhaps a procession coming down from Lugard Hall, where the Assembly met. But as he drew nearer, he could see that the people were looking up at the sky.
Now the sky was not where Mr. Bagangida normally looked. There was nothing to see in the sky except the occasional cloud or the planes coming in and out of the airport or the government helicopters monitoring the populace whenever another riot broke out and, occasionally, strafing them. But he looked anyway—
— and saw the holy Prophet, or someone who looked very much like him.
Mr. Bagangida had never seen the Prophet, except in a few ancient pictures from the infidel Iran. While it was not forbidden to show the sacred likeness, representations of the holy visage were frowned upon, as was representational art in general. The human form was the highest work of divine Art, and mere man could not hope to improve upon Allah. In fact, thought Mr. Bagangida, looking around Kaduna, there was not very much that man could get right; already parts of the city were ret
urning to the nature that the British had found a century ago and, soon enough, he expected, much of the country would follow it into the countryside. The devil was afoot in Nigeria, but it did not much matter, for within a few years, Mr. Bagangida planned to be living in New York City.
Now, face-to-face with the Prophet, he was not so sure. Mohammed’s lips were moving, but no sound emerged; he seemed to be floating in the sky, shimmering yet corporeal, imparting instructions to the Faithful, instructions that Mr. Bagangida was not holy or purified enough to hear.
An imam from a nearby mosque must have come on the scene, because suddenly the crowd of men fell to the ground, many of them carrying their prayer rugs, and turned toward Mecca and began to pray while, above them, Mohammed kept talking.
And then — this was something Mr. Bagangida never would have believed had he not seen it with his own eyes — another apparition appeared, this one hovering over the Christian side of the city. She was a beautiful lady, standing atop a bed of fresh rose petals. She said nothing, but merely smiled a smile of a million sadnesses. Soon enough, people noticed her as well, and Christians poured out of their houses by the hundreds to see the holy sight.
And here was Mr. Bagangida, caught in the middle.
He was not sure what to do, or where to turn. The streets were filling up with humanity very rapidly, and he had witnessed firsthand many times what happened when one half of an explosive and restive population came into contact with the other half. He was the master of the house, and so it was high time for him to put aside his business affairs for the day and retire to his domicile.
Now a roar came up from the Muslim crowd. He could hear shouts of “blasphemy” in several tribal languages; as luck would have it, at that moment his eyes turned back to the Lady. Something was happening to the rose petals at her feet. Something unseen was slithering through them, knocking them aside—
A snake. No, a dragon. But the Lady kept her feet on the dragon’s neck and, squirm though it might, she would not relent. Still with her smile, she was slowly crushing the life from the dragon, and its death throes were terrible to watch. The beast writhed in agony, but the woman was immovable, and a great cheer went up from the Christian crowd.
He turned back to look at the Messenger of God. A great rage had come across his noble and holy features, like the rage he felt when confronted with the stubbornness of the Jews of Medina. In response to his blessed wrath, a chant went up from the Muslims: “Kill the blasphemers. Kill the infidel. Allah commands it. Allahu akbar!”
The Muslim crowd rose to its feet. He could see many machetes flashing. Some had rifles. There was going to be bad trouble.
Surrounded by his bodyguards, Mr. Bagangida backed away, trying to get back to his car. He was very proud of that car. It was a splendid, if used, Mercedes-Benz that he had bought from a German for a trifling sum. It was in tip-top running condition, and he employed several of the neighborhood boys to keep it clean at all times. It would never do for the master of the house to be seen in a dirty vehicle.
He never made it to the car.
The enraged crowd swept everything before it as it rushed to attack the Christians. Bloodcurdling screams were the order of the day, and Mr. Bagangida fell with them echoing in his ears. His guards fired a few shots, but what were their pistols against numbers? A blow from one of the machetes sent him to the ground, minus one of his ears. He tried to pick up the ear — the doctors at the international hospital in Abuja could work miracles — but then he was hit again and lost one of his hands.
Mr. Bagangida had seen what was about to happen next too many times to have any illusions of escape. It did not matter that he was a prominent businessman, that he gave regularly to charity, that he employed many people, that he took no sides. When the crowd had the wind up, there was no stopping it, no begging or pleading that could affect the great beast. In this moment, being master of the house meant nothing.
He was trying to decide which prayer to utter when his head flew off his shoulders.
What happened next is a matter of historical record. More than seven thousand people were killed in the violence, many houses destroyed, businesses sacked, and even some government offices. The central government was slow to react, and so the conflict spread like a wild blaze, burning north to Niger, west to Benin, Togo, Ghana, and the Ivory Coast, east to Cameroon and Chad and into the Central African Republic. In less than two weeks, any place in black Africa where Christians and Muslim had lived together in uneasy coexistence was the site of a raging civil war.
What happened to the apparitions, no one could say. They simply disappeared.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
New York City
Celina Gomez was right where she said she would be, sitting at the reception desk in Nuclear Medicine. She had to admit it gave her a little thrill when the two plainclothes cops walked in. All she ever saw were doctors and sick people.
“Ms. Gomez? I’m Captain Francis Byrne and this is my associate, Detective Aslan Saleh. We know you’re busy, so let’s get right to it, shall we?”
Celina had the tape all queued up. “There’s something I forgot to tell you on the phone. The man clearly said that Detective Saleh had an appointment right here, in our department. You didn’t make an appointment for a stress test, did you, Detective?”
“No, ma’am, I did not,” replied Lannie.
“He said it was a matter of life and death.”
Byrne was not liking this at all. It was obviously a taunt, a dare — daring them to do something. “Let’s hear the tape,” he said.
Celina tapped the computer. The voice emerged from the speakers:
“Taubeh kon! Taubeh kon! Taubeh kon!”
“… the fuck,” said Byrne under his breath.
Lannie looked at him. The look in his eyes said it all: Got it the first time.
“Do you mind if we look around, Ms. Gomez?” asked Byrne.
“Not at all,” she replied. “But of course I will have to clear it with the administrators. And get you a tour guide…”
“We’re not here for a tour, Ms. Gomez,” said Lannie, champing at the bit. The place was dirty, he could feel it. He just didn’t want to think about how dirty it was. But it all made sense. If the terrorists had somehow managed to smuggle some kind of dirty bomb or worse onto the island, a hospital was just the place to store it — radiation hiding among radiation. And the Department of Nuclear Medicine would be the best place of all.
“You’re all set,” said Celina, hanging up the phone. “And Alonzo here will take you where you need to go.” Byrne and Lannie turned to see a tall young black man in hospital whites coming round the corner, his hand already outstretched in greeting. “Alonzo Schmidt, at your service,” he said. “Your 24/7 guide to the underworld here at Mount Sinai.”
They shook hands. “Let’s go,” said Byrne. “Walk and talk.”
“Follow me.”
They headed for the nearest elevator. It was one of those huge hospital elevators, with doors that opened on both sides, so big that it could accommodate several gurneys simultaneously, but at this moment it was empty except for the three of them.
“Have you noticed anything different, Mr. Schmidt?” asked Byrne.
“In what way? Every day at a hospital like Mount Sinai is different. Every night is different, and it doesn’t even have to be Passover.”
“You know,” said Lannie, “something that’s not where it belongs, something new that wasn’t properly checked in.”
The elevator was still descending. Hospital elevators, perhaps because they could carry so much weight, tended to move at a glacial pace. Byrne hated slow elevators; in fact, he pretty much hated all elevators. And he lived in New York City and wouldn’t live anywhere else, go figure.
“Since you gentlemen are here in the Department of Nuclear Medicine, I can only surmise that you’re talking about something… fissionable.”
“Any radiation spikes over the course of the pas
t couple of months?” asked Byrne.
“There are always radiation spikes in a hospital, Captain,” replied Alonzo. “In our department we mostly deal in gamma rays — you know, like the kind that turned the Incredible Hulk green — and it varies from day to day. Among the isotopes we use are fluorine, krypton, gallium, indium, xenon, and iodine-123—they’re used in imaging — yttrium and iodine-131 in various types of therapy.”
Byrne had very nearly failed chemistry in high school; this sort of talk made his head ache.
At last, the elevator found its floor. They stepped out into a dark and eerie place, lit only by emergency lighting. It was a large room that contained a series of sealed cubicles, each with thick walls. “Down here we conform to all industry standards and then some,” said Alonzo. “Impermeable materials, chemical-resistant worktop surfaces, photo-cell-activated wash-up sinks. Nobody touches anything down here.”
“You sure it’s safe for us to be here without hazmat suits?” asked Lannie nervously.
“Perfectly safe,” said Alonzo. “Everything is sealed at the moment, so let’s have a look.”
Schmidt went to one of the workstations and punched up some images. “As you can see, the spectrometers are all in the normal zone. ‘Normal’ is recalculated every day, so that at any given moment it reflects the kind and volume of the work we’re doing. As I said, it’s never a constant. But it’s always ALARA.”
“Alara?” asked Lannie.
“As low as reasonably achievable.”
“But what about other forms of radiation?” said Byrne. “Do they pick that up, too?”
“Depends on what kind it is. For example—”
“You can spare us the chemistry lesson. Not going to mean anything to me or Detective Saleh here. So let’s cut to the chase.”
Alonzo stopped. “You’re talking about a suitcase nuke, aren’t you? Polonium or U-233, with a pair of neutron generators and some sort of power source, either direct electrical or a battery. First, if there are such things — and I gather that the literature is mixed — it would have to be plugged in somewhere or have a very long-lasting and reliable battery. Now, I haven’t seen anything sticking into someplace where it ought not to be, if you don’t count my brother-in-law, and second, we might—might—be able to detect a spike in neutron activity if we recalibrate for it. May take a while.”
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