He looked at Hope. “We’re going to get them. All of them. Isn’t that right, Mrs. Gardner?”
Everyone turned to look at the woman who had arrived with Byrne. Behind her, still high in the sky, floated the Virgin Mary, slowly coming down to earth.
“Right now,” she said, “my… husband… and another man are in the Middle East. What they’re doing is very dangerous. We don’t know if they’ll come back alive. But they’re there to get to the source of all this, and to put an end to it — once and for all. And we have to help them. So please don’t fight. Please, everybody, let’s work together.”
Frankie held out his hand to Tom and helped him to his feet. “Peace?” he asked.
Tom dusted himself off. “No peace,” he said. “Truce.”
“Good enough,” said Frankie. He took a reading of the apparition’s location in the sky and turned to Hope. “Relay these coordinates to your… husband. Even if we find the bomb, we might not be able to disarm it in time, so this is the mission timer. If they don’t get the job done… then my city dies.”
“I won’t let you down,” said Hope.
Byrne put a hand on her shoulder. “Let’s get to work, people.”
CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR
Qom
“Why are you alone, sister?”
These were not words Maryam wished to hear, especially from a member of the morality police. The Iranian vice cops—“vice” in this case applying to the very existence of women — were not as notorious as the mutaween of Saudi Arabia, or the Taliban of Afghanistan, but they were plenty dangerous.
She tensed as she answered. “But I am modestly dressed, worshipping at the sacred mosque.”
They moved closer to her, boxing her in, forcing her into an alley. Maryam glanced around and saw there was nobody else in sight. Whatever was going to happen was going to have to happen fast.
“Where is your husband, sister?”
“I have… he is away, on state business. But he will be here soon, that I can assure you.”
“Then where is your father?”
“My father, may Allah bless him, is dead.”
“Your brother?”
“Alas, I have no brothers.”
The two police looked at each other. In Iran, with one of the highest proportions of young people in the world, everybody had brothers and sisters. She was obviously lying.
“Sister,” said the first cop, “I am afraid we are compelled by force of holy law to request that you accompany us.”
Maryam kept edging backward, into the alley, away from the crowds. She knew the religious police were lightly armed, with knives for protection and sticks with which to beat helpless women. This is what came of a country that had reduced some of the proudest, most glamorous women in the world into servile, cringing slaves. The men had no fear.
They were about to learn different. They were about to take a very fast trip from the seventh century to the twenty-first. And they weren’t going to like it very much.
“Perhaps,” she said, “we can discuss this in a more private place.”
One of the dirty little secrets of Iran was that whores flourished everywhere. Probably not since Dickensian London had the world’s oldest profession commanded such a large part of a nation’s economy, or its attention, or its fantasy life. She need not say anything, merely hint. They would get the message. They would take the bait.
The men grinned at each other. Fringe benefits were part of the job. A doorway would be good enough.
Maryam took a deep breath and said a silent prayer. This would have to be fast and lethal.
She moved back into a doorway, letting them come to her, feeling their hands on her body. She needed them to do just that, to drop their guard, to reach for her with a repressed passion that would dull their other senses until it was too late.
Closer… closer…
She raised her veil as one of them moved in to kiss her, and her hand strayed to the privates of the second cop. She could feel the first man’s mouth on hers, his tongue seeking hers, feel the tumescent excitement of the second man…
Now.
She bit the tongue off and wrenched the other man down, hard. They both screamed, but their screams were immediately cut off as she drew the knife from the scabbard of the first cop and slashed his throat. Gurgling, he fell into the second man, who was still in agony. As he put up his hands to fend off the falling body, she plunged the knife into his heart. As he died, she saw the look of disbelief in his eyes, that a woman had done this to him, and then a look of bliss, as if all his suspicions of the evil sex were, by his death, finally justified.
“Fuck you,” she said in English.
She pulled both the bodies into the doorway as best she could. They’d be found almost immediately, that she knew. She wiped the knife clean of fingerprints and placed it back in its sheath.
She was wet with blood, but the blood would not show against the black of the chador, and in this heat it would dry quickly. She just had to stay away from people for a while. And wait… wait for him.
And then, in the greatest miracle of her life, for which she would forever give thanks and praise to Allah, there he was. She knew him immediately, saw right through his disguise, knew by the cock of his head and the way he walked, the way he moved, that it could be no other. That at last he was come, and that she was whole again, and that no matter what now happened she knew the truth.
He moved toward her quickly but without haste. Still nobody around.
“Hello, Frank,” she said quietly.
“My name’s not Frank,” he said.
“I know it isn’t,” she said. “Everything you’ve told me since the day we met was a lie.”
“Would you have had it any other way?”
“How did you find me?
In answer, he reached inside her chador, until he found what he was looking for. The smartphone with which she’d signaled him. “Thank Allah for GPS,” he said.
“You’re late.”
“And they’re dead,” he said, looking at the corpses. “So let’s ankle.”
“Home?”
He gave that look of his that she loved so well. The one that said, Are you kidding? “You are home, remember? And he’s here.” She didn’t have to ask who “he” was.
“He’s looking for her,” she replied. He didn’t have to ask who “she” was.
“Then I guess we both have jobs to do.”
“I’m not going to leave her.”
“That’s what I just said.”
“There’s more to it, right?”
“Would I be here if there wasn’t?” That was the answer she expected, but didn’t want. “We haven’t got much time and we have a lot to do, including not getting ourselves killed and saving the world, not necessarily in that order, so let’s get a move on.”
“Where?”
He brought his face close to hers. “As long as we’re together,” he said, “Qom is as good a place as any.”
* * *
“You double-crossed me, you infidel bastard,” said Col. Zarin.
“I am an infidel in many faiths,” replied Skorzeny coolly, “so please do not think that your cheap superstitious imprecations can frighten me.”
They were in the heart of the nuclear complex on the outskirts of Qom, deep inside a mountain, where the uranium-enrichment process had been taking place right under the noses of the U.N. inspectors, who preferred to look in the direction of the known facility at Natanz, rather than anywhere else, just in case they might find something. Emanuel Skorzeny had no illusions that he was allowed admittance because he was a welcome guest of the Islamic Republic. He was here because they were business partners, and the minute they ceased being business partners, his privileges would be revoked with extreme prejudice.
And he had a business deal with Col. Zarin.
“I have another proposition for you,” he said.
“I am not interested in another proposition,” repli
ed the colonel. “You have used me, and jeopardized my future and the future of my family. They have my voice on tape, threatening this Detective Saleh, may Allah curse him and his seed. I should kill you for what you have done.”
“Not for what I have done, Col. Zarin. For what he has done. And I am about to deliver him — and her — to you.”
“Why should I believe you?” Col. Zarin looked at the clock on the wall. That, thought Skorzeny, was a measure of just how backward this country was — not only that one would look at a clock on the wall to see what time it was, but that there even were clocks on the wall.
Skorzeny ignored the question. “I propose a trade. One that will enrich us both.”
Col. Zarin’s glance fell upon Mlle. Derrida. “Why do you bring your whore to a meeting of men?” he snarled.
“Because she’s not my whore,” Skorzeny answered levelly. “And I’ll thank you not to talk about her in such a disrespectful manner. You savages are simply going to have to learn that not all the world subscribes to your Dark Ages notion of male and female. Your entire civilization is not worth a Mass, although Paris was.”
“Then why are you giving us Paris?” laughed Col. Zarin.
“Because Paris is no longer worth a Mass, either. But do not think you have triumphed. It is I, Emanuel Skorzeny, who has triumphed, and you are a mere instrument of my will. I am greater than any God, greater than your Allah, and I shall have my revenge.”
Col. Zarin’s hand stole toward his sidearm. “This is blasphemy. I should kill you for it.”
“You wouldn’t dare,” replied Skorzeny coolly. “Because my death makes you a dead man. It makes your wife a widow and your children orphans. It brings down the full wrath of the West upon your pitiful head. For there will come a time, and soon, when your breast-beating and braggadocio will be as nothing. I am all that is standing in the way of the West’s vengeance upon you. So listen.”
He opened his briefcase, and took out the computer. “This is the very latest example of NSA/CSS technology. It was designed by their top operative, a man with whom I have come into contact, both personally and professionally, on several occasions, each of them unpleasant in the extreme. I am prepared to make you a present of it, in exchange for Miss Harrington, who can be of absolutely no use to you at this point.”
“Do you love her that much?”
“Yes,” said Skorzeny. It was the simplest answer he had ever given to any question in his life.
“And what does love mean?”
For the first time in his life, he felt old, tired, nearing the end. No, it could not be possible. All his life had been devoted to one thing, to one purpose — himself — and suddenly came this realization. That there was something beyond him. Not the ritualistic rote of some alien liturgy, but something more elemental, something more primitive than even religious superstition.
Her.
“I don’t know,” he replied.
Mlle. Derrida could sit silent no longer. She had no use for these Iranians and their imported desert faith. She was a Frenchwoman, the heiress of Voltaire and Descartes, Rousseau, and Rimbaud and Sartre and her namesake, Derrida. She believed in rational thought. Cogito ergo sum. That was her faith, and that was why she had faith in him. “Of course you do,” she said.
“Love is what is left when thought has fled — not religion, not faith, but love. Love is what drives us. If there is a God, and like you I do not believe that for a moment… but if there is, then love is what brings us closer to him. Not hate. Not vengeance. Neither orders, nor rituals. Nothing from above, or below. Just us, humanity — what we French fought and lost our Revolution for. We sacrificed our ideals on the altar of the guillotine, and we learned never to do that again. And now here we are.”
She turned to Skorzeny. “Get her back, sir,” she said, “and then let’s go home. I want to go home. Take me home.”
Skorzeny indicated the laptop. “Very simple,” he said. “The computer for the girl. You get — if you can reverse-engineer it, and get past its built-in defenses — a glide path into the heart of the Great Satan. With this, you can destroy them. No need for bombs, nukes, Shahab missiles. No need for the permanent war against the West. You can end it all now, right here, right now. Break their Black Widow, corrupt her, seduce her, turn her into the whore you’ve always known she was. I don’t care. In fact, I endorse it.”
He pushed the laptop across the table at Col. Zarin. “But give my own Black Widow back to me. Give me Miss Harrington.”
Col. Zarin looked at the laptop. He looked at Skorzeny. He looked at Mlle. Derrida.
Skorzeny looked at him. Neither of them blinked.
On the wall, the clock kept ticking. At last—
“I will take you to her,” Col. Zarin said.
CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE
Qom
Devlin and Maryam moved through the crowd, deliberately but quickly.
“He’s here,” said Devlin in Farsi.
“How do you know?”
“Because he can’t resist.”
They were past the mosque now, heading for the home of Mohammed Radan, Devlin’s taxi driver’s brother-in-law. They needed a place to get out of sight, even if only for a few hours. The house of Mohammed Radan would have to do.
“Emanuel Skorzeny,” said Devlin softly, “always must have the last word. Always must see the other fellow submit. He will not be able to abide her betrayal, nor will he be able to credit it. For him to have misjudged her so badly reflects poorly on him. And hearing her say it will set his world right again.”
“We have to rescue her,” said Maryam. “She saved my life.”
“She may have saved more than that.”
The address they were seeking was close now. “He’s got your computer, you know.”
“I was counting on it. Why do you think I gave it to you?”
He felt her stiffen. “You wanted him to get it?”
“Ideally, no. I wanted you to find him. But he found you first. He didn’t get to where he is today by being unaware of danger. But he has a weakness, just as we all do. And his weakness is his vanity.”
“What’s your weakness?” she asked.
“You,” he said simply.
Mr. Radan was delighted to meet the traveler of whom his esteemed brother-in-law had spoken so highly, and rejoiced in the mercy of Allah that his honored guest was now joyously reunited with his wife. Mrs. Radan was immediately dispatched to the kitchen to prepare a repast for their guests, and the fair Radan daughters were paraded in front of the new arrivals, each to offer a greeting in turn. Then Mr. Radan showed them to a back bedroom in his modest but comfortable house and immediately ordered the eldest daughter to bring them black tea and sweet drinks. Then he left them alone.
“You can take that off now,” said Devlin. “I think we are batin.” In Persian society, there were two modes — the public, zahir, in which all the sharia-based social norms were punctiliously observed, and the private, or batin, in which the chadors came off, and the hair went down.
Maryam took off the chador. She opened the bag Amanda had given her, took out a change of clothes, and went to wash up.
Devlin found the secure uplink NSA had provided and downloaded what he needed. There was a relay from Hope via Danny — the clock was ticking on the bomb in New York, and the trigger was the laser. They had calculated the rate of descent, which was holding steady. There wasn’t much time.
Devlin let his mind travel back. The dead cattle along Highway 5. That had been a warm-up, the miracles a distraction. They were testing, and soon they would be ready to strike.
Involuntarily, he found himself admiring the length of time it had taken to plan all this, and how careful they had been. Schritt vor schritt, as the Germans liked to say: step by step, one thing after another, letting it unfold gradually but inevitably. He could see and admire the hand of the master, whose entire life had been dedicated to the proposition that there was nothing you could not accomplish if
only you set your mind to it and went about it to the exclusion of nearly everything else.
That was Emanuel Skorzeny’s life, and he had only ever let one thing intrude. And now, inshallah, it was about to cost him that life.
For Skorzeny was here, in Qom. He could feel his malevolent presence, just as he was sure Skorzeny could feel his. They would find each other. And then settle this thing.
He didn’t want to stay online very long — no matter how secure and how shielded, a capable counter-intelligence system eventually would eventually detect him. But he’d gotten when he needed, from Seelye, from Danny. Just one more thing.
Time to bait the last trap.
The laptop, which operated at the highest level of NSA security, had a feature he hadn’t told Maryam about. Even if it was shut down, it could be activated remotely — and by activated, he meant activated. It would automatically switch on in order to receive any critical communication from the Building in Fort Meade.
He could access the Building from his Android.
He accessed the Building.
He activated the signal.
The signal went out.
He switched off the Android and lay back on the bed for a moment, imagining Skorzeny’s reaction. Would be it be shock or delight? Terror or triumph? Who else was with him? It didn’t matter. The machine was now doing the job for which he had designed it.
Upon receiving the activation signal, the laptop would display the origin of the incoming. That would be the moment of maximum danger, since it would blow their location, but that was exactly what he needed to do. They had to seem exposed and vulnerable, otherwise an army would show up and there was no way that the two of them could fight their way through an army. He had to let Skorzeny think he alone had gotten the drop on him.
One more chess move. One more, and then it would all be over, one way or the other.
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