Langer raised his hand to freeze the action. "Don't push me, Ms. Carson. Right now you're the only living person found at the scene of a bombing. That makes you a suspect."
"I'm not going far," she said.
"She has a point," Dr. Ahmed intervened. "Speak with her now, speak with her in twenty hours, after surgery and recovery. What difference does it make?"
"It makes a lot of difference," Langer said. "This wasn't just any bomb, Doc." He shifted his gaze to Carson. "This was a thermobaric device, much more--"
Carson gasped. She hadn't intended to and if it weren't for whatever meds she was on, she never would have shown her hand like that.
"That mean something to you, Ms. Carson?" Langer asked.
Hell yes, it meant something to her. Thermobarics were a class of explosives that allowed low-density charges to produce high-density yields. Whereas standard explosives contain chemical oxidizers in high concentrations to allow the mixture to consume all of its fuel in a single instant, thus producing its blast effects, a thermobaric device has relatively low levels of oxidizer, but is packed with highly combustible, often exotic fuels. When the charge detonates, the finely divided fuel is dispersed over a wider area and the oxygen in the air performs the role that the chemical oxidizer performs in standard explosives. In effect, the disbursed cloud of fuel continues to detonate, often at higher temperatures, thus expanding the kill radius tremendously.
"Not a thing," Carson lied.
"I don't believe you."
"Then arrest me."
"Consider it done."
"Excellent," Carson said. She turned to the doctor. "Can I go to surgery now?"
Dr. Ahmed smiled. "Absolutely."
"Consider her to be in custody, Doc," Langer said. But he seemed suddenly flummoxed, as if this new turn had been totally unexpected.
"It will be foremost on my mind," the doctor said.
Three minutes later, they were on their way to the elevator--all three of them, plus a couple of nurses and seeming hangers-on. Langer made a point, it seemed, to always be within Carson's eyesight. The elevator took them to a set of double doors over which a sign read: SURGERY. AUTHORIZED PERSONNEL ONLY. Below that was a smaller sign with an arrow that directed everyone else to the waiting area.
"You cannot go in," Ahmed said to Langer.
The cop seemed to be struggling for words. "She's your responsibility, then," he said. He probably wanted it to be a more withering threat than it turned out to be.
On the far side of the double doors, Carson and the doctor exchanged victory smirks. "I often don't like police officers," Ahmed said.
"He was only doing his job the best he knew how," Carson said, surprised at her own maternal tone. If Lespasse had been there, he would have been shocked to hear such forgiveness.
Lespasse. She'd seen too many friends die over the years to mourn them one at a time anymore, but she wished him well on this next leg of his Great Journey.
"Doctor, I need a telephone," she said.
Their shared moment collapsed in his expression to more confusion. "Excuse me?"
"A telephone. It's an urgent matter."
"Your health is the most urgent matter at the moment," Ahmed said.
Carson grabbed the hem of his scrub shirt with her good arm, igniting a lightning bolt of pain from her bad one. "Doctor, please stop." The gurney glided to a halt. "It's really not," she said. "I love my own health as much as the next person--probably more, in fact. But in this case, it's nowhere near as important as the phone call I need to make."
Gun Bitch and the driver spoke with each other again and Felicia knew that the crescendo was about to begin. It was their manner of speaking, the conspiratorial tone. When Gun Bitch looked at her at the end of their exchange, Felicia knew that it would be bad for her.
The driver clicked the turn signal and started drifting toward the left--a shift in the natural order of a right-handed world to which she didn't think that she could ever truly adjust--and as they slowed, Gun Bitch reached into her purse, looking for something. Felicia's heart rate quadrupled. What could she possibly pull out?
It turned out to be a pair of clippers that looked like pliers and for a moment she thought she was looking at the instrument of her upcoming torture. When her captor leaned forward, however, and reached toward Felicia's zip-tied ankles, she sensed that the bad ending to this adventure was at hand.
Felicia heard a snip and instantly her feet began to regain sensation that she hadn't even realized they'd lost. She thought about kicking out at her captor, but then what? With her wrists bound to the man seated next to her, what would her next move be? Even if she knocked the bitch out with a kick to the head, she still wouldn't be able to save herself.
"Don't be stupid," Gun Bitch said in English. She leveled her pistol an inch from Felicia's forehead. "Move, I shoot."
She pulled roughly on Felicia's left shoulder to pivot her to the right. When she was facing the door, her arms stretched painfully beyond their limits, she first felt the closeness of her captor's shoulders, and then the coldness of the clippers against her flesh as the tiny jaws slipped between the flesh of her wrists.
Snip.
She was completely free and she knew without doubt that she was seconds away from death. The instant her hands belonged to her again, Felicia knew it was time to act; just as she knew that her window to do so could be measured in seconds, not minutes.
Her first kick caught Gun Bitch in the stomach, triggering a cry that was equal parts pain and surprise. But the punch that landed squarely on her captor's nose launched a shriek that was all pain and a fountain that was all blood.
The car slowed instantly, as if the driver himself had been the recipient of Felicia's attack. That instant of inattention opened another window of opportunity. She lunged for the door handle and pulled, introducing a hurricane of wind and road noise.
Clearly still blinded by the blow to her nose, Gun Bitch swiveled her weapon in the direction of the noise and issued a command in a language that Felicia did not understand, yet whose meaning was universal: "Stop or I'll shoot!"
Felicia punched the woman's wrist, connecting squarely with the tendons on the soft underside and sending the pistol spiraling into the lap of her co-captive, who grunted reflexively on impact.
The vehicle slowed even more as the driver pivoted to see what was going on, but when Gun Bitch barked another order, he whipped back around to face front and acceleration forces kicked in again.
Felicia dove for the racing pavement.
Middleton knew that the urgency in Tesla's tone had been driven by the presence of a corpse in the middle of his flat. His wrecked flat.
The body was a concern, of course, but Middleton had seen way too many of them over the years to get overly spun-up about one more. With a dead body, you got analytical. You could take your time. Someone dead today would still be dead a week from now, so the urgency was gone. The spattered blood and brains were literally and figuratively custodial matters--troubling annoyances to be cleaned up later with a little time, patience and detergent.
Far more troubling to him was the shattered violin on the floor. Resting as it was, scattered among the flotsam of overturned furniture and broken trinkets, Middleton knew in an instant why the concert had been postponed. It wasn't a missing pianist or a technical problem. It was the missing star of the show.
"Who took Felicia?" Tesla wondered.
Middleton muttered, "Whoever left a dead man in my foyer."
"They didn't just leave him here. They shot him here," Tesla said. "We need to notify the locals. Now that there's a murder, we need to get them involved."
"Fine." Middleton couldn't have cared less. Where the hell was Felicia? Why would anyone attack her like this?
"You say that so easily," Tesla said, trying to draw him into the present. "But they're going to ask some damn difficult questions."
Middleton scowled at her and cocked his head, as if he'd just heard a fo
reign language being spoken. "What?" Then it fell into place. "Oh, OK. Fine. Whatever. Let them ask their questions. Nora, we need to find her."
She shook her head. "No, we need to find them. They come as a package deal."
But where to begin? With so many moving parts, how the hell were they supposed to--
His cell phone chimed in his pocket. "Jesus," he spat, and as he looked at the caller I.D. display and didn't recognize the number or even the exchange, he almost hit the ignore button. But then he thought better of it. When this much was going so wrong so quickly, you never knew where the next turn was going to lead. He brought the phone to his ear. "Middleton."
"Carson."
He recognized the difference in her voice and his gut tightened. "Are you all right?"
"Lespasse is dead," she said. The simplicity of the delivery could have seemed harsh, but in this case, he sensed that by saying the words aloud, she'd freed herself of a burden.
"Dead! How?" At the exclamation from her colleague, Tesla's head whipped around.
"Tampa was a trap. Place looked like it'd been empty for weeks. They had a bomb planted for us."
His landline rang. He ignored it. "For you? How could they plant a bomb for you? They couldn't know that you were coming."
"If not for us, for someone. Jesus, Harry, cut me a break on the grammar, OK? I'm on my way into surgery."
So Carson was hurt too. He hadn't thought of that. "What happened to you?" The landline cycled through its third ring and Middleton nodded for Tesla to answer it for him.
"Some burns and broken bones. Not too bad, I don't think."
Despite her words, he could hear the pain and fear in her voice. "Is that what you say or does that come from the doctor?"
Carson said, "I didn't call for sympathy, Harold. I have important news that I need to share before I go under the knife."
Across the room, Tesla covered the mouthpiece with her hand and waved at Middleton.
Still stunned by the news of the death of his comrade and friend, Middleton stared at her blankly as he tried to focus on his own call. "Hold on, Connie."
Tesla said, "It's about Felicia."
"Is she OK?"
"This is the police on the line. They say that she wandered into the station bruised and bloodied and saying something about diving out of a moving car. They've sent her to the hospital."
"Who snatched her?"
"A woman. Youngish. Pretty. Tough . . . Middle Eastern maybe. Indian, Pakistani. Sri Lankan. Harold, what should I tell the police?"
"That you'll call them back."
He returned his attention to Carson. "OK, Connie, go ahead."
The Texan was explaining her own urgent matter. One phrase jumped out and refocused him entirely on his cell phone.
"Wait a minute," he said. "Did you say thermobaric explosive?"
"I did," Carson said. Even through the phone, he could hear her pleasure that he'd connected his own set of dots. "Just like all those we dealt with in Kosovo. Just like the ones the Afghanis have been disarming for a decade."
Thermobarics were perfected by the only nation he knew of whose troops regularly deployed them. "So you think there's a Russian connection?"
"Sure could be. I found a note about calling Moscow. No number. And a shipping label in the trash. Blank, but they may have records." She gave him the name, her voice quivering in pain.
He thanked her. "Connie, I'm sorry."
Toughening her drawl, she said, "Later, Harry. I've got to see a man about a knife."
The phone sagged in Middleton's hand. He turned to Tesla and inhaled deeply. Then he shared the terrible news about Lespasse.
"No! My God, no!"
"And Connie's been hurt." But then he controlled the emotion and continued, telling her what Carson had explained about the thermobarics."
"Russia?"
"Possibly." Then he nodded at Tesla's phone. "What about Felicia?"
"She told the police that her kidnapper was angry that they'd taken the wrong person. She thinks they were actually after Charley."
Middleton felt the color drain from his cheeks. "Sure, Felicia's young and was in my apartment. They thought she was my daughter. Then they realized she was Polish, not American. They were probably going to kill her. Thank God she got away."
"She's still in the emergency room--they won't let her call. But she sent a message. You should read your email."
He lifted his cell phone, furious at himself for not opening Felicia's message immediately. "Jesus," he said as he read, "Sikari patented technology for a new heavy-water system for making nuclear material."
"What she was telling us about heavy water . . . "
"Right."
Middleton pulled out his encrypted cell phone and placed a call to the Volunteers' office outside D.C. He took a deep breath and when a man answered, he said, "Wiki . . . "
"Boss? What's wrong?"
"I have something to tell you." After a moment's hesitation, he delivered the news about Lespasse.
"No, Harry . . . Oh no."
"I'm afraid so. Connie was with him. She's in surgery in Florida right now. I need you to stay on top of what's happening down there."
"You bet. Of course . . . Boss, I'm sorry."
Then Middleton shoved aside the memories about his dead colleague and consulted his notes. He said, "I need you to crack into the shipping records of Continental-Europe Transport Ltd. Find all the deliveries to and from Sindhu Power in Tampa. Connie found their shipping label."
"And that's the outfit in Florida where Connie and JM were?"
"Yeah. The address on Balan's computer."
Middleton clicked his phone shut and turned to Tesla. "OK, Nora, if they snatched Felicia thinking she was Charley--"
"It means Charley's in trouble. You want to go to Paris, Harold?"
"No, I want you to. The email on Balan's computer said whatever was going to happen in the 'village' was going to happen soon. Our Florida operation's been derailed. Given that Connie found a note about calling Moscow, Russia's our only lead--that's the only country selling thermobarics on the black market. I've got to get there as fast as I can."
Stepping over the body, he snagged his suitcase, which he hadn't had a chance to unpack.
Tesla looked at the body. "The police. I have to call them back. What should I tell them?"
Middleton paused for a moment to think. "Tell them anything," he said. "Everything, if you'd like." He started walking toward the front door. "We won't be around when they get here anyway." A nod at the body. "He's their problem now."
6
JOSEPH FINDER
At just after three o'clock on a gloomy afternoon, the Boeing 727 touched down on runway number 3 at Moscow's Domodedovo International Airport.
The reverse thrusters kicked in with a loud whine and before long the roar of the engines subsided as the plane was powered down.
For several minutes, the pilot and his three-man crew just sat there, waiting patiently for the tedious rituals to begin--border control and customs, clearing first the crew and then the cargo. Hours of forms and questions but most of all waiting. The Soviet Union was no more, but its bureaucracy lived on. Rain thrummed against the Plexiglas cockpit window, which slowly began to fog up.
And they waited.
Since this was a cargo plane, there were no passengers to deplane. The main cabin was a cavernous cargo bay packed with eleven containers of cargo--igloos, they were called in the business--which were in turn jammed with boxes. Everything from flat-screen TVs to iPhones, from Armani suits to Armagnac.
Seated along the bulkhead in the small compartment aft of the cockpit, the second officer spoke quietly to the new man, who had been added to the crew at the last minute, just before takeoff in Frankfurt.
"You don't talk much," the second officer said. He hadn't stopped talking since they departed Frankfurt.
"Yeah, well," said the other man.
"Ever been to Moscow before?"
"Once or twice. Long time ago."
"You won't recognize the place."
"So I hear."
"Well, you got one whole night to see Moscow before we turn around and fly out of here in the morning. I know a couple of awesome night-clubs. Smokin' hot Russian babes."
"Thanks anyway," the new man said. "I thought I might just do a little sightseeing."
"Come on, man. What're you gonna do, go see Lenin's tomb or something? This place I'm going to, it'll totally blow your mind when you see the way these Russian babes--"
"I'm good," said the new man. "I'm wiped. I'll probably just walk around, see what Moscow's like these days."
"Well, be careful, buddy," the second officer said. "They got street crime now, you know. Some parts of the city you don't want to walk around at night, being a foreigner and all."
"I'll keep that in mind," said the new crew member.
The second officer stood up and said, "I gotta use the john."
When he emerged from the lavatory, he heard a sharp rap on the plane's exterior. A beefy uniformed agent from FSB Frontier Control came aboard.
"Passport," the Russian barked.
The second officer handed his passport over and watched as the agent scanned it with a handheld device.
Then the second officer turned to look at his colleague, but the other pull-down seat was empty.
No one was there.
As the Russian entered the cockpit to check the passports of the pilot and co-pilot, the second officer looked around, bewildered. He got up, glanced into the cockpit, but the new guy wasn't there either. He yanked open the door to the cargo compartment, but there was barely enough room for someone to squeeze in between the rows of igloos.
The guy wasn't there.
Very strange.
Colonel Harry Middleton strolled along the Old Arbat, a cobblestone street that had been converted into a pedestrian mall crowded with shoppers and peddlers, bearded minstrels playing strange-looking guitars and teenagers just hanging out. There were souvenir shops selling ornate lacquer palekh boxes and Russian nesting dolls painted with the faces of foreign leaders and pop stars.
He'd visited Moscow once before during the height of the Cold War. Everything looked and felt different now: colorful instead of gray; boisterous and teeming instead of quiet and ominous. The rusty old Volgas and Zhigulis had been replaced by Ferraris and Bentleys. But the immense Stalinist tower that housed the Ministry of Foreign Affairs was still there, at the end of the Arbat, just as it was half a century earlier. Maybe the changes didn't really run all that deep after all.
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