Hostile Intent

by Michael Walsh

  Chapter Thirty-four

  WASHINGTON, D.C.

  Upon learning the news of Los Angeles, the president helicoptered aboard Marine One directly to the White House lawn, where he held an impromptu press conference. Even his worst enemies and most ardent critics had to admit that Jeb Tyler was made for moments like these. His natural empathy, his good looks, his unforced air of concern—these were some of the qualities that had gotten him elected and today was his finest hour.

  Across from him, the usual assemblage of preening White House correspondents, augmented by the network anchors, had their microphones and notebooks at the ready, itching to shout their questions. But right now, the president had the floor:

  “My fellow Americans,” Tyler began, with just the right quiver of rage in his voice. Dobson had whipped up the speech on the short chopper ride from Camp David, and it was probably the best thing she’d ever done. Did half the country think him a wimp? Very well then, he would show them. “Today, our country was attacked by wanton, vicious murdering scum.”

  A ripple ran through the press corps. Scum? Several reporters made a mental note to contact…well, somebody…to see if any group could possibly take offense at such an un-PC characterization. So far, there had been no terrorist statement that anyone had heard, but it would surely come, and then the great national game of recriminating moral equivalence could begin in earnest. In the meantime, the president was still speaking:

  “Many of our fellow citizens are dead. Many more lie dying. A significant portion of Los Angeles has been destroyed by a very powerful bomb. But it could have been worse. Reports are still fragmentary and preliminary, but it appears that the terrorists’ attempt to construct a so-called dirty bomb has largely failed. With the gracious acquiescence of Mayor Gonzales of Los Angeles, federal FEMA, Hazmat, and SWAT teams are either already on site or underway. We’ll have no Katrina here.”

  He took a breath, but continued to look steadily and calmly into the TV cameras. “As of this moment, we have not received any communication from the people who have done this reprehensible deed. But let me assure you that we will find them, and we will bring them to swift and sure justice.

  “I gather there already has been speculation that this attack was in retaliation for the foiling of the plot in Edwardsville yesterday. I have conferred with my senior national security staff, and they assure me that such a thing would be impossible. This operation was too well planned for it to be a simple act of revenge. No matter how Edwardsville had played out, no matter whether we had acceded to all their demands, it wouldn’t have mattered one whit. The attack on Los Angeles would have happened anyway. So if and when we hear from them, please keep that in mind. There is simply no grievance, whether real or imaginary, that justifs devices. Pam Dobson walked over and showed him her screen. Tyler blanched, then made a command decision: show it.

  “Are you sure?” whispered Pam.

  “Sunlight is the best disinfectant,” said Tyler. “My fellow Americans,” said President Tyler, “behold our enemy.” And so the nation’s television feeds cut away from the White House lawn to the face of a terrorist in a ski mask. Tyler signaled for the audio feed to begin:

  “…cowardly attack on our forces yesterday cried out to Heaven above for revenge,” the masked man was saying in a muffled and electronically scrambled voice. “And so has it been done. Let there be no mistake about our resolve. Unless the American government immediately and completely capitulates to our demands, these attacks will continue in ever-increasing ferocity until America and the West are destroyed in a holy rain of fire.”

  The terrorist looked directly at the cameras. “And that day of reckoning will be the most terrible in the history of the world.” The video was shot in some empty room, blank white walls, no music. “You have had your chance. From this moment on, there will be no further communications, no negotiating. We made our justifiable demands and our reward was death. Now, we will visit death upon you. No justice, no peace, no surrender.”

  The masked man stopped, looked at the camera. “Have a nice day.”

  The president came back on, calm, unruffled, not a perfect hair on his perfect head out of place. Even the half of the country who hadn’t voted for him, who in fact despised him, had to admit that he was pretty damn impressive at this moment.

  “My fellow Americans, everything you have just heard is a lie. You have just seen the hooded face of evil. I realize that some members of both parties have tried to tell you that the threat from beyond our shores is not real. That if we would just be nice to them, if we would just address their ‘legitimate grievances,’ all would be well.

  “But let me tell you something. Yesterday’s events in Edwardsville opened my eyes. I too thought that health care and the capital gains tax were the issues most important to you, my fellow countrymen. How wrong I was. And I stand before you now, humbled and contrite of heart, and pledge to you that we will not rest, we will not falter, until we have eliminated this threat to the Republic, and our families can once again sleep soundly in their beds at night—secure in the knowledge that we employ rough men ready to do our enemies grievous harm for the actions they have taken against us today. My fellow Americans—we will not fail.”

  It was a lucky thing that the cameras were on Tyler and not his group of advisors behind him; flies would have found comfortable nesting places in their mouths as he continued.

  “This very day, I have ordered the leader of one of the most secret, the most elite units in the American intelligence hierarchy to stop at nothing to remove this threat. From this moment on, we will hunt down these folks and terminate them with the most extreme prejudice America has ever brought to bear on an enemy, and that includes Tojo’s Japan and Hitler’s Nazi Germany.”

  One last pause. “Thank you, good night, and then—“Sorry, but I can’t. They’ll shoot us down. If we go Code Red, they’ll scramble at Edwards and you’ll have put 150 people in the Pacific.”

  “We won’t go Code Red,” said Devlin. “I’ll guarantee it.”

  “Then it’ll be a general aviation order.”

  “And you can beat that, can’t you?”

  At that moment, the cockpit door opened and the co-pilot stuck his head out. “Captain,” he began, eyeballing Devlin.

  “It’s okay,” said Wilkinson. “Have they closed LAX?

  The co-pilot was smart enough not to ask who Devlin was. “Affirmative, sir. We’re being diverted to Vegas.”

  “Thanks, Ben,” said the captain. “I’ll be right in.” He turned back to Devlin. “Rocky, ol’ buddy, you’d better give me a goddamn good reason to even think about what you’re suggesting.”

  Only one play left. Whoever the unlucky lady in 4A was, she was now going to be the goddamn good reason. He could take her into custody in a second, and then figure out how to frame her for something as they headed to LA.

  “I’ll make the bust right now. Then you’ll have a high-value federal prisoner who must be delivered to LA without delay. I’ll get you all the CYA authorization you need. Deal?”

  Captain Wilkinson thought for a moment. “That is one good-looking federal prisoner,” he said, shaking Devlin’s hand. “I’ll have the flight attendant ask the man in the seat next to her to come up front for a moment, for some bullshit message. Then you swap seats and do your thing. But try to keep the fireworks to a minimum, will ya?”

  Devlin nodded. “Thanks,” he said. “One more thing—land in Burbank.”

  The stew went to get the man in 4B. As he came forward, Devlin slipped past him and walked calmly but purposefully, head down, toward the empty aisle seat. He hated to burn one of his covers, hated to have spent as much time with the captain as he’d had to, but that’s the way it was.

  The face of the woman in 4A was buried in a copy of Paris Vogue as he took the seat. She didn’t bother to look over, or acknowledge his presence, or absence, in any way. Under other circumstances, the perfect seat mate.

  Then his w
orld turned upside down.

  Maybe it was the perfume, that magical madeleine that triggered involuntary memory. Maybe the shape of the left forearm. Maybe a sixth sense. It didn’t matter. They both knew immediately when she lowered the magazine and looked at him.

  “Hello, Frank,” she said evenly. “Long time no see.”

  It was a good thing he didn’t have a heart. “Hello, Maryam,” he said. “You’re under arrest.”

  Chapter Thirty-six He glanced across the street. So far, nothing. “Waiting for a friend.”

  “Dressed like a Marseilles pimp?”

  “He’s a whore, so it’s okay.”

  “Can I watch?”

  “No, but you can have a rain check.”

  “What’s a rain check?”

  “I thought you said you spoke English.”

  She made a moue. “I don’t think I like you any more.”

  “Who said you ever did?” Movement in the doorway across the street. “I gotta go now, baby.”

  “Don’t call me baby. I hate when men call me baby.”

  He was moving now and so was she, tagging along. He either had to ditch her, kill her, or let her come. He didn’t like either of the first two choices, so he might as well make use of the cover. He took her by the hand. “Where are we going?” she asked.

  “I don’t know,” he said, “but you seem like a fun girl, so you’re getting your rain check right now.”

  She had to hurry to keep up, her feet clattering her impossibly high heels on the Paris sidewalks.

  The man he was trailing stopped, his keen ears tuned to the slightest discrepancy in his environment, visual or aural. In a flash, Devlin had pulled Maryam into the shadows of a nearby doorway and kissed her as hard as he could. He caught sight of the man turning and he knew he was, for the moment, safe. He kept kissing Maryam long after the man had started back along his way. She tasted that good.

  At last, he let her up for air. “What was that for?”

  “For saving my ass.”

  “It’s a nice ass,” she said.

  He waltzed her out onto the sidewalk. He stepped in some dog shit but he didn’t care. Dog shit was as much a part of the romance of Paris as the Seine, as the shellfish spilling out from their ice beds on the sidewalks, as the whiffs of perfume and body odor coming off the ugly but sexy women, as the sight of Notre Dame by night, as the Pont des Arts in late afternoon, and the Sacre-Coeuer against the morning sun.

  The man ahead had stopped again. Did he sense something?

  “Slap me,” he whispered. “Really, do it. Now.”

  She learned fast. She slapped him hard. Harder, in fact, than he expected. Good. That meant she liked him.

  “Encule de son père!” he shouted.

  She came right back at him:

  “Sale fils de pute enculée par un gros connard de pede!”

  That hurt. So would this: “J’aurais te don from his mouth. Neither could she:

  “Boro gomsho pedear soukteh, jakesh!” It was the choicest Tehran invective he had heard in years.

  As he’d hoped, a crowd gathered around them, hoping for some action and blocking them from the sight of his quarry. Silently, he started counting down to ten, which was exactly how long he was going to let this little piece of street theater last.

  “Goh bokhor!” he cried and pulled her close again.

  “That was pretty good,” she said. “For an American.”

  “Let’s go.”

  They pushed their way through the crowd. The man Devlin was following was still in sight, but moving faster now, his wind up a bit, but not so much that he would disappear. To vanish would be to admit guilt to any pursuer. And then it would be war.

  “Who is he?” she said.

  “Somebody I want to talk to.”

  “Just talk?” She grabbed him and whirled him around. “Enough to kill him?” She patted the gun under his left armpit, the one that was so well concealed that not even a drunken flic with a grudge against Americans would have noticed it on a first pat-down. Or even a second…

  The sudden rush of emotion he was feeling was something new, unexpected. He’d spent his life after Rome living within a carefully constructed iron box that the world couldn’t dent, and now this girl comes along and cracks it right down the middle with one kiss.

  He made a snap decision. The first rule of snap decisions was never to make them. The second rule was to make one exception. “You’d better leave now. Things could get ugly.”

  Big brown eyes, looking right into his. “I’m from Shiraz. You think I haven’t seen ugly things?” She took off her heels, ready to run. Maybe the second rule was right after all.

  Third rule: never underestimate a woman. Not her brains, not her heart, not her soul.

  The man was heading toward the Seine. Inwardly, Devlin smiled; that’s where he would head at this point in the game too—someplace open, with a clear shot in every direction, one with plenty of shadows among the closed kiosks, lovers galore, bridge abutments. Open spaces could be killing fields, but only when the battlefield had already been prepped; otherwise, they were observation posts.

  Okay, they could play it either way. “This could get rough,” he said. “And I want to see you again, after this is over.”

  “I’ll have to think about it.”

  “Make it snappy.”

  “What’s your name?”

  “Frank Ross,” he lied.

  “Okay, Frank Ross,” she said with a hint of entirely accurate suspicion, “I’ll meet you at the Cafest, down the Seine, turning its back on the sin and sacrilege behind it.

  He took a spot in a darkened doorway and waited. Mentally, he reviewed the intelligence. It was all NSA stuff, nothing from Langley, which meant that on a scale of one to ten it scored about a six, as opposed to a one. The rue Galande was where Milverton kept a safe house, a flat, in one of the last places in Paris that anyone would ever think to look for such a thing.

  Maryam wandered briefly into his thoughts, but he cast her aside. He had her parting promise to meet him at the Café de la Paix, near the Opéra, and if she was true to her word, so would he be. He had no intention of getting killed by Milverton. He was there as judge, jury, and hooded executioner.

  “I am the Angel of Death,” he said, under his breath.

  There was no chance that Milverton would go through the front entrance. But he didn’t want him to. That was the way he was going to go in. And so he bought a ticket and entered the building.

  Everybody was dressed for the occasion except him. Men in bustiers, fishnet stockings, and high heels. Women dressed as virginal brides, but wearing no underwear. Mock-hunchbacks. Vampirish whores. All there for The Rocky Horror Picture Show.

  The cult movie had been playing at the Studio Galande since forever. It had taken the French a few years to catch on to the fact that the Tim Curry movie was not just a movie but an audience-participation extravaganza, but once they got the hang of it, they showed up with the same fervid and flamboyant enthusiasm as their counterparts in Boston, New York, and elsewhere.

  Devlin had long since memorized the layout as he took a seat near the back of the auditorium. Thanks to NSA, liaising with DARPA (Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, run out of the DoD), he knew that Milverton’s lair lay to the rear of the screen and just above, on the first floor, in Euro-speak. He gave Milverton about fifteen minutes to get comfortable, to feel safe. The audience was in the middle of “Let’s Do the Time Warp Again” when he made his move.

  There was a conga line up on the stage in front of the screen. As he rose, several girls cheered him, got out of their seats, and sandwiched him as they propelled Devlin toward the stage. The girl behind him put her hands on his ass and squeezed it tight, while the one in front reached back and grabbed his balls.

  And then they were up on the stage. The audience was screaming with delight and shouting encouragement.

  Hands on hips, knees in tight…

  The gi
rls were very sexy. He found his thoughts flashing back to Maryam. No—get her out of your mind. Stay focused on the job.

  The wings beckoned. He wasn’t the first Rocky Horror virgin to feel embarrassment and flee the stage.

  Even behind the screen and the loudspeakers, the music was deafening.

  He drew his silenced SigSauer and fired nine shots in quick succession, punching a perfect circle in the ceiling above. As the plaster showered down, he took out something that looked like a dart gun and fired.

  The metal claw expanded as it hit the ceiling, grabbed a purchase on the floor above. He hit the retractor and the

  Milverton came down at the speed of gravity, firing all the way. He was that good—better than Devlin even had thought. Faster too.

  His first few shots shredded the screen from behind. Tim Curry took a bullet through the groin. Richard O’Brien, one through the hump. And Susan Sarandon, right in the titties.

  Milverton continued firing as he hit the floor, rolling. The fall must have hurt like hell, if it didn’t actually break anything, but he didn’t seem to care. Devlin respected that; unless he had been killed by the plunge, he wouldn’t have cared about the pain either. All that mattered at this point was the job.

  Shots splintered everything around him as he rammed another clip into the SigSauer. But he was bound by the rules of engagement: he couldn’t fire toward the audience.

  Milverton rose and charged toward the screen from behind.

  It’s just like Point Blank, though Devlin, trying both to stay hidden and get a clear shot. Observe, orient, decide—

  There he was, outlined and back-lit against what was left of the screen.

  Act.

  Devlin held up. He couldn’t risk missing Milverton and hitting some poor kid. Milverton burst through the screen, firing back at Devlin, then dropping off the proscenium and into the first row of seats.

  Devlin realized it was useless. He had to get up, expose himself, if he had any hope. He couldn’t believe how badly this operation had gone. And all because of the girl.