The Operative

by Andrew Britton

  As the time approached, he vacated his seat in the right-field stands, exited the park through Gate A, and went to room 306 at the hotel. Zuhair closed the door behind him and briefly looked out at the busy piers, then glanced over at the wall-length furniture unit to his right. A combination dresser and desk, it had drawers at his end, a plasma television in the center, and an office chair pushed underneath it near the window.

  Zuhair went directly to the dresser and produced the yellow marble from his pants pocket. Opening the bottom drawer, he found a plastic grocery bag with a bulky object folded inside. He removed the bag and dropped the marble into the drawer before shutting it, leaving it as confirmation that he, and no one else, had removed the bag and its contents.

  Not that anyone would ever find them. These tokens were for the team only, to let one another know they had each made the pickup and no one else. Zuhair left his marble simply to complete the ritual.

  They’d given him the belt, not one of the overstuffed backpacks or shoulder bags. He had no preference, as long as it got the job done.

  Inside the grocery bag was a nylon weight belt of the sort designed for scuba divers. He momentarily set it down and reached behind his back to unclip a safety pin that had cinched the waistband of his oversize chinos so they would fit him, letting the pants fall almost to his knees. Then he opened his baseball jersey, put on the belt, and adjusted it using a Velcro closure strap. The waistband would now close snugly over his middle—and the scuba belt’s explosive-filled pouches—without the safety pin.

  After he’d rebuttoned the baseball jersey and carefully smoothed it over his chinos, Zuhair moved past the double beds to the desktop for his second piece of equipment. He slid the chair out, found the computer carry bag that had been left there for him, and unzipped its outer compartment. He transferred the wireless detonators it contained to his pocket. The C4 charges and battery inside the belt accounted for two-thirds of its 7-pound weight. The rest of the weight consisted of nails and shards of glass. When triggered, the explosive charge of the bomb and his two shrapnel packages would kill anyone within 10 or 15 feet of the blast.

  He left the room and strode along Eutaw, the Baltimore Convention Center casting its expansive shadow to his right, beyond the parking lots, train tracks, and wide crosstown thoroughfare.

  Now he stared up at the enclosed sky bridge that spanned the court, connecting the Hilton’s main building and business meeting facility and then leading on across Howard Street into the convention center. Peering through its glass-paneled sides, he could see long streams of people moving in both directions—the ball game and other events had filled the center and caused nearly every room in the hotel to be occupied.

  Oh, Allah, our caravan seeks your assistance inflicting the maximum damage, he prayed. We are honored to sacrifice our lives in your path.

  Zuhair lowered his gaze from the sky bridge, pressing the earbud of his Bluetooth headset more securely into place with a fingertip, watching a pair of attractive young women cross his path as they approached the hotel entrance. One of them made chance eye contact with him and pointed to the Red Sox emblem on her T-shirt. She smiled a gloating smile and moved on with her friend. He smiled back, feeling the confidence of one who walked freely among his enemies, wrapped in their very skin, unnoticed as he prepared to attack. Perhaps he would kill the woman and her friend.

  Yes. That appealed to him.

  Following the women, he made his way back into the hotel lobby. They sat, probably to wait for friends or plan what they were going to do for the rest of the day. Zuhair looked around the crowded space, at the support columns. He went there to wait for the call.

  Allah, forgive his vanity, but he experienced something of what the Prophet himself must have felt when he sat in his cave, meditating, and the word of God was revealed to him. Zuhair could tell the women exactly what they were going to do today, just minutes from now.

  They were going to die.

  Julie Harper looked at the diamond-studded Cartier watch her husband had given her for their twenty-fifth anniversary. She touched it, treasuring it, treasuring him, and saw that she had just fifteen minutes before the doors closed and the event officially began.

  Julie was backstage, reviewing her welcoming remarks, when her cell phone rang in her clutch bag. The tone, assigned to her husband’s number, was a snippet of “My White Night” from The Music Man, the show they saw on their first date. It was a regional production, nothing spectacular, but they were sobbing and in love by the time Harold hugged Marian at the end of act 2. Julie smiled every time she heard it. Jon knew that, knew how tense she’d be.

  “Thanks,” she said, picking up. “I needed that.”

  “I figured you would,” he said. “You’ll be great.”

  “As long as I don’t trip and the microphone works, I think I’m good.”

  “Big turnout?” he asked.

  “Fabulous.”

  “I saw you had a security alert.”

  “Doesn’t the CIA’s deputy director have anything better to do?”

  “Puckett received it, sent it on. What’s up?”

  “Guy came in with a briefcase, acting strange,” she said. “He’s at the bar, talking on his Bluetooth. Center security is watching him. I had Donna check. He’s with Interglobal Pharmaceuticals, a sales rep.”

  “Must be some very special samples he’s got.”

  “I guess.” Julie was looking at the man. She saw the head of security, Bill Roche, standing at the other end of the bar, facing him.

  “Well, I don’t want to keep you,” Jon said. “I just wanted to say I’m so proud.”

  “Thanks. And, Jon? Don’t beat yourself up for being in Washington.”

  “Hon, I’m not—”

  “I think you are,” she interrupted. “I hear it in your voice.”

  He said nothing.

  “I’m telling you it’s okay.”

  “No, it isn’t,” he admitted. “Tonight’s an important moment in your life. I should be sharing it with you.”

  “President Brenneman needed you,” she said. “I don’t—”

  She froze as she noticed Michael Lohani’s hand emerge from his pants pocket. He raised a cylindrical object that looked like a pen. And then she saw his eyes turn upward and his mouth form words and the security guard look over... .

  In the final instant before the explosions, she became conscious of her husband repeating her name over the phone. “Julie? Julie?”

  And then the roar swallowed everything.

  CHAPTER 3

  BALTIMORE, MARYLAND

  Ryan Kealey and Allison Dearborn had walked along the brick pier where day-trippers were moving by in noisy clusters. Beyond them came the high, excited voices of children farther down the pier, where they were lined up with their parents for paddleboat rentals. A stranger meekly approached the pair and began hashing out a story about how he’d been separated from his friends the drunken night before and just needed a few more bucks to take the Greyhound back to his place in nearby Owings Mills. Apologizing to the stranger, more for their dismissal of him personally than of his far-fetched story, neither agent felt it necessary to flash their official credentials to further discourage the poorly rehearsed beggar, who was still wearing a noticeably fresh hospital bracelet.

  They reached the indoor garage on the corner of Charles and Conway at 5:06, exactly nine minutes before the chain of explosions rocked the convention center.

  The attendants had parked Kealey’s Saab 9-3 Aero on the ground level, nosing it against the garage’s outer wall, and he needed only to inform them he wanted something out of the backseat to be waved along.

  “Think I’ll freshen up my makeup while I have a chance,” Allison said as they approached the silver convertible. “I want to be at my spiffiest for Julie.”

  Kealey got his remote key fob out of his pocket and pressed the button to unlock the doors. She sat in the passenger’s seat and flipped down the visor to u
se the mirror. He got his jacket and her shoes from the backseat.

  “Allison, I still haven’t thanked you.”

  “For what?” she asked after applying lipstick. “Dragging you to see my former teacher’s keynote speech at a nursing conference?”

  “The Harpers are my friends, too,” Kealey said. “No, what we were talking about earlier. I was in a bad place when we met. You pulled me out of it.”

  “A jellyfish isn’t a man, and a man isn’t a jellyfish. Anyway, you did most of the heavy lifting.”

  He laughed. “If by that you mean after a couple of weeks I did more than grunt one-word answers to your questions, okay.”

  She quickly brushed her hair, frowned, muttered, “Best I can do,” then slipped on her heels.

  “You look aces,” he said.

  “Yeah, thanks. Two minutes of humidity and I’m the Wicked Witch of the West.” She faced him in the hot, stuffy garage. “That process, emerging from a depressive emotional shutdown and post-traumatic stress, is one of the toughest climbs a patient can face. Tougher than most suicide attempts, who have already accepted their situation and want help. You were in some pretty serious situations in South Africa, with the security of our nation squarely on your shoulders. That’s what we euphemistically call ‘Deep Rubble’ in our business.”

  “We have another word for it,” Kealey said.

  “I know,” she said, shutting the door. “Those of us in wood-paneled offices try to have a little more class.”

  “Whatever you call it, I’ve got a long way to go. But I couldn’t have gotten where I am without you,” he said. “I haven’t said that before, and wanted to.”

  They looked at each other a little longer than client-patient propriety should allow. It was Kealey who turned, who locked the doors, who offered her his hand and started back toward the street.

  They walked silently up the ramp toward sunlight.

  “You’re thinking again,” she said.

  “Tough habit to break,” he replied. “It’s all you do sometimes for hours on a stakeout. Look and think.”

  “You’re not in Sarajevo or Cape Town. You’re going to a nice, boring dinner,” she reminded him.

  “Right. Focus.”

  “Tell me, is it a good thought or bad?”

  “Somewhere in the middle,” he said. “I’ve told you about Maine, about the house where Katie Donovan and I lived in Cape Elizabeth.”

  “A little.”

  “There’s an old suspension bridge that runs into the state on I-Ninety-five,” Kealey said. “Katie’s parents lived outside Boston, and one day we went across that bridge during winter, when there were no leaves on the trees. Off on a hill we saw this old house with a FOR SALE sign out front, so we decided to check it out. The place was a shambles, built around eighteen-forty, abandoned for over a decade, completely run-down. But there was something special about it, and we were able to buy it for pocket change. We went up whenever we could, a couple times a year. I did all the stonework, some carpentry, and was convinced it was where I’d settle for the rest of my life.” He grew reflective. “I remember thinking at the time that it was probably tougher to restore a home than to build one. To look for all the leaks and cracks and rot and fix them without destroying the rest of the structure. But there was something rewarding about it, as well. I guess what I’m feeling now, my appreciation, is knowing that you’re doing what I did, getting in there and making something whole—”

  The rest of the sentence was lost as the first blast pounded the air, pushing a concussive wave through the concrete structure.

  Kealey’s first thought was that a cannon had been fired at historic Fort McHenry, which was situated nearby. But then there were two more blasts in rapid succession, each from very different places. He knew at once that it was not a celebration.

  “My God, what’s going on?” Allison asked.

  “Stay here,” Kealey snapped and ran.

  Allison took off her heels and ran behind him. He didn’t have time to argue.

  He reached the Saab and popped the trunk. It was mostly bare: a tire jack, a plastic jerrican, a first-aid kit, a couple of neatly folded blankets ... and a padded black pistol bag about the size of a typical carryall.

  Moments after telling him that he was going to a dinner, that he was not in a war zone, Allison watched Kealey arm himself with movements so precise, they were almost mechanical. He pulled off his jacket, then opening the bag, he took out a right-handed shoulder harness and put it on over his shirt. Then he produced a pistol rug containing a Sig P229R chambered for .40 S&W rounds, a more powerful variant of the 9-millimeter variety that was standard issue for the U.S. Secret Service. Transferring the gun to his holster, he reached into the bag again for his backup—a Beretta 9mm. This one was a nine, lighter and with quicker action than the other.

  “Did you ever learn to use one of these?” he asked Allison. “Take basic firearms training, anything like that while you were with the Bureau?”

  She shook her head. “It was never intended that I shoot my patients.” She watched with rising alarm. “We were just attacked. Hit again.”

  “Yeah.”

  Kealey set the gun down in the trunk and reached back into the bag for his concealment holster. Sliding the Beretta into it, he tucked the holster into his pants behind his right hip and clipped it to his belt. Then he opened one of the bag’s side compartments and extracted a doubled-handled metal knife, a Filipino balisong. Kealey put the knife in his jacket pocket and reached into his bag one more time before finally dropping it back into the trunk. He removed a magazine pouch and nylon web harness, strapping it on so the magazine pouch rested snugly against his left side.

  He shrugged into his jacket. “You really need to get out of here.”

  “No. I’m coming. Open the door. I want my other shoes.”

  “Listen, Allison,” he said. “I don’t know if this is over—”

  “I don’t care, Ryan. I have medical training. That may be more important than a gun.”

  He looked at her. He took a deep breath, exhaled, remotely popped the back-door lock, then slammed the lid of his trunk.

  “All right,” he said. “In that case, stay close.”

  They emerged in the humid air, made even stiller, more uncomfortable, by the dust that already hung in the air. Cars were screeching to a stop in the eastbound lanes approaching Charles Street or veering toward its central traffic island to avoid collisions. Kealey looked up, saw rolling clouds of dull white smoke, typical of urban demolition. Only this wasn’t a controlled blast. The smoke was coming from the direction of the convention center. Out on the sidewalk pedestrians had reacted to the explosions with shock and confusion, many of them becoming rooted where they stood, others scattering wildly across the sidewalk and roadway or trampling the traffic island’s manicured grass. Some were wriggling fingers in their ears, trying to clear hearing impacted by the blasts.

  There was a crash on Charles, and Kealey whipped his head around as a semitrailer scissored across the intersection. The large semi partially overturned in the middle of the road, where its driver apparently attempted to make a hard stop to avoid the fender bender in front of him. Just as on Conway, the men and women in the crosswalk were either frozen with shock or scrambling around in a panic, some running away from the blast, a few toward it, a few others stopping to help the driver of the semi.

  A few seconds later, Kealey heard a rumbling noise from somewhere behind him, the unmistakable groan of twisting, tortured metal and a monstrous snap. It was followed by a crash that shook everything around him, sending tremors through the street.

  “Ryan, look!” Allison screamed from behind him. “God help us. Look over there!”

  He turned back, following her eyes. The hotel sky bridge had come down, and a gray ram of smoke and dust was pushing up the block, whipping through the trees on the traffic island, rushing over the taxicabs at the stand across the street to coat their yellow bodies with
cinders. Dashing blindly for cover, people had thrown their hands over their noses and mouths as the choking ash swept over them.

  “The hotel is burning!” she said.

  Kealey had already caught sight of orange licks through the cloud. His temples throbbed. He heard sirens and clattering fire bells, the sounds blaring up from every direction. Going to the hotel was not an option. They’d choke before they got there. The convention center was a better bet. It appeared to have taken two hits, judging from the three blasts they heard and the twin columns rising from the site, but the boxy structure covered a much larger area, with discrete support sections. There would be more ways to get in.

  And then, suddenly, there was another noise, so ordinary against the dissonant clamor of the alarms that it drew his attention: the electronic chirp of a cell phone alert. He turned to Allison, who was digging at her purse with trembling fingers. She fumbled out her phone and thumbed the HOME button.

  “Colin?” Kealey asked.

  “I think so,” she said, fighting tears. “I enabled Twitter pushes when we left the aquarium.” She nervously scrolled down the timeline queue to read her updates. She stopped, her eyes on the display, her cheeks draining of color.

  “What is it?” Kealey demanded.

  She just stood there, gaping mutely at the phone, a numb expression on her face. Kealey stepped closer, took the cell from her cold, loose fingers, and scanned the messages on its screen. The last one was a post from Colin. It consisted of only two words: Help us.

  “Jesus,” she said.

  “Do you know if he was near Julie’s event?” Kealey asked. “I’m guessing that was at least one of the targets.”

  “The food vendors are usually set up nearby, so yes—”

  “All right,” he said. “Maybe we can get to him and to Julie. Do you have her number?”