Into the Crossfire

by Lisa Marie Rice

  Mike started up the vehicle and pulled out fast. She looked up to see Sam watching her, twisted in his seat, thick arm over the back.

  She stroked around the ugly slash in her father’s cheek and met Sam’s eyes. “I hate that man so much,” she said, voice low. “I wish he were alive so I could kill him again. Blow his head apart. Cut his black heart right out with your knife.”

  She meant every word and it surprised the hell out of her. If anyone had asked, she’d have assured them that she was tolerant and profoundly nonviolent. The feelings that coursed through her were utterly new, unwelcome, fierce.

  She wished with all her heart that she’d been the one to kill the two men.

  The men had been so brutal to her father, a helpless and sick man. They’d even tied him up, put his hands in restraints. Slashed his face open. It hurt her heart to think of it.

  And they had been perfectly willing to kill both of them to keep a secret. “I need to try to find out what they were looking for,” she told Sam.

  He nodded. “We’re vulnerable until we know.”

  The back of the driver’s seat held a pull-down tray, like on airplanes. She placed the intruder’s laptop on it, powered it up, and inserted her hard disk.

  In seconds, Outlook was open. She blocked out everything from her mind. The shock of nearly dying, her father, Sam…In seconds she was in that place where she lived when doing translations, a place of no distractions and utter concentration.

  She checked the files that had arrived between June 27 and June 29. Luckily, all in languages with a Latin alphabet. French, German, Spanish, Italian. She knew enough German and Italian to understand the topics of the texts. She went over every single file, one by one.

  Nothing. They were perfectly innocuous. All of them.

  “Anything?” Sam asked quietly.

  Nicole met his eyes. She shook her head, frustrated, went back to staring at the screen. “Nothing.”

  “Leave it,” Sam suggested. “Come back to it later, with a fresh mind. You’ve been traumatized, maybe you’re not seeing it.”

  She’d been traumatized, that was for sure, but not enough that she’d miss something important. She knew these files. Each file was from a customer she’d had for at least six months. One customer—the Port Authority of Marseilles—she’d had for years.

  She knew the texts, too. They were iterations of the same texts she’d either translated herself or sent out for translation. The Banque de Luxembourg, for example. They’d sent the minutes of a board meeting, 80 percent of which would be exactly what had been said at the last board meeting. Or the Berlin Buchmesse, a smaller version of the Frankfurt Book Fair. They had sent a copy of their current “Manual for Exhibitors” to translate and it would be very much like the last manual.

  She huffed out a frustrated breath.

  “ETA fifteen minutes,” Mike said, voice low.

  They’d be at the hospital in a quarter of an hour. Nicole looked down at her father, still unconscious, so fragile and precious. Sick and vulnerable.

  They’d slashed him open and would have killed him without a second thought.

  She ground her teeth together and turned back to the monitor. Why? Why were they sent to do harm to her and her father? For what?

  “Talk it through, out loud,” Mike suggested, meeting her eyes in the rearview mirror. “That sometimes helps.”

  “Okay.” She stared into the monitor, as if she could get it to yield its secrets by sheer will power. “I’m looking at twenty files. All by old clients. Not one new one. They are all familiar texts, in that the subject matter is very similar to other texts from the same client.”

  “Go over them from the opposite direction,” Sam suggested. “From the last to the first.”

  Nicole shrugged. It wouldn’t change anything, but still. “Okay.” She ran the cursor over the files, one by one, from the bottom up. From the oldest to the newest.

  She frowned. “That’s odd.”

  “What?” Sam and Mike said in unison.

  The cursor hovered over the Marseille Port Authority file.

  “One of the files is much bigger than it should be. Clients ask for a quote before sending me the text, even old clients. Wordsmith charges by the word, sixteen cents a word, or forty dollars a page of fifteen hundred bytes. I remember clearly the quote for the Marseille job—twenty-six hundred dollars for about a hundred kilobytes. But it says here the size of the file is almost eight hundred KB. Normally, if there are illustrations or, say, part of the text is in PowerPoint, that will of course increase the bytes, but they told me it would be all text.”

  “Open it. Run through it again,” Mike urged. They were in an inhabited area and he’d had to slow down for the speed bumps.

  “Okay.” She opened the attachment and scrolled through the text slowly, the words and the concepts very familiar to her, so familiar she sometimes thought she could qualify for a harbormaster certificate. Suddenly, the font changed size for twenty pages. “Whoa.”

  Nicole sat back. The file came from the Port administrative clerk, who usually sent her the work, Jean-Paul Simonet. She’d found out that he had lost his daughters in the Madrid terrorist attack, and she had sent him condolences. After that, they often sent each other greetings. He was an odd man, with strange passions. Collecting Tintin comic books, trainspotting and…steganography!

  “Oh my God,” she muttered. Was the laptop Wi-Fi enabled? Yes, she discovered, logging on feverishly, trying to remember a long e-mail exchange with Simonet on his passion. He’d written at boring length about a program called…she stopped, fingers curved over the keyboard.

  She suddenly had a huge sense of urgency, a prickling in her veins, a feeling that she had to move now. Not tomorrow or the next day or even the next hour. Right now. Inexplicable, irresistible, almost painful in its intensity.

  What was the name of the program? Mike was looking at her in the rearview mirror, frowning, Sam was watching her carefully. She probably looked insane, teeth clenched, eyes closed.

  Think, Nicole!

  They’d had their last lengthy exchange in December. He wrote that he missed his family a lot come Christmastime. He’d lost two daughters and then his wife. Her heart had gone out to him, spending a Christmas alone. It was cold in Marseille, he’d complained.

  Why was she thinking all of this now? Cold…snow. The small app was called Snow!

  She clenched her teeth. “I’m going to try something now.”

  Nicole was good with computers. She bent down and a few minutes later, the blue bar had filled up, the app was down-loaded, and she clicked on the file.

  “I have something,” Nicole said softly. Mike watched her in the mirror, Sam had turned completely in his seat to see her. “It was hidden in the file.”

  She watched as a section of the Port Authority report dissolved, and new text was superimposed on the old. Steganography wasn’t encryption. Thank God. She’d never have been able to break a code. Steganography was hiding. Hiding one file inside another.

  A message, from Simonet.

  Mademoiselle Pearce—je vous envoie le manifeste d’un navire, destination New York, je crois qu’il rappresente un nouveau attentat—un attentat nucléaire—contre les Etats Unis, parce que—

  Nicole translated the text, trying to keep her voice level. “This is a message from a clerk in the Port Authority. The message reads: Ms. Pearce, I am sending you the manifest of a ship sailing to New York, I think they intend to carry out another attack against the United States.” She looked up and met Sam’s eyes. Her voice wobbled. “He says…he says a nuclear attack. The message ends abruptly. As if he was…interrupted.”

  “Or worse,” Sam growled, already punching his cell phone.

  A nuclear attack on the United States. Nicole clicked her way through the pages, terror rising. “Here we are Sam, Mike. The ship flies a Liberian flag. The Marie Claire. Next stop New York, slated to arrive day after tomorrow. The man who sent me the message
is very alive to terrorist threats. He lost his family in the Madrid bombing.” She met Sam’s sober eyes again. “There’s something on that ship, Sam. It’s got to be stopped.”

  Sam was already talking quietly and earnestly into his cell. He turned back to her, holding the cell phone up. “Okay, sweet-heart, Harry’s patched me through to the FBI and they’ve got the Coast Guard listening too. Give us particulars about this ship.”

  “Even better,” Nicole said. “Give me an e-mail address and I’ll send the file. The hidden information is now readable.”

  “Great idea.” Sam gave her three e-mail addresses, all ending with .gov.

  As she tapped ENTER the SUV swerved, driving up the well-lit ramp of the emergency entrance of a huge hospital complex.

  She picked up her father’s limp hand and held it tight. “We might have saved the world. Now let’s save my dad.”

  Chapter 15

  New York

  Early morning

  June 30

  Muhammed stood looking out over Manhattan from his privileged perch, holding the Thuraya satellite cell phone so tightly it was a miracle it didn’t crush.

  He’d been standing for four hours, watching as the sun rose in the sky. Watching as the streets became busy, traffic heavy, gazing into the bustling offices, looking like beehives. Everyone making money, losing money, obsessing about money. Godless infidels, each and every one.

  He and his brothers had failed.

  Four hours ago the Coast Guard, carrying FBI and CIA agents and in all likelihood a contingent of NEST agents—from the Nuclear Agency Support Team—had boarded the Marie Claire. The captain had been unable to stop them. The last image Muhammed had seen was taken by the captain’s cell phone, just before he tossed it into the ocean.

  The scene was very clear—two Coast Guard cutters, with two gunners apiece sitting in harness behind .50-caliber machine guns. Above, an AH–64D Apache helicopter hovered, powerful rotors whipping the ocean waves. Its cannons carried 1,200 rounds, and just one of the nineteen Hellfire or Sidewinder missiles in its pods would blow the Marie Claire out of the water.

  Muhammed had studied the enemy’s resources well and for many years. You do not defeat the Great Satan head on. It has resources his brothers could never match. Asymmetrical warfare, the Americans called it. What that meant was that the mujahideen pitted their brave hearts and steadfast souls against the huge military and intelligence machine of the West.

  Sometimes they lost. At times, courage and faith were not enough. The captain of the Marie Claire was outgunned and made no attempt to resist.

  They’d find what they were looking for. Not because of the radioactive material. The canisters were well shielded and gave off a level of radioactivity that matched that of the freshly cut granite that was in the official hold of the ship.

  The American soldiers would go over the ship with Geiger counters, with tests for bio agents which would come up negative. Then they’d use thermal imagers.

  That’s what would give them away.

  The thermal imagers would show the warm, living presence of the martyrs behind the undetectable door. And the shaheed would be betrayed by their own brave, strong, beating hearts.

  Muhammed knew that there was nothing on the ship that would lead to his involvement. Had there been anything, anything at all, traceable back to him, the FBI would have knocked on his door long ago. He was free, while his brothers would spend the rest of their lives in captivity, if they survived treatment at the hands of the infidel at all.

  The plan had been excellent. Brilliant, in fact. The weak spot had not been gathering the radioactive material. That had proved relatively easy. They didn’t need the type of rare element or the technical expertise to build a nuclear bomb. The material in the bomb only had to be radioactive. Radioactive material was everywhere—in hospital waste, as a by-product of nuclear power. All you needed was money and time.

  Their weak spot had been bringing the men into the country.

  But…what if this brilliant plan could be carried out in a country that was already full of potential shaheeds, martyrs to the faith? A country like…Britain. With its large and alienated Muslim population, recruitment could come from within the country.

  The martyrs would understand the culture, speak the language.

  Britain was an island, nothing but coastline. Getting material into the country by boat would be ridiculously easy. And if there were a group of martyrs already in-country—say twenty or thirty—Muhammed could take down the City—London’s financial district.

  It would work. Muhammed felt the power of the idea course through him. It would definitely work.

  They’d have to wait a year, maybe two. Fine. His culture was the opposite of the frantic hurry-up culture of the West. Jihad could take a lifetime, two. More, even. The memory of the Crusades still burned in their hearts. It didn’t matter. Allah was eternal.

  Muhammed knew lots of people in finance in London. Inside a year, he’d have a map of the buildings to take down and letters of introduction to the CEOs of the businesses. If the City were destroyed, it would have almost the same effect as wiping out Wall Street.

  It would work, imshallah.

  Muhammed picked up the phone and called the travel agency his company used, open 24-7. He wouldn’t have any difficulty in persuading his company to send him to London. In fact, his boss had said there was an opening in their London office.

  “Hello,” he said to the voice that picked up. “This is Paul Preston. I’d like a ticket on the last plane leaving for London today. If possible, I’d prefer to travel British Airways.”

  He listened to the voice at the other end, blond brows snapping together in annoyance.

  “Of course first class,” he snapped. “What am I? A peasant?”

  San Diego

  Early morning

  July 3

  Nicole opened her eyes, turned her head and smiled at him sleepily.

  Sam considered it a major victory that he’d gotten her home, in his bed, after she’d spent forty-eight hours sitting on a hard chair by her father’s hospital bed.

  Ambassador Pearce would be released tomorrow and in the meantime was lightly sedated. Sam had told her to go home, Harry and Mike had told her to go home, the hospital staff had told her to go home, but it wasn’t until her father passed a shaking hand over her hair and told her to go rest that she even considered it. Even then, Sam had had to pry her away.

  She’d fallen straight asleep in the car and he’d carried her up to his apartment, undressed her carefully, given her one of his tee shirts and put her between the sheets.

  She’d come half awake as he undressed her, looking at him, then at the blue-steeler in his pants. But he kept it zipped. Nicole’s beautiful eyes were bruised with fatigue and she was paper white.

  Though his body had been raring to go, he’d rather have slit his own throat than expect sex when she was so exhausted. He’d fixed her a big cup of hot milk with lots of honey and a jigger of whiskey and after he’d made sure she drank it all, she’d turned on her side and gone out like a light.

  He sat all night in a chair by the bed, holding her hand, simply watching her in the quiet stillness. Toward morning, he stripped and slowly eased himself into the bed.

  Moving carefully, he spooned himself around her, one arm under her head, the other curled around her belly. The more of her he touched, the happier he was. Touching her—touching the warm, living flesh of her—was vital to his sanity.

  He’d almost lost her, there in that abandoned warehouse.

  Lost, as in dead. As in dead forever.

  He could barely think about it without shuddering. To his dying day, he would see her, trying to leap to intercept a bullet, yanked back by the hair by a scumbag getting ready to blow a hole through her head.

  If Sam closed his eyes, he could see the alternate reality, if he and Mike had come even a second later. Nicole, crumpled on the filthy floor in a pool of her own blood
, all that beauty and grace and goodness—gone forever.

  Jesus.

  His hands tightened convulsively at the thought and that was when she turned to smile sleepily at him.

  Oh shit. He clenched his jaw. “I woke you up. Sorry.”

  She turned completely around, rustling the sheets, until they were front to front. Her breasts against his chest, belly against his, long legs brushing his. He jerked when she brushed against his super-sensitized cock.

  Sweat broke out on his forehead. He was trying to be good, here. Trying to be considerate. But how the fuck was he supposed to do that when he had Nicole Pearce in his arms, looking up at him with a half smile, so beautiful it hurt the eyes?

  How the fuck was he supposed to respect her tiredness when he could smell the perfume of her skin, when she was like a little furnace all along his front? And how about when she breathed and her breasts brushed against him? How about that?

  “Mmm…” Nicole smiled, eyes closed, and rubbed herself against him, head to toe. Her mound was rubbing right against his hard-on and he shuddered.

  He went commando in bed, had never liked pajamas. And Nicole was only wearing one of his tee shirts. It covered her down to her knees, but the material was so soft, Sam could feel every inch of her as if she were naked.

  Nicole slid a slender arm around his torso, hand clinging to his back, and buried her face in his neck. When her tongue snaked out and licked him, he thought the hell with this.

  A minute later, his ripped tee shirt was fluttering to the floor and he was rolling onto her, burying himself deep inside her, held tight in her soft, wet clasp.

  He closed his eyes in despair. Did it again.

  “Shit,” he whispered. Sam levered himself up on his elbows and looked down at her. “I forgot foreplay. Again.”

  Nicole lifted her head and kissed him. “I was having an erotic dream about you.” She lifted her hips and he slid even more deeply into her. She was slick, wet, thank you, Aphrodite. “I think that might count as foreplay.”

  “Oh yeah?” Intrigued, Sam pulled slowly out, pressed back into her, watching intently as her eyelids fluttered. “What were we doing? How sexy was it?”