He slowed down, crunching broken glass under his feet, then nearly tripped over what he thought at first was a blue denim bag. He looked again and discovered that the bag was a leg, a leg that wasn’t attached to a body, not anymore. Hell. This was hell on earth.
A few feet away, a man lay trapped under a black Jetta, groaning softly. Ricky, the guy from the line. Oh God, Bennett thought. I told him to walk this way.
Ricky motioned feebly. “Shit, help me.”
Bennett threw his shoulder into the Jetta. It didn’t budge. He tried again.
“How ’bout some help!” he yelled.
Ricky was starting to shake, Bennett saw.
“Just be cool,” he said. A big white guy joined Bennett. They lifted together, inching the Jetta higher. Another man grabbed Ricky under his arms and began to pull him out.
Ricky screamed in agony, the worst sound Bennett had heard yet. The Jetta had masked his pain by crushing the nerves in his hips. Now they could fire again, and Ricky was learning the truth of his injuries.
“Ricky, Ricky—” Bennett said. The scream became a whimper. He grabbed Ricky’s hand and squeezed. “Ambulance’ll be here soon. Just—” Ricky’s hand went limp as he slipped into unconsciousness. Bennett looked at the other two men and wordlessly they decided to leave Ricky and see if they could help anyone else. Help? Bennett had never felt so helpless.
At that moment Bennett decided he would sign up for the army the next morning. He would kill whoever had done this. It was all he could do.
IN HIS REARVIEW mirror, Khadri saw the truck disappear. A moment later the blast wave rattled his car.
He drove off, careful not to speed. He and his men had dealt America a mighty blow tonight. KNX was already reporting a massive explosion at a Westwood synagogue. But even before he reached the highway, his jubilation faded. He had so much more work ahead.
And his next mission would put this night to shame.
RICKY GUTIERREZ MIGHT have lived if he had reached a hospital in time, but the twin blasts overwhelmed the Los Angeles police and fire departments. They had drilled for one bomb, not two explosions miles apart. By the time ambulances arrived in force at the Hollywood explosion, Ricky and dozens of others who survived the initial fireball had died.
Two weeks later, when the last victim died at Cedars-Sinai and reports of the missing stopped coming, the death toll from the Los Angeles bombings reached 336: 132 at the synagogue, 204 in Hollywood. It was the worst attack since September 11, and no one was surprised when al Qaeda took responsibility.
EXLEY WOKE ON the first ring. She hadn’t been fully asleep anyway. The boundary between sleep and consciousness, once easy for her to cross, these days seemed bounded by barbed wire and broken glass. She grabbed for the phone and heard Shafer’s voice. “Jennifer. Get in here.” Her clock radio glowed 1:15 A.M. in the dark. “There’s been a bombing. In L.A.”
Her mind spun.
“It’s bad. Two bombs.” Click.
On her way to Langley she flicked on the radio to hear the mayor of Los Angeles declaring that an emergency curfew would begin in an hour. “Only police, fire, and hospital vehicles are permitted in the emergency zone. All others are subject to arrest. The emergency zone is bounded by the Santa Monica Freeway to the south…”
She turned off her radio and looked at the dark silent highway around her and tried to comprehend why someone would blow up kids out for fun on a Friday night. But she couldn’t. She understood intellectually, of course: she knew all about asymmetric warfare, the relationship between terrorists and failed states, the financial and religious motivations of suicide bombers. But in the end those words were as meaningless as wrapping paper for an empty box. Nothing justified these bombs. She couldn’t help but feel that these killers were barbarians, something less than human.
Which, she was sure, was exactly how they felt about Americans.
AT LANGLEY, NO one needed to say the obvious: U.S. intelligence and law enforcement had failed terribly. Again. Hundreds of Americans had died, and so far clues were scarce. The bombers wouldn’t be talking; they had been so completely obliterated that the FBI would never find enough tissue for DNA samples. For the moment, anyway, they had no leads.
But they did have a suspect, as Exley realized when she arrived at her office and found one of Duto’s assistants waiting to demand that she give him Wells’s file from her safe. “For Vinny,” the assistant said. She said nothing, just unlocked her safe and handed over the file.
She was looking at the first flash reports when Shafer appeared. “What’s your gut?”
She didn’t need to ask what he meant. “It wasn’t him.”
“Explain.”
“One, he was just in Montana. This thing didn’t get put together in a day.”
“Two?”
“Two, if it was his, why would he risk blowing it by visiting his ex?”
“Three?”
“Three, even if he’s flipped, he would never attack soft targets.”
“He’s violent.”
“Not against civilians. He wouldn’t consider that fair.”
“Four?”
“I don’t have a four.”
Shafer held his thumb and index finger an inch apart. “Duto’s this close to having Tick flash a bulletin for him.” A bulletin to police and the FBI about Wells.
“On what evidence?” Exley said.
“On the evidence that he’s scared shitless his own guy just killed three hundred people and he wants to get in front of it. If Wells did this, getting fired is the least of it. You and I could go to jail. On general principles.”
“He didn’t do it.” The conviction in her voice surprised her.
“Come on, let’s talk to Vinny.”
As she stood, her phone rang.
“Yes?”
“Jennifer Exley?” a man asked. She knew his voice immediately.
“Where are you?”
“Here. Washington.”
She couldn’t help herself. “Thank God, John.”
“I think I need to come in.”
“Yes,” she said. “You do.”
5
“IT WAS A mistake,” Wells said again. “I made a mistake.”
Exley, Shafer, and Duto sat across from him at a conference table in a small windowless room that wasn’t quite standard-issue office space. No clocks, for one. Then there were the cameras in each corner that had deliberately been left visible, and the acoustic padding covering the walls. In theory, the padding was meant to defeat any efforts to listen in on conversations in the room. In reality, it and the cameras were signals, Wells knew: This is a serious room and you’re in serious trouble. A man in a suit sat against the far wall. He hadn’t introduced himself, but Wells figured him for a lawyer. He didn’t have to guess about the no-neck plainclothes security officer who stood by the door, his hand resting on the Glock on his hip.
No one had even pretended to be friendly. The gate guards had searched him head to toe before they’d let him in. He’d been searched again before he’d been allowed to see Exley and Shafer, who had met him with handshakes, not hugs, like he was back from a three-day sales trip to Detroit. Wells couldn’t say he was surprised.
“John,” Shafer had said. “We’re gonna have some questions for you.” Wells had picked up a flicker of something more in Exley’s eyes when she’d first seen him, but the look had disappeared fast. If she was glad to see him, she was hiding it.
After leaving the YMCA, he had bought a Greyhound ticket from Missoula to Washington, one last chance to be alone before the world started to turn again. He planned to call the agency when he reached D.C. He had met Zawahiri in Peshawar two weeks before. Two weeks of freedom seemed fair after all his years at the edge of the world.
On the bus Wells felt heavy and tranquil, as if his blood had been replaced with something cooler, his veins filled with embalming fluid. He thumbed through his Koran and cataloged what he had lost during his time away. His mother. His ex-wife.
His son, though not forever, he hoped. But he still had the chance to protect his country from men who believed that Allah had given them a license to destroy it.
NOW HE WAS furious with himself. The world had been turning all along, and he hadn’t noticed. Three hours after the Greyhound pulled into Washington’s rundown bus station he heard the bulletins about Los Angeles. He knew immediately he should have checked in as soon as he’d reached Hong Kong. The attack would make the agency’s doubts about him boil over.
He promised himself he would stay calm, whatever they said to him. He had to convince them to trust him, or they would never give him another chance. So he sketched out his years in the North-West Frontier, walked them through the weeks since he’d left Islamabad: where he’d stayed, how he’d traveled, the name he’d used to clear immigration at Kennedy. He told them about his meeting in Peshawar with Zawahiri and Khadri and Farouk, how they had sent him to America without a specific mission.
“It wasn’t Los Angeles,” Duto said.
“No.”
“You didn’t know anything about Los Angeles.”
“Of course not.”
In the most even tone he could muster, he apologized. For entering the country without telling them. For not reaching out when he was in Pakistan. For not killing bin Laden. He explained as best he could. But he knew he didn’t have what they really wanted: information about the last attack, or the next.
ACROSS THE TABLE, Exley felt her stomach clench. Duto had never met Wells before, so he couldn’t tell how much Wells had left over there. But she could. It wasn’t just the lines on his face or the scar on his arm. The confidence in his eyes hadn’t disappeared, but it was mixed with something else, a humility she hadn’t seen before.
And Wells’s story made sense. He had wanted to visit his family, to be alone for a few days. Maybe Duto couldn’t understand that, but she could. Those weren’t crimes. She wanted to grab Duto’s arm and say, Can’t you see he’s on our side? But she didn’t. She couldn’t conceive of a quicker way to lose what little influence she had. Duto had clearly decided that Wells was worthless even if he was still loyal. He hadn’t stopped 9/11 or Los Angeles, so screw him.
Telling Duto that she could see the truth in Wells’s eyes would earn her a transfer straight to Ottawa, for the glamorous job of watching the Canadian Parliament. So she kept her mouth shut and listened as Duto fired away. Then the door opened, and Duto’s assistant walked in and murmured something in his ear. “Be right back,” Duto said, and walked out.
WITH DUTO GONE, Wells looked at Exley and Shafer. He would have liked to know whether they hated him as much as Duto did. But he wasn’t going to ask in here, with the tapes rolling and the lawyer scribbling. He didn’t want to compromise them. Besides, he might not like the answer.
Exley leaned toward him. “John,” she said.
It was all she said. And it was enough. Wells felt a spring relax inside him.
DUTO WALKED BACK in holding a plastic bag, a clear plastic evidence bag sealed with a chain-of-custody tag. He slapped it on the table. “What the fuck is this?”
Wells’s Koran.
So they had searched his room. He had given them the name of the hotel where he had checked in that night, of course. “You get a warrant or just break the door down?” Wells said evenly.
Duto pointed to the book.
“I’m Muslim,” Wells said. “That’s my Koran.”
Shafer put his head in his hands.
“You’re Muslim?” Duto said. “When did that happen?”
“John,” Exley said. “Your file indicated you were studying the religion—”
“Shut up, Jennifer,” Duto said, without taking his eyes off Wells. Duto leaned across the table, nearly spitting his words: “You converted? When?”
Wells gave Exley a second to defend herself, but she passed on the chance.
“It didn’t happen all at once.”
“You admit you’re a Muslim.”
“Yes,” Wells said quietly. He wasn’t about to lose his temper to this asshole. “I’m guilty of being Muslim.”
“You dumbfuck.”
“Curse at me all you like.” Again his voice was quiet.
“I’ll do whatever the fuck I like.”
“Cool it, Vinny,” Shafer said.
Duto looked at Shafer but said nothing. Wells wondered if the two men were putting on some kind of show for him, a good cop/bad cop routine.
“Tell us what happened,” Shafer said.
“You know about my grandmother,” Wells said. “I pretended to believe to get in the camps. But the more I learned, the more kinship I felt.”
“So you converted?”
Fatigue and emptiness, the emptiness that had swept him as he knelt before his mother’s grave, overwhelmed Wells. But he wouldn’t show weakness at this table. His faith might be wavering, but he wasn’t telling Duto that. “Converted. Accepted. I don’t know what to call it. Islam is more holistic than Christianity — it’s not just a religion, it’s a way of life.”
“Yeah, if your way of life doesn’t include freedom and democracy,” Duto said.
“Turkey’s a democracy,” Wells said.
“Not if your boys have their way.”
“I hate them as much as you do,” Wells said. “They’ve perverted the Koran. Look, Christianity isn’t perfect either. Kill them all and let God sort them out. You know where that comes from?”
“Enlighten me, wise one.”
“Eight hundred years ago a Catholic army was attacking this splinter Christian sect called the Cathars in a French town. Béziers, it was called. But the army had a problem. There were Catholics in Béziers along with the Cathars. So the soldiers asked this abbot who was commanding them, ‘What do we do when we get in? How do we tell our own Catholics from the Cathars?’ Know what the abbot said?”
“Please, continue.” A flush crept across Duto’s face.
“He said, ‘Kill them all. The Lord will recognize those which are His.’”
Duto stood and leaned across the table, his face inches from Wells’s.
“Shut the fuck up,” he said quietly. “You come in here with stories, fucking parables, whatever they are, on a night when your buddies blew up Los Angeles? If I want history lessons from you I’ll ask. What, you looking for converts? You may be even stupider than I thought. Which would be tough.”
This time Duto wasn’t faking his anger, Wells thought. He wondered if he’d gone too far.
“Vinny—” Shafer said.
“If I were you, Ellis, I’d keep my mouth shut,” Duto said, not taking his eyes off Wells.
“Most Muslims don’t want bin Laden to win,” Wells said. “They only support him because they feel so alienated from us.”
“Like you.”
Wells wondered if Duto really believed he was a traitor. “That’s not what I meant.”
“Any more speeches, John?”
Wells said nothing.
“Good,” Duto said. “One last time. You know anything about last night?”
“No. But something’s coming,” Wells said. “Maybe not right away, but something.”
“Great tip,” Duto said.
“We could all use some sleep,” Shafer said. “We’ve got a room for you, John.”
Wells nodded. Sleep sounded like a very good idea.
“We want you on the box this afternoon,” Duto said.
WELLS NEEDED A second to remember what that meant. A polygraph. He looked across the table at his inquisitors. Duto had made his feelings clear. Shafer: a crumpled shirt, hair in all directions. Everything about him messy except his quiet eyes, looking at Wells like he was an experiment gone wrong. And Exley. Jenny. Worry creasing her forehead. Those beautiful blue eyes. He thought he saw compassion in them. But maybe he was wrong.
Now she spoke, quietly. “You don’t have a choice, John. And neither do we.” And fell silent, waiting for Duto to slap her down again.
She was right
, he knew. The agency’s need to polygraph came from both bureaucratic ass covering and a genuine belief in the power of the box. The CIA liked to believe that the poly’s squiggly black lines offered truth, the rarest jewel of all. If he didn’t agree to take the test, they would never believe him again. They might arrest him. Though for what, Wells wasn’t sure. Possession of false documents, maybe. They might just put him in a corner somewhere. But they would never believe him again.
Of course, they probably wouldn’t believe him even after he passed the test. They knew he could beat a poly. They had trained him to do just that.
“Kind of Kafkaesque, isn’t it?” Wells said.
“Actually I think it’s more of a Catch-22,” Shafer said.
Wells couldn’t help but laugh.
“This isn’t funny,” Duto said.
“Jenny’s right,” Wells said. “Box me.”
Duto stood to leave, then picked up Wells’s Koran. “You want it back, John?”
“Is this some kind of test?” Wells said. “Yes.”
Duto flicked it contemptuously across the table. “I understand,” he said. “It’s your special book.”
EXLEY SAT ALONE at the conference table, her head in her hands, replaying the moment when Duto had shown her just where she stood. He wasn’t simply snapping at her, or cursing at Wells. He had wanted Wells to know that he was the alpha. It was the wrong strategy — Wells couldn’t be intimidated — but Duto had decided to try. He’d proved his point by picking on the weakest link. On her. Men were intuitive assholes. And no one had bothered to defend her, not even Wells, whom she was trying to help. Because in the shark tank you saved yourself first. Probably the others had hardly even noticed what had happened, not after the way Duto had reamed out Wells, but she couldn’t stop thinking about it.
Where had her confidence gone? But she knew. The divorce, the endless work…and the feeling that none of it made any difference. She couldn’t help but envy al Qaeda’s certainty. Always wrong but never in doubt.
The Faithful Spy jw-1 Page 11