Agents of Treachery

by Otto Penzler (ed)

  “I think they’re all plastic.”

  As they carried three bike boxes to the taxi, Sami said, “Hockey?”

  Maher shrugged. “Won’t happen tomorrow, but when I become a holy martyr, the virgins waiting for me in paradise will get one, too. I wanna be able to have kids.”

  “You want to have children in paradise?”

  “Got to be a better place to raise them than here.”

  They crammed the bike boxes into the taxi. Drove to a subway stop. Only then did Maher relay the Ameer’s orders for that night, where to be tomorrow, what to do precisely when. Before he vanished into the crowd, Maher said, “I love you, brother.”

  Thirty-four minutes later, Harry rode in the taxi beside Sami and said, “Before dawn, NEST black-bagged Ivan’s building— not the Nuclear Emergency Search Teams, their shadows whose ‘S’ stands for Strike. They pulled all hazmat out of the medical imaging office, substituted fake material, and broke the machines so nobody will wonder when they don’t work. We’re still balancing records hacked from the office computers, but it looks like all radioactive material is accounted for. Put that together with your horny teenager looking for a metal cup to shield his balls, and they’re probably building a put-together-at-the-last-minute dirty bomb.”

  “So now it won’t be dirty, but it’ll still be a bomb.”

  “Yeah, but even if they augment hydrogen peroxide or chemicals from a dry cleaner with gunpowder from bullets, how big could it be?”

  “How many deaths add up to ‘big’?”

  “We don’t think that’s the point,” said Harry. “We know what Zlatko is building. I posted what we had on A-Space and Intellipedia, the classified sites, set it up like a game. A dozen nerds came up with an Explosive Magnetic Generator of Frequency. The Soviets perfected them. Both Ivan and Zlatko grew up behind the Iron Curtain. A U.S. general challenged some grad students a few years ago, and they designed an EMGF to fit in a pickup truck with a cost of eight hundred dollars—most of it bought from Radio Shack.

  “EMGFs are why you turn off your cell phone when you fly. They don’t really ‘explode,’ they beam a sphere of electronic waves that fries unshielded computers, phones, circuit boards for car engines—”

  “That’s why I’m supposed to turn off my taxi tomorrow at precisely two p.m.!”

  “And why you’re parking where they told you. That pull-off by the Potomac is across the freeways from the Pentagon. EMGFs are designed to slam the enemy’s command and control centers. They’re invisible inside any pickup-sized vehicle. ...”

  “Like the Ameer’s SUV” said Sami.

  “Assemble an EMGF with an electric motor into your shielded vehicle, drive it—hell, park it—outside the Pentagon’s secure perimeter, turn it on, fry systems all over a mile-thick spherical zone. We’d be burned all the way to Baghdad and A-stan.”

  “What about the bomb they think is dirty?”

  Harry said, “We figure it’s a Baghdad doubletap. They park the EMGF vehicle. The longer the EMGF runs, the more it destroys. When SWAT teams figure out what’s going on and blitz the source . . . boom! Booby-trapped. Radiation is bonus blood.”

  “And the cell phones?”

  “Maybe one of your crew is gonna be a martyr, stay behind, detonate the booby trap when he sees SWAT closing in. That’d be optimum.”

  “Frying the Pentagon meets Zlatko’s conscience. After they ditch the EMGF vehicle, I’ll be the walk-to getaway. If my cab engine gets fried, bikes will still work. Three bikes, four brothers, one stay-behind.

  “When do we hit them?” said Sami.

  The blue taxi crawled through holiday traffic.

  “No!” said Sami.

  “After dark, the Pentagon gets ringed by camouflaged snake eaters. Tomorrow when your brothers attack, we got ‘em. Odds are, we get two alive for interrogation.”

  “Take them now!”

  “Then we get Ivan, but even you don’t know where the other two are. We can’t let them run free. And if we take them too soon, we won’t find out who they report to.”

  “They answer to no one but themselves! You said you get that!”

  “I do—our bosses don’t.”

  “Get the fuck out of my cab.”

  On that night before Christmas Eve, Sami assembled three bikes in his apartment. He looked around the mattress-on-the-floor hideaway that his Ameer believed had been made safe from discovery by the vaquera’s tricks, told himself: No more lying rooms.

  At 9:30, he broke all the rules, used the breaker box phone outside in the night.

  Cold kisses wet his skin. He told Rose, “It’s starting to snow.”

  “Too early for holiday clichés. Can’t count on the weather.”

  “Tomorrow starts a whole new season.”

  “I’m ready,” said Rose.

  The city went to sleep.

  Cari Jones brushed her streaked blonde hair, saw her black leather coat hung ready to go, decided to try computer dating when she got back.

  John Heme packed three different pill bottles for post-traumatic stress syndrome in his soldier’s duffel at Walter Reed Hospital.

  Lorna Dumas decided to let her red hair swing free on her blue uniform tomorrow and threw her cigarettes down her building’s trash chute.

  Amy Lewis chose her bestest brown teddy bear for Gramma’s.

  Morning woke Sami to a snow-dusted town.

  At ten a.m., he grabbed the cell phone and Glock. Loaded three bikes into his taxi. They gotta see what they’re expecting. Called Harry, “Launching.” Drove his taxi into Christmas Eve snowstorm traffic.

  “It’s a mess out there,” said the man on news/traffic radio. “Washingtonians have never figured out how to drive in the snow, and we weren’t expecting this storm.”

  Sami flashed on the Beirut radio announcer who daily reported which commuter streets were ruled by snipers.

  He eased the blue taxi over slick streets: Fender benders fuck up ops.

  Windshield wipers washed Sami’s view as he drove through a whooshing tunnel, popped up on an interstate threaded along the city. Green metal highway signs arrowed routes for I-395 south to Virginia, for exits to the Jefferson Memorial, federal office complexes, the airport, George Washington Parkway, the Pentagon.

  Traffic on the bridge over the Potomac parted for the blue taxi obviously headed to the airport, taking that exit—but then unexpectedly pulling off the main road into a tree-lined turnout where the sign read “Roaches Run Waterfowl Sanctuary”

  Bad day to be a bird. Sami parked the taxi away from the only other vehicle in the bird-watcher’s roost, a battered car with bumper stickers reading “One Planet, One People” and “Audubon Society.” A passenger jet roared overhead. Snowflakes died on the warm blue taxi. A husky man wearing a parka stood at tripod-mounted binoculars aimed at the icy gray river, at the highways that blocked a view of the Pentagon.

  Parka Man turned to face the taxi and Sami saw he was a bear.

  Harry lumbered to the taxi, got in beside the driver. “Anything—anything—from your Ameer, the others?”

  “What’s wrong?”

  “It’s nearing noon. Attack time is two p.m. Doc Ivan came to work like always. But his SUV is still in its parking spot. Given the traffic, the weather, the time they’ll need to fit in the EMGF and some electric motor—”

  “Hit him! Hit him now!”

  Harry started to protest—barked orders up his sleeve: “COOK to all units: HRT Alpha: Take down Target One. I say again: Hit Target One now! Go! Go!”

  The idling taxi grew close. Sami shut off the engine. A passenger jet roared overhead. The bear unzipped his parka. The taxi smelled of bike oil and rubber, fading car heater fumes, salty hope.

  Harry’s eyes lost focus. He listened to his radio earpiece. Blinked.

  “Shit!” Harry radioed, “Core plan! Reset to core plan!”

  Told Sami, “All they found in Doc Ivan’s office was a scared old lady in an examination robe. She’s Mu
slim, did what the doctor ordered. Ivan walked out of the building right under our eyes inside her full burka, rode that charity van to poof.

  “S’okay,” Harry said. “He’s just being cagey. Doesn’t know we’re on him. He’ll keep with the plan. We’re set if he comes back for his SUV They’ll attack the Pentagon and we’ll nail them. Everything’s cool, got FBI execs visiting Muslim leaders here to assure them that the busts are legit. It’s okay.”

  Sami said, “I don’t know about them having other vehicles!”

  “That’s the way a cell works. Nobody knows everything.”

  “Except the guy you let slip away.”

  “Life is risk. You don’t play it that way, you get played.” Harry shrugged. “You gotta go with what you know. That’s why we have spies.”

  They sat waiting in the cold until 12:51—trigger (time) minus 69 minutes.

  A tan sedan pulled into the parking lot. Ted raced to the taxi through sleet. Through the lowered driver’s window and the hail of ice pellets he said, “An hour till they’re due here. We do this now or I have to pull Sami!”

  “What?” said both Sami and Harry.

  “You’re six months overdue for your mandatory drug test. Has to be cleared immediately, or we pull you off. I got a portable kit in the car, on-site processing will clear you so you can stay on—”

  “This is bullshit!” yelled Sami. “We’ve got a terrorist attack!”

  “I’ve got orders,” said Ted. “The Hoover Building says I’m fired if I don’t get this done right darn now.”

  Harry said, “Okay, Ted. He’ll be right over.”

  The FBI liaison ran for the shelter of his tan sedan.

  Sami stared at the bear.

  “Go do it. Time like this, we all gotta pee.”

  “If I go . . . I’m gone.”

  “Ahh.” A jetliner roared overhead. Harry smiled. “Fuck them.”

  The bear used his cell phone.

  “Hey, Jenny.” He asked Sami for his real name, Social Security number, CIA identifiers. Relayed them to Jenny. Said, “Crash RIP”

  Hung up. Grinned at Sami. “Congratulations. Ted’s off your case, but give him what he wants or he could still fuck this up. You’ve been Rebooted In Place, RIP. Now work for Argus. Twice the salary, half the BS.”

  Harry sent the dazed spy to the tan sedan.

  “Sorry,” said Ted as Sami filled a plastic bottle with his urine.

  Don’t give this holier-than-thou bureaucrat the time of—

  “This is so stupid,” said Ted. “So what if Argus wants to certify—”

  “This came from Argus? Harry’s company?”

  “Well . . . sure. This is their show.”

  Sami left Ted watching liquid change colors in a bottle. Slammed the door when he climbed in the blue taxi. His expression killed the bear’s grin.

  “Why?” said Sami.

  “You’re too good to lose.”

  “I’m quitting! I’m not working for Argus!”

  “Sure you are. It’ll take a year commitment to get your ass out of the drug-use sling. And yeah, don’t worry: I’ll protect Rose. Why wouldn’t I? One more op. You spy as the holy warrior hero who escaped from the Christmas Eve D.C. bust.”

  “Fuck you!”

  “Fucking costs.

  “I know what you’re thinking,” continued Harry. “Going Beirut on me gets you nothing but Uncle Sam’s sniper scopes zeroing your back.”

  The bear said, “I didn’t pick any of this war. But I’m not going to lose.”

  Snowflakes hit the taxi windshield. A jetliner roared overhead. The bear sighed. T minus 47 minutes. The choppy gray river lapped against the riprap of the bird sanctuary. Harry relocated Ted’s tan sedan next to the bumper-stickered car. T minus 17. Pentagon units reported all clear. A jetliner roared. Ted got out of the tan sedan to look through the tripod binoculars.

  Sami yelled, “They’re not after the Pentagon!”

  “What?”

  “The Ameer doesn’t give a shit about our ‘command and control.’ He hates our whole thing. He wants fear. To humiliate us. Make us overreact. Maher’s expecting to live today. Ivan wants to be a hero on the run. He implied that Zlatko’s mission is solo and won t bother his beliefs. Zlatko’d love to hit a target like the Pentagon, but he’s not coming here. So that’s not it. Three bikes: Ivan, Maher, me. Here!”

  Harry touched his radio earpiece. Said, “That al Qaeda media group al Sahab, ‘the clouds.’ NSA just intercepted an e-mail to them via a D.C. server saying that today will be a great day, to watch the skies.”

  A jetliner roared overhead.

  “They know the taxi!” Sami ran toward the tan sedan.

  A bear charged his heels.

  A Marine sniper popped out of his hide, his rifle hungry for a target.

  Harry crammed himself behind the wheel of the tan sedan, Sami dove in the front seat, and Ted jumped in the back, even though he didn’t know why. The tan sedan fishtailed out of the bird sanctuary as Harry yelled, “Told you they were linked!”

  “Ivan posted bragging rights, not—just drive! Go, go!”

  Christmas Eve afternoon on the way to the airport. Falling snow. Cars surging bumper to bumper on a two-lane, one-way road.

  “Get around them!” yelled Sami.

  Harry whipped the tan sedan onto the shoulder. Horns honked. They ran over a highway reflector pole. Slid past a parked airport police cruiser. Spinning red lights filled their mirrors.

  “Call them off!” yelled Sami.

  “No unencrypted radios!” Harry yelled into his sleeve at T minus 13. “They could have a police band monitor! Cell phone the airport cops!”

  Ted yelled, “What are we looking for?”

  “We gotta know it when we see it!” said Sami.

  The electronic marquee sign mounted over one-way airport traffic read, “Threat Level Code Orange.” The digital clock revealed T minus 11.

  Ronald Reagan National Airport sits across the river from the white dome of the Capitol. The “old” terminal is a gray concrete box few airlines use. The air-travel gem is the “new” white stone terminal: one million square feet, three levels, a rectangle shopping mall with three-story windows between thirty-five gates to jetliners. The airport control tower rises from the terminal’s far end like a towering rook from chess.

  The tan sedan forced its way back into airport traffic.

  Harry barked orders up his sleeve.

  Wide-eyed Ted braced himself in the backseat.

  Ahead at the old terminal, sweeping into the car-clogged road, airport cop, phone pressed to his ear, hand on his holstered pistol, he—

  Halts the chasing cop cruiser.

  Autos hunt drop-off parking spots. Travelers drag wheeled suitcases. Snow falls.

  “Nothing!” yelled Sami. “I see nothing! Go! Go!”

  Driving in bumper-to-bumper traffic to the upper level of the new terminal ate two minutes off the clock. Three lanes of vehicles lined the sidewalk.

  “Couldn’t evacuate this place now!” Harry’s eyes scanned the chaos.

  “Gotta be here, gotta.” Sami stared through the falling snow. Saw—

  “Way down at the end! Close to the control tower!”

  Parked near the sidewalk. Flashers blinking. A brown van.

  MEDICAL TRANSPORT SERVICES.

  “The stairs’ electric motor! They’ll use that!”

  Out! Sami ran crouched alongside moving cars. Fog blurred the van’s windows. Exhaust smogged out the tailpipe: engine running. Driver will be watching side mirrors.

  Sami dove under the van. The shock of ice slush soaked his pants and shirt as he crawled on his elbows. Hot muffler! Gas stench, he crawled to the front tire, rolled out—

  He rose like a cobra beside the driver’s closed window.

  Startled stolen white uniform-wearing Ivan on the other side of that glass.

  A woman rolled a hard-shell pink suitcase past Sami. He grabbed it—”Hey!”—swung t
he suitcase through the air. Bam! The driver’s window cobwebbed into a thousand shards. Bam! The pink suitcase knocked the cobwebbed window into the van.

  Driver’s seat Ivan whirled toward a control box. Sami grabbed the Ameer’s lips, pulled him through the shattered window, and slammed him to the slushy pavement. “Stop! Police!” Sami kicked the Ameer in the head, drew his Glock, imagined the pull of the trigger, the recoil, the splat of brains on wet pavement. “Alive, Sami!” yelled Harry. Strangers screamed. “Police! Drop your weapon!”