Threat Level Black - Страница 49

Seeing the imam had been a surprise and a great consolation. He was prepared now. He had told himself before that he was prepared, but now he truly felt it.

The truck would be waiting. He would take the canister he had prepared and then drive to the station. So long as he went in at precisely two A.M., no one would see him. Once past the gate — he had practiced jimmying the lock already — no one would stop him or even ask about the bags he carried.

He could open them if asked. The gear inside looked as if it came from the fire department.

If all went well, he would be in his spot by four o’clock. And then he would simply have to wait.

Pray and wait. Things he was used to doing.

Faud’s fingers shook as he brought the wire near the connector on the bomb he was setting. Worry seized him.

What if the imam had lied? What if this bomb was not a diversion in case he was found, but a way of killing him?

The top was covered with a mesh bag of nails. His body would be torn to shreds.

He was unprepared and would not enter paradise if he died today. His hand jittered again.

No, he told the empty apartment. I trust the imam and I trust God. He closed his eyes and pushed the wire around the post, screwing it down as he caught his breath.

Chapter 3

Dr. Blitz frowned in the direction of the tuna fish sandwich Mozelle had brought, then turned his attention back to the draft report on the Korean government situation, studying the language the State Department had recommended the President use in his speech to the UN next Monday. The speech would call for a plebiscite on reunification, though the wording being recommended was so guarded even Blitz wasn’t sure that’s what it said.

Certainly there was a need to be diplomatic: Anything the President said might be interpreted as pressure and be used by Korean critics to stir up resentment not just in the North but in the South as well. Still, it had to be clear that the U.S. was not only in favor of the vote but would help Korea — all of Korea — work toward overcoming its divided and tumultuous past.

It would be an expensive commitment. Treasury had sent over a memo claiming that simply keeping the North from starvation would cost twice what the U.S. had spent on Iraq, and there were no oil reserves to defray the costs. Peace was an expensive proposition.

Blitz wasn’t generally one to worry about the costs of things; the bean counters would always complain, in his opinion. But Congress would undoubtedly use the money issue to throw up roadblocks.

An issue for tomorrow. Right now he had to get the speech right. Blitz brought up his word processor and began preparing a few changes. He was just getting into the flow when Mozelle buzzed in

“You wanted to talk to Major Tyler in Korea?” she asked. “He’s on line three. It’s pretty late over there.”

“Thanks.”

Blitz turned around to the phone.

“ Tyler?” he asked after punching in the line.

“Dr. Blitz?”

“I heard you had a bit of trouble out there,” said Blitz.

“Yes, sir. No serious casualties. Pilot broke his leg, some concussions. That was the worst of it.”

“God was with you.”

“Yes, sir.”

“What can you tell me about the UAVs?”

“Nothing beyond what was in the interim report,” said Tyler. “They look like mini-airplanes to me, or even something closer to spaceships. The radio control gear and the engines were missing. The design itself I guess was interesting, but I’m not an expert.”

“So you’re sure there were no engines?”

“Yes, sir. No engines there. Or the control apparatus they would need to fly.”

“Good,” said Blitz. He’d thought of having the President mention the weapons in his speech as an example of the North Korean threat-evidence that they were much more advanced than the intelligence community gave them credit for being — but now it seemed unwise. The project was obviously just another boondoggle. It would be interesting to see where the design had come from: Russia was the leading candidate, but it would be months if not years before it was tracked down.

“Tell me about North Korea. What’s the situation on the ground there?” asked Blitz. He listened as the Army major told him more or less what he had expected: The people for the most part were anxious and hungry. There were still bands of resisters, as his experience at the airfield attested. And there was a great deal of animosity between North and South, making for friction.

“Putting the two halves together won’t be easy,” Blitz said when Tyler finished.

“No, sir.”

“Has to be done, though.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Do you mind if I mention what you’ve told me to the President?”

“No, sir. I, uh, I’d be flattered.”

“He was asking about you,” said Blitz. “He knows you did a hell of a job.”

“Thank you.”

“You sound tired, Major. I’m sorry for interrupting your sleep.”

“Thank you, sir.”

“I hope to see you soon,” added Blitz as he hung up.

Chapter 4

Howe spent all of the morning and a good deal of the afternoon recounting the kidnapping for investigators. They were spare with their own details, but it was clear from their questions that they connected it with the Korean operation, an attempt by the Korean he had rescued to tie up loose ends.

Howe asked one of the investigators — a DIA officer named Kowalski — point-blank why they’d bother. Kowalski blinked a few times and then shrugged.

A long queue of messages awaited him both at the motel and on his cell phone’s voice mail when he was finally done with the interviews. He sat in the motel lobby systematically listening and recording the numbers and callers on a pad. Before he decided who to call back, however, he phoned his mother for the second time that day, just to reassure her that he was all right.

“Jimmy called you,” she said, mentioning his friend. “He’s hoping you’re all right.”

“Yeah, he called my cell phone too,” he told her.

“Well, people worry.”

“I’m okay, Ma.” It occurred to Howe that he had been having some variation of this conversation for forty years.

“He has tickets for a football game.”

“NCAAs, Mom. It’s basketball. In New York. I already left a message telling him I can’t go.”

“He’s very excited.”

Howe laughed. “He’s always excited about something.”

“Just so you know.” His mother paused, changing the subject. “I’m going to bingo tonight with Gabby Thomas. I suppose my ears will be red for days.”

“I guess,” said Howe. He listened to his mother tell him something about the neighbors, then told her he had to get going.

“Well, of course you do. I will talk to you when I talk to you,” she said.

“Love you.”

He didn’t usually say that, and it took his mother a half-second to respond.

“I love you, too, Billy.”

Among the callers on his voice mail were three members of the NADT board, along with Delano, who was belatedly expressing surprise at the security snafu and sympathy about the “incident.” Howe decided that firing the vice president would be the first thing he did; one thing he didn’t need was a phony.

Howard McIntyre was the one person he wanted to talk to who hadn’t called. As Howe went through the cell menu to find his number, the cell phone rang; it was Alice.

“Hi,” he said.

“I wasn’t sure I’d get you,” she said. “I thought I’d just leave a message.”

“It’s me in the flesh,” he said. He winced, overly self-conscious but unable to do anything about it.

“Well…” she started.

“Well, what?”

“I, um… I’m sorry.”

“Sorry?”

Howe felt a pain in his ribs, a physical pain: She was dumping him.

Not dumping him exactly, since they weren’t a couple or anything like that, but she was going to tell him they couldn’t be.

The pain was like a hard cramp, the sort that might come from sudden depressurization.

He loved her, and he wasn’t going to let her walk away.

“I was rude yesterday,” she said.

“Rude?” The word croaked from his mouth. “You weren’t rude.”

“I should have thanked you for saving my life. But I didn’t.”

“If it weren’t for me, you wouldn’t have been there. So I apologize. I’m the one who should apologize.”

What else is it? he thought to himself. Go ahead and tell me.

Go ahead.

“Why don’t we argue about it over dinner?” he told her.

“Argue?”

“I’m joking. Want to have dinner with me?”

She hesitated. If she said no, he would ask, straight out, if she was seeing someone else.

Then he’d pull out all the stops. Though he wasn’t exactly sure what that would mean.

“Where do you want to eat?” Alice said finally.

Chapter 5

Macklin put a surveillance team on the real addresses but couldn’t come up with enough people to canvas the area of the phony address, which would have been across from Madison Square Garden if it had existed. Fisher decided to walk it himself, checking variations of the address on the theory that the real address would turn out to be some variation of the false one. He found a pizza parlor, an Israeli restaurant, and a junk shop proclaiming that it sold Manhattan ’s finest selection of antiques, but no safe house or reasonable facsimile.