Lethal Code

CHAPTER 7

Ruhi had been appalled to see his name — and a photograph lifted from the NRDC website — all over the Internet and news channels. He feared that his big smile would look arrogant and suspicious to a nation suffering from the worst attack in its history.

For the first time since the major renovation of NRDC office, he loathed the glass walls. He’d always appreciated how they allowed the offices to bathe in natural light — and lower the nonprofit’s carbon imprint. But now it left him feeling like he was in the proverbial fishbowl.

Sure, a number of colleagues had come by to offer him words of support, but others were clearly hoping to keep their distance and do all they could to avoid being named as a key member of a “fifth column.”

That accusation came from an octogenarian pundit on one of the cable networks.

“And what would we expect?” the craggy old beast asked his viewers. “He works for an outfit that has done more to undermine the American way of life than any other group I can think of.”

“Really?” Ruhi talked back to the YouTube posting. More than Al Qaeda? More than the old Soviet Union?

And there was another “more,” Ruhi realized: The creep’s video had more than 1,110,000 viewers — so far.

“A Saudi!” the crepe-skinned hatemonger intoned ominously. “And I’m sure I don’t need to remind you of what the Saudis did to us not so long ago.”

Hyperbole and invective — cruel and vicious — were clearly the order of the day.

But didn’t he and Candace talk about how much Americans pulled together in a time of crisis? No, that’s what you said, he reminded himself. She pointed out that everyone still had electric power on 9/11. They weren’t sitting around in the dark, or trying to use the cover of night to rape and plunder. And they surely weren’t worrying that they would be thrust back into riots and the deepest darkness at any moment. They weren’t directly affected.

How can anyone even think that I would do something like that to America? he wondered as he listened to the pundit’s rant online — and the frothing comments of his many fans.

I’ve lived here since I was nine. They treat me like the biggest saboteur in world history.

Ruhi could have howled in frustration.

Then, around three o’clock, a convenient leak from the Justice Department revealed that he had traveled extensively in the Middle East and South Asia, especially as an adult. He was said to have held numerous meetings with Islamists and other radicals. That led in minutes to rumors that he had trained at an Al Qaeda camp in Tajikistan.

Tajikistan? He knew it was one of the five “Stans” of the old Soviet Union, but Ruhi had to look it up on a map to locate it exactly. And he supposedly had trained there? How could anyone believe that?

Moreover, Ruhi didn’t even know how to shoot a gun. And what meetings with radical Muslims? He felt positively allergic to them. He’d talked to energy experts, not people who made a career of chopping off the heads of “infidels” and posting videos of the crimes on YouTube, cheek-to-jowl — in the “cloud”—with the craggy old beast’s crazy accusations.

The only questionable actions he ever took overseas were to have a few perfunctory meetings in Pakistan with solar energy experts so he could deduct the travel on his taxes. But Islamists? Radicals?

Give me a break.

But there were no breaks coming his way. Only a tsunami of telephone calls from the Post, Washington Times, New York Times, Guardian, Telegraph, Mirror, Globe and Mail, CBS, CNN, FOX, and more than a hundred other news outlets around the world. He’d lost count. Could be two hundred by now. He hadn’t even thought that many journalists still had jobs. Wasn’t the news business contracting? Not fast enough, was his dismal view this afternoon. He’d had hours of this. How was he supposed to work?

“Defend yourself,” a Washington Times reporter demanded. “Or can’t you do that?”

How am I supposed to defend myself? Or account for every minute of trips I took abroad twelve, fourteen years ago?

“Does this explain your strident opposition to the development of the Alberta oil sands?” a Canadian reporter demanded, as if Ruhi would lay the entire country to waste to stop a single pipeline.

But he knew people who would. He couldn’t kid himself about that. The fringe elements of the environmental movement saw climate change as such a threat that they would gladly shut down the U.S. to stop more greenhouse gases from getting pumped into the atmosphere.

But the unknown enemy wasn’t even making climate-change demands. That’ll be the day. Why would they? Mohammed would somehow take care of those earthly concerns. Just like Jesus would turn carbon dioxide back into fossil fuels—à la water into wine — for the fundamentalists in America.

People, including reporters, were going crazy, and he’d had it. He’d endured this crap for most of the day.

He walked out of his office, past a wall of plants growing right there in the building, and bolted out to the street, hoping to catch the Metro that ran past NRDC office — and had been a key factor in building at that location. He suddenly longed for the unencumbered days when he had immersed himself in such purely rational decision making.

There appeared little clear thinking in the air right now, and all the finger-pointing — at him — made Ruhi both highly visible and clearly too vulnerable to stand on a crowded street waiting for light rail. He started walking — fast.

He wore his Ray-Bans as a matter of course, and was pleased to don them today. But with TV screens and the Web filled with photographs of him, the shades didn’t feel sufficient to hide his identity, so he snapped up a cheap fedora from an Ethiopian street vendor. But he still caught glances coming his way. No one accosted him, though, so he figured every guy from the Middle East was probably getting the same going-over. He took heart in thinking that even now he might be more anonymous than he feared.

He made it halfway home before a friendly-sounding man yelled, “Hey, Ruhi, are you doing okay?”

Before he could catch himself, he turned. A guy in his early twenties took his picture with a phone and stood five feet away brazenly working his screen, undoubtedly uploading the photo: “Ruhi Mancur in his latest disguise.”

He wanted to knock the camera out of the shooter’s hand and stomp it, but that would just draw additional attention and dozens of even more damning photos.

That was when Ruhi started running. He would have preferred to be in his trainers, rather than thick-soled and brilliantly shined brogues; his light running shorts and sleeveless shirt, instead of a Brooks Brothers blazer and chinos. But at least he was moving.

He thought of the old movie Marathon Man, and felt like the young, lean Dustin Hoffman trapped by accusations that he could not answer. He longed to escape his grim circumstances and see Candace, to assure her that he wasn’t guilty of any complicity in these horrible crimes against America. Surely, she would believe him.

They almost kissed last night. He relived the moment as he ran. It came as they sat on the love seat, when their eyes had locked. It was just after she said that she didn’t think he was an angry man, that she’d known those kinds of guys in the service, and they weren’t fun. The implication had been so clear: You, Ruhi, are fun.

If she’d looked at him a second longer, or shifted a half inch closer, he would have kissed her. He’d wanted to so much.

Ruhi didn’t care that she worked for a conservative congressman who, given half a chance, would ensure that every last lump of coal in the world was burned. She was appealing. Immensely so, and not just those fine blond locks and shapely legs, or her bright blue eyes. Candace was strong, unabashedly so.

Maybe it was a reaction to his own patriarchal culture, but the very fact that she could take a dangerous situation in hand with such brio impressed him. He found that alluring at a level he’d never before known. He’d always felt sorry for subservient women. His mother was his father’s slave. He felt terrible for her. The lack of a wonderfully invigorating give-and-take in a relationship was a complete turnoff for Ruhi.

But Candace was honest, maybe the most honest woman he’d ever met. He wanted to see her. And he also welcomed the prospect of having her armed and by his side. She said she’d come back to his apartment after work because the mob was looking for him, too. She meant the thugs who’d tried to break down her door. He groaned, knowing that she could not have known that in less than twenty-four hours the mob would metastasize to include much of the nation.

If he’d been able to reach her, he would have suggested they meet at a friend’s home. But the only number he had for her was the congressman’s office, and that line had remained busy all day. How had he failed to get her cell number? Well, there had been a ton of distractions this morning, culminating in that deeply offensive broadcast by the man who threatened to shut down the grid again at any second.

He kept his pace up. His feet burned inside his leather shoes. Sweat soaked his slacks and shirt. He felt the underarms of his blazer dampen, his collar chafe. He slowed to loosen his tie, and then wished he hadn’t. A woman yelled, “That’s him. That’s the guy who did this.”

What the…

She pointed boldly, indignantly, at him from less than fifteen feet away.

He sprinted down the block, trailed by heavy footsteps. It couldn’t be her, could it? He looked back. Nope, not her. A guy was chasing him. Big as a Redskins linebacker, which gave Ruhi more ease than pause: Linebackers weren’t built to run distances, and this guy looked winded after a block.

But Ruhi felt like a criminal as he dashed through the sidewalk throngs. He turned the corner of his street and raced the last few hundred feet as if his life depended on it, which he thought might well be the case because, incredibly, his hulking stalker was not that far behind him.

Ruhi scrambled up the steps, where he and Candace had stood side by side just yesterday. The door to his building was open on the strength of a small stool. That was a real blessing because his pursuer was now only about five townhouses away.

Ruhi kicked the stool inside and slammed the door behind him, checking the lock.

He was breathing hard.

His landlord, Jackson Halpen, stood a few feet away with his arms across his chest. They looked huge as hams. Ruhi had never noticed how muscular Jackson was. And his landlord looked pissed. Sounded it, too, snarling when he spoke.

“Hey, Ruhi, what’s the big fucking rush?”

Ruhi caught his breath quickly. He had great recovery times. He also had his eyes on the front door and his apartment key in hand.

“I’m not the most popular guy on the block.” Trying to make light of his infamy.

“Yeah? You think so? You’re not even the most popular guy in this lobby. I saw the way you kicked my little stool. Did you destroy the furniture in that apartment upstairs, too? And the door? I mean, when you weren’t busy attacking the whole country with your computer, you slimebag.”

“Are you serious?” was all Ruhi could manage in those first few seconds, because he was listening for his stalker.

“And now you kicked my stool like it was nothing. Look at it.”

Halpen picked it up and — to Ruhi’s way of thinking — held it like a club to point out a crack in the seat that could have been there for the past ten years.

“Did I say you could kick my stuff around?” Halpen shouted. “I sure as shit did not. I might have company coming over to help me clean up this mess. I might want the door open for all kinds of reasons.”

“Look,” Ruhi pleaded, “a guy’s been after me all the way here.”

“No kidding?” Halpen said with the worst smile, the kind that promised a whole series of unpleasantries. “You’re mistaking me for someone who cares, Ruhi Mancur from Saudi Arabia.”

Halpen said Ruhi’s last name like it were an epithet, then unfolded his arms and examined his hands, as if he were taking inventory of his knuckles.

“I had nothing to do with tearing up that furniture or door,” Ruhi said rapidly. “There was a mob trying to break down her door. They shot at her lock. She shot back. She had to. Then they came back last night and tore the place up. We were barricaded inside my apartment.”

As Ruhi talked, he hurried down the hallway. Halpen watched him.

“Just the two of you. Nice young blond girl and you.”

Ruhi swore silently, remembering that Halpen was named after the city of his birth: Jackson, Mississippi. He could hardly believe that people would play the race card now. But of course they would. The same racist sentiment had driven someone in the intelligence community to leak the background information on him.

Bam-bam-bam.

“You want to answer that?” Halpen asked with another wicked smile. “I’m sure it’s for you. One of your many fans.”

Ruhi pulled out his key, acutely aware that Halpen was walking to the lobby door, and that right outside was the man who’d raced after him for several blocks.

“I’m opening it,” Halpen yelled. “Hang on. He’s right here.”

Ruhi was so nervous, so shaken, that he had difficulty slipping the key into the lock.

He threaded it as Halpen worked the one on the front door.

I’m toast, he thought when he saw Halpen’s hand moving on the lock. But it took his landlord three attempts to free it because the mechanism proved as nettlesome as it had yesterday afternoon when Ruhi had tried to open it for Candace and himself.

While Halpen swore loudly at the lock, Ruhi opened his door — finally — and darted into his apartment. But unlike last night, he didn’t have Candace by his side with her semiautomatic.

Thankfully, the bureau was still near the door. It had two bullet holes in the second drawer, right about the height of Ruhi’s heart.

He shoved the dresser into place just as the pounding resumed, this time on his door.

He ducked and yelled, “What do you want?”

“I want to talk to you, sand nigger.”

“He really wants to talk to you, Ruhi,” Halpen yelled. “Give him a chance to say his piece. Open the door and hear him out,” he added, with no attempt to hide his amusement.

“You got a master key I could use?” the intruder asked Halpen.

“I do, and you’d be welcome to it, except I don’t have it with me.”

Bam-bam-bam.

Ruhi realized that he’d never stopped sweating, even in his air-conditioned apartment.

He heard more people gathering outside his door. They were shouting. Ruhi thought he heard pushing. He wished like hell he had a gun — two or three of them.

Then he heard what sounded like people falling or getting shoved against the door and walls. Fighting. Halpen was shouting for everyone to get out of his building. His landlord didn’t seem to be having such a good time anymore.

A punch landed on someone so hard that the noise carried right into Ruhi’s apartment. A man was screaming, “Yeah, fuck him over. Do it. Do it!”

Someone else yelled, “Kick his ass. He’s harboring the enemy.”

A huge fight broke out. Halpen was yelling for help.

Ruhi hated him but called 911, knowing he could be next. The line was busy, which came as no surprise: Emergency services were a mess.

He wished Candace would show up. Right then gunfire exploded in the lobby.

Holy shit.

Nothing hit his door, much as he could tell. He thought there were three or four shots, but they came so fast he couldn’t be sure of that, either.

For several seconds he crouched behind the bureau, worried for Candace’s sake. Had she shown up and been taken unawares? But he realized it wasn’t Candace when a guy yelled, “You shot him?” and another guy yelled, “Goddamn right I shot his ass, and I’d do it again.”

Ruhi didn’t hear anything from Halpen. All he heard were men, maybe some women, running off. The lobby was emptying. He tried 911 again. Busy.

He hit “redial” at least fifty times in the next half hour.

When he finally got a response, it wasn’t on the phone. It came as a knock on the door, polite after all the pounding.

Candace? It had to be her, but she was so late. “Who’s there?” he asked, keeping his head below the dresser.

“Ruhi Mancur?”

A guy? “Who are you?”

“Agent Simmons of the FBI. Unlock your door and step back with your hands up so we can see you clearly when we enter.”

“How do I know you’re the FBI?” The FBI! What the hell?

“Look out your window, but keep your hands up.”

“But you’re at my door.”

“Mr. Mancur, look out your window.”

Ruhi scampered across the floor to the love seat where he’d almost kissed Candace last night. Standing, with his hands up, he saw dark-suited men, armed with rifles, spread out around as much of the grounds as he could see.

An agent held up ID, though Ruhi no longer had any doubt about who had come to collect him.

He moved the bureau aside and said, “The door is unlocked. I’ll step back. I’m definitely not armed.”

“Tell us when you’re in position in front of the door with your hands raised.”

Ruhi did as directed.

“Is the bureau clear of the door?”

“Yes.”

The door exploded open an instant later. Armed men in flak jackets and helmets with clear plastic shields poured into the room.

Ruhi caught a glimpse of Halpen lying on his back in the lobby, eyes open and lifeless.

In the next second, he was forced facedown on the floor.

“You are being held pursuant to guidelines established by federal terrorism statutes, and you are also under arrest as a suspect in the murder of a man identified as Jackson Halpen.”

“What? What?” Ruhi shouted. He felt blinded by panic.

The agents dragged him to his feet and hauled him out the door.

He looked for Candace even now, but there was no sign of her. Maybe she’d come but was barred from getting close to the building.

Then he asked himself a simple yet disturbing question: How did the FBI know that he had a bureau in front of the door?