Abyss

SEVENTY-ONE

It was nine in the morning in Washington when Eduardo Estevez, the president’s adviser on national security affairs, walked into the Oval Office, a scowl on his broad Latin face. Lord’s chief of staff, Robert Russell, his press secretary, Paul S. Green, and his chief science adviser, George Mills, were all watching CNN’s reporting on the attack in the Gulf while the White House photographer snapped pictures. They all looked up.

“With that kind of expression on your face this can’t be good news,” Lord said.

When he had been awakened earlier and told of the developing situation in the Gulf, he’d refused to call a cabinet meeting, demanding instead that he be supplied with constant updates. “This will not be allowed to get out of hand, like Hutchinson Island has,” he’d told Russell. “No more fodder for Schlagel.”

“Kirk McGarvey is on the line from the Coast Guard cutter Ocracoke on scene,” Estevez said. “It’s a video link.”

Lord went to his desk console, pressed a couple of buttons and the CNN broadcast was replaced by the image of a weary-looking McGarvey seated at a small conference table. It appeared as if he were alone.

“Good morning, Mr. McGarvey,” Lord said. “From what I understand congratulations are in order.” His image was being picked up by the camera in his computer monitor.

“Not yet, Mr. President, because we’re not out of the woods,” McGarvey said. “Is it just you and Mr. Estevez?”

“That’s not important. What do you have for me?”

“As you wish,” McGarvey said. “The same man who hit Hutchinson Island was behind this attack. Which means he’s being directed either by Schlagel, Marinaccio, Octavio, or the UAE International Bank of Commerce, or some combination of all four — and very likely the Saudis are somehow involved.”

“Goddamnit, we’ve been down this path before,” Estevez said, but the president held him off.

“Do you have any proof?”

“Gail Newby was chief of security at Hutchinson Island, and she came face-to-face with him just before the explosion. He was only a suspect at that time, and in fact we’d not been able to identify him until a couple of days ago. But he was there on the rig directing the attack and Gail saw him.”

“You say that you identified him?”

“Yes, sir. His name is Brian DeCamp, an ex-South African Defense Force colonel in the Buffalo Battalion. Evidently he turned freelance and apparently worked a number of operations over the past several years. He’s good, just about the best I’ve ever heard of.”

“Now he’s dead, and that part of the problem has been solved,” Lord said. “For that we also offer our thanks.”

“He got away aboard a helicopter from Schlagel’s flotilla.”

The president’s anger spiked. “That’s proof enough for me.”

“No, sir, it’s not that easy,” McGarvey said. “There’s more.”

“There always is.”

“The helicopter came off the yacht Pascagoula Trader, with a crew of six, one of them identified as Anthony Ransom, a top aide to Schlagel. We think he was directing the flotilla. But he and the rest of the crew aboard, along with one of the mercenaries DeCamp left behind to act as a rear guard, were shot to death.”

“How about his other people?”

“All dead.”

“Did you actually see him take off?” Estevez asked.

“Yes, and he was heading west toward the coast of Florida,” McGarvey said.

“Then we have the bastard,” Estevez said. “He must have shown up on someone’s radar.”

“No,” McGarvey said, and in that one word Lord knew this situation had the possibility of turning out even worse than Hutchinson Island, much worse.

“Why do you say that?”

“Because he’s smarter than that. And he’s not a martyr, which means he’d planned his escape from the beginning. My guess is that he made a deal with someone in the Cuban Navy to meet him somewhere inside Cuban waters, or very close, where he ditched the helicopter.”

The president, who’d been standing hunched over his desk, sat down. “You think that it’s not over? He’ll strike again?”

“We saw his face, so I think he’ll go to ground. Maybe plastic surgery, but that would take months, maybe longer.”

“I’m not following you, Mr. McGarvey. Are we out of the woods or will someone else come after Dr. Larsen and her project?”

“And don’t tell us that Saudi intelligence agents are going to try next,” Estevez said. “Because I just don’t believe they’re stupid enough to take that kind of a risk.”

“It won’t be the Saudis,” McGarvey said. “At least not directly. But they funnel money into the IBC in Dubai, which has connections with Marinaccio and Octavio, we know that much for a fact. And no, Mr. President, we are not out of the woods yet, and probably won’t be for a long time.”

“It’s agreed that none of them, especially the Saudi government, can afford to allow Dr. Larsen’s project to succeed,” the president said. “So we can be fairly certain about the why, but you still don’t have proof who hired this mercenary.”

“We’re working on it, and if we do come up with something the ball will be back in your court, Mr. President. You might want to give someone at Justice the heads-up.”

Lord bridled for just a moment, and he almost shot back that he took advice but not orders. Instead he held himself in check. “But somebody else will be coming after her.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Who?”

“Schlagel.”

It was the worst possible news for Lord. While his own numbers in the polls had dropped from an approval rating of 67 percent to a dismal 43, Schlagel’s, even though he had not yet announced his candidacy, had risen from nothing to a respectable 29 percent. And it had begun with the incident at the Hutchinson Island Nuclear Power Plant. The bastard had done nothing but hammer home his message of fear; fear of nukes and especially fear of Dr. Larsen’s God Project, which spilled over to the populist message of fear of all scientists.

“Tinkerers with God’s designs!” Schlagel shouted from his pulpit in McPherson, and just about everywhere else as he crisscrossed the country, all of his appearances as well prepared and stage-managed as the Reverend Billy Graham’s had been at the height of his ministry. But Schlagel was even better than Graham had been; his sermons were more firey, yet simpler and even more real and current. “Americans,” he preached, “are frightened out of their wits, and believe me they have every reason to be.”

“You say that he was personally behind the attack against Dr. Larsen’s project?” Lord said.

“No, but his followers were.”

“Then he’s already won. As long as he keeps his hands clean.”

“Unless he’s pushed,” McGarvey said.

“I’m listening,” Lord said, his interest piqued.

“He’s campaigning for your job, even though he hasn’t come out and said it in so many words yet. So you need to do two things.”

Estevez started to object, but Lord waved him off. “I’m still listening.”

“Campaign back. You’re very good at it. You’re smart, you’re articulate, and you photograph well. Take him on the issues. Green energy will be our ultimate salvation. Give the public Eve Larsen’s message in plain language that everyone — especially Schlagel’s followers — will understand. And he’s right, you know. Americans are frightened and they do have a right to be. So fight back.”

“And the second thing?”

“The media is all over the attack in the Gulf, so you need to hold a news conference as quickly as possible, today or better yet tonight when you can address the nation on all the networks. Your administration will make sure that Vanessa Explorer will be repaired and towed to Hutchinson Island, and Dr. Larsen’s project will get the highest priority.”

“That would certainly put me head-to-head with Schlagel.”

“It’d be risky,” McGarvey admitted. “But not as risky as having someone like him in the White House.”

Lord figured that his advisers would tell him that he was committing political suicide; he could see it already in Estevez’s eyes. But they were talking about his political suicide, not the nation’s.

“In the meantime what will you be doing, Mr. McGarvey?”

“Waiting for Schlagel to make a mistake.”

“Are you so sure that he will?” Lord asked.

“Oh, yes, sir, he’ll have to stick his neck out if he wants to be president, and you already know what that’s like.”

“And then what?”

“I’ll nail him,” McGarvey promised.

It was about what Lord had expected and he exchanged a glance with Estevez. “You understand, Mr. McGarvey, that I can’t become personally involved with an action like that. I can’t sanction it. My critics would have a field day.”

Estevez nodded his approval.

“We never discussed this aspect, Mr. President,” McGarvey said.

SEVENTY-TWO

In the Ocracoke ’s officer’s mess, McGarvey clicked the shutdown tab on the laptop computer he’d used to talk to the president, and sat back to gather his thoughts. He’d been given all but a carte blanche to pursue whoever was behind the attacks on Hutchinson Island and here in the Gulf, but this now would not be the same as chasing after someone like DeCamp, who if he managed to go completely to ground would be all but impossible to find.

Schlagel was a different problem altogether, because unlike DeCamp, who either worked alone or with a very few handpicked operators, Schlagel’s followers were a sizeable portion of the American voting public. Millions of people were backing him, and the number was growing daily. Isolating him from his supporters in such a way that making a mistake large enough to topple him, expose him for who and what he really was, would be next to impossible.

But until the good reverend was brought down, Eve Larsen and her project were in imminent danger, although Schlagel was already denying any involvement in the attack.

“In fact,” he told his flock, “it was members of my flotilla who actually saved lives, at great risk to their own. In fact some of my faithful lost their lives. Let us use the power of prayer but never, never forget the power of action to do the work God has set before us.”

The argument was the same among antiabortionists: killing abortion doctors saved lives!

Lieutenant Craig Moon, the cutter’s skipper, came to the doorway and knocked on the frame. “Are you finished, sir?”

McGarvey looked up. “Just about, thank you. Have your people finished bagging the bodies?”

“No, sir, the FBI is still doing forensics, could be another six hours or longer. But they’ve asked that you stick around a bit longer, they have a few more questions.”

“They can catch up with me in Washington. What’re the chances of getting me ashore?”

The lieutenant had his orders, but Marc Morgan was only the special agent in charge of the Bureau’s on site team while Kirk McGarvey was a former director of the CIA. And it was he who had almost single-handedly put down the attack and killed most of the bad guys. “I can have a helo out here within the hour. Where do you want to go?”

“Tampa International.”

“Will do,” the lieutenant said.

“And I need to make a couple more calls. Can I connect to ordinary phones ashore from here? A landline as well as cell?”

“Yes, sir. I’ll have someone come down to show you.”

“No need, I’ll figure it out,” McGarvey said, and after the lieutenant left he found a phone tab on the laptop’s screen and entered Gail’s cell phone number. After twenty seconds or so, it rang and Gail answered.

“My number’s blocked, so this has to be Kirk, Eric, or Otto.”

“It’s me, where are you?”

“We just landed at Dulles. How’s it going?”

“The Bureau is working the issue. How about you and Eve?”

Gail chuckled. “Not bad for a couple of women who’ve been through what we’ve been through. Especially Eve and her high-dive act.” She got serious. “What’s next?”

McGarvey quickly explained his conversation with the president. “Officially Otto and I are looking for our contractor, and we’re going to make a good show of it.”

“Unofficially?”

“You and Eve are going to draw Schlagel down from his podium while I keep watch from the sidelines.”

“DeCamp’s not coming back?” Gail asked.

“I think he’s going to ground.”

“Revenge?”

“He’s a pro, and Hutchinson Island and Vanessa were nothing more than assignments that didn’t go quite the way he’d planned them. No revenge motive there. Neither operation was personal enough.”

“I meant on the part of his paymasters. From their standpoint he botched Hutchinson Island, and now this.”

McGarvey had already thought about it. “They’ll probably withhold a final payment, but Hutchinson Island was enough of a partial success that they gave him another chance.”

“And you were the monkey wrench in both operations. Might make you their next best target.”

“It’s a possibility,” McGarvey conceded because he had thought of that, too. “Otto’s keeping track of Marinaccio and Octavio, but they’d have to hire someone to come after me, so I’ll watch my back. In the meantime my bet’s on Schlagel because I’m about one hundred percent convinced that he and Marinaccio are connected through the IBC in Dubai. If Schlagel were to make it to the White House he’d be the perfect president for big oil. Be in her best interest to support him.”

“Okay, what’s the next step? What do you want me to do?”

“Is Eve sitting next to you?”

“We’re scattered all over the plane. She’s about six rows back.”

“How is she?”

“Awed by the violence, by all the people killed. A little confused, I think, about Don Price, and saddened by Lisa’s death. She was one of the bright sparks on the team.”

“Intimidated?”

“Angry, but so far as I can tell all the more determined to get on with it.”

“The White House is going to support her project. Publicly. Which means the Coast Guard will provide around-the-clock security.”

“So Lord is finally taking Schlagel seriously.”

“Something like that. Which makes Eve the primary target. If she can’t be bullied into backing away, or if NOAA can’t be convinced by public opposition, or if InterOil continues to support her, she could be in some physical danger again. Probably worse than Oslo.”

“I don’t think that she’s going to run and hide,” Gail said. “She’s pretty tough.”

“How was her reception in Tampa?”

“She was mobbed, and it’ll probably be the same here.”

“I want you to stick with her, even if she objects. And I want you to convince her to return to Hutchinson Island to talk with the SSP and L people about the power connection with her platform. I want it to be business as usual for her, as if what happened in the Gulf was only a little speed bump.”

“That should be an irresistible draw for Schlagel and his people. How soon do you want her there?”

“Within the next day or two, I want to give Schlagel as little time as possible to capitalize on what happened in the Gulf.”

“Where will you be during all of this?”

“Right behind you,” McGarvey said. “But don’t try to spot me. And, Gail?”

“Yes?”

“Carry a weapon and stay sharp.”

McGarvey broke the connection and phoned Otto, telling him essentially the same thing he’d told Gail, and repeating the conversation he’d had with the president.

“How are you planning on going about it, kemo sabe? Schlagel’s people were willing to put their lives on the line out in the Gulf, and they sure as hell wouldn’t hesitate to run over you if they thought you were a threat to him.

And McGarvey told him.

Otto laughed. “Devious, but I think I can put something together that’ll get his attention. May I share this with Yablonski?”

“Only if he promises to keep it between the two of you. No leaks.”

SEVENTY-THREE

It was late, nearly midnight, when DeCamp stopped his rental Peugeot along the side of the narrow D2204 corniche highway above Nice, shut off the lights, and got out. It was a moonless night, but the sky was bright enough with the glow from the city below for him to see the blackened remains of his house.

He’d arrived in Nice late this afternoon, but instead of taking a taxi straight to his house he had rented the car at the airport and driven up to the L’auberge de Col de Braus, a small country inn of six rooms and a good kitchen near the village of L’Escarene ten kilometers up in the hills. He’d been spooked ever since the German had shown up on his doorstep, knowing his real name. And after his encounter with McGarvey on the platform, he was taking nothing for granted.

But this now, what he was seeing, was far worse than he’d feared, and he had to pace back and forth to somehow put a cap on his rage. He expected maybe to see the house dark, and Martine gone to Paris as she’d told him she often did when he was away. But not this. Anything but this, his house destroyed and Martine almost certainly dead, her body in the morgue.

Hutchinson Island had only been a partial success, but the business in the Gulf had ended in disaster. The edition of the International Herald Tribune he’d picked up during his layover in Paris had a two-page photo spread of “ Le terroisme dans le Golfe de Mexique. ” Loss of life was minimal, thanks in part to the efforts of Kirk McGarvey, a former director of the CIA, and most important the life of Nobel Peace Prize laureate Dr. Evelyn Larsen was saved as was her project aboard the oil exploration platform Vanessa Explorer. Photos of the badly listing platform with U.S. Coast Guard gunships standing by were in full color. So far the terrorist leader remained unnamed and no group had come forward claiming responsibility.

He had failed, and this was Wolfhardt’s demonstration of the client’s displeasure.

DeCamp stopped pacing, and stared at the burned-out ruins. This act was much more than a simple message passed to him; he’d stopped at an Internet café in DeGaulle Airport to check his bank balance. The ten million euros had been deposited during the night. The money was meaningless to them, completely trivial.

Go away, hide under a rock, enjoy your money if you can. Or find us and try to take your revenge. Either way Mr. DeCamp you are totally out of the business, superfluous, ineffective, nothing more than a swatted bug whose very existence is nothing more than a minor offense to the larger scheme of things.

And DeCamp had always thought that tales of revenge were stupid, but until this moment he hadn’t realized just how much he’d loved Martine and had come to depend on her presence at his side. He’d always planned on retiring, but with her, not by himself.

He heard her laughter and he suddenly turned and tried to find out where it had come from, but then he realized the sound was nothing more than a siren or car horn in the very far distance, distorted by the light breeze.

Wolfhardt had done this in retaliation for Hutchinson Island and the Gulf, and the man was a professional. He would have made certain that Martine was dead before he’d set fire to the place.

But Colonel Frazer had taught him from the beginning to always go into a battle with dispassion. “Let the other soldier shout his war cries, while you approach from behind and silently slit his throat.”

Be prepared.

Be fearless.

Life without honor is possible, but honor without life is fruitless.

Remembering four thousand days of lessons with the colonel and nearly ten thousand days of experience in the field finally calmed DeCamp down enough so that he could go back to the car and drive away.

In the morning he would take the train to Zurich where he could access one of his bank accounts, and where he could contact his friend in the SADF who had warned him about Wolfhardt and who presumably knew where the man operated from.

Then once he had the information he needed, he would change his appearance, gather his weapons, and make his strike. Clean, surgical, decisive. You have given me your message, now I will give you mine.

SEVENTY-FOUR

Eve had said a few words about her postdoc Lisa Harkness in the stone chapel at the Swan Point Cemetery along the Seekonk River in Providence, Rhode Island, but standing now at the graveside, in the midst of her other postdocs and techs, Gail standing just behind, she wanted to shout what a terrible waste it had been.

She couldn’t, of course. Lisa had been an only child and her parents, who’d sent her off to Princeton to become a famous scientist, someone who would do good in a world that needed mending, were devastated and had hung on every word Eve had said about their daughter.

“Lisa taught us how to text so that she could send us messages many times every day,” her mother, a local high school math teacher, had told Eve before the service. “Once she got into your graduate program, and then began working with you, she couldn’t talk about anything or anyone else.”

“She was a wonderful girl,” Eve said, choking back tears. “Everyone loved her. You couldn’t help not to.”

The funeral was large. More than one hundred of Lisa’s family and friends had shown up, including aunts and uncles and both sets of her grandparents, which brought home hard just how alone Eve had always been. This was the family she’d dreamed about having all of her life.

“Everyone felt that way, Dr. Larsen. So who would want to kill her and why?”

“It wasn’t her, it was me and my project they wanted to stop,” Eve said, not knowing what she could say to offer Lisa’s parents any sort of comfort.

“We know that,” Lisa’s father said, squinting. He taught history of philosophy at Brown University and Lisa had once described him as a gentle bear with clothing. “But what are they so afraid of that would drive them to commit murder — mass murder?”

“Losing money, I’m told.”

“Money,” Mrs. Harkness said, but not as a question.

And after the funeral and the reception on the big back lawn of the Harknesses’ home, during which just about everyone had stared at Eve and her team, but especially Eve as if she were some mysterious goddess who’d stepped down from Mount Olympus, it was a bittersweet relief for all of them to be on their flights home — to Princeton for most, and to Washington for Eve and Gail.

“They’d never met someone who’d won a Nobel Prize,” Gail said. “And for a person like you to come all the way to Rhode Island for the funeral of one of your students was a big honor.”

“I was afraid that I’d say something that would hurt them ever more.”

“But you didn’t, and they loved having you there.”

Eve felt a nearly overwhelming sense of bleakness, as if it were the black of night now and would always stay the black of night for her. “At times like this I don’t know if I’m doing the right thing,” she said. “I mean I believe the science is on track, but maybe there are other issues, larger issues, social issues that I just don’t get.” She wanted Gail to reassure her.

“I think the social issues are exactly what your project is all about.”

Eve turned away, a little embarrassed by revealing an inner portion of herself. She’d never become comfortable with such things. British reserve and all that, but mostly what she considered to have been a crappy upbringing. Don had told her once that she should stop blaming her past for what she had become: “For better or worse you are who you made yourself to be. Your parents gave you life. The rest is your doing, so get on with it, and stop complaining.” Good advice, even from a bad man.

“You’re right,” she said after a while. “We just have to make it work, and screw the bastards who want to stop me.”

Gail smiled. “You scared me there for a minute. If you’ve lost confidence I don’t know what the rest of us are supposed to do. After all, you’re the Nobel doc.”

Her boss, Brian Landsberg, had told her essentially the same thing in his office at Princeton the day before. “I can’t speak for Bob Krantz and the other NOAA people the day before in Washington, but despite what happened in the Gulf the science has not changed. The Nobel Prize committees are not composed of idiots — or at least not entirely composed — and like the rest of us they saw that you were right.”

“Somebody doesn’t think so,” she’d replied, still thinking mostly about Lisa’s death and Don’s perfidy.

“If they didn’t they wouldn’t be so desperate to stop you,” Landsberg said. “Think about it.”

And next for her was convincing Krantz that she had to be allowed to continue despite the deaths. And he was the last hurdle because her team was raring to go now, ready to meet Vanessa off Hutchinson Island as soon as she was repaired and towed the rest of the way. This time the Coast Guard was providing the security, and that fact alone gave them all the assurance they needed to get back aboard the platform and finish their work. The real beginning.

“We can be on Hutchinson Island the day after tomorrow,” she told Gail.

“I’ll let Kirk know,” Gail said.

“Where is he?”

Gail spread her hands. “Around somewhere. Watching us.”

And Eve felt a warm sense of comfort. They were not out of the woods yet, not by a long shot, but McGarvey was close and it was enough for her.

SEVENTY-FIVE

At Abu Dhabi’s International Airport, DeCamp, dressed in a plain light business suit and traveling under the work name Howard Beckwith, presented his passport to the immigration official who compared the photograph to his face. “The purpose of your visit to the United Arab Emirates?”

“Business.”

The officer looked up. “What business would that be, sir?”

“Oil futures trading.”

“Ah,” the officer said, smiling as he stamped the passport and handed it back. Oil was something everyone in the UAE understood and approved of. “I hope that your stay will be a profitable one.”

In the customs hall he retrieved his single bag, and brought it to one of the officers serving the Etihad flight that had just arrived from Geneva. The man checked the passport and declarations slip DeCamp had filled out just before landing, placed an invisible check mark on the leather bag that would show up on scanners on the way out to the departure area, and waved him on.

It was a little after eight in the evening, and heading across to the exits he thought how nice it would be to finish here and then return home to have a dinner and a good bottle of wine on the veranda with Martine. A simple pleasure he’d enjoyed for a number of years that had been taken from him.

For no reason. It was merely business, and could have been handled equitably between them. He would even have been willing to return all the money, less expenses, if Wolfhardt had talked to him.

But even that sort of a possibility had been made impossible on the day Wolfhardt had shown up in Nice. They had known where he lived, and they had known Martine made him vulnerable.

“If we should have to leave our bleached bones on the desert sands in vain, then beware the anger of the legions!”

Outside, George Marks, one of his top sergeants from the Buffalo Battalion, was waiting for him with a Land Rover, and he had to do a double take before he recognized DeCamp. Short and stocky, with arms like a gorilla’s and the speed of a gazelle, Marks had ended his career in the Batallion as the chief hand-to-hand combat instructor. Afterwards he’d moved to Capetown where he opened a mercenary consulting business with his nineteen-year-old son Kevin, who was a computer whiz. Together they helped clients find contractors and do the logistical planning for operations, something DeCamp had preferred to do on his own until now.

“You’re looking fit, Colonel,” he said.

“You, too, Sergeant,” DeCamp said. “When did you get here?”

“Yesterday, early. I had a few things to check out on the ground before I could be completely sure you wouldn’t be running into a buzz saw, if you know what I mean.”

They got into the Land Rover, Marks behind the wheel, and headed away from the airport. “I’ve booked you a suite in the InterContintenal for three days, though I expect you’ll be gone before that.”

“I’m heading up tonight, and taking the morning flight to Geneva if all goes well,” DeCamp said. “What about weapons?”

“You specified the 9mm Steyr GB for your handgun. It’s in your kit along with four eighteen-round mags, and a suppressor. But I also brought a Knight PDW with four thirty-round mags. It’s been modified to pull down the muzzle velocity to subsonic so it can be silenced as well. It’s short, lightweight, and capable of putting up to seven hundred rounds per minute on target.”

“I know the weapon,” DeCamp said. “It’s a good choice.”

“I didn’t know if breaking and entering or shock-and-awe tactics might be a consideration, but I brought a mixed bag of small Semtex packets and the appropriate fuses, plus a pair of Haley and Weller multiburst stun grenades that make no sound as the cap fires, a K-BAR knife and a night-vision ocular. All of it is untraceable of course, so when your op is completed you can drop it in place.”

“The pistol and perhaps the knife may be all I’ll need,” DeCamp said. “Clothing?”

“Nothing military, of course. But knowing your sizes helped. Dark jeans, a black polo shirt, and a reversible Windbreaker. White on the outside so you won’t attract attention on the drive up, and black on the inside. Dark Nikes.”

“Transportation?”

“You’ll take this machine. It’s a bit less than five hundred klicks round-trip, so you’ll have plenty of petrol, and the registration is also untraceable, so if the need should arise, you can simply park it and walk away. Otherwise bring it back to the hotel and leave it with the valet.”

“Coms?

“An encrypted Nokia, my number programmed in. After twenty-four hours its memory will be erased. And soon as you’re gone I’ll sterilize your track.”

They were coming into the capital city and traffic on Highway 33, Airport Road, was heavy with Mercedes and BMWs plus a smattering of Rolls and Bentleys. The UAE, despite Dubai’s financial meltdown a couple of years before, was in very good shape. And as long as oil continued at seventy dollars per barrel or higher, life there was good.

“I could have used you on my last op,” DeCamp said. “Wouldn’t have to be wasting my time here.”

Marks glanced at him. “When you called for backup, I figured it might have been you involved in that dustup in the Gulf of Mexico. Was it a double-cross?”

DeCamp had debated how deeply to involve Marks beyond the logistics, and yet other than Martine and before her Colonel Frazer, he’d never had anyone to talk to. And he was already missing it.

“It didn’t go exactly as planned, but instead of coming after me they hit someone very close. Someone defenseless.”

Marks drove the rest of the way in silence until they were within sight of the hotel. “Revenge is not always the best course, Colonel.”

“I agree, Sergeant, but this time it’s necessary,” DeCamp said. “Now tell me where you got your intel.”

And Marks did. Both sources.

SEVENTY-SIX

It was already four in the afternoon when Gail walked back across A1A from the South Service Building, the containment wall that blocked reactor one looming ominously into the clear blue Florida sky, and she felt the deepest sense of failure in her entire life since her father’s death. She hadn’t been there for him, just as she hadn’t been there for her partner. And coming back now brought everything into her mind in living color, and it wasn’t pleasant.

Most of the work was being done on the north side of the facility, where power from Vanessa, when and if it ever got here and was put into service, would be led to the transformer yard, and from there connected to the grid. That side of the plant had been saved any radiation damage so the linemen and engineers were able to work without hazmat suits.

The decontamination tent was up and running, empty of personnel just now, and Gail stopped a moment to look toward the south down the highway where Schlagel’s followers by the thousands had begun showing up early that morning. Some of them had set up tents, while others had parked their motor homes or travel trailers just off the side of the road within a few feet of the National Guardsmen manning the barriers. A1A was supposed to open for normal traffic within the week, but for now only people essential to the decontamination and rebuilding programs were being allowed through.

Yesterday was Sunday and Schlagel had been in Washington, making all the morning news shows including Face the Nation and Meet the Press , arguing that nuclear power was not the future of America’s desperate energy situation, nor was it a viable answer to the carbon dioxide issue and global warming. He was sorry for the tragedy in the Gulf, the loss of lives among his followers as well as those aboard Vanessa Explorer, but that abomination to God’s will was currently under repairs and the Hutchinson Island power station, which would never produce nuclear electricity again — thank the Lord God Almighty — was making preparations to receive energy from the God Project.

“You can laugh at the coming Armageddon or the apocalypse if you want — and at your own peril — but the seed of our destruction is at this moment making its way to Florida!” Schlagel had preached. “It must be stopped at all costs. Save your lives, save America’s life, believe in God, and your salvation will be assured. Turn your back on His holy will at your peril!”

And they were coming. The last estimates Gail had gotten from Eric was that 100,000 or more people were on the move across the U.S., all of them converging on Florida’s east coast. Fox was calling it the greatest mass exodus in the history of the United States, and one of Schlagel’s SOS network commentators said that “God’s hammer was poised to strike, so sinners beware.”

The reverend himself flitted here and there, showing up with a lot of fanfare to talk to members of his “flock” as he called them in Kansas, then Ohio, in Michigan and Missouri, Tennessee, and Georgia, and last night in Orlando, Florida. His people were on the move and so was he.

Eve was at the north end of the plant working with the engineers, and now that she was back at it Gail thought the lady scientist was happy again. They’d gotten a suite at the Hotel Indigo up in Vero Beach but in the two days they’d been down there neither of them had watched television, Eve because she only came back to the suite to shower and sleep, and Gail because she was getting the real news from Eric. So to this point Eve was all but unaware of the true size and seriousness of the gathering storm.

She turned and looked back toward the South Service Building, wondering why she had bothered to suit up and go inside, because very little was left. The control room, along with all the offices on the second floor had been gutted, the slightly radioactive debris bagged and taken away. Even the walls had been stripped bare, the floor tiles taken up, and the engineers were working out ways to seal the concrete that would cost the company less money than tearing the building down and starting from scratch.

The facility’s chief engineer, Chris Strasser, had confided in her yesterday that he thought the power plant would never reopen. “It won’t be safe to tear down reactor two for a thousand years,” he’d said. “And there’s the problem with South Service.”

“The mood of the country is against nukes right now, so you might have a tough time getting the necessary permits anyway,” she’d told him, but he’d given her a blank look. He was a nuclear engineer, after all, not a politician.

“It’s the only reason the company’s giving Dr. Larsen a shot. If her project works, and if the security concerns are taken care of, it could save us a considerable amount of money. In the tens of millions.”

Money. Everything was about money, and right now some of the major players were beginning to step up to the plate to take their shots; either to protect big oil for as long as possible by delaying nuclear permitting and stopping Eve, or by positioning themselves to look as if they were supporting her. Because if her final experiment actually worked, and electricity began flowing into the Eastern Interconnect, which supplied power to the eastern third of the country, the full project would be worth somewhere in the range of fifty trillion dollars, and possibly more by the time it was finished. Bigger than the Panama Canal by some order of magnitude. And that was some serious money.

Inside the tent Gail went through the automatic showers, foam baths and showers again, before stripping off her hazmat suit and placing it in one of the barrels, then she went through another series of showers, taking special care to clean under her fingernails and toenails.

When she was done she padded naked, except for a towel around her neck, into the locker room, and McGarvey was there smiling at her. And his being there took her breath away.

“Hi,” he said.

“Oh, shit,” she said, and she began to shiver, though it wasn’t cold, not realizing until just that moment how much she had missed him. She went to him and he held her until she began to calm down.

“Are you okay?” he asked.

“Now I am,” she told him honestly. “Where have you been? Otto wouldn’t tell me.”

“I came down from Atlanta last night in a convoy with some of Schalgel’s people, trying to find out what was coming and how soon it was going to happen. I figured that you and Eve were safe as long as you stuck it out here.”

“Eve is at the north end of the plant.”

“I know,” McGarvey said. “But you need to get dressed because we have a lot to do and only a couple of hours to get it done.”

“Is it going to happen tonight?”

“The word in the mob is that Schlagel will be showing up around six, and his people are being told to get ready for action.”

“Shit,” Gail said, pulling her clothes out of a locker. “What about the National Guard and the Bureau guys?”

“The Bureau will stay out of sight, and Colonel Scofield’s people are going to fire some guns into the air, but when crunch time comes they’re going to back off and let the crowd through.”

“To where?”

“All the way to the main gate in front of the South Service Building.”

Gail was slipping on her sneakers and tying the laces, but she stopped and looked up at McGarvey. “You figured out a way to stop him?”

McGarvey nodded. “He’s going to do it to himself.”

SEVENTY-SEVEN

It was ten minutes past two in the morning when DeCamp arrived at the Marina Tower apartments in Dubai and entered the six-digit security code at the entrance to the underground parking ramp. During the day an attendant was on duty, but after midnight a hardened steel link gate dropped down from the ceiling. Security codes were changed on a random basis, texted to tenants an hour before they went into effect.

This was to be the first test of the sergeant’s sources, and when the gate rose DeCamp’s skepticism was dampened somewhat. The problem had been the fantastical and dangerous nature of the sergeant’s informant.

“Money is a powerful motivator, Colonel,” Marks had offered as an explanation. “For some, the most powerful. And in this instance I had a hunch the woman’s position could be compromised by the very nature of her business dealings. The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission considers her a person of extreme interest. Something the UAE government became indifferent to once they had received help with civilian nuclear technology from the States. I thought that since she is all but a fugitive from her own country, perhaps she has stepped on other toes.”

“Devious,” DeCamp had said with admiration, and Marks had smiled.

“Ah, the ways of mortal man — or woman — on the path to Mammon,” Marks said. “My mum read the Bible to me till it came out of my ears. You can’t serve two masters. Both Luke and Matthew wrote it in their gospels.”

DeCamp had smiled inwardly. His mother, on the other hand, had only ever cared for a few things: where her next bottle of booze or fix were coming from and occasionally what particular man she was going to allow between her legs and why.

Only Martine had ever really cared.

DeCamp drove inside the garage and took the ramp three levels down, switching off the headlights before he reached the bottom, and holding up at the end of the lane that went directly to the penthouse parking slot and private elevator.

Marks had promised that the guard, normally stationed in a dark blue E-class Mercedes four positions on the right from the elevator, would be away from the building for exactly sixty minutes starting at 2:00 A.M.

The only other cars were a black Mercedes Maybach and a ten-year-old white Lamborghini Countach that had been totally restored at the factory in SantAgata Bolognese, belonging to Anne Marie, and a smoke silver Mercedes SL 65 AMG Black, belonging to Wolfhardt.

DeCamp drove the rest of the way down the lane and backed the Land Rover into the empty fourth slot. Shutting off the engine, he got out, reversed his jacket, screwed the silencer on to the end of the Steyr’s barrel, and walked to the elevator. He moved on the balls of his feet making absolutely no noise as he listened for a sound, any sound to warn him that he had been betrayed and that Marks had sold him out. But there was nothing.

The elevator car was there, which meant that the last person to use it had come down from the penthouse. Possibly the guard who’d left his post for whatever reason.

Moving to the side so as to be out of the line of fire, he pushed the call button and as the door slid open he swept his aim across the interior of the empty car.

One of the old jokes from the Battalion days was that if everything was going according to the operational plan, you were probably heading into a trap. The men didn’t care that special forces just about everywhere had the same jokes, Murphy’s Laws, because they fit.

The elevator stopped only at the lobby and the penthouse apartment and required a key card, which, as Marks had promised, was in its slot, ready to be swiped, and once again DeCamp paused. The setup was too easy, the information too pat, and every instinct was telling him to turn around and get out while he could. But then he remembered the look on Martine’s face when she knew that he was leaving again, and he could feel and taste her body when they made love, her exotic scent still in his nose.

He swiped the card, pressed the button for the penthouse, and the car headed up. At the most there should only be three people in the apartment: the Marinaccio woman, possibly one of her personnel security people, and Wolfhardt. The house staff did not live on site so there would be no danger of collateral damage, though for DeCamp that consideration had always been meaningless.

At the top the elevator slowed to a halt and the doors slid open onto a marble-tiled vestibule, an ornate Italianate fountain softly spewing water from the penis of a small boy.

Marks had given him a simple sketch diagram of the floor plan. The living room, dining room, conservatory and beyond, the kitchen and pantries were off to the left, while the five bedrooms were straight ahead and to the right. At this hour the woman would almost certainly be in her bedroom at the end of the hall.

He switched the elevator off, and gingerly stepped out into the vestibule as a dark figure came down the corridor from the left.

“Phillipe, what the hell are you doing up here?”

DeCamp turned, catching the image of a short, wiry man in jeans and a white T-shirt standing in the middle of the corridor five meters away reaching for something, and he shot him twice in the middle of the chest, driving him backwards with a soft grunt.

The sounds of the silenced shots, though muted, seemed loud even over the noise of the water fountain, and DeCamp waited for a full ten seconds to make sure that no one else was coming to investigate. But the penthouse remained quiet.

DeCamp went to the downed man to make sure he was dead, careful not to step in the blood, then hurried to the end of the hall where again he stopped for a moment to listen at the door to the woman’s bedroom suite before he went in.

The large sitting room was straight ahead, the sliding glass doors open to the night breezes off the Persian Gulf. The bedroom, walk-in closets, powder room, and bathroom were to the left.

Anne Marie’s head appeared over the back of the couch, and DeCamp almost shot her on instinct.

“We were expecting you, Mr. DeCamp,” she said, apparently completely at ease.

DeCamp stepped back into the deeper shadows by the door, trying to detect where Wolfhardt was hiding, checking firing angles and lines of sight.

“Gunther’s not here at the moment, and I have to assume that you have already disposed of my bodyguard Carlos, so it’s just you and me. May we talk, or do you intend to shoot me right now?”

“Why was my house destroyed and why was Martine murdered?” DeCamp asked. He’d almost said “my woman” instead of Martine.

“It was a dreadful mistake, believe me,” Anne Marie said. “I merely wanted your house leveled so that you would understand that I can’t countenance failure. We thought Ms. Renault was in Paris, and that when you returned you would first find her a safe house, and then come here. I don’t want the money returned, it’s yours to keep. But I was hoping to offer you redemption. I still am, if you are willing to lower your weapon and hold out your hand.”

Wolfhardt was close. DeCamp could almost feel the man’s presence like an approaching low pressure system bringing with it a storm. But Wolfhardt had been one of Sergeant Marks’s sources at the behest of the other source, Abdullah al-Naimi. Money indeed.

“Who killed her?” he demanded.

“It wasn’t Gunther himself, if that’s what you thought. He hired a pair of small-time hoods from Marseilles, and when he found out that they’d bungled the job he killed them both. It’s the only blood on his hands.” Anne Marie shrugged. “On my hands, too, I’m willing to admit. But then yours are none too tidy.”

“But you ordered it.”

“The house, not the woman,” Anne Marie said. “And now I want to make it up to you.” She stood up and came around the couch, dressed in a nearly sheer negligee, her legs outlined in the dim light coming from outside.

“How?”

“I’m worth a great deal of money—”

“How will you bring Martine back to life?”

“My dear boy, that is quite impossible,” Anne Marie said, almost laughing but stopped. “There are other women. The world is full of us.”

DeCamp had learned dispassion from Colonel Frazer and later it had been drummed into his head in the Battalion. The man who kills with precision but without passion is the man who will live to walk from the battlefield. But at this moment the blackest of rages that he’d ever imagined could hit a human being threatened to blot out nearly everything he’d ever learned on and off the battlefield.

Anne Marie, sensing some of this, raised a hand. “Don’t be a fool. Think of the money you’d be throwing away by killing me. Fabulous money beyond your wildest dreams.”

“Beware the anger of the legions,” DeCamp mumbled before he raised his pistol and fired one round, catching Anne Marie in the center of her forehead, driving her body backwards onto a glass coffee table that shattered.

“Well done,” Wolfhardt’s voice came from a speakerphone across the room. “She was telling the truth, it was an accident. And she was telling the truth about the money. May we talk?”

DeCamp stepped away from the door. “Where are you?”

“In the bedroom to your left. May we talk?”

“Yes.”

“Toss your pistol straight ahead over the back of the couch.”

DeCamp hesitated for just a second but did as he was told.

The hall door behind DeCamp opened and Wolfhardt, holding a 9mm SIG-Sauer pistol expertly in his left hand, came in. “Considering your abilities I thought it best to lie about where I was,” he said.

“An advantage,” DeCamp told him. “Now what?”

“She was telling the truth about Ms. Renault. We thought she was still in Paris. It wasn’t our intention to kill her.”

“Now what?” DeCamp asked again.

“More work, if you’ll cooperate.”

“For the Saudis? Al-Naimi?”

“Yes, and they have even more money than her,” Wolfhardt said, nodding toward Anne Marie’s body. “And a longer reach, and collectively a greater intelligence, more connections, more power here in the Middle East and everywhere else.”

“Including Washington?” DeCamp asked, wanting to keep Wolfhardt engaged.

The German laughed. “Of course. Why do you ask?”

“I was thinking about disappearing there.”

“You are a clever bastard,” Wolfhardt said. “What else are you carrying?”

DeCamp started to move away, drawing the German half a step forward, and he pulled out his KA-BAR knife with his right hand and turned back, parrying Wolfhardt’s gun hand, the single silenced shot popping into one of the sliding glass doors, and plunged the knife into the man’s chest, between the ribs, hitting the heart center mass.

He stepped back to avoid the initial gush of blood and looked into Wolfhardt’s eyes as the man sank dead to the floor.

“As I told your boss, beware the anger of the legions,” DeCamp said.

He left the penthouse, careful not to step in any of the blood, and took the elevator down to the garage. A few minutes later he was driving away from the building and heading for the highway back to Abu Dhabi, his work finished. Melbourne, he thought. He would go to ground in Australia where he would wait to see what shook out.

SEVENTY-EIGHT

McGarvey and Gail, dressed in hazmat suits, took a golf cart up A1A to the north end of the plant where Eve was inside one of the construction trailers poring over blueprints of the transformer yard with Townsend and Strasser. They looked up, startled, when the door opened.

“Do we have breakout up here?” Townsend demanded, and Eve looked as if she were a deer caught in some headlights.

McGarvey took off his hood. “You’re clean, I didn’t want to be recognized.”

“Mac,” Eve said with obvious relief and pleasure. “I was getting worried. Have you seen the crowd?”

“A hundred thousand people are on their way, and it’s why I’m here.”

Gail had taken off her hood. “Before anything happens we need to get you back up to Vero. But just for tonight.”

Townsend was angry. “What the hell are you talking about? Will there be another attack?”

“Schlagel is supposed to be here around six, and once he gets his people fired up there’s no telling what might happen,” McGarvey explained. “But Eve is one of his main targets, so I want her out of the line of fire. And if I could move the power plant I’d do that too.”

“Well, I’m sure as hell not leaving,” Townsend said, and Strasser nodded but he didn’t seem to be quite as enthusiastic.

“I can’t leave like this,” Eve said. “I mean how long is this supposed to go on? Vanessa is under repairs right now and InterOil is promising they should have her up here within a week. Are those crazy people going to keep on attacking? Killing more people?”

“It stops tonight,” McGarvey said.

“We’ve lost Lisa and Don already, and all the others. I’m not going to put more of my people in harm’s way,” Eve said, her voice rising.

“It ends tonight,” McGarvey said again, and it finally penetrated for her and for Townsend and Strasser.

“The National Guard isn’t going to stop a crowd that big, not unless they mean to block the road with tanks and actually fire into them,” Townsend said. “And getting Dr. Larsen up to Vero is out, because Schlagel’s people are blocking A1A from the north as well.”

“Actually Colonel Scofield is going to pull back and let them past the barriers.”

“Gives them access to South Service,” Gail said.

“And everywhere else,” Strasser said. “Including places that are contaminated. A lot of people will get hurt. We can’t allow that to happen under any circumstance.”

“I agree,” McGarvey said. “But at the right moment we’re going to have Schlagel dress in a hazmat suit and meet me in the South Service lobby.”

Townsend was skeptical. “What makes you think he’ll agree to something like that? What’s in it for him?”

“I’ve been a thorn in his side ever since the first attack here, and the attack on Vanessa Explorer.”

“Goddamnit, stop right there,” Townsend said. “Because if I’m reading you right, you’re telling us that Schalgel was somehow involved. And I’m just not buying it. The man wants to be president, and the media is all over him. He can’t take a dump without it being reported on.”

“He’s involved,” McGarvey said. “And I’m going to prove it tonight.”

“How?” Townsend asked.

And McGarvey explained it to them, getting the same initially incredulous reaction that Gail had given him.

“You think he’ll fall for a cheap stunt like that?” Townsend asked. “It makes no sense.”

“He’ll have no other choice. His ego will demand it.”

Townsend and Strasser weren’t seeing it, but Eve was.

“I’m a bigger issue to him than you are,” she said. “All the more reason for me to stick around.”

But McGarvey disagreed. “He’s getting desperate now that his people failed to stop your project.”

“And desperate people do desperate things,” Gail said. “Without us, the project goes on. But if something should happen to you, it’s over.”

Eve wasn’t happy, but she nodded. She’d seen firsthand what people opposed to her project were willing to do. “Still leaves us with the problem of how to get me out of here.”

“A police helicopter is coming up from Miami with a couple of FBI agents who’ll take you up to Vero and stick around until morning. If things go bad down here they’ll make sure that you get back to Washington.”

“If things go bad here tonight, we’ll have bigger problems than getting Dr. Larsen to safety, because it’ll mean that Schlagel has won and nothing will stop him,” Townsend said. “Everyone loses, including us.”

Strasser shook his head in wonderment. “One man against a mob of one hundred thousand?”

McGarvey smiled. “I’ll have Gail with me. Cuts the odds in half.”

“What about us?”

“Anywhere but South Service,” McGarvey said. “If he sees anyone else he’ll take it as a trap and won’t play along.”

SEVENTY-NINE

Twenty minutes after Eve was safely away with her minders, Mac and Gail were back at the decontamination tent preparing the hazmat suit Schlagel would wear if he took the bait, when Colonel Scofield radioed.

“You’re going to have company in about three minutes.”

McGarvey keyed the National Guard walkie-talkie. “Schalgel already?”

It was nearly five thirty, a half hour early, but already the crowd outside was huge at both the north and south barriers, and was growing exponentially by the minute, already stretching for miles in both directions. Widescreen hi-def video monitors and loudspeakers had been set up along the side of A1A at intervals of a couple hundred feet so the faithful would be able to see and hear the reverend’s sermon, as Fox called it: “Not from the Mount but from Ground Zero.” The media had shown up several hours ago, positioning their vans, bristling with microwave antennas and satellite dishes, at the south barrier, which apparently was where Schlagel would speak.

“Negative, it’s one of our birds from Miami transporting some of your people. Where do you want them?”

“I didn’t ask for any help,” McGarvey said, but he knew who it was and why he and his team were coming here. The problem was who had ordered it. “Have them set down on the road in front of the gate. But I want the chopper to stand by, I’m sending them back.”

“They said that they had orders.”

“I don’t care. Just make sure the pilot holds here.”

“Roger that,” Colonel Scofield replied.

And then they could hear the noise of the incoming helicopter over the growing sounds of the mob. “Is that who I think it is?” Gail asked.

“Unless I miss my guess it’s Carlos coming up from Miami, the question is who sent him here and why, because he sure as hell didn’t make that kind of a decision on his own.”

“It wasn’t Admiral French.”

“Someone higher up,” McGarvey said. “Probably Caldwell at DOE. Guy’s a grandstander.”

The helicopter was settling in for a landing, the rotor wash buffeting the decontamination tent, and McGarvey had to shout for Gail to hear him.

“Put on your hazmat suit, and go get him. Tell his team to stand by, and I don’t give a shit what objections he gives you. Tell him that someone from Washington wants to have a word before he sets up shop.”

Gail was almost laughing now, but she quickly donned the suit, and went outside. And less than three minutes later she was back with a fuming Carlos Gruen, who pulled up short when he saw McGarvey.

“I was told A1A was clean!” he shouted. “And what the fuck are you doing here in my situation site?”

“What situation is that, Carlos?” McGarvey asked.

Gruen looked nervously to Gail who’d taken off her hood. “Is this place clean or not?”

“It’s clean for now,” McGarvey said. “What are you doing here?”

“Preventing another attack.”

“On whose orders?”

Gruen puffed up self-importantly. “Deputy Secretary Caldwell asked that I personally take charge.”

McGarvey nodded. “Glad to have you,” he said. “But would you mind telling us how you plan to stop one hundred thousand people from marching into the plant and causing a lot of damage, but mostly to themselves when they start taking radiation?”

“Not my concern,” Gruen said. “All I’m interested in is the presence of radiological devices.”

“Do you actually think that Schlagel’s followers will try to smuggle a nuclear device into a wrecked nuclear power station?” Gail asked.

Gruen looked smug. “You could hide an entire platoon of saboteurs in plain sight inside a crowd that big, and the only way to tell who’s who and neutralize the threat is with our equipment. You of all people should know the drill, Ms. Newby,” the last said with sarcasm.

And Gail reacted, but McGarvey held her back. “What happens afterwards, when the rest of the crowd decides to tear you and your team apart?”

“Won’t happen.”

They were running out of time. Schlagel was due soon, and there was no telling how he might react, seeing a National Guard helicopter parked in the middle of the road. “Go back to Miami,” McGarvey told him. “Or at least go out to the perimeter of the crowd and stand by in case the situation gets out of hand.”

“Not a chance in hell. You two bungled the first attack on this facility, and I’m here to see that there isn’t a repeat.”

“You pompous ass,” Gail said angrily, and McGarvey waved her back, but she wouldn’t be silenced. “All you’re trying to do here is make a name for yourself.” She gestured toward the tent flap. “Have the media take notice, get your picture in the Times or the Post, maybe a sound bite on ABC. Thank God none of the other Rapid Response team leaders aren’t guys like you with their heads firmly planted up their rectums.”

“Screw you, Newby, you’re fired,” Gruen said and he pulled a cell phone out of his pocket, but before he could press the speed dial button McGarvey snatched it out of his hand.

“You can fire both of us later. But right now I want you to get the hell out of here.”

“This is my incident site, goddamnit!”

“I don’t have time,” McGarvey said and he pulled out his pistol.

Gruen’s eyes went wide and he stepped back a pace. “You’re a fucking maniac.”

“Absolutely unhinged.”

“No way in hell you’ll shoot me.”

“Are you sure?” McGarvey said, advancing but keeping his aim down and away.

“Kill me and you’ll go to jail for the rest of your life.”

“Makes you wonder what I’d get for a kneecap.”

Gruen looked to Gail but she shrugged, and he stepped back another pace.

McGarvey handed back the cell phone. “I want you to get the hell out of here right now. I just need one hour.”

“It could be all over by then,” Gruen said, almost plaintively.

And McGarvey almost laughed, because the man might be a jerk, but he was a jerk who was sincere in his desire to do good deeds and to get the recognition he figured he so richly deserved; he saw himself as the dedicated public servant. “I hope it is,” McGarvey said. “But if things go south here, you can come back and straighten out my mess. And I’ll even apologize, in public.”

“Me, too,” Gail said.

“We’ll see about that,” Gruen said and he left the tent and walked back to the helicopter and climbed aboard. Moments later the chopper lifted off and headed north along A1A, finally turning west over the Intracoastal Waterway to the mainland.

“He’ll probably have my job,” Gail said.

“Not if we pull this off,” McGarvey told her, but she grinned.

“And I meant to say, he’s welcome to it.”

McGarvey called Otto on the encrypted Nokia. “Where’s Schlagel?”

“In the back of a pickup truck about a hundred yards south of you on A1A,” Otto said. “I have a Keyhole bird on him. Louise is giving me the feed. Looks like Moses parting the Red Sea. Who was in the chopper that just left?”

“Gruen.”

“Surprise, surprise. What did you have to do to make him leave? Threaten to shoot him?”

“Something like that. How’s my feed?”

“Up and ready to roll. If you can get Schlagel to take the bait, everything he does and says inside the South Service lobby will connect not only to his public address system and hi-def screens, but to the satellite uplinks of every major television and radio network. The good reverend wants an audience, we’ll give him one.”

“Will he know what’s happening?”

“Depends on the volume of his speaker system. But if you can get him inside and keep him there it’s not likely he’ll hear that what he’s saying to you is being broadcast to his faithful. Knowing about last night in Orlando and having the video to prove it is gonna blow him away big-time.”

“No chance he suspected the setup?”

“Nada,” Otto said.

“That’s all I need to know,” McGarvey said. “We’re wiring his suit and mine right now.”

“One other thing. I just found out that Anne Marie Marinaccio and two of her people were assassinated in Dubai. No suspects. Thought you’d want to know.”

“DeCamp?”

“We’ll probably never know.”

EIGHTY

Schlagel’s magnified voice had started to roll over the crowd from the south a few minutes before McGarvey, dressed in a hazmat suit, the hood covering his head, darted across the street to the main gate, where he paused for just a moment.

According to Otto the mass exodus from all across the country was still flowing across Florida’s borders to this very spot with no end in sight even though Schlagel was on the verge of what was being hailed as his most important sermon ever. Hundreds, perhaps as many as one thousand boats stood offshore from the nuclear power station, some within shouting distance of the beach. A pair of Coast Guard cutters from Miami were standing by with orders not to interfere except in an emergency. Helicopters from the local affiliates of all the major television networks hovered overhead like paparazzi around royalty. The collective murmur of the crowd was that of an eager audience waiting for the show to begin.

A circus, McGarvey thought as he turned and went across the parking lot and inside the South Service Building’s lobby where he held up at the open door. He took off his hood and laid it on the bare concrete floor.

“You copy?” he asked.

“Yes,” Otto’s voice came back in his earpiece. “Are you in place?”

“I’m here,” McGarvey said. “Stand by.”

With the door open he could hear Schlagel’s voice, but it was difficult to make out what the man was saying, because the speakers were all turned toward the crowd. He closed the heavy glass doors and the noises from outside were sharply muted, all but inaudible.

He opened the doors again. “Good enough,” he said. “We have a shot, I think.”

“Only if his ego is as big as we think it is,” Otto came back. “And you’ll have a feed to your cell phone when you need it.”

“Have you ever known a man in his position whose ego wasn’t off the chart?” McGarvey asked rhetorically. “Gail?”

“Here.”

“He’s on his way.”

“I can hear him, he’s getting close,” Gail radioed.

“You need to be obsequious.”

“I know the word, doesn’t mean I have to like it.”

“Is Eric linked with us?” McGarvey asked Otto.

“Here,” Yablonski said from his computer center. “And I’ve known Gail a lot longer than you guys and I can tell you with near one hundred percent confidence that she might know the word, but there’s never been a subservient bone in her body.”

“Okay, people, showtime,” Otto broke in. “Gail, you ready?”

“I’m outside the hazmat tent, no suit,” Gail replied. “He just pulled up on the other side of the barrier, about fifty yards away. I’m on my obsequious way. As if any of you sexist pigs ever knew the meaning of the word.”

“Are you armed?” Yablonski asked.

“Negative. My magazine only holds seventeen rounds, not a hundred thousand. This is Kirk’s show not mine.”

McGarvey could hear the strain in her voice.

Schlagel was shouting something but his words were no less clear now than they had been earlier. But from McGarvey’s vantage point at the lobby doors he could make out the reverend’s figure standing above the heads of the vast crowd, the nervous National Guard troops who were already starting to edge away, and Gail in a light sweatshirt and jeans walking up the middle of A1A.

“I can’t make out what he’s saying,” McGarvey radioed.

“He’s thanking his faithful for making this important pilgrimage,” Gail said. “God’s righteous work. ‘Let it begin here and now.’”

Then Schlagel’s voice was being picked up by Gail’s comms unit, the microphone of which was concealed inside her NNSA dark blue windbreaker, but what he was saying made little or no sense to McGarvey, something about swift justice and then peace and bliss would cover the land as if “directed by a booming voice come down from the heavens.”

“Okay, I’m hearing him now,” McGarvey said. “Does he have a security detail?”

“Four of them. Looks like they know what they’re doing. Sharp.”

“He has to come in alone.”

“Reverend Schlagel!” Gail shouted. “Reverend!”

Someone yelled something that McGarvey couldn’t make out, and suddenly there was a lot of noise, more people shouting, and what sounded like scuffling, heavy breathing.

“Just a moment, just a moment!” Schlagel shouted.

“Gail Newby, National Nuclear Security Administration. Someone here from Washington needs to speak with you, sir. It’s extremely urgent.”

Gail’s comms unit was picking up other voices, but they were garbled, and McGarvey could only make out a word here and there, something about risk, no necessity, no reason for it.”

“I can personally guarantee your safety, sir,” Gail said.

Someone, maybe Schalgel, asked who it was.

“I’m not at liberty to say.”

“The hell with that.”

“He’s indirectly from the White House, sir. And as I said, this is extremely urgent. National importance. In fact he’s begging you for your help.”

“Nice touch,” McGarvey said.

“I’m not armed,” Gail said. “Besides the National Guard is here along with the media. You’d be perfectly safe.”

“Where is this meeting to be held?” Schalgel asked, his voice suddenly clear.

“The lobby of the South Service Building,” Gail said. “You’d have to wear a hazmat suit, but the radiation is minimal, and the meeting will only take a minute or two.”

“This representative from President Lord is waiting for me now?”

“He took the bait,” Otto said.

“Yes, sir,” Gail said. “He arrived just a few minutes ago, aboard a National Guard helicopter. You might have seen it.”

Schlagel’s voice became indistinct again, mixed with other urgent voices, but it was clear enough in McGarvey’s earbud that the reverend was arguing with his minders. And it only lasted for a minute.

“I have a sermon to finish, so let’s make this quick,” Schlagel said.

“Just this way, sir, to the decontamination tent,” Gail said.

Someone else had taken up the microphone and was speaking to the crowd now, though McGarvey could no longer make out what was being said as Gail and Schlagel headed past the barrier.

“Okay, he’s taken the bait,” Otto said. “Mac, are you set?”

“Yes, but don’t enable the links until ten seconds after you hear me say, I’ll close the doors.”

“Roger that.”

McGarvey watched from the relative darkness just inside the lobby but it seemed to take forever before Gail and Schlagel appeared on the roadway and went into the decontamination tent. And even longer before the reverend, dressed in a full hazmat suit, came out alone and without hesitation strode across A1A and through the main gate.

“Okay, showtime,” McGarvey said. He pulled on his hood and stepped outside.

Schlagel pulled up short about ten yards away, maybe sensing that something was wrong. “Who are you?” he shouted.

“I’ll explain inside!” McGarvey shouted back.

“Why here, like this?”

“Privacy, Reverend. No one will bother us here.”

Schlagel didn’t like the situation, it was clear from his suddenly tense body language. He looked back the way he had come, and he half turned.

“Please,” McGarvey said, letting a trace of fear creep into his voice. “Sir, I’m begging you, on behalf of the president. Just hear me out. My God, you can’t begin to realize how important this is.”

“To me?”

“For the entire nation,” McGarvey said. “Only you can help now.”

Schlagel hesitated a moment longer, but then as McGarvey had counted on, his ego got the better of his judgment and he came the rest of the way. “I’m all ears,” he said. “Whoever the hell you are.”

At the steps he turned and waved to his people, and then followed McGarvey inside.

“Thank you, sir,” McGarvey said. “I’ll close the doors, so we’ll have a little more privacy.”

“If you think it’s necessary,” Schalgel said.

When the doors were closed, McGarvey turned around, took off his hood, and dropped it on the floor.

“You’re live,” Otto said.

Schlagel was taken aback at first, but then he took off his hood and smiled, almost in admiration. “You son of a bitch,” he said. “Lord didn’t send you. This is one of your schemes. And what now? Are you going to shoot me?”

“Wouldn’t dream of it,” McGarvey said.

“Glad to hear it,” Schlagel said, still amused. “But, if you don’t mind, my people are waiting for me.”

“Your choice, Mr. Deutsch, but you might want to stick around for a couple of minutes, just to hear me out.”

Schlagel was suddenly wary, but not concerned. “Now that’s a name I haven’t heard for a very long time.”

“We have your background in Milwaukee, as well as your real service record — cigarettes, gambling, sex.”

“Youthful indiscretions, along with my arrest and incarceration in California. All of which brought me face-to-face with Jesus Christ our Savior, who I took into my soul and to whom I promised my life’s works.”

“Including the Marinaccio Group in Dubai?”

Schlagel said nothing.

“It’s an oil futures hedge and derivative fund and you know the woman who runs it. Anne Marie Marinaccio.”

“Never heard the name.”

“Then you probably don’t know that she and two of her people were assassinated last night,” McGarvey said. “No one knows what’s to become of her holdings.”

“It has nothing to do with me.”

“You’re heavily invested in the fund, to the tune of at least fifty million dollars, probably a lot more. We know that much. We even have your account numbers. Your ministry’s funds. Your church and network are big, but that’ll be a major hit.”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” Schlagel said. “Nothing but a cheap trick, a smear campaign. And all this time I thought the bastard in the Oval Office was above this kind of crap.”

“I think we can come up with the names of a number of mistresses and whores you’ve been involved with over the past few years.”

Schlagel looked over his shoulder, but then shook his head. “In the past, before I took Jesus into my heart,” he said.

“Offshore accounts in the Caymans and Channel Islands.”

“Liar,” Schlagel said.

“How about the International Bank of Commerce in Dubai? You have money there, too.”

“If you had any proof of that sort of nonsense you would have turned it over to the FBI by now. Lord would have made sure of it.”

“Did you know that the bank funds terrorist groups like al-Quaeda? I wonder what your faithful flock would say if they knew.”

“Listen to me, you prick, if you and your pals in the Bureau had any proof you would have arrested me by now.”

“Maybe you should take a look at this,” McGarvey said and he opened his cell phone and held it up. “Orlando, Mariott, last night.” The prostitute Otto had arranged was twenty-three but she looked sixteen, and the hidden cameras the techs from Special Projects had set up caught everything in high-def living color; including the reverend, the girl, and the sounds of their sex, which at one point had gotten a little rough, almost so much so that Otto had been about to order the girl be rescued.

Schlagel didn’t care. “The recording was fabricated, so go ahead and show it to whoever you want. But let me tell you shit like that is done all the time. Christ, we even have the facilities for parlor tricks like that and a lot more out at McPherson. What do you think we are, a bunch of Kansas Bible Belt hicks? But you did hit the nail on the fucking head when you called them my ‘faithful flock,’ because that’s exactly what they are. Faithful, because I molded them that way, and a flock of sheep because that’s how I lead the dumb bastards.”

“It can’t be easy, being in the spotlight like that.”

“You can’t imagine how easy it is.”

McGarvey nodded. “I have to hand it to you, Reverend, you’re good. But if you mean to get those people out there excited enough to storm this place a lot of them could get hurt.”

“If one hundred die tonight, if one thousand are wounded and horribly maimed either by radiation or by National Guard bullets, it will only advance my cause.”

“Your cause?”

“Prove to the world that I alone have the vision to take us out of this terrible mess we’re in.”

“And you think your flock will believe it?”

“They’ll believe anything I tell them,” Schlagel said.

McGarvey went to the doors and threw them open. “Then go, Reverend, tell them,” he said, and someone had turned one of the loudspeakers around, so his voice echoed off the side of South Service. Along with the moans and cries of the prostitute and Schlagel’s grunts.

“What?” Schlagel said, his voice booming. “You son of a bitch,” he said, his words rolling over the crowd. “Lies!” he shouted, brushing past McGarvey and walking out the door to his waiting flock.