Act of Revenge

Flash forward

Ghadab hunkered down against the stack of empty sacks, pretending to be sleeping. He was in the back of an empty vegetable truck, being ferried out of Syria with a half-dozen other men. They didn’t know who he was, a precaution against being betrayed. His fellow travelers were likewise guarded about their identities; he assumed most were Caliphate deserters, though they presented themselves as simple refugees.

They were a ragged, depressed bunch. They’d spent most of the past half hour complaining. But that was a typical pastime of men no matter what their condition.

“The war is lost,” said one of the men. “The dictator will never be overthrown.”

“The Iranians are to blame. Them and the Russians.”

“I blame the Americans. They could have ended it.”

Another man spit loudly at this. “The Americans cannot finish a meal, let alone a war. They leave and expect others to pay the bill.”

“As we have.”

“I wish someone would serve them justice. Kill them with their drones.”

“Explode them into space. That is what the Caliphate wished.”

“What will happen now that they are defeated?”

“The Islamic State will not be defeated.”

“They have been. All of their cities fall. Aleppo is next.”

Ghadab resisted the temptation to argue. It was difficult, though.

But there was truth in what they said. The immediate strategic position would not hold. The dream of creating a state on earth before the end days was impossible to fulfill.

Surely, he had felt that. He had never had that ambition.

The men in the truck continued to talk. Maybe they weren’t deserters after all — they seemed too critical of the Islamic State. It was harder and harder to pretend not to hear.

The truck came to a sudden stop. Ghadab felt someone kick him in the shoe.

“Up, up,” said a voice in a half whisper. “The border is a half mile away. There are guards. Walk with the others to the east, and you will be safe enough.”

Ghadab rubbed his eyes and slowly unfolded himself from the truck bed.

“Go with God,” the driver told him after he jumped down. “But go. I don’t need any trouble tonight.”

“God be with you,” Ghadab told him. “And don’t despair. Great things will happen for all of us. There will be salvation.”

“Not in my lifetime,” said the driver, walking away.

71

Chelsea screamed for Peter to follow, but her shouts were drowned out by the exploding bombs. Aiming for the entrance to the bunker, the Russian aircraft dropped two large unguided or “dumb” bombs; both missed, but not by much — the first hit the roof above the second barrier, and the second struck a few yards away. Already weakened by the TOW missiles, the roof there collapsed; a hurricane of dust and debris knocked everyone nearby back through the hall.

Chelsea flew against Rosen, who himself hit the wall. Cushioned, she rolled over, coughing and blinded. All but two of the battery-powered LED lamps they’d placed in the hall were smashed; the light from the others was not enough to penetrate the dust-filled dimness.

“You OK?” It was Johnny.

“I’m OK,” she said. “Where are you?”

“Here.” He patted her leg. “Rosen?”

The team leader grunted. A flashlight pierced the darkness. “Johnny?”

“Here.”

“Rosen?” asked Turk.

“Uh.”

The beam of light found Rosen’s face, a dark grimace of pain. Christian came out of the room behind Turk. He pulled a small med pack from Rosen’s leg.

“No morphine,” managed Rosen.

“You got two compound fractures,” said Christian. “You’re gettin’ stuck.”

He jabbed the needle home.

The rest of the team had taken shelter in the rooms before the bombs hit and, except for minor bruises and a few cuts, were all right. Johnny, rising slowly, took out his own flashlight to lead the way out. Chelsea followed.

They got only to the first bend. The bombs had knocked down the weakened structure, trapping them inside.

“Son of a bitch,” he muttered.

Those were the last words anyone said for a few minutes. Without orders, the team silently formed a chain and began removing pieces of debris from the pile now blocking their way. The narrow hall felt claustrophobic, the dust still thick in the air.

Suddenly Chelsea threw herself on the pile.

“Help!” she screamed. “Help!”

“Calm down,” said Johnny, trying to pull her back. “It’s OK. We’ll get out.”

“You don’t understand,” she insisted. “Help! Peter, get us out.”

She was talking to the robot outside. Many of its trials were aimed at rescuing people from collapsed buildings and earthquakes.

Within seconds, they heard scraping from the other side of the wall.

Even with Peter’s help, it took two hours to get a hole big enough cleared for Chelsea to crawl through; another half hour of work was needed to make the passage big enough to slide Rosen out. By then, Johansen had arrived with two more vehicles and the rest of the team, except for Krista and Thomas Yellen, back at the base.

The Russian fighters had torn up the trucks and most of the gear pretty well; they’d also inadvertently killed the terrorists the team had taken from the bunker, who’d been handcuffed in the backs of the trucks.

A shame, thought Johansen — not because of the loss of life, but the intelligence they might have provided.

With the attack on Palmyra proceeding to the south, Johansen didn’t want to take the time to sort the debris into usable and nonusable; they piled everything they could into the backs of the two trucks they’d come down with, then blew the others up.

By the time they got back to their temporary base in Kurdistan, Krista and Yellen had secured the gear they were taking in a large mobile cubicle. Two Ospreys were already en route, tasked to bring them across the border to Turkey, where a C-17 was waiting.

Johnny and Chelsea sat next to each other on the fabric bench at the side of their Osprey as they took off.

“Hell of a day,” said Chelsea.

“Yeah,” said Johnny.

“Do it again?” she asked.

“Not in a million years.”

72

Ghadab smelled the destruction before he could see it. It was the scent of sand pulverized and burned in a pit of old, dry wood soaked with kerosene.

The sun had gone down, but the sky beyond seemed even darker than normal as they crested the last hill above the plain where the city sat. A jumble of black lumps pockmarked with red flares and ribbons of yellow lay across the horizon.

“Take the west highway,” Ghadab told the driver.

“That way may not be safe,” said the man. “The apostates’ attack—”

“It’s faster.”

The driver complied, his foot pressing the gas pedal to the floor nearly the entire way. Yet even as they neared the city, Ghadab knew in his heart that the worst had occurred. He could feel the loss already, even as he fought against acknowledging it.

He also knew the outcome of the battle had been decided, though for now the city remained in the hands of the faithful. Caliphate fighters trudged north along the barren fields at the north end of the city, heads hung low, weapons gone.

“Traitors!” he yelled.

He took out his pistol and rolled down the window of the car, shooting at several as they passed. Two fell.

The driver hurried on. A row of houses in the northern residential area had caught fire after one of the bombing attacks. Now out of control, the inferno blocked off part of the road, flames shooting sideways, scorching two abandoned trucks. A small crowd milled around the edges of the flames, watching their homes being incinerated. The reddish-yellow hue of the fire made them look like aliens, marooned on a planet unfit for life.

They took a shortcut, picking a way around debris and burned-out cars before getting back to the highway. A few minutes later, they came across a pickup truck parked across the road. As they stopped, a dozen men surrounded their vehicle.

Ghadab jumped from the car and started yelling, demanding to know who their leader was. A slim youth parted the crowd. He was a brash sort, displaying the anxious but cocksure bravado of someone who’d never actually tasted battle.

Ghadab did his best not to sneer in the boy’s face.

“I am Ghadab min Allah,” he said. “I have business at the town center.”

“Prove you are the Prophet’s favored son,” said the young man.

Ghadab glanced at the others. They were even younger.

“And what proof would you accept?” demanded Ghadab.

The kid held his ground. “Where was your last target?”

“Anyone could answer that,” snapped Ghadab. “What is your name?”

“Saed. From Tunisia.” Finally, there was a note of humility in his voice.

“We attacked Boston,” said Ghadab. “Before that, Paris, Belgium — I was fighting when you were in shorts.”

“I recognize you now, Commander. Forgive me.”

“Have the apostates reached the city yet?” Ghadab asked, softening his tone.

“No, Commander,” said Saed. “They’re not yet at the ruins. We are planning a counterattack.”

“Good.”

Ghadab got back in the car.

“Do you need an escort?” asked the man, following him.

“We know the way.”

“God is great,” replied Saed.

His heart is in the right place, thought Ghadab, deciding not to hold the young man’s youth against him. If we had a thousand more like him, things would be different.

No one stopped them the rest of the way. In the meantime, the government shelling increased, until at last a fresh shell shook the city every ninety seconds. Ghadab could not see where the shells were landing, but if experience was any guide, the Syrian army would systematically destroy the residential areas, aiming to weaken the resolve of the fighters as well as produce as many casualties as they possibly could. That meant the attack would be aimed first at the south and the west, gradually moving east.

Ghadab agreed with the strategy. The only way to defeat an enemy was to wipe him off the face of the earth; extinguish him and remove all trace, so that others would not follow his apostasy. This was a thing Westerners didn’t understand. Wars didn’t end until the last enemy was vanquished. Generations might die in the meantime.

A bomb had landed near the entrance to the hotel, cratering much of the road. Ghadab’s driver saw it only at the last minute, stopping so close that the front-right tire was poised over the edge.

“Be careful, Commander, when you get out,” he told Ghadab.

Ghadab grabbed his AK-47. “Find a better place to sit and wait for me.”

The guards who normally manned the front door were not here. Ghadab strode inside, steeling himself against what he might find. Night was falling and the power had been cut in much of Palmyra, but here a backup generator powered enough lights that the interior, though a gloomy yellow, could be easily navigated.

Ghadab walked through the lobby, holding the gun by the grip as if he were planning to fire, his finger against the trigger. The khanjar was sheathed in his belt below his shirt. He felt for it as he approached the stairs. He stopped, shouldered the rifle on its strap against his back, and took out the knife. He held it in his right hand as he started upward. It felt heavy and strong, warm.

A body lay folded across the rail at the top of the stairs. Ghadab pulled up the face and recognized the man as one of the guards from the front. His clothes were soaked with blood, his eyes the vacant orbs of a man whose soul had fled to heaven.

Another body lay a few feet away. Ghadab stepped over this one and continued to his room.

The door was open. He stopped and closed his eyes.

Later, he wished he had said a prayer before opening them. But that would not have changed what he saw, what he knew he would see: Shadaa, lying in a pool of blood, dead.

His love’s destiny, dead.

Ghadab stood in the room, shoes in his lover’s blood, for several minutes. Finally, he backed out, walking like a robot down the hall and down the stairs. As he reached the landing, he heard something moving behind him. He spun and came face-to-face with one of the waiters who had served him.

“Who did this?” Ghadab demanded. “Who killed the woman?”

The man shook his head.

“Who were they?!”

“Intruders—”

Ghadab sprung at him, pinning him against the wall. He put his knife to the man’s throat. “Who?”

“I hid in the closet,” stuttered the waiter. “They spoke English.”

“Americans?”

The waiter didn’t know.

“Where is the video?” demanded Ghadab. “To record.” He pointed to the camera at the far end of the hall. “Where is it? Show me.”

The man didn’t move. Ghadab withdrew the knife, then grabbed his arm and pulled him away from the wall. The waiter looked toward the stairs.

“Is it upstairs?” demanded Ghadab.

“Y-yes.”

Ghadab threw the man toward the steps. The waiter was not small, but Ghadab felt as if he had gained the strength of a dozen men; he could have hoisted him with one hand.

“Don’t stop! Go!” yelled Ghadab.

Still tentative, the waiter moved up the stairs slowly, delicately stepping around the dead man and pulling a frame of a decorative textile off the wall, revealing a tape machine. The vacant eyes of the guard stared at them both.

The waiter started to leave. Ghadab grabbed him before he took a second step.

“I have to go to my family,” said the waiter.

“Go to them all,” said Ghadab as he slit the man’s throat.

73

Louis Massina clenched his fists as the airplane touched down on the long runway, trying unsuccessfully to tamp down his excitement. He was happy his people were home, and proud of the work they’d done, and that he’d done, at least by extension.

It seemed to take an eternity for the leased 757 to come around to the hangar, where Massina was waiting with a group of CIA and Air Force officials. No brass band, no flag ceremony greeted the plane as it came to a stop. No one rolled out a red carpet.

The families of the men and women aboard hadn’t even been invited. In fact, as far as most of the families knew, their loved ones were still in Arizona somewhere, training for some athletic competition. Most would never know anything about the mission.

The plane’s rear ramp settled to the tarmac.

Johnny was the third man off the plane. Chelsea followed, joking with Johansen as they came off.

“How are you feeling?” Massina asked Johnny.

“Good. Thank you for the vest.”

“I’m sure you would have been all right without it.”

“Lou!” Chelsea practically knocked him over, hugging him hard.

Massina patted her back awkwardly, surprised and touched by her greeting.

“I’m so glad you’re safe,” he told her. “I’m very glad.”

Waiting to be fully debriefed before heading home, the team stayed in a guarded barracks on the base. Massina, meanwhile, headed for a nearby hotel. He had arranged to take Johnny and Chelsea back on the plane he’d leased — a concession to convenience he felt they both deserved.

He’d just gotten to his suite when Johansen called.

“I wonder if we could have a drink,” asked the CIA officer.

“Sure,” said Massina. “Pick your spot.”

An hour later they met at a club near the San Antonio Museum of Art. Massina, surprised to find that he had gotten there first, ordered a bottle of San Pellegrino.

“That’s as strong as you drink?” asked Johansen, sitting down just as the sparkling water arrived.

“I have a few calls to make later.”

Johansen ordered a double Scotch.

“To your continued success,” offered Massina when the drink came. Johansen raised his glass, but he had a frown on his face.

“We didn’t get him,” he said. “We came up short.”

“I’m sorry,” said Massina. He already knew that. “But you got his headquarters.”

“Yeah. We’ll see what value that is.” Johansen took a slug from the Scotch — it was Dewar’s — took another, then finished it. He pointed to a waiter, signaling for a refill. “The Russians complicated things. And the Syrians. They’re still fighting there.”

Johansen continued for a few minutes, forecasting the fate of ISIS — it would be chased from Syria and much of Iraq; the so-called Caliphate would collapse. But it would continue to export terrorism around the world. Its violence would live on.

And Ghadab?

It was possible, Johansen thought, that he had died in the attack on the city. “We’ll know eventually. Hopefully before another attack.”

“I still want to help get him.”

“I appreciate that.” Johansen’s refill arrived.

“While you were gone, I gave your liaison information that we had tracked down on our friend,” said Massina. “She didn’t seem all that… enthusiastic.”

“Probably not.”

“Why?”

“Some people in the Agency think we’re using you to get around the law,” said Johansen bluntly.

“Are you?”

Johansen didn’t answer at first. He was clearly tired, his eyelids hanging heavy. “My feeling is that we have to get things done, by whatever steps are possible. Nothing that you, or your people, did was illegal. But if it came to that, and it meant saving lives, I’d be all for it.”

“So would I,” said Massina.

The two sat in silence for a few moments. Massina sipped his water and looked around at the mostly empty club. Two women were gossiping in the corner, stealing glances at a young man at the bar.

“They were looking at cities around the world,” said Massina. “Data requests. Boston was one.”

“They’ve hit Boston already.”

“True. And there were résumés, student résumés. Physics Ph.D.s.”

“Interesting.”

“She told you none of this?”

“I haven’t been back.”

Massina nodded.

“Director Colby truly appreciates your help,” said Johansen. “And continued help. Your assets were extremely valuable in the field.”

“My people or my machines?”

“Both.” Johansen flagged down the waiter.

“That’s a lot of Scotch,” suggested Massina.

“I have to make up for lost time.”

74

After the C-17, even the middle seat in the last row of a 787 would have seemed luxurious to Chelsea.

The thickly cushioned leather seat in the Citation X was a long way from that.

“Champagne?” asked the attendant, giving her a big smile as he leaned down. He had a half-filled glass in one hand and a bottle in the other.

“Why not?”

He handed her the glass. “Should I leave the bottle?”

It was tempting, but she passed.

“For dinner, salmon or steak?” he asked. “Or both?”

“Salmon,” she told him.

He nodded and moved on.

Good-looking guy, thought Chelsea. He could be a movie star.

Not as good-looking as Johnny, nor as tall, or as brave.

No one could be as brave as he is. To come back after the accident? To be a hero?

Johnny was sleeping in his seat across the aisle. She looked over at him, studying his baby face. So peaceful.

I wish I could sleep like that.

Chelsea dug into her bag for one of her sudoku magazines. She’d barely looked at any of them while she was gone.

Flipping to the middle of the magazine, she picked out a medium-hard puzzle and began working it, only to lose interest less than halfway through. Leaning back in her seat, she thought about what she’d been through over the past few weeks — not just in Syria, but at home in Boston.

I’m not that scared anymore.

Was I even scared in that room? I knew I’d survive it somehow.

“Excuse me, sir,” said the attendant, tapping Johnny on the leg. “We’re going to be landing in five minutes.”

Johnny opened one eye.

“Thanks.”

“You, uh, the leg’s all bandaged?”

“Yeah, it’s got a couple of holes in it,” said Johnny. “I’ll have to wait until I get back to get some new skin.”

The attendant went away flustered. Amused, Johnny got up to stretch.

“What are you watching?” he asked Chelsea. She’d turned on the TV that was in front of her seat.

“Soccer.”

“Not baseball?” He glanced at his watch. “I think the Sox are playing.”

“Not for another hour,” she told him. “I checked.”

“You like baseball?”

“Sometimes.”

“Maybe we could catch some of the game,” he suggested. “After we land.”

“At Fenway?”

“Too late for that. It’ll be sold out. But at a bar or something.”

“You’re not tired?”

“A little. But I don’t feel like going home.”

“Please, sir,” said the attendant from the front of the plane. “We’re about to land.”

“I wouldn’t mind it,” said Chelsea. “It might be fun.”

Johnny took her to Halligan’s, a small pub a few blocks from his house. Like just about every bar in Boston, it was Irish and it was red — Red Sox, that was.

But unlike many, it had a section of quiet booths where you could sit and watch the game in relative quiet. Given that the Sox were playing the Rangers, who were mired in a two-for-fourteen stretch, the place was only about half-full.

The only problem for Johnny was that Chelsea had mentioned the game to Massina, and then to Bozzone, who’d driven to the airport to pick them up. She’d invited both to come along, and to Johnny’s great surprise, they accepted.

So it was the four of them. At least the Red Sox were winning.

No one seemed in a particularly talkative mood until the fifth inning, when, with the Sox up by five, Juan Fernandez was called out on a pitch way out of the strike zone. Fernandez argued and was immediately tossed from the game.

“The umpire was dead wrong,” said Massina. “Look at the replay. The ball was almost a foot off the plate.”

“Why don’t they call balls and strikes electronically?” asked Chelsea.

Massina stiffened. “No. You can’t do that.”

“It’s easy.”

“Doesn’t matter. You can’t do that.”

“Why not? Then there would be no arguments.”

“It’s a human game. Some things computers shouldn’t do.”

Johnny actually agreed with Massina — he wasn’t even a fan of review — but he found himself arguing on Chelsea’s side.

“The strike zone changes with every ump,” Johnny pointed out. “It’s so inconsistent it’s ridiculous.”

“You need space for the human element,” insisted Massina. “It’s a game.”

“A precise strike zone is still human,” said Johnny.

“You need a little leeway,” said Massina.

“Otherwise, there’s nothing to argue about, right?” said Bozzone. “And that’s half the fun of baseball.”

They stayed until the seventh inning. Johnny declined the offer of a ride home — he only lived a few blocks away.

He was disappointed, though, that Chelsea didn’t agree to walk as well. Admittedly, she’d have had a good hike if she did.

He would have carried her on his back.

“What do we do with your bag?” asked Bozzone. It was a large suitcase, though only about half-filled by his dirty clothes and two books he’d brought to read during training but never got around to.

“I can take it,” Johnny said. “Or if you want, if you could, you could leave it at my door.”

“Are you sure?” asked Massina.

“Yeah.”

“You sure you want to walk?” asked Chelsea.

“Yup.” There was no sense backing down.

“We’ll see you next Monday,” said Massina.

Johnny watched them drive off.

I need to ask her on a real date, he told himself. I need a real plan. If I’m serious about dating her.

Gotta give it a shot.

Johnny got a half a block before deciding he didn’t really feel like going home. He turned around and went back to the pub, standing at the bar to watch the rest of the game.

75

Ghadab had never been a foot soldier, but he recognized a losing battle when he saw one. The brothers manning the positions on the southern side of the city moved with the slackness of men half-dead. They dragged themselves back and forth, stopping occasionally to see if they could find a target, but never shooting, as the barbarian government troops stayed far outside of their range. The Syrian army let the artillery do its work, shelling the city with various intensity during the day, easing off at night, though never letting more than a half hour go by without a shot.

The target wasn’t the defenses but rather the residential areas behind them. The government aimed to wear down resistance, terrify the inhabitants, and unsettle whatever patterns of daily life remained. They had done this in Homs when Ghadab was there, spending weeks bombarding the city. That was one thing they got right: they knew war was a corrosive that must be applied endlessly.

Ghadab knew this, too. And for the first time in his life, he knew how desolate it felt.

Shadaa.

Such pain over a woman seemed completely unimaginable — not unlikely but rather impossible. The fact that she had been a slave, an insignificant piece of driftwood tossed to him by the hierarchy, made it even more unseemly. Yet her death wrenched him.

She was a diversion from his path. Ghadab told himself that God had taken her because she was a threat to his destiny. But it was hard to convince himself of this.

For the first time in his life he had felt love. Now he felt pain, true pain.

And something else: doubt.

Doubt in the prophecy. Doubt in the inevitability of Armageddon. Doubt in his role in bringing it to pass.

And what did that doubt mean but the ultimate heresy: doubt in God.

The bunker had been ransacked, all of his men killed. Much of his gear had been taken. There had been a battle; the place when he arrived still smelled of a putrid gas and gunpowder. He had no definitive way of knowing who had attacked, but he thought it must have been the Americans, seizing on the raid for cover to hit him.

They had missed him, but gotten everyone else close. Perhaps even the African, as Ghadab hadn’t seen him since he had gone to see the Caliph.

Walking among the men who manned the city’s defenses, Ghadab considered the idea of staying among them and becoming a martyr with the first assault. It would be an easy thing: stand up and fire as the heretics came on. Stand until a bullet found him.

Would she have wanted that?

More important, did God want that?

The commanders whom Ghadab met gazed at him with the same confused expressions of the soldiers on the front line: dazed, they were so shaken as to be incapable of logical thought. But the most unsettling thing was seeing that same gaze in the mirror when he returned to the apartment he had commandeered.

It was only by the strangest coincidence that Ghadab found the African. He was in the middle of his thoughts, sitting cross-legged on the floor, when two men with rifles barged in. Ghadab, his own AK next to him, looked up at them.

A man walked in behind them. It was dark, and his complexion was dark, and at first Ghadab did not realize who it was. Only when the African spoke did he know that God had sent him.

“You! I thought you were dead!” The African’s shout filled the room.

“I am not dead,” said Ghadab, rising.

He absorbed the African’s embrace, enduring it, but not returning it.

“Are you all right?” asked the African. “You have blood on you?”

“I’m all right.”

“Have you been to the bunker? How did you escape?”

“I was waiting for the Caliph when they attacked.”

“They think you are dead. Your name was added to the scroll of the martyrs.”

“It will belong there soon.”

“No. You must go to the Caliph. He will have something for you.”

Ghadab said nothing.

“You must use your talents to strike back,” urged the African. “You must carry on the battle. Take it to their homes.”

“I’m tired,” said Ghadab.

He meant only that he wanted to sleep, but the African interpreted it to mean that he wanted to leave the fight.

“You mustn’t give up. You have to avenge our brothers. You have to bring about the prophecy.”

“Yes.”

“Are there others here? We’d like to get rest.”

“There’s no one here but me,” said Ghadab.

“Do you mind?”

He gestured that they should go right ahead. Each man took a separate room. Ghadab went back to sitting, thinking. It was not logical thought — no plan entered into his mind, no list, no theme. He saw the walls in front of him, lit by the afternoon sun.

Eventually he heard snores coming from the rooms. Only then did he know what he must do.

He slit the first guard’s throat through his beard, plunging the khanjar in an awkward slashing jab just as the man seemed to stir. He was more thoughtful taking the second — he carried a pillow with him to muffle any noise. Propping it near his head, he delicately lifted the man’s beard with his left hand and sliced deep, hard, and fast with his right. Immediately his victim began to choke, blood gurgling; Ghadab pressed down with the pillow over his face until the convulsions stopped.

The African lay on his stomach. Ghadab raised the knife, then realized he wanted the man awake, to see his fate.

He was heavy.

“Turn, you bastard,” Ghadab growled, pushing him over. “Turn over and wake up.”

One eye opened. Then the other. The African started to raise his head, his neck meeting the knife.

“You didn’t protect her. It was your duty.” Ghadab plunged the khanjar so hard it broke through the African’s windpipe, nearly severing his head. Blood spurted and flooded and rushed. “You didn’t protect her. And for that, you die.”

76

Johansen stopped at the Starbucks on the main floor of the building before going up to see the Director. He’d already drunk the equivalent of a pot and a half that morning, but needed the caffeine — he hadn’t slept more than four hours total since coming off the plane from Turkey.

“Venti latte with eight shots.”

The barista didn’t bat an eye. A latte with the equivalent of eight espressos mixed in was not out of the ordinary here.

The coffee smell filled the elevator as he rode up to the top floor. He went straight to the Director’s office; for once, he didn’t have to wait before being shown in.

Which was a shame, because he’d have preferred to finish the coffee.

“Good to see you back in one piece,” said James Colby. Though there was no doubt he meant it, the Director said this without enthusiasm. He came out from behind his desk and shook Johansen’s hand. Then he pulled over a chair so they could sit opposite each other without the desk in between.

Johansen told him what had happened, repeating a brief he’d given no less than eight times in the past two days. He ended by mentioning his disappointment at the failure.

“I don’t see it as a failure,” said the Director. “The girl — she was a Russian spy?”

“We think so. We think we’ve correlated her with a Chechen woman agent that we saw being trained two years ago. It’s hard to tell — there’s been no intercepts regarding her.”

“Did the Russians plant her on purpose, or was it a coincidence?”

“No way of knowing at this point.”

“Is he dead?”

“I don’t think so. Our friend Louis Massina gave us some leads on his network. That led us to a credit card that’s been dormant, had been dormant until yesterday. We also have a source who claimed to have seen him in Raqqa the day before.”

“So he’s still alive?”

“It would appear so.”

“Our friend Mr. Massina — he’s been very useful,” said Colby.

“He has. He’s interested in doing more.”

“He’s done a lot already.” The Director rose. “I have to go before the Intelligence Committee this afternoon. You know, there have been rumors about the operation.”

“Really? That’s impossible.”

“They come from Massina?”

“No way.”

“You could swear to that?”

Johansen studied his coffee. No, maybe he couldn’t swear, but he thought it highly unlikely.

“I don’t think he’d tell anyone. We used his people for support and they got involved more than we’d planned, but I don’t think either one of them would have said anything to anyone. No one on the team would.”

“Hmm.”

That’s all we need, thought Johansen, a witch hunt for leaks.

“I want to keep looking for Ghadab,” said Johansen. His assignment had been temporary, and as a general rule he would be given a good hunk of time off and rotated to a new assignment when he reported back.

“Turner was going to take over the team.”

“I don’t think he should. For one thing, he doesn’t play well with others, especially outside of the Agency.”

“I think that’s a matter of opinion.”

“I want to stay on. I want to get this guy. I’m pretty close. There’s no learning curve. We can’t afford an interruption now. And with Massina — I don’t see Turner getting his help.”

“You said he’s already helping.”

“More help.”

“What about Demi?” Demi Ascoldi was second-in-command of the team. “She could take over.”

“She’s worse than Turner.”

Colby laughed. “Yuri Johansen, the indispensable man.”

“No.”

“All right, stay with it. Your show for now. But, Yuri — keep our friend Massina under control.”

“I was told he was very laid-back.”

“That’s not Ascoldi’s view. And yes, he would be a convenient scapegoat if it came to that. But I’d prefer not to throw him under the bus.”

The Director returned to his desk, signaling the meeting had come to an end. But then, as Johansen was leaving, he asked if he had seen the morning reports from the NSA.

“I haven’t had a chance,” confessed Johansen.

“Chatter level is way up. Not a good sign.”

“No,” admitted Johansen. “Not a good sign.”

77

“Now we come to RBT PJT 23-A… aka Peter.”

Johnny watched Chelsea as she began flipping through some brief video captures from the drone as it had ventured down the center hall of the bunker in Syria. Her tone remained scientific, but there was a frown on her face. The drone had not performed as expected.

Which of course he knew, given that he had been the one shot.

“It saw the terrorist,” continued Chelsea, freezing the frame that showed the shadows in the dark room at the end of the bunker, “but it did not perceive him as a threat. Why not?”

Her laser point circled the shadow at the corner. That was the son of a bitch who’d shot him.

Prick. But he’d paid the ultimate price.

Chelsea flipped to a screen filled with computer code and began discussing what the letters and numbers meant. The engineers in the small auditorium — there were nearly fifty, with every seat taken and a few people standing on the side — seemed to lean forward en masse, and more than a couple had their lips moving as they followed along, parsing the lines.

Johnny was lost in the weeds, but he didn’t care; he was focused on Chelsea, watching how she moved, how intense she seemed.

How pretty she was.

This was the first time he’d seen her since getting back to Boston. He’d spent his downtime sleeping at first, then in New York with some friends to see the Sox sweep the Mets — not as sweet as beating the Yankees, but up there. When he came back, Bozzone asked him to prepare a proposal for increasing the company’s security division, integrating more bots and technology into an “action team” that could accomplish missions similar to what they’d done in Syria. It was a heady assignment, somewhat beyond his comfort level as it had to include budget and revenue projections… It was supposed to make a profit.

He had no idea what sort of revenue was possible until talking to some old acquaintances who were now working for international security firms.

Their answer: A lot. Maybe a lot a lot.

How much depended on specifics he couldn’t give. So he mostly punted. Or would: he was still working on it.

“I wonder if it thought the terrorist was on your side,” suggested Jin Chiang. “Because you have other guys in that environment who look similar. And you know its basic AI is working — it rescued you.”

“It did,” agreed Chelsea.

“It does register a threat after the fact,” pointed out another software engineer. “Look at line 302. But I bet Johnny wishes it had recognized the threat sooner.”

It took Johnny a moment to realize everyone was looking at him.

“What?” he asked. “Oh, right.”

Massina interrupted the laughter that followed.

“I think we’ve gone as far with this as we can today,” he said. “Right now, Ms. Goodman and Mr. Givens have appointments at city hall. And the rest of us are invited to witness it.”

This was the first Johnny had heard of that, and judging from the look on Chelsea’s face, it was a surprise to her as well.

“But before we wrap up,” added Massina, “I think we can all show our appreciation for our two people who risked their lives helping give a little payback to the bastards who did so much damage to our city. For Boston!”

Massina sounded more like a football coach than an intense but pragmatic scientist.

The engineers cheered. A few behind Johnny tapped him on the back, nudging him to stand.

He felt his face warm with embarrassment.

“Just doing what I can,” he mumbled.

He made his way up to Massina in time to hear Chelsea ask what was going on. He was glad of that: it saved him the trouble.

It also gave him an excuse to look at her.

“It’s just a little thank-you the city has arranged,” said Massina. “No big deal.”

“Is this for Syria?” she asked.

“No. That’s strictly confidential. This is for the attack. Bravery under extreme circumstances.”

“The city arranged this?” asked Chelsea. “Or you?”

“The city,” insisted Massina, but he had the slight impish look he got when he was foisting a surprise on someone.

A good surprise.

“Are you in on this?” Chelsea asked Johnny as he walked up to the front.

“No. Not a clue.”

“Downstairs, both of you,” said Massina. “We’re running late.”

Chelsea grabbed her laptop and briefcase.

“You’ll want to leave that upstairs,” added Massina. “You’ll be gone all night.”

Johnny and Massina were waiting when Chelsea came down. There were three black Yukon SUVs parked in front of the entrance.

“We’re in the middle,” said Massina.

“The hotel is three blocks away,” said Chelsea. “Can’t we just walk?”

“Easier this way,” said Massina.

“I doubt it,” said Chelsea.

“You’re in a grouchy mood,” said Massina mildly. “Not enough coffee today?”

“You should have told us.”

“I did.”

Ten minutes later — traffic was relatively light — they arrived at the hotel and pulled into the downstairs garage. Johnny unfolded himself from the back, following along behind the others. Standing next to Chelsea as they went up, he made it a point to look away from her.

They stopped on the third floor. Johnny was surprised to see a throng of people in the atrium lobby as they turned the corner from the elevators. They were all very well dressed, the men in suits and ties.

“This is a fancy thing,” said Chelsea.

“Black-tie,” said Massina.

“Crap — all I have on are jeans.”

“I’m a little out of place, too,” said Johnny. Though he had a sport coat, he was wearing jeans and sneakers.

“There’s a solution for that,” said Massina. “For both of you, actually. Come on.”

He led them down the hall to a suite. Two racks of clothes stood in front of the couches in the living room. One contained dresses; the other had a tuxedo and white shirt. Two women were standing nearby.

“Take your pick,” Massina told Chelsea. “These ladies will help with any alterations you need.” He turned to Johnny. “I’m afraid you’re on your own, but we did use your measurements that you had for the gear in Syria.”

It was an exceptional night, one that pleased even Massina, who was ordinarily deeply bored by these sorts of things. Not only did he sit patiently through the speeches, but he gave one of his own.

“Boston is too strong to be hurt by terror,” he said. “We kicked out the Red Coats, and we haven’t stopped since. Do your worst; we’ll kick you in the teeth.”

He wished he could tell the audience about the recent actions in Syria, but he knew that would only hurt the country. The best he could do was say he “hoped” the perpetrators of violence would be brought to justice.

But all in all, he thought it was an exceptional night.

The speeches were bad enough; the reporters’ interviews were even worse.

Chelsea didn’t realize that saying she would talk to one journalist meant that every other one in the building would queue up behind him, subjecting her to a marathon of squinting into a camera while repeating the words “overwhelmed,” “humbled,” “very happy” over and over again. At least a dozen other people who had been held hostage at the hotel were honored as well, but the reporters seemed to zero in on her. She kept glancing over at Johnny, who somehow managed to avoid the reporters while milling around with Bozzone and some of the other Smart Metal people.

“He’s the real hero, you know,” she said finally, pointing to him as he went to the bar nearby. “He broke in and rescued me.”

Johnny rolled his eyes and shook his head, continuing in a beeline to the bar.

Finally, the reporters were done. Chelsea got up, only to find that the bar had been shut down.

“Hey,” said Johnny.

She punched him in the shoulder. “You suck.”

“What?”

“I had to talk to all of them. You should have been the one. You saved me.”

“Eh. You saved yourself. I got there after the fact.”

He’s right, isn’t he? Maybe I did save myself.

“Thirsty?” Johnny asked.

“Dying.”

“Let’s try downstairs.”

They went down to the bar on the first floor, but it was so crowded they couldn’t see the actual bar.

“I think we should go somewhere else,” suggested Johnny.

“How about that cute place you took us to when we got back?”

“Sure.”

Johnny started to lead her out of the lobby.

“Wait,” she said, grabbing his arm. “Don’t you think we’re a little overdressed?”

Johnny looked down at his tux, then over at her. “You’re not,” he said.

Chelsea laughed. “I think we better change.”

78

“How long will you be staying with us?” asked the hotel clerk.

“Three days,” said Ghadab.

The man reached for the passport Ghadab had placed on the marble counter. “I need to make a copy.”

Ghadab nodded. The clerk went into a closet-sized room directly behind the registration desk; in the dim light of the lobby, the flash of the copy machine as it moved its platen seemed like the spark of an explosion.

About midway down the Moroccan west coast, Agadir was something of a budget beach destination for young European tourists during the winter. During the summer, however, it was relatively quiet, an easy place to strategize.

The hotel clerk returned, handing him the passport as well as a key.

“Free internet,” said the man. His Moroccan-flavored Arabic was hard for Ghadab to decipher. “Type Guest as the password.”

Ghadab thanked the man politely. Even if he’d had a computer or other device with him, he wasn’t so foolish as to use a hotel’s internet for anything beyond looking up the weather.

Upstairs, he checked the room for bugs. His search was crude — he looked for alterations, wires even, knowing that he would miss anything sophisticated. But the discipline was what was necessary; to rebound, one had to return to basics. And at least a search would detect anything the locals could manage.

Satisfied, Ghadab washed up. The porcelain in the sink was cracked and the water warm rather than cold; neither was unexpected. Refreshed if not restored after his long trip, he went out for a walk. The hotel was far uphill from the beaches and the large, ultramodern resorts that hugged the water, but even here the buildings were not very old; an earthquake in the 1960s had eradicated much of the town, and for the most part the cement-faced structures he passed were less than thirty years old.

It helped, too, that war had not visited the city for many years. The creases in the faces of the people he passed came from age, not constant fear; if there were marks in the facades of the buildings, they were from shoddy workmanship rather than gun battles.

Ghadab had shorn his head and beard before leaving Syria, and he doubted even his own mother, God rest her soul, could have recognized him. He wore Western clothes — black jeans and a soccer jersey with the number of Lionel Messi, the Argentine player so famous even here that the shirt was as anonymous as a paper bag. Ghadab had left all of his belongings at the border with Turkey when he fled.

The only item he regretted leaving was the knife. But he couldn’t have taken it on the airplane, and in any event the symbolism of the sacrifice was important; to continue he needed to strip himself of all.

Making his way through the crowded streets, Ghadab recognized many of the small shops. It had been two years since he’d been here, and his memory of the place had faded, dimmed by hundreds of other cities and towns, large and small, which to varying degrees had similar qualities. Finally, he found what he was looking for — a secondhand computer store. Halfway between a pawnshop and a discount retailer, it featured everything from point-and-shoot cameras to the latest Macintosh computers, insisting in semiliterate Arabic that all were “new out of box” while at the same time noting that “all sale final no warrants.”

After a bit of haggling, Ghadab bought an old tablet computer for fifty euros; down the street, at a coffee shop that offered Wi-Fi, he created an account and began surfing the web, randomly moving from page to page, watching a few YouTube videos of car races, then checking the news, then a travel site for flights to Athens.

He’d landed on Google News when a headline caught his eye: Les victimes du terrorisme honorés à Boston.

Terror victims honored in Boston.

It was about his Boston triumph. Apparently there had been a ceremony in the city.

His French was too rusty to read the entire story reliably, so he had it translated to English; when the page came into focus, he realized the woman in the photo that accompanied it looked familiar.

He couldn’t place her at first. There was a video with the story. He clicked it and watched as an older man talked about how his city couldn’t be defeated.

“Louis Massina,” declared the caption.

Oh, yes, he knew who he was. But the woman…

Ghadab stopped and replayed the video. The announcer said two employees had been honored. A photo showed the woman and a man, and Massina. He was their boss, a business owner in Boston.

The woman… the same one on the video from the hotel, the one who’d gone up to the room with Shadaa.

Was it?

It seemed far-fetched and yet…

No, of course. It made complete sense. This Massina had sought revenge for his city. That was what he wanted.

And he had achieved it.

More.

Boston.

Boston.

That would have to be the final target. Honor demanded it.

79

Johnny felt a little light-headed as he closed the door to change. He’d had only two drinks, so it wasn’t the booze. And though the doctors had changed his medicine as soon as he got back to accelerate his healing after the bangs and bruises, he couldn’t blame that either — they’d made it clear that the drugs didn’t interact with alcohol.

So it had to be Chelsea, who was changing a few feet away, slipping out of the formfitting gown she’d been wearing.

There was a wall between them, so he couldn’t see her. But he certainly could imagine. He’d thought she was beautiful before tonight, but in the gown she was stunning.

Beyond stunning.

Maybe that was an exaggeration. Maybe she didn’t quite look like a model. Probably she wasn’t the perfect woman, every young man’s wet dream.

But she was close. Certainly to him.

There was a knock on the door.

“Ready?” Chelsea asked.

“Just a minute,” he said.

“And they say women are slow.” Chelsea laughed. “Meet you downstairs in the lobby.”

Halligan’s was farther than Chelsea thought, but the night was warm without being hot, and walking with Johnny felt incredibly right. They talked about the ceremony, how goofy it had been; they talked about the reporters, how little they knew; they talked about the interviews, how little they could say.

Finally, they talked about Syria itself.

“Were you scared in town?” Johnny asked.

“Very. Were you?”

“The first time we went in, I was a little nervous at different points. But we trained so much, I was kind of confident. Except for the language.”

“I know what you mean. Using the translator was kind of weird. I have a couple of ideas for fixing it.”

“I’ll bet you do.”

They walked a half block without saying anything. Johnny broke the silence.

“I was worried about you. That last mission. I wasn’t scared for myself at all, but I was worried that something would happen to you. Maybe focusing on that makes you forget to be scared about yourself.”

“Ukraine was like that for me,” said Chelsea. “I was too dumb to know to be scared.”

“That’s a funny word to use.”

“What?”

“Dumb. You’re the opposite of dumb. Like, a genius.”

“I’m not a genius. I know some geniuses.”

“There are people smarter than you?”

She smacked him on the arm.

“Hey, that was a serious question. I wasn’t making fun.”

“I’ll bet.”

“Really.”

Johnny suddenly stopped. “I feel like a robot.”

“What?”

“Like I’m not human. Because of my legs.”

“Jesus — they’re better than your real ones. And they keep improving them and with the drugs—”

“That’s just it,” said Johnny. “I don’t — it’s not totally me.”

“I think you’re still you,” insisted Chelsea. “Your legs are just part of you, not the entire thing of who you are.”

“If you lost your legs, would you feel whole?”

“I don’t know,” she admitted.

The bar was full with the post-happy-hour crowd, and there were no open booths or tables.

“Don’t you live near here?” Chelsea asked Johnny after surveying the crowd.

“Couple of blocks.”

“Why don’t we go there?”

Johnny’s hands trembled as he aimed his key for the lock. He felt as nervous as a teenager on his first date — more nervous, really.

Chelsea stroking his arm didn’t help.

Not that he wanted her to stop.

He got the key into the lock and opened the door.

“It’s not much,” he said. “The main attraction is the location.”

“Oh, it’s nice.” Chelsea walked in behind him, taking in the front room, which was decorated in what might be called contemporary mishmash — a largish sofa and a wooden rocker sat opposite a sixty-inch flat screen flanked by an orphaned dining room chair and an end table he’d assembled himself. The main function of the last two pieces was to hold the large JBL monitors that formed the heart of his sound system. There was a bookcase on the far wall, along with two baskets of dirty sheets and clothes.

“So, wine?” he asked, heading for the kitchen.

“Sure.”

As Johnny stepped into the kitchen, he realized he wasn’t sure if he even had any wine.

“Or beer?” he asked, turning quickly.

He was surprised to find Chelsea right behind him, a foot away.

Inches, actually.

Her eyes were wide and round, her face the color of a rose in twilight.

“Whatever you have will be fine.”

She stretched her neck, lifting her face toward his. He leaned closer, and they kissed.