Fly by Wire

Chapter TWENTY-SEVEN

Two blocks away they heard a siren. Four blocks away a police car whisked by. It took fifteen minutes to reach the hotel.

They went to his room. It was chilly, the radiator not keeping up. He instructed Sorensen to take a seat on the bed. Two years back, Davis had played on a traveling rugby squad, and so there was a leftover first-aid kit with odd-sized bandages and some antiseptic in his suitcase. The cuts and contusions were easy enough. Davis had a knot over one eye from the head butt, possibly a broken middle finger on his right hand. The finger hurt, but there wasn't much he could do about it. So he used the age-old analgesic of imagining how the other guys must feel right now — there was a strange, pugilistic satisfaction in the thought. He got a bucket of ice, wrapped a few handfuls in a towel, and held it to his forehead.

Sorensen kicked off her shoes and they clattered to the wood floor at the foot of the bed. She had jammed her wrist. Davis made another icepack and helped her wrap it. He checked her over for other damage.

"I'm fine," she said. "I'll be a little sore tomorrow, that's all."

"So tell me," he said, "if we had hung around and waited for the cops to show, would the CIA have bailed us out of a mess like that?"

"Me? Yes. You? Eventually."

He nodded. "I guess I shouldn't expect much. I'm not even on the payroll."

"Not yet."

"Forget it," he said. "My life was better three days ago, all regulation and squared away. I don't need this James Bond crap." He stepped back and studied her, his eyes narrowing. "But you, Honeywell — you've had some training. Where did that come from?"

"Remember you asked me about tragedies?"

"Yes."

"Summer of 2000. 1 came in first at the U. S. Olympic Trials in judo, sixty-three kilograms. I was headed to Sydney. Then, the next week," she lifted her shoulder, the one with the scar, "I tore this up in training. Had to have surgery."

He nodded. "Now that is a tragedy. You must have worked damned hard to get that far."

"You can't imagine."

"Well, there's no gold medal tonight. But you were pretty useful."

"That wasn't even judo. That was… something else. But I'd say you've been in a few scrums before."

Davis shrugged, "I had some training in the military. Studied a few of the martial arts here and there. But I never got serious about it, not like you did. I just enjoyed the sparring — in the studio you can hit people and not get arrested."

"So what made you start that?"

"Start it? It was going to happen, Honeywell, I just picked the moment. In the military they call it leading by example."

"I'd call it suicidal by example. That guy had a gun."

"That's why he had to be first. The others didn't look comfortable, didn't have any proficiency."

"And you gave me the biggest one."

He grinned. "I thought you'd handle him. And you did, although not like I expected."

It took her a moment. She said, "You thought I was packing?"

"I was hoping. But as it turned out—" Davis let the compliment drift off. He checked her wrist. "You think we need an x-ray?"

"No, I just sprained it. What about you? Are you all right?"

"A few bumps. And my neck is a little sore." He rolled his head in a circle. "It feels like a Slinky that's got one of those kinks you can't get out." He pulled the icepack away from his forehead, wrapped it around his finger, then blew out a long breath. "It's been a hell of a day."

Sorensen nodded. "Yeah, it has. I could use a good nights sleep, but right now I'm wound a little tight."

"A little?" He grinned a crooked grin. "Truth is, I could use a nightcap. Care to join me downstairs?"

"Sure." She did a quick self-assessment and held up a torn sleeve. "But I should probably go to my room and freshen up."

"Meet you in the lounge in ten minutes."

When Sorensen left, Davis laid back on the bed. He closed his eyes, breathed deeply, and tried to make sense of what had happened. He tried to convince himself that the four guys had been a chance encounter. A bad coincidence.

It didn't work.

Opening his eyes, Davis checked his watch. It was six o'clock in Virginia. Dinner time. He sighed, and thought, What the hell am I doing here? He should have been home, waiting on the doorstep to greet Bobby Taylor. Instead he was an ocean away, getting in fights, playing secret agent. About to go meet a pretty blonde in a bar.

Christ!

Davis picked up his phone and dialed. His sister-in-law answered on the second ring.

"Hey, Laura. It's Jammer."

"Well, there you are. How's France? Have you got it all figured out?"

"Not yet." Laura was a good sort, down-to-earth — just like her sister had been. Davis wasn't in the mood to chat. He said, "Is she there?"

"No, Jammer. It's Wednesday."

"Ah, dammit. Swim practice."

"Yeah. She'll be home in an hour."

"How's she doing?"

"Jen is a teenager. Other than that, she's fine."

"Tell me about it. Is school going all right? Is she still all fired up over this dance Friday? What about—"

"Jammer," Laura broke in, "she's okay."

There was a long pause. "Yeah."

"What about you? You haven't been away from Jen since — since it happened. Are you all right?"

Davis didn't know what to say. That his investigation was stuck in a ditch and he'd probably be here for weeks, maybe months? That he and his attractive CIA sidekick had just beat the crap out of four guys? "I'm good, Laura. I'm fine."

"Right." Another pause. "Listen, Jammer, she'll be back soon. I'll have her call you."

"Great," he said, then added, "oh, and Laura—"

"What?"

"Thanks for being there. You and Mike both. You guys always come through for us."

"That's what family's for, Jammer."

Davis hung up and took the ice pack off his head. He went to the bathroom and looked in the mirror. Big mistake. There was a goose egg over one eye, scrapes on his cheek, blood in his hair. His or somebody else's? No telling. Either way, he looked like hell.

He ran water over the back of his neck, massaged his kink. Again, Davis thought about the four men who had rousted him and Sorensen. The thoughts were not good.

The attacks were nearly simultaneous and occurred in no fewer than twelve time zones. From Venezuela to Singapore, from Kuwait to South Korea.

The general scheme of assault paralleled the previous day's work in America — suicide bombers acting alone, with the exception of two bigger operations in India and Belgium, where the attackers came in pairs. The mechanics varied slightly. Automobiles or trucks were used for the initial perimeter breach only on targets where the access to service roads was good. Other attackers used more direct methods of cutting, scaling, and even blasting their way through the primary barriers.

From there, it was again off to the races, determined individuals sprinting toward crude oil furnaces with all the explosives they could carry. A handful of the more security conscious facilities — particularly those under national control, with military forces deployed around the perimeters — were able to derail the attacks, or at least mitigate the damage.

Due to the timing, late night in western Europe and early evening in New York, it was the financial markets of the Far East that reacted first. The broader stock indices took a massive hit in anticipation of a global economic slump, a magnification of the previous day's carnage in equities that had resulted from the wave of strikes in America. Commodities were a mixed bag, contracts for short-term deliveries of refined fuels skyrocketing, but long futures for crude stock losing ground on expected slack demand — an increasing percentage of the world's petroleum refineries were out of commission. Precious metals rose, while grain futures reacted wildly on differing opinions of the effect.

For those able to ignore this chaos at the margins, the cumulative reaction of the afternoon Hong Kong and Tokyo trading sessions was largely predictable — a heavy hit, but certain sectors finding distinct advantage. If there was any good news it was that, as with the attacks in America, the facilities put out of commission were all midsized in terms of output. The world's fifty largest oil refineries all remained unscathed. Speculation in the media and investment houses ran a uniform theory — that the largest refineries were simply too well guarded to fall victim to such rudimentary methods of assault. Within hours, governments and corporations around the world sprang into action to ensure that this continued to be the case, putting every refinery, no matter the size, under maximum security lockdown.

It was during the first minutes of these new attacks that two extremist Muslim Web sites took responsibility for the strikes. Both offered supporting evidence that left no doubt as to their authenticity. They reveled in the victory of their martyrs, exalted in Islam, and gave praise to their glorious leader.

The terrorist known as Caliph.