Liberty

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

Captain Joe Zogby was waiting for Jake Monday morning when he arrived at Langley after three hours’ sleep. According to Zogby, no one knew the exact location of Olympic Voyager. Her owners couldn’t raise her on the radio. “They think there’s probably been some sort of com casualty. When the owners last talked to her, she was in the Red Sea.”

“She should be in the Med but the owners don’t know?”

“That’s correct, sir.”

“Uh-oh.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Call NIMA. I want that ship found and put under twenty-four-hour aerial surveillance. Now! Make it happen. And get someone from the embassy in Athens over to the owners’ offices now! We need a list of the crew, have them fax it. We need to know everything the owners know about that ship — everything — from photos to maintenance records to how much fuel and beans were aboard this morning.”

Zogby glanced at his watch. “It’s evening in Athens, Admiral.”

“Drag someone away from the dinner table. Get the Greek government involved. Have the U.S. ambassador call a minister or two — I don’t give a damn what the people at our embassy have to do.”

Jake Grafton dropped into his chair and smashed his fist down on the desk. “No more business as usual!” Bam! “It’s time for them to get off their asses.” Bam!

The light was flashing on his telephone. “Harry Estep on line one, Admiral,” Gil Pascal said.

Jake snagged the instrument. “Whaddaya got?”

“We found the hangar where they kept Carmellini — found Foster’s vehicle parked nearby. The judge is signing search warrants for both men’s cars and homes, we’ll go in within an hour. We’ve got people guarding them. We’ll search their offices as soon as agency security provides access numbers and safe combinations.”

“Keep me advised.”

Pascal told him the air force was flying a nuclear weapon into Andrews AFB outside of Washington that afternoon to allow Harley Bennett to test and calibrate the Corrigan detection unit.

“How’s Carmellini?” The helicopter had dropped Carmellini at Bethesda Naval Hospital early that morning.

“I don’t know, sir.”

Jake pulled his cell phone from his pocket and dialed. Three rings later he heard Tommy Carmellini’s voice. “Hello.”

“How are the feet?”

“Sore as hell.”

“What do the docs say?”

“Stay off them for a week, which is bullshit. I’m outta here day after tomorrow. See you then.”

“So how are you doing, shipmate?”

“Doing okay, Admiral. Feeling better than I did last night. The sun is shining in my window and the nurse is pretty cute and those two crackers are dead. It feels kinda nice.”

“Wait until you can walk before you sneak out of the hospital. I don’t want you crawling around here.”

“The nurse is smiling at me now. She’s very empathetic. She obviously understands post-traumatic stress. If she’ll bring me another bagel from the cafeteria and hold my hand a little, my recuperation will rocket along. I’ll let you know.”

Zip Vance and Zelda Hudson were hard at it in the SCIF. Surrounded by computer monitors, they were both so submerged in what they were doing they were oblivious to Jake’s and Toad’s presence when they walked in. Jake watched for a moment. Zelda was apparently writing a software program; one of the CIA technicians was instructing Zip in the proper way to search a bank’s credit card transactions records.

The data scrolled up the screen too fast to read, then paused. Zip looked, made a note, hit a key, and the scrolling continued at a sickening speed. After a couple minutes of this, Zip got out of the file with a few keystrokes, all the while chattering away to the technician.

“Ah,” Zelda said. “I was going to call you. We’re putting info together on those three men you asked about … nothing leaps out yet.”

“Here are two more names,” Jake said, passing her a sheet of paper containing everything Gil could garner quickly in the CIA personnel office on Foster and Lalouette.

“Zipper has been monitoring the telephone calls of that Post reporter — Jack Yocke. He said he wanted to talk to you about one of them.”

Vance glanced up when he saw Jake, then handed him a piece of scratch paper. “This guy called Yocke and used your name twice. I have a tape.”

Jake nodded.

Getting the tape ready to play and finding the right spot took several minutes. Jake donned a headset and waited, trying to exude more patience than he felt.

Finally Zip pushed the right buttons and Jake heard a voice in his ears. “Yocke.”

“Jack, how are you?” A male voice, cultured, a hint of New England, perhaps.

“Fine, sir, and you?”

“Busy. Got a tidbit you might want as deep background.”

“Okay.”

“There was a meeting Sunday in the old Executive Office Building about Jake Grafton and his task force. A lot of people don’t feel comfortable with him or the way he’s going. He was there on the carpet.”

“I see,” Yocke replied, drawing out the words. Jake could almost see the reporter making notes as he listened. “Could you elaborate on that?”

“He’s a lightweight, in way over his head. Doesn’t have a clue what in hell is going on. Baldly, we’re worried that he’s incompetent.”

“Uh-huh.”

“You remember those items I mentioned to you — I don’t think he’s any closer to finding them than he was before he was appointed. People feel that time is running out.”

“Thanks for sharing that with me,” Jack Yocke said warmly. “I hope you feel better.”

“What do you mean?”

“Amigo, I need something I can put in the goddamn paper,” Yocke replied. “I got inches to do very day. This father confessor thing goes with the job, of course. I hope you successfully get in touch with your inner self, but at some point you gotta stop jerking me off and give me something I can use, like from an anonymous source or a highly placed government official. A tidbit, a crumb, something!”

“Now is not the time.”

“Okey dokey. It’s your call. But when the time comes — and I hope it gets here soon — I need something hard, you know? Not gossip column fluff. I need solid nouns and verbs and predicates that I can spin into that who, what, where, when, why jazz.”

“I just wanted to bring you up to date.”

“Appreciate it.”

“Maybe I do need to share. This thing is troubling me, if you know what I mean. Grafton’s a featherweight with big friends — I’m damn worried.”

“Right.”

“Talk to you soon.”

“Yeah,” and the connection broke.

Jake handed the headset to Zip.

“I have the number of the cell phone that call originated from, Admiral, if you don’t recognize the voice. I can get into the telephone company records and get you a name and address.”

“I recognized the voice.”

“Those items I mentioned to you”—Jake thought he knew what those were.

Oh, well. So Butch Lanham played hardball. He knew that already.

He paused to talk to Zelda before he left the SCIF. “How is it going?”

“The computer experts from NSA and CIA are very, very good. I’m just coordinating and trying to stay out of their way.”

“What’s the software you’re working on?”

“Making the police surveillance cameras useful. I want to show you something I’ve put together.” Jake’s schedule was full to overflowing, yet Zelda’s enthusiasm made it difficult to refuse her a few minutes. And he knew that sooner or later some senior someone — probably Lanham, who was casting about for ways to torpedo Jake’s boat — would get wind that Zelda and Zip were working on Jake’s team; when it happened — and it would — he was going to have to use valuable political capital to defend their presence or send them back to prison. So he stood rooted, listening to the life in Zelda’s voice, watching her fingers fly across the keyboard and images dance across the monitors.

“It’s a movie,” she told Jake. “Here goes.” The scene was a street in Washington, one of the poorer neighborhoods, from the look of it. The camera zoomed in on several young men standing on a street corner. A car pulled up, one of the men went over, accepted money, passed something into the car. There was a close-up of a license plate as the car accelerated away. A minute later another car arrived and a similar transaction occurred.

When the video stopped playing, Zelda stood and faced Jake Grafton. “These are drug dealers doing business. The people in the cars are their customers. With only a little work someone could put names and addresses to license numbers and compile a list of people using this stuff.”

“Uh-huh.”

“With a little more work, we can identify the car that delivers the product.” Her eyes and intensity held him pinned. For the very first time Jake felt the force, the fire, the charisma of the brilliant mind that was Zelda. Inadvertently he glanced at Zip, then found himself recaptured by her. “I wrote software that tells the computer to search the video feeds for whatever license plate we identify. With this tool we can uncover entire networks — whole- salers, dealers, customers — and put together overwhelming evidence to put these networks out of business. We could make a digital movie of the entire network in operation.”

Jake glanced again at Zip, who was now watching him.

“Our job is security,” he objected, “not law enforcement.”

“I understand that. I am not suggesting that we waste a minute on this project that could be used to further the primary mission. I want to put a movie together on my own time, a few minutes here and there, when I’m not busy with something else. Even if the lawyers refuse to use it, the movie would show the system’s capabilities.”

And Zelda’s, Jake thought. “Do it,” he said, and headed for the door.

Midnight at the Oasis. Naguib had never heard the song by that name — didn’t even know there was one — so the irony of the name of the beer joint escaped him. This establishment was two hundred yards and five parking lots south of Smoot’s Motel, which he had sneaked away from ten minutes ago.

He looked around the smoky bar and saw her sitting alone in the booth against the wall. She was facing him. As he walked toward her, her face broke into a smile. He slid into the booth beside her.

“I can’t stay long,” he said. “Mohammed will awaken before long and come looking.”

“He will look in the place next door to Smoot’s, honey. He won’t come all the way down here.” She rubbed her hand up and down on his thigh, pressed a large, firm breast into his arm. “Aren’t you glad to see me?”

“Oh, yes.”

“I been waiting for you, hoping you’d come in.”

He put his arm around her shoulder and kissed her. She opened her lips.

When he finally broke for air, she said, “Oh, honey. You got me so hot! I wish there was something we could do about it.”

While he was digesting that comment, she continued, “My husband is such a pig. I sneaked out just to see you. I think he might be getting suspicious, though. And to think, all we’ve done is kiss.”

For the life of him, Naguib couldn’t remember her name. Something that began with an S. Sophie? Susan? Sue-something. With a husband.

She rested her head on his shoulder while he took a sip of her beer. “I don’t have much time either,” she said. “You know what I mean, honey? A man like you, with a job and friends and everything, you must know how it is?”

“Of course,” said Naguib, intensely conscious of the location of her hand on his thigh and what she was doing with it.

“You and I could get something going, honey, if we had a little time. You know? A few Saturdays and some nights, you and me’d be friends for life. You ever thought about a woman like that, honey?”

No, he hadn’t, not for life, but he didn’t want to tell her that. “Sure,” he said, lying through his teeth.

“Just lovin’ and leavin’ ain’t enough, honey. One-night stands don’t do it for me. I’m looking for something more. Larry is such a pig.”

Larry must be the husband, Naguib thought, as that hand moved up, up, up his thigh.

“’Course, you aren’t American, so that complicates things. You aren’t going back to Pakistan anytime soon, are you?”

“Arabia,” Naguib said, too much into the presence of her to bother lying. “Never going back.”

“That’s good, honey. You aren’t already married or living with someone, are you?”

“No,” he said.

“But that man who came in last time — who is he?”

“Just a friend I share a room with. To save money. That’s all.”

“You speak terrific English, honey. Easy to understand. You musta been here in the States a long, long time?”

Five minutes later she said, “Some of the girls are worried about me with you. I like dark, foreign men, they’re so cute. I know there’s nothing to it, but with the terrorism and all, a girl’s gotta be careful.”

Naguib’s eyes darted around, his jaws worked soundlessly, and he swallowed several times.

Bingo, Suzanne thought.

A half hour later Naguib looked at his watch with a start. He had been here twice as long as he figured. “Suzanne, I gotta go. Gotta get a little sleep and go to work tomorrow.”

“Oh, baby,” the blonde said, and gave him a kiss that almost caused his heart to stop. “I wish you and I …” She left it hanging, her face inches from his.

He walked out into the night. Crossing the second parking lot, Naguib stopped and stared at his surroundings. This was what he was giving up, this place, these women — life so sweet and precious. He was throwing it all away for the great hereafter. Murdering millions for the glory of God. On the word of holy men ranting in Arabia and Cairo, Tehran, Kabul, and Baghdad, preaching the glories of Paradise although they weren’t anxious to hurry there themselves.

In a few weeks he would be dead along with millions of others, Suzanne would have to find another fellow to give her what she wanted, the holy men would be ecstatic … and this was what he was leaving. This! The rush when a woman was close, the shock of her hand brushing his groin, the feel of her breast, the warm sensuousness of her kiss, the sliding perfection of her tongue on his. Life. When he had a woman pressed against him and his hands on her body, he could feel the beat of life, feel it coursing through him and her.

What a fool he had been, planning to waste life. He could see it plainly.

Mohammed was waiting for him outside the motel unit. In the dim light Naguib could see the fury on his face. He didn’t care.

“I don’t want to be a martyr,” he said to Mohammed.

“Where have you been?”

“I don’t want to be a martyr. I want to find a woman who loves me that I can love.” Naguib was realistic enough to realize that Suzanne might not be the one. Still, he believed that the right woman would make everything in his life better. “I want to get a job and a woman and have children. Two at least, I think.”

Mohammed backhanded Naguib casually across the mouth. The blow was unexpected; Naguib lost his balance and fell. “I hope for your sake you have not betrayed your brothers. If you have I will personally cut your throat. The hour approaches and you speak of treason. What kind of man are you?”

“One who wants to live,” Naguib managed as his head cleared. He stood, swaying gently to and fro. When his head had almost cleared, he jabbed Mohammed sharply on the chin, staggering him. He followed and hit him with the left. Then again with a well-timed right with everything behind it.

The cool hardness of the crushed shells brought Mohammed around. He got to his knees, looking around for Naguib, trying to see the attack he knew would come. On his feet he swayed as he waited, then he was aware that someone was standing near him looking at his face.

“Who are you?”

“Fred Smoot. I’m the landlord, laddie-buck. Now hold still and let me see how bad you’re hurt.”

Naguib was nowhere in sight. “Did you see who hit me?” Mohammed tentatively asked Fred. He was trying to think up a way to avoid the notice of the police.

“Yeah,” Fred said as he examined the blood flowing from Mohammed’s eyebrow. Cuts there usually gushed. “One of the guys you room with. The big one. He’s got a hell of a right on him, fella, so I’d try to keep my head out of the way of it, if I were you.”

“This is no large deal,” Mohammed said, ignoring the blood, wanting to ensure that Fred would not call the police.

“His left ain’t bad either.” Fred finished his examination. “You need to get that cut washed out. The old woman can do it and put a couple Band-Aids on it to hold it together so you won’t need stitches.” Fred sighed. “Like a good fight myself. When I was young I was always ready if somebody wanted some action. Little tussle gets the juices flowing and clears the air, but I want no more of that horseplay around here, understand? You’ll get the tourists all lathered.”

Brushing the shards of crushed shells from his hair, Mohammed followed Fred toward the office, thinking about how he had lost Naguib and what he would have to do.

At eleven o’clock Tuesday Harry Estep called Jake Grafton. “Those CDs that Anna Modin gave you are gold.”

“What’s on them?”

“Bank transaction records. Walney’s Bank in Cairo is in the business of financing terrorists. One of the groups they finance is the Sword of Islam.”

“Where are the bombs?”

“That isn’t on the CDs.”

“Did any of that money come to America?”

“Don’t know yet. But the big news is that a big chunk came from here.”

“What?”

“Yeah. Looks like it came to Walney’s sorta all at once through eight or ten accounts. The money was shuffled all over hell to try to prevent it from being traced. What we see is the stuff coming into Walney’s and what Walney’s did with it. We then have to compare that info with the records of other banks. We think we’ve found a trail.”

“Provable in court?”

“No. Maybe one of these days, but not now. The problem is that banks are the ultimate washing machine; they make money a commodity — bucks come in one window and go out another and all the dollars look alike. A transfer could be a loan, a payment to settle a check or a set-off — whatever. If the people at the bank are writing fiction, creating bogus backup … you can envision the possibilities. Anyway, what it boils down to is this — a sizable chunk of change, maybe two million, went through Walney’s and on to guys we think are dirty. We think it came from the U.S., but it will take a lot of work to nail that down.”

“Uh-huh.”

“The CDs are a big piece of the puzzle. We still don’t have all the pieces and never will, yet with these pieces we can begin to see what the puzzle looks like.”

“Tell me about the searches of Foster’s and Lalouette’s stuff.”

“Foster had a hundred and fifteen thousand bucks cash in his basement, right where Carmellini said it would be. Nothing else of interest yet.”

“Modin thinks that the guy who runs the bank in Cairo may send assassins to kill her. I agree. What can we do to protect her?”

“You want me to put that on my to-do list?”

“I guess,” Jake said dryly.

“I interviewed her this morning. She named names in Cairo. Wouldn’t answer a single question about Ilin or the SVR.”

“Claims she doesn’t work for the SVR. And she’s trying to protect Ilin.”

“Terrific.”

Jake hesitated before he asked the next question. He thought he knew the answer, but he wanted a professional’s opinion. “Do you think Anna Modin is telling the truth?”

Harry Estep sensed the gravity of Jake’s query, and considered his answer before he spoke. “She thinks she is, I believe. She’s letting us see that portion of the picture that Ilin let her see. That’s about as good as it gets in this game, I guess.”

“We need to get her into a witness protection program or something. She flew here with a Russian passport and took a cab from the airport to my house. If assassins are after her, she won’t be hard to find.”

“I’ll see what I can do. Maybe you should put some pressure on the top echelon.”

“That I can do.”

“She’s given us the disk and named names. Why would they risk an assassination?”

“How would I know? I’ve heard those guys spell revenge with a capital R. Why are you asking me?”

“You know everything else, Admiral. If you figure out why the sky is blue and male dogs like fire hydrants, let me in on it, huh? I’ve always wondered about those things.”

Callie Grafton and Anna Modin had a late lunch Tuesday at one of Callie’s favorite haunts in Georgetown, not far from the university. Callie insisted on practicing her Russian and Anna worked on her English, so they smiled often as they told each other about themselves and corrected grammar and syntax errors. Callie noticed that Anna relaxed as the luncheon went on.

She had not been relaxed this morning when they went to the parking garage for the car for the trip to the Hoover Building on Pennsylvania Avenue. Before she left the elevator she stopped Callie with a hand and eased her head out. She reminded Callie of a hunted animal, hesitant, listening, looking at everything.

In the car Anna refused to wear a seat belt, preferring to be free to bail whenever and wherever.

“This is America,” Callie said gently. “One doesn’t normally meet assassins on the way to lunch.”

“These people are very dangerous,” Modin said matter-of-factly. “They have much money, much hate, and they kill easily, as if it is of no importance.”

Callie didn’t ask about the interview with the FBI, and Modin volunteered nothing. At lunch the conversation swung to Callie’s work, teaching languages at the university, so after lunch she took Anna to her office. The spring semester was in full swing; the place was jumping. Callie had called in that morning and been given a day off, so a chat with the department head was in order. As she visited with him, Anna chatted with two of the instructors in Russian. Callie introduced her as Anna and gave no last name.

As they left the building, Modin paused again in the doorway and surveyed the scene carefully.

“How long do you think they will hunt you?” Callie asked as they walked toward the car. Perhaps Modin’s paranoia was catching; Callie no longer questioned Modin’s assessment of the situation.

“Until they kill me or die themselves. Even if they die others may try.”

“Won’t they give up after a while?”

“Never.” Modin made a fist and squeezed it. “God is like this with them. They are afraid to be afraid.”

“And you agreed to steal from them for Janos Ilin?”

“Someone has to fight them,” she said simply. “I do not have his courage — no one I ever met does — but I go where he leads. He is a great man.”

“Do you love him?”

Modin looked surprised. “No,” she said. “Not lovers.” After a moment of thought she added, “Soldiers, I think.” She glanced at Callie, apparently wondering if she understood. “A man must have something to fight for, something bigger than he is.”

“Some women, too, apparently,” Callie shot back.

She drove the car toward the U.S. Naval Hospital in Bethesda. “We will stop and see a friend, if you don’t mind.”

“Fine, fine. A lover?”

It was Callie’s turn to look embarrassed. “No. Friend. Sometimes he works for my husband.”

“Sick?”

“Sore feet. Very sore. Some men were going to kill him and stuck his feet in concrete.”

“In America, even, where there are no assassins. Shocking!”

“Isn’t it?” Callie agreed.

They found Tommy Carmellini occupying one of the two beds in a double room on the third floor. The second bed was empty. When Callie first saw him he was flipping through television channels and looking glum. His face lit up when they walked into the room. “Mrs. Grafton! Wow! Am I glad to see you! Find a chair. Sit on that empty bed. Please sit.”

“This is Anna. She’s our houseguest.”

“Pleasedtameetcha.” Carmellini stuck out his hand. “Forgive me not getting up. They stole my pants so I won’t boogie.”

“Ah, the usual indignities,” Callie said.

“Boogie?” Anna asked.

“Run away,” Callie explained.

“There oughta be a law,” Carmellini stated firmly. “Sit, please!”

“How are your feet?”

“Sore.” He peeled back the sheet to display one of the bandaged units. “Did your husband fill you in?”

“Oh, yes.”

“It was a long damned weekend, I am here to tell you. Thought it was my last.”

Anna Modin scanned the bright, cheerful, sunlit room and marveled at the contrast with the Russian hospitals she remembered. Then she took a careful look at Tommy Carmellini, the broad shoulders, craggy good looks, and ready smile. Even in a hospital gown, the muscled arms and thick wrists and weight lifter’s veins told her that he did more than push paper for a living.

“Mrs. Grafton said someone tried to murder you,” she said to the patient.

His smile got even broader. “Hard to believe, isn’t it? A personal thing, I think. No problem now. What is that accent you have?”

“Russian.”

“Ahh, a spy in the house of love. How about dinner tomorrow night?”

“You’ll be walking by then?”

“I’m going to steal crutches and blow this pop stand. I’ll call you at the Graftons’.”

When the women left ten minutes later, Anna Modin was smiling for the first time since she’d arrived in America. “He’s very nice,” she told Callie as they walked out of the hospital.

“You have a date already,” Callie said. “Things are looking up.”

“A date,” Anna said, savoring the idea.

When the two women were in the car and rolling, Anna commented, “My life is so empty. Men have been interested in me, but I always push them away. One, in Cairo, put his life in jeopardy for me. Then there was the girl in Cairo, Nooreem Habib — I demanded that she drop everything and flee for her life, and instead she took the time to say good-byes to her family. Then they killed her.”

Anna Modin shook her head. “They have so much money that they can afford spies everywhere — even here. America is full of Islamic immigrants and illegals.”

Callie concentrated on driving and held her tongue.

“Nooreem Habib had a life and lost it,” Anna mused aloud. “I have no life, and I remain alive.” After a while she added, “Until they find me.”

Jake and Gil Pascal spent Tuesday afternoon in a meeting with senior officers of Delta Force, listening to deployment options and scenarios in the event a live nuclear weapon was discovered on American soil. The options were all risky, with horrific consequences if anything went wrong. The whole thing was a nightmare.

Along toward five o’clock a staffer rescued Jake to take a call from Toad.

“There’s nothing wrong with the Corrigan unit, boss. I’m sitting out here at Andrews Air Force Base with Harley Bennett and Sonny Tran beside a B-52 with a nuke in the bomb bay. This gizmo is singing and chirping just like it did the first time.”

“How does Bennett explain the alarm at the golf course?”

“He can’t. Says there must be something there.”

“Buried under a golf course?”

“Right.”

“Go back to the golf course and do it again. Call me from there.”

“Aye aye, sir.”

“You’re keeping a log of every buzz and beep, right?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Terrific.” Jake cradled the instrument and stood in his office staring at the wall. Through the years he had watched engineers wrestle with bugs in new systems large and small — but what if something were buried beside that river?

Not in the last three weeks. He inspected that terrain himself. Sure, every day people filled holes and put sod or plants over the fill, but if they had done it within the last three weeks, the disturbance would still be evident. He would swear that area was undisturbed. The soil was compacted, the plants secure in the ground …

So what the hell was going on?

Unable to solve the problem, he dismissed it and went back to Colonel Kiechel of Delta Force.

He was back at his desk at six-thirty that evening tackling the paperwork that had accumulated when the telephone rang again. It was Toad.

“Harley has the sensors flaked out, boss. We’re at Hains Point in East Potomac Park, precisely where we were the last time, and the Corrigan giz-mach is singing up a storm.”

“Put Bennett on.”

After a moment of silence, Jake heard, “This is Harley Bennett.”

“What do you think, Bennett?”

“Damn, Admiral. I don’t know. I have two recommendations. First, let’s get some of the factory engineers down here to check that I’m doing everything right and not missing something. It’s possible there could be some internal interference or something that is screwing up the sensors and giving false positives. The wizards are going to have to figure it out.”

“I thought you were a wizard.”

Harley Bennett’s voice sounded tired. “Admiral, I’m just a working engineer. I’m not in the league with the guys who designed this thing; anybody who thinks I am is fooling himself.”

“Give them a call. Now. Tell them to get on a plane. What’s your second recommendation?”

“Dig a hole.”

“Are you satisfied that thing is functioning properly?”

“I am, but like I said …”

“Let me talk to Toad again.”

When Tarkington was back on, Jake said, “I told Bennett to get the boffins from Boston down here to look at your gizmo. Make that happen this evening.”

“You can hear the clock ticking, can’t you?”

“Yeah. If they can’t find anything wrong tonight, tomorrow morning I want you guys to drive that van up and down both sides of the Potomac from Beltway to Beltway. Drive it through downtown Washington, by the Capitol and White House and Pentagon, all of that. Do Andrews, Fort Meade, NSA — all the high-value targets. Annotate a map. Put down every buzz and cheep and chirp. If a needle twitches, I want to know about it.”

“Yes, sir. How long do we have for this project?”

“As long as it takes. But I want the map on my desk tomorrow evening whether you are done or not.”

“We’ll put this thing in the garage at Langley, and I’ll meet the plane from Boston.”

“Thanks, Toad. By the way, is Sonny within earshot?”

“No.”

“Keep an eye on him. He may be dirty.”

By ten that night three of Harley Bennett’s colleagues from Corrigan Engineering were working on the van in a garage at Langley. Jake stopped to talk after he left the office. One of them was a pipe smoker. “Dr. LaFontain,” Bennett said, “Admiral Grafton.” The two men shook hands.

LaFontain played with his pipe as he watched the other two peer and probe under the control panel. He said nothing.

When Jake tired of the silence, he asked, “How long is this going to take?”

LaFontain looked startled. Obviously he hadn’t even considered the time element. He shrugged and puffed smoke.

“I’ll see you in the office first thing in the morning,” Jake said to Bennett.

“Ah, Admiral, I will need to get some sleep at some point.”

“We screw this up, a whole lot of people will be sleeping forever. Eight in the morning. Be there.”

When a uniformed naval officer wearing stars walks into Bethesda Naval Hospital, even at eleven at night, he is not anonymous. Jake managed to shed his escort — two nurses and a doctor — outside the door to Carmellini’s room. He went in and eased the door shut behind him. Tommy Carmellini was asleep. He had an IV catheter in his left wrist, but he was not hooked up to an IV.

Jake touched his arm. “Hey, shipmate.”

Carmellini drew back as if stung. His eyes flew open. He relaxed when he saw who was standing beside the bed.

“Hey, Admiral,” he said. He looked at his watch.

“How are you doing?”

“Fine, fine, sir. Jeez, I didn’t expect to see you. Sit down. Drag up a chair there. Your wife was here this afternoon, and I appreciate that. Brought your houseguest with her.”

“Yeah.” Jake pulled the chair over by the bed and sat. “Sorry it’s so late, but I couldn’t get away sooner.”

“Sure.”

“I want to hear all of it, every word and gesture, everything.”

When the limo cruised into Dupont Circle at midnight, the chess player was waiting on the corner. He opened the passenger door and seated himself beside Karl Luck.

“Mr. Corrigan wants to know how the device is working,” Luck said by way of greeting.

The chess player looked at him oddly, then removed a small electronic device from his pocket. He ran it over Luck’s clothes while he watched the meter, then moved it carefully around the interior of the car. Only when he had passed the instrument over every nook and cranny did he flip off the power and return it to his pocket.

“It worked as advertised this afternoon. The air force provided a live nuclear weapon to recalibrate the instrument.”

“Why? I thought it was already calibrated.”

“It is indicating the presence of a weapon buried on Hains Point, across from Reagan National Airport.”

“The weapons aren’t here yet,” Luck objected.

“Apparently the device doesn’t know that. From all indications, there’s a weapon buried under a golf course on Hains Point. Either that, or the thing is giving false positives for some reason Harley Bennett can’t figure out.”

“What in the hell is going on?”

“I was hoping that you could tell me.”

“You are sure the detection unit is functioning properly?”

“I am not. Bennett swears it is, and I don’t know enough to doubt him.”

“Has Bennett talked to the factory?”

“Several times today.”

Luck was clearly puzzled. “Underground, you say?”

“Where are the Russian warheads?”

“We believe they were transshipped at Port Said, as planned. Unfortunately we haven’t heard from Dutch Vandervelt to confirm that. Nothing on the radio. And we haven’t heard from our man in Cairo, either.”

The chess player watched the city slide by the windows while he thought about that. “When is the ship due to reach Marseilles?”

“Tomorrow, I think.”

“Is she still afloat?”

Luck stared. “Why wouldn’t she be?”

“I was thinking of Frouq al-Zuair and his cutthroat friends. One suspects they adhere to that hoary old axiom that dead men tell no tales.”

“The whole ship and crew? I don’t believe it! Not a chance. There has been a radio casualty of some kind.”

“So what’s with your man in Cairo? He ever run off on you before?”

“No.”

“He may have been arrested. He may be singing his heart out for the FBI this very second, naming names and places and dates. Personally I think loyalty is an overrated virtue. In this day and age you get about as much of it as you are willing to pay for, and by God it comes high.”

Luck said nothing.

The passenger glanced at Luck’s face, then said conversationally, “We’ll know tomorrow when the ship drops anchor, won’t we?”

Luck changed the subject. “What else is happening with Grafton?”

“I don’t know. I am not a member of the inner circle, I told you that. That is why we needed Carmellini. By the way, I heard Tarkington talking to him on the telephone today.”

Luck’s jaw dropped. “What the hell is this? He’s supposed to be dead.”

“I gathered from what I heard of Tarkington’s end of the conversation that he’s very much alive and in the hospital.”

“So where are Foster and Lalouette?”

“Why don’t you find out?”

“Perhaps Carmellini’s dead, and they are playing you.”

“Perhaps.”

“If so, Corrigan will—”

“If they’re playing me, you and Corrigan are going to prison for the rest of your natural lives. Think about that.”

Luck half turned in his seat and looked through the rear window of the limo.

“If they follow you or me, we won’t see them,” the chess player said. “If Carmellini is alive, Foster and Lalouette have been arrested or bitten the big one. He probably killed them. And he’s undoubtedly talked to the authorities and told them all about those two incompetents. If they have been arrested, they may have talked. Even if they are dead, an attempted contact will lead the authorities to you.”

Luck sat back in the seat and pursed his lips.

“The noose tightens, eh? We’re playing a damned dangerous game … for money.” He shrugged. “A lot of money, it’s true, a small fortune for each of us. All so that asshole Corrigan can look good and go out in style. Well, Luck, I’ve got news for you — you and I are going to earn every goddamn dime. And Corrigan’s radiation detector doesn’t work for shit. Tell the son of a bitch I said that.”

Luck keyed the intercom and told the driver to return to Dupont Circle.

When they got there, the chess player said in parting, “See you tomorrow night. You can tell me then about that ship and its broken radios. Let’s pray that the ragheads don’t change their plans. We’ve got to find those weapons when they arrive … before they explode. If one of those things pops anywhere on this planet, there won’t be a gallows high enough for you and Corrigan.”

Luck’s features were set in stone.

“And you fools thought this was going to be easy. Ha!”

Luck made a gesture of irritation.

“The best-laid plans of mice and men …” Sonny Tran continued, rubbing it in. The truth was that he hated Luck and Corrigan and all those comfortable bastards with their money and their cute plans to play the system for their own benefit. How he hated them! He wanted to strangle them all, watch them die with his hands around their lily white throats.

Sonny swallowed hard, put the mask back on. “If I’m not at the circle, Grafton has sent me to chase wild geese. Or the FBI has arrested me.”

He got out of the car and walked halfway around the circle, then set off north on Nineteenth Street. Two blocks later he paused in front of a coffee shop — closed of course — and stood looking in the window with mild curiosity. A man walked up behind him, then they fell in step.

“No one paid any attention to you, Sonny,” the second man said.

“How would you know? You won’t see’em.”

“You overestimate the enemy.”

“Underestimating them can be a fatal mistake. You’ll only do it once.”

As they approached a black sedan in the center of the next block, the chess player unlocked it with a button on his key. He seated himself behind the wheel, started the car, and piloted it away from the curb.

“Luck hasn’t heard from Vandervelt,” Sonny Tran told the passenger.

“What are the possibilities?”

“He’s been arrested. That’s the first one. The second is that he didn’t do his job so the ragheads killed him. The third is that the ragheads killed him after he had done his job so they wouldn’t have to give him any more money and he couldn’t tattle on them.”

“We don’t need him.”

“True. But we are going nowhere if he didn’t do his job, which was to ensure the weapons were properly armed and deposited in Port Said for transshipment. If he didn’t do his job, the weapons won’t arrive where they are supposed to, and you and I will be well and truly fucked.”

“Not if you kill Luck and Corrigan before they talk.”

“That’s true,” Sonny Tran acknowledged.

“So which of your three possibilities is the one?”

“How would I know? We’ll have to play it by ear and see how the bones fall.”

“Okay.”

“Want a laugh? They’ve got me running around with the Corrigan detector looking for bombs.”

“The government knows about them?”

“Oh, yes. A Russian intelligence officer tipped them off. They found out sooner than I figured, but we are still okay.”

“The people you’re working for — maybe they know about Vandervelt and how that went down.”

“I can’t get close enough. The guy running the show is named Grafton. He has me working with his right-hand man, guy named Toad Tarkington. He sent me out of the office and keeps me running around with Tarkington and the Corrigan detector looking for the bombs.”

“Why aren’t you over at the CIA? And who is this Grafton?”

“He’s a naval officer, some kick-butt guy the Pentagon calls when the going gets tough. I can’t figure out if he’s suspicious of me or doesn’t like my body odor.”

“Bastard probably doesn’t like Vietnamese.”

“Maybe. The FBI gave me a lie detector test. Then this assignment arrived.”

“You’ve taken those tests before and always passed.”

“Yeah. I just hope I’m not on Grafton’s shit list — not at this stage of the game.”

“He’s a paper pusher,” the passenger said dismissively. “From basket to basket. We’re going to win!”

Sonny Tran was thinking about Dutch Vandervelt. The whole ship! As for the man in Cairo, he was dead or wished he was. The missing ship almost certainly meant Vandervelt was dead. If the terrorists had killed Vandervelt to ensure he never talked, Corrigan’s man in Cairo was living on borrowed time.

Those guys were venomous and downright homicidal. So long, Dutch!

The thought occurred to him, not for the first time, that Luck and Corrigan were also going to be unhappy if they suspected they had been double-crossed. The terrorists might be poisonous snakes; Corrigan and Luck were cornered rats.

“Don’t be so damn gloomy,” the man beside Tran said. “Nothing ever goes perfect. Still, for a change, life is breaking our way. For the first time in my life I feel free.”

“Right,” Sonny said.

Seated beside him, his brother, Nguyen Duc Tran, laughed. “The fall of the American empire,” he chortled, “is gonna be one hell of a lot of fun.”

“If we live to see it.”

“We’ll see the big pop, believe me. That’ll be enough.”

When Nguyen settled down Sonny steered the subject in another direction. “Tell me about Kansas,” he said.

“It went well. Two hundred grand in cash to fund the adventure and a sackful of weapons.”

“Any chance of the law figuring out you did it?”

“I don’t think so. Killed them all. Had a wonderful time. The law will think someone did the world a favor by killing some rats.” He laughed. “You and I are going to kill a lot of them.”