Patient Zero

Chapter Sixteen

Gault and Amirah / The Bunker / Six days ago

THEY LAY EXHAUSTED on the table, their clothes tangled around her waist and his ankles, his body purple and red with claw marks and bites. He never left a mark on her, not even the smallest of love bites. That would be suicide.

They never spoke of love afterward. Never told each other how much this meant, or how much they meant to each other. They already knew what the other would say. It had all been said in that first moment of eye contact. Pillow talk would limit the feeling, it would define what did not need to be defined and therefore cheapen it all to some kind of clandestine Romeo and Juliet pap. This was much bigger and, Gault hoped, likely to end with less personal tragedy.

She spoke first, saying simply, “I’ve had some vague reports. Baltimore?”

“Mm, yes,” he drawled. “Seems our warehouse is a total loss.”

“What about Javad?”

He paused, staring at the speckled surface of the acoustic ceiling tiles, deciding which version of the truth to tell her. He loved Amirah but there were levels of privacy that even she didn’t get to enter; which would make it easier if he had to kill her one of these days. He liked to keep his options open. “Uncertain.”

“He hasn’t gotten out. I’ve been tracking the news feeds ”

“I know, which means that we still have to move forward with the next few steps of the operation.”

“What about the other two locations? If the Americans know about the warehouse ”

“Don’t worry,” Gault said. “They know about one of them-the big one; but not about the other one. Right now they’re holding off, probably hoping to find where the other lorry went.”

She nodded, the motion massaging his bicep, which was starting to fall asleep. “When will you evacuate the plant?”

“Why bother? We don’t really need it anymore and I’m rather hoping they raid it.”

Amirah turned her head sharply. “Why?”

“How, why, and when they raid that plant will tell us a great deal about their intelligence gathering, and their wits.”

“Shouldn’t those details be handled by your American friend?”

“He’s too close to it to risk any direct involvement. Besides,” Gault said, “there’s something else I need him to focus on. There are some indications that there is another player in the game, possibly a new counterterrorism organization or department. Right now this is just guesswork, but it bears looking into.”

Amirah sat up and her black robes fell down to cover her with an unintentional display of rumpled modesty. She pushed a strand of glossy black hair away from her face. Without the chadri her face was incredibly beautiful. Full lips, high cheekbones, a broad clear brow, and those eyes. Gault loved those eyes. Like a falcon or some creature out of myth.

“Is it the Brits? You think Barrier is-”

He shook his head. “No, not Barrier. Something the Yanks have cooked up, but as I said-I’m not sure who yet. I have feelers out through Homeland, the FBI, a few other agencies. If I’m right then they’ll show their hands soon enough.”

“You should put your pet monkey on it. He’s tenacious.”

Gault smiled. “His name is Toys and yes, he is tenacious.” In fact, Gault thought, he’d love to cook you over a slow fire.

“So what are you going to do about the plant?”

“I rather think I’m going to let them raid it. I can’t think of a better way of inspiring useful fear than letting me break in and see what’s going on in that place. It’ll do us worlds of good.”

“But what about El Mujahid? He’s the master of creating fear, and his mission is already in the works. If you allow the raid on the warehouse does that mean you’ll use that instead of what my husband is-”

“Hardly,” Gault assured her. “I’m relying on the Fighter to deliver the master stroke; but a raid on the plant will surely set the atmosphere after which everything will go exactly as we want.”

She frowned at him, chewing a lip as she considered this. He knew that she was sorting through the possible outcomes based on what she knew-what he’d allowed her to know. She would come to very logical conclusions, and on the whole they would be right; but they would be incomplete. Which was fine.

“Don’t worry, my princess,” Gault said, and turned onto his side so he could stroke her hair and brush the back of his hand against her cheek. “This is going very, very well for us. We need the Yanks to think they’re containing the situation. If they have a new special operations group, then it will help focus attention in the right direction for us. The best manipulations are always those in which the mark thinks he is in charge.”

Amirah kissed him. “You have the mind of a scorpion, my love.”

“Now, what do you have to show me?”

Her eyes lit up. “If creating great fear is what you want, then you’ll be very happy with what we’ve done since the last time you were here.”

“As good as Javad?”

“Oh no this is much, much better.”

He almost said “I love you.” Instead he kissed her deeply and passionately and then whispered in her ear: “Show me.”