WILLIAM LLOYD CURTIS SPED back to Washington with the windows down, letting the wind drum hard into the car. His head still felt cottony, the sluggishness that usually resulted when he drank too much beer, but the howling wind and an espresso macchiato from a Starbucks drive-through had helped cut through the mental fog. He was not drunk, not even tipsy. He licked some of the steamed milk foam from his upper lip.
The chance to let his frustrations run free and bullshit with strangers in a bar where he was unknown had been cathartic, a needed winding-down from the unexpected ISI setback. The roughneck part of his own life, when he had built his construction empire, was truly in the past. For a moment in the bar, he wondered if he could recapture the flavor of those exciting years when he wore dirty jeans and Grateful Dead T-shirts and could use his fists as well as his brain. All the while, he knew that was only a fantasy for a middle-aged man who now wore expensive suits and was an undersecretary in the U.S. State Department, the man who ran the U.S. Bureau of American-Islamic Affairs.
Ah, Raneen. I miss you so much. I have never stopped loving you, and soon your death will be avenged. America will long remember the evil day you were murdered.
By the time the Beemer M3 hit the Beltway after the drive from Williamsburg, Bill Curtis had regained control of his emotions. Everything was still on track. The sprawling intelligence network within the countries of the BAIA was intact, and he really could harbor no lasting resentment against General Gul for not wanting to send a professional ISI killer onto American soil; the general was simply protecting his own agenda, and Curtis never burned such a valuable source over any single decision. They could work together on other projects.
Still, it was clear that he was on his own in containing the nosy Coast Guard woman and her Marine protector. He did not know where they had hidden, but his wide web of contacts was alert, and when they surfaced, he would be waiting.
By the time he drove over the Lion Bridge, he had rolled up the windows and turned on the air-conditioning, and the interior of the luxury automobile had become a comfortable cocoon in which he was shielded from the noise and the smell of the traffic. Washington was still alive with activity, and the streets were busy with pedestrians, from tour groups to workers. Men in running shorts ran laps on the Mall, and young women spoke urgently into their cell phones.
Women, Curtis thought. They always had to stay in contact with their girlfriends and their mothers and their distant cousins and friends from the second grade, as if they were all stuck together by verbal glue. They all had to know what each other was doing at every moment. A woman might hate her mother, but that did not mean they would not talk on the phone for hours. That was why cell telephone companies were part of his financial portfolio.
Then it hit him. The obituary of the slain American doctor from the bridge incident had included the names of his only two relatives: the Coast Guard sniper and their mother. He had been from somewhere out west, some farm state: Indiana? Iowa? Yes, Iowa. If it was a fact of life that daughters stay in touch with moms, then it would logically follow that this Ledford woman out in the land of alfalfa and cows might have some information that Bill Curtis needed. He suddenly smiled and honked his horn once in celebration. He would go and see her.
“DO WE GET PIECES of cheese when we get out of this maze?” Beth Ledford was only half kidding. The long corridors, side hallways, and vacant rooms still under construction seemed endless, like a high school science experiment to train mice. The fire alarm had emptied the structure, allowing them more freedom of movement, and they had taken advantage of the opportunity to uncover and clear more gun positions, storage areas, support centers, even a mess hall and living quarters. The place seemed endless.
Kyle admitted, “We’re just seeing more of the same shit. It must have a purpose, but I don’t see it.”
“It’s just a big bridge.”
“With a ton of remote control armament. It burns me that we can’t find what they think they are defending in this pile of rocks. There’s nothing of real value here. Nada.”
“So we can go home now?”
They were in a yellow hallway, before a bright red cross with the word INFIRMARY printed neatly in several languages. “Let’s duck in here while I call the extract team.”
The solid door to the medical facility was unlocked, and when they stepped inside, it automatically closed behind them. Swanson momentarily felt claustrophobic, as if trapped underground, but six feet away stood another secure door, and he realized they were in an airlock chamber. Blasts of cool, filtered air were pushed in by fans near the floor and slid along their clothing before being sucked out through vents in the ceiling. After ten seconds of the high-pressure sweep, the fans stopped, and the second door swung open silently on its oiled hinges.
They moved into a room that looked in every way like a modern medical clinic, with spotless floors and furnishings. Equipment was neatly stored in cabinets. At the rear of the long room were two empty metal-framed beds covered in white sheets with tight hospital corners, and on each was a blanket folded in half. A frame on rollers supported a head-high curtain that partitioned off the far side of the beds.
Kyle motioned Beth to cover him as he moved forward, pistol drawn.
AYMAN AL-MASRI CLIMBED ONTO a spool of wire cable beside the road topside and spoke to the approximately fifty workmen who had evacuated the facility. When he identified himself as representing the NMO, there was a shifting of feet in the crowd, and an averting of the eyes. “There is no fire,” he said to calm them. “It was necessary to sound the alarm because there has been a serious breakdown in security here. The entire guard force has either been killed or is missing. You, too, may be in danger.”
Now they were paying attention to the bearded man. “I do not yet know the extent of the problem, so my team will go back to determine what has happened. I need a few volunteers to stay out here, men who have had military experience to act as guards at the entryways, and let no one in or out until I say differently. Who will help us fight the infidels?”
A few men raised their hands or stepped forward, then more followed. Although they were only construction hands finishing the midnight shift, it would not be wise to be known as an enemy of the NMO. Al-Masri had counted on that fear. He put a volunteer who said he had once been with the Pakistani military in charge and ordered that weapons be issued to the men on guard duty, for he did not want any of them having second thoughts about their loyalty.
Most of his team had also run topside when the alarm sounded, leaving behind only the computer specialist who had the original idea for the alarm. He was still down in the tunnels trying to find the defense systems control room. When they all had weapons, and the entrances and exits were effectively cut off, al-Masri gathered the others and went back inside.
On the elevator ride, he joined the doctor and his bodyguard, who were heading for the infirmary to determine if the captive chief engineer might be able to divulge some of the secret passwords needed in the control room. If necessary, he could be forced to talk. Pain could do wonderful things for a memory.
TANGLED, INTERESTING IMAGES HAD been wafting through the brain of Chief Engineer Mohammad al-Attas when the fire alarm sounded, the shrill noise penetrating the last barriers of the sedative he had been given. He came awake slowly with a series of blinks, yawned, and smiled to himself. Still alive.
He wondered only momentarily about the fire, because there was nothing at all he could do about it. Burning to death or a bullet in the head would have the same result. Instead, he ran a mental diagnostic of his body. His arms and legs were all still secured by straps, with two more bands of strong woven plastic running across his hips and his chest. For some reason, the clamp around his head had been removed, or perhaps it had slipped off while he thrashed about in the nightmares. Irrelevant. At least he could see around him now.
He surveyed his situation. He was still in the infirmary, with the rolling curtain hiding the rest of the room from view. The usual hospital apparatus was near the bed but was not connected to him. He sucked in a deep breath, then blew it out hard to expel the old, stale air from his lungs. When he did it again, the heartbeat slowed to normal as his mind shifted from a place of uncertain fright to cold analysis. Al-Attas was not afraid. He just settled in for the long wait, until whatever was to happen happened. Insh’Allah.
He wondered about Sergeant Hafiz and the al Qaeda inspectors who had examined him like a goat. There was no doubt that he was tagged for death, but then everyone is, and there was no need to fear it. The chief engineer understood that if he had been an ordinary man of ordinary skills, he would have been dealt with some time ago. Since he wasn’t, his guardians in Islamabad and Washington were still protecting him, at least for the time being, but he could not count on that.
The alarm was irritatingly loud, and he wished he could shut it off. He wanted to be back in the chair in the defense systems control room, operating his digital domain, supervising the workers to finish the bridge project. Everyone wanted it completed, and the pressure was on him to get it all running. No one else could do it! Another part of him, the invisible part, wished he could be outside, running free beneath the bridge, loose in the valley.
His thoughts were interrupted by the opening of the infirmary door. It closed quickly, and the lock snapped into place. Soft footsteps, not the usual stride of normal workers, came from the far side of the curtain. He saw the silhouette of someone cautiously approaching, and the curtain was thrust aside.
KYLE SWANSON PUSHED THE curtain back with his left hand and brought up his pistol with his right, pointing it straight at the startled face of a dark-haired young man lashed down to a bed. The decision not to shoot was made in a split second, and Swanson moved around the bed to be sure the rest of the area was clear of potential threats. Satisfied, he holstered the pistol, ignoring the bound figure, and removed a satellite phone from his pack. Beth covered the front of the room with her finger resting on the trigger guard of the CAR-15.
“Trident Base, Trident Base. This is Bounty Hunter.” His voice was unhurried and clear. He heard only static in return and tried again. “Trident Base. This is Bounty Hunter. Do you read me? Come in.” Still, only the hiss of interference.
“Your sat phone won’t work down here,” said the patient on the bed. “You’re beneath tons of rock. The signal can’t get out.”
Swanson was startled. The words were clear English with only a slight accent. Ledford pointed her rifle at the man. “Who the hell are you?” Kyle asked.
The man shifted the weight of his shoulders, as if trying to get comfortable, but was held tightly by the chest strap. “My name is Mohammad al-Attas.”
“Why are you tied down?” Beth Ledford had not lowered her guard.
“They are going to kill me,” the young man said.
“Who is? Why?”
“I am considered a security risk by the New Muslim Order. I suppose I am, because I know too much, and don’t say my prayers all the time.”
“The Order?” Swanson put away his radio and sat beside the man. “You’re saying the NMO is involved here? How do you know that?”
“Oh, they surely are involved,” the man replied, with a small, sly smile. “I know that because I am the chief engineer of the entire project. I know everything about it.” He relaxed even more. “Other things as well.” This encounter was going better than he could have dared hope. Americans: one the usual hard-case commando type, but the other a pretty young woman.
He asked Beth, “I assume you people are the reason for the fire alarm? Did you set it off?”
“We don’t know anything about that. Where did you learn English?” She was fascinated. A man tied to a bed in the infirmary of a hostile facility, and apparently under a death sentence, was carrying on a casual conversation, as if he had not a worry in the world. His clothes were bloodstained, and his face and hair were filthy.
“Boston,” al-Attas said. “Actually, across the river over in Cambridge, at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Picked up my master’s degree there. Trust me, your sat phone is useless in this location.”
“Can you make it work?”
“Of course. Let’s do a deal. Like I said, I know everything about this place, including how to get out. I will be a gold mine for your intelligence people. Take me back with you.”
Swanson was still hesitant. “You talk a good game, dude, but why are you so messed up?”
“Basically I outlived my usefulness, and they really did not like that I helped some strangers, particularly an international medical team that wandered in here by accident a few weeks ago. I tried to help them escape, but they caught all of us. It was horrible; they killed those unfortunates after torturing them for sport for a while. They made me continue my work, and when I tried to escape on my own, they put me in here to await execution, probably tomorrow. We’re wasting time, sir. Help me get out, and I’ll help you in return.”
“You built all this?” Kyle knew the man had potentially vital information.
“Yes. I designed every inch.”
“Why? For what purpose? All the weaponry?”
Al-Attas shook his head. “At first, I thought that I was just building a bunkered and well-protected bridge. Then it turned out that the New Muslim Order plans for this to be a new hideout for Commander Kahn so he can carry out his attack on America while protected against reprisal.”
“What new attack on America?”
“It’s complicated,” he said, “but I know everything. I listened to a lot of conversations that I was not supposed to hear.”
Swanson began to unlash the patient. “Let’s get the sat phone working,” he said.
Al-Attas sat up and rubbed his wrists, then pointed toward a nearby door that was set meticulously into a steel frame. “Sure. Right this way,” he said.