Resurrection Day (24 page)

'Hello, Ishim.'

Ishim Razan turned. He recognised Nikolai Gorev immediately. Razan grinned, displaying a couple of gold teeth. 'Well, if it isn't the Devil himself.'

Gorev smiled back, placed a hand on Razan's shoulder. 'It's good to see you, Ishim.'

The bar-restaurant was a block away, a dark, cavernous place with barely a dozen tables, a couple of electronic gaming machines and a kitchen at the back that filled the air with the pungent smells of garlic, spices, and coffee. A handful of bull-shouldered, fit young men sat at the bar, and when Gorev stepped in from the cold he heard a snatch of Chechen conversation. It died when the men turned to observe him enter, but their unwelcome stares vanished when they saw that he was accompanied by Ishim Razan and two of his bodyguards.

'Take a seat, Nikolai.' Razan picked a quiet table back from the window as his minders took another table near by, out of hearing distance.

As Gorev sat, he regarded Razan. He had changed. He no longer wore a Soviet paratrooper's uniform but an expensive leather jacket, and underneath it a well-cut suit of the finest cloth, an Italian designer label or from Fifth Avenue. The pale blue shirt was silk, complemented by a grey silk tie and solid gold cufflinks. In his left hand he carried a silver-topped walking stick, which Gorev had heard was his trademark affectation. The Chechen had matured over the years: his hair had greyed a little at the temples, his face had filled out, but he was darkly handsome, groomed and polished, the only absurdity in his suave image the black patch that hid a missing eye. He sat down opposite Gorev and spoke in Chechen. 'It has been a long time, Nikolai. How did you know where to find me?'

'I've heard a lot about you over the years.'

'Good or bad?'

'Both.'

'And what else have you heard?'

'That Lieutenant Razan of the Hundred-and-fifth Airborne Division finally became tired of the endless jibes against his race and, having no chance of promotion, left the military. That he took to another kind of work, one much more profitable, and at which he has had great success.'

Razan laughed. 'You have heard much. Anything else?'

'That Ishim Razan is now the most feared, respected and powerful boss in the Chechen underworld in America. A man you can only encounter with shaking knees. That he has legitimate business interests in forestry, mining and property, not only in Russia, but also Europe and America. And that he has other, less public interests, in black-market diamonds and precious metals.'

A smile crept over Razan's face. 'I seem to recall that you had a certain reputation for being thorough in your intelligence-gathering, Nikolai. It's good to see it hasn't left you.'

'Your wife and family, how are they?'

'Healthy and well. I live in Salem, but Talina and the boys prefer the climate in Florida. I have a villa there, and join them mostly at weekends, or whenever I'm free. Life is good, Nikolai.' The Chechen plucked a thick cigar from his top pocket, lit it, blew a ring of smoke into the air. 'So, what's this stuff you said you needed so urgently?'

Gorev told him. Razan listened, raised his good eye, and for a moment he was mildly amused. 'You haven't been smoking those funny Arab cigarettes by any chance, have you, my friend?'

Gorev smiled. 'It's not my habit.'

'I know it must be for the Chechen cause, but what exactly are you up to?'

'Don't ask, Ishim. I'd trust you with my life, but I'd prefer you didn't get personally involved. The same applies for the equipment I need. I don't want to risk you attracting any unwanted attention from the police. A man like you must know of someone near Washington who can supply what I'm looking for, no questions asked. And I need to be sure they won't involve the police.'

Razan rubbed his jaw, reached for a notebook and pen inside his pocket, wrote something down, tore the page out and handed it across. 'This man can help you. He goes by the name of Benny Visto. He's at this address, on Fourteenth Street. He can provide anything you need, promptly and discreetly, but at a price.'

Gorev read the name and address. 'You're absolutely certain he won't involve the police?'

Razan smiled and stubbed out his cigar in a metal ashtray. 'Visto's a hardened criminal, Nikolai, and as vicious as they come. A man like him would never grass to the cops. But I'd tread carefully, old comrade. He's a nasty piece of work.'

It was cold on the Atlantic City boardwalk, the wind whipping up the waves. But it was a perfect evening for a walk, and Karla Sharif had parked her Honda Civic and now strolled along the wooden promenade. She wore a heavily padded windcheater, her hair tied back, and when she reached the middle of the boardwalk she stood looking out at the white-topped waves, the sea breeze washing her face, lost in her thoughts. Couples strolled along the boardwalk, some with small children, and she watched as a young mother stopped to button up her son's coat to keep him from the cold. The little boy was no more than four or five, with dark brown eyes and a head of curly hair. His mother's gesture made Karla think of winter afternoons when she would often walk with Josef along the old harbour at Tyr, pointing out the bright-coloured fishing boats, fussing at his scarf to make sure he kept warm, and the memory cut to her heart. She heard footsteps behind and turned as Gorev came over to join her. 'How did your business go?'

Gorev smiled. 'Just as I hoped. I got the information I needed. We can take care of it in the morning, after you show me the house in Chesapeake.' He lit a cigarette, cupping his lighter in his hands, and pulled up his collar against the breeze. 'I saw you from across the street. You looked miles away, Karla. What were you thinking, standing here?'

Karla was about to answer when suddenly a police car went by, cruising slowly along the promenade road, two uniformed officers inside. She noticed one of the officers glance in their direction and she turned away sharply, but Gorev stood there, unflinching, brazening it out until the car had passed. 'Relax, Karla, they can't possibly know who we are. And the last thing you want to do is look away suddenly. You of all people ought to know that. It's an act of the guilty.'

'I'm ... I'm sorry, Nikolai. For ... for a moment there I wasn't thinking.'

Gorev checked to make certain the police car had gone, saw it disappear round the corner. 'You're sure you're all right?' He searched her face, then tossed his cigarette into the white-topped waves. 'There's nothing on your mind you need to talk about? Nothing troubling you?'

'No. I'm sure.'

'You'd tell me if there was?'

'Of course.'

Gorev looked at her, uncertain whether she was telling the truth, but he let it go, and slipped her arm into his. 'Come, we don't want to hang about in case the police come back.'

On the grounds of the J. Edgar Hoover building is a small square, decorated with concrete flowerpots, a few evergreens and several park benches, a place where FBI employees sometimes take their lunch breaks, go for some fresh air, a smoke, or just to escape the claustrophobia of their offices. That cold twilit morning the square was deserted, the wind tossing the potted evergreens.

After his meeting with Murphy, Collins went down to the lobby and walked over to one of the benches, carrying an A5-size brown envelope. As he sat, his hands were shaking. Not from the cold or because he was still reeling after witnessing the macabre video, but because he was filled with a livid rage. In the months after the bombing of the USS Cole, the same name had cropped up, time and time again, in the intelligence reports compiled by the FBI, CIA and State Department: Mohamed Rashid, an al-Qaeda terrorist who had no scruples, a psychotic who killed without the slightest mercy, and who, the documents concluded, had masterminded the bombing of the Cole, among countless other terrorist outrages. Collins knew that intelligence reports were never an exact science, but with all the reports coming to the same conclusion, somehow he didn't doubt that they were true. Rashid had escaped the FBI dragnet that had resulted in the arrest of four other al-Qaeda terrorists who had taken part in the Cole attack.

He opened the envelope he'd taken from his desk. Inside was a grainy photograph of an Arab man. Taken from a distance, the shot was poor by any standards, even though it had been electronically enhanced: the man's face was blurred, slightly out of focus. It had been taken over five years ago at great personal risk by a Mossad agent, who had managed to secretly photograph a number of Islamic terrorists attending a meeting at a villa near Khartoum. It was also one of the few known photographs the FBI and the international intelligence community had of Mohamed Rashid. The man was a shadowy figure, cunning in the extreme, of whom few photographs existed, and this was about the best. Blurred and grainy as the image was, Collins remembered every perceived detail: the thin slash of the mouth, the curved nose, the dark, brutal eyes that hinted at a murderous savagery. He'd burned the face into his mind.

As he looked down at it again, his rage deepened. Collins tried to focus, force away the rage, replace it with cold determination. Murphy had assigned another Special Agent to work with Kursk and himself — a man named Lou Morgan, who worked in counter-terrorism and specialised in keeping track of Islamic terror groups. A Russian-speaking agent named Matt Flood would also be available to handle any translation, if needed. Their brief was to help apprehend Nikolai Gorev and Mohamed Rashid if they were on US soil. Collins guessed there was method in Murphy's choosing him: he had all the motive he'd need. If Rashid was part of the threat to Washington, he'd be hunting down the man who'd helped plan Sean's death. Collins heard footsteps, replaced the photograph in the envelope. A tall, athletic black man in his early thirties stepped out into the square from the lobby arid came up beside him, rubbing his hands to keep out the chill. 'Man, sure is cold out this morning.'

Collins knew the agent who sat down beside him; years back, they'd worked together on a couple of cases. Lou Morgan was the son of a Baltimore insurance broker and didn't look remotely like a federal agent, a plus when it came to working undercover. His assignments took him all over the country, though he was usually primarily seconded to cases involving the District. Unkempt, with long black crinkly hair, he was unshaven, a pair of dark glasses stuffed into the pocket of his leather jacket, his Reebok sneakers scuffed and worn. 'You OK, Jack?'

'Sure. Just getting some air.'

'Saw you from the sixth-floor window. Thought I'd come down and break bread. They pulled me off a surveillance job up in New York. Flew me straight down here. Still don't know which end of me is up.'

'Murphy gave you the lowdown?'

Morgan nodded, took a pack of Marlboro Lights from his pocket, lit one, cupping it in his hands. 'Sure did. Jesus, it's almost too much to take in. This gas, it's got no antidote, right?'

'That's what they say.'

'I've got a brother living over near Dupont with a wife and four little kids. This thing goes belly up, there's no telling how it's going to pan out. I mean, I can't even fucking warn them.'

'Everyone's in the same boat, Lou.'

'Call me a cynic, but if push comes to shove I'll bet those guys in the White House are going to be calling relatives as far away as Seattle.'

'Think so?'

'Know so. Wouldn't you?' Morgan smiled, took a drag on his cigarette. A biting cold wind whistled across the square. Morgan shivered, the smile gone now as he said quietly, 'I was sorry to hear about Sean and Annie. Must have been hard to bear.' He hesitated before he added, 'You've been way down, huh?'

'Pretty far,' Collins acknowledged. 'But I've been climbing back up.'

'Just remember, friends are always there to give support, make the climb easier.' Morgan put a hand on Collins' shoulder. 'Ever you'd like to talk, say the word.'

Touched, Collins nodded.

Morgan took away his hand, stubbed out his cigarette with his sneaker, stood. Determination was etched on his face. 'If this guy Rashid's out there, we're going to find the sonofabitch, Jack. Rashid and whoever he's working with. Even if we've got to tear the District apart, brick by brick. I just want you to know that. These people are gonna have no place to hide.'

Chesapeake, 12 November

It was a little before eight-thirty a.m. when Karla and Gorev reached the safe house at Winston Bay. It wasn't up to much, mostly clusters of beach cottages and summer homes, some with private jetties, and popular in summer. The rented cottage was on three acres, far enough away from any nosey neighbours, protected by a thick circle of pine trees that gave plenty of privacy and hid the property from the road.

'This is it,' Karla announced as they drove up the winding gravel driveway and pulled up beside a grey-painted, two-storey wood-and-brick cottage. When they climbed out she took a set of keys from under a rock beside the pine tree at the end of the veranda. 'If the traffic isn't bad, you can drive from Washington in forty-five minutes, Baltimore in even less. Come, I'll show you inside.'

The miniature American flag on the veranda pole, Gorev noticed, was a patriotic flourish in keeping with most of the Winston Bay homes they'd seen. Behind the cottage, fifty yards away, stood a wooden walkway and a boathouse that overlooked the watery vastness of Chesapeake Bay. Karla unlocked the front door. The cottage was pleasant: cream-painted walls, a stone fireplace, a telephone and TV, and three bedrooms, one of the wardrobes filled with an assortment of fresh clothes. There was a big open fireplace, a pile of logs stacked beside it. Gorev looked around the kitchen and found it well stocked with food and supplies. 'All the comforts of home. What's outside?'

'There's a car in the garage, if we need it.'

'Anything else?'

'A boathouse, and a private stretch of beach.'

'Let's go take a look.'

They strolled out to the garage adjoining the house. Gorev saw the grey Plymouth parked there, and then they walked down to the wooden boathouse. When he opened the doors he saw a Stratos powerboat inside. 'What's the idea of this?'

'The owner's gone abroad for a year. It came with the rental.'

The powerboat's blue-and-white paintwork was scratched and badly in need of a polish. Gorev examined the powerful 150hp Johnson engine with boyish admiration. It looked in good order. The tank was full of gas and he opened the fuel line, started the motor, let it run for a couple of minutes, then switched off, closed the fuel line again, and slapped the hull. 'It's a good machine. I'll say this for the Americans, they know how to build a decent powerboat. This thing will do fifty knots on the open waves. OK, I've seen enough.'

They stepped out of the boathouse, and Gorev closed the doors. The sun was shining out on the bay, the waters glistening, and he smiled over at Karla. 'How about we take a walk down to the beach?'

'Why?'

'Because I think we need to talk, Karla.'

'When I asked you earlier if there was something on your mind, you didn't tell me the truth, did you? What's troubling you, Karla?'

As they walked along the deserted beach, Karla pulled up her collar to fend off the cool breeze. 'So many thoughts, Nikolai.'

'Tell me.'

'About Josef, mostly.'

'I told you. This will all come right in the end. You have to believe that.' Gorev smiled at her. 'Where's the Karla I used to know? The one brimming with confidence, the one to whom nothing was impossible? With whom every man she met in Moscow fell in love?'

They came to some rocks and she went to sit on one of them, facing the sea. 'You exaggerate, Nikolai. But I'm sure there must be times when you remember what happened between us.'

'Of course. But I treated you badly. Let you fall in love with me, then left you.'

'It wasn't all your fault. I left Moscow of my own choosing.'

Gorev joined her, sat on the rocks, nodded. 'We were young then, Karla. And you did what you had to. You had a cause to fight for. You couldn't have stayed in Russia. I realised that a long time ago. Your place was with your people.'

She bit her lip, looked into Gorev's face. 'All those years ago in Moscow, sometimes it seemed as if I had two hearts. One that belonged to you, the other to my cause. I just wanted you to know that. You meant a lot to me, Nikolai.'

Something sparked between them, and for a moment it seemed that Gorev would kiss her, but he held back, smiled lightly. 'Maybe there's hope for me yet?'

Suddenly, Karla looked serious. 'There's something else I was thinking out on that boardwalk.'

'What?'

'That it all seems so unreal.'

'What does?'

'This. What we're doing. Threatening the lives of half a million people.'

'What's the matter? You're not getting cold feet, are you?'

'No. But I know that every time I walk in the streets I look at the faces I pass. And I wonder if I could go through with it. Could you do it, Nikolai? Kill innocent men, women, children? Would the end justify the means?'

'It's out of our hands, Karla. Better not even to think about it. And be careful. If Rashid heard you talking like that ... '

'But Rashid will really do it, won't he? Can you really hate the Americans that much? That you'll let him detonate the bomb? Do it for him if it comes to it?'

Gorev shook his head. 'I can't answer that question, Karla. Not until it comes down to it. But I know what Rashid would say. He'll do whatever he has to. Whatever is necessary. He'd ask you when have the Americans ever cared for the Arabs, or the Islamic people, except to use them? And he'd be right. The Americans like to play the world's policeman, throw their weight around. They like to talk of justice, but it's a selective justice, to protect their position of power, their vested interests. They'll stick their noses into the Arab world only when it suits them, station their forces in the Gulf to protect their precious oil supplies, or invade Kuwait for the same reason, if their supplies are threatened. But they let your homeland, Palestine, bleed to death. And who can forget the invasion of Lebanon, when the Americans allowed the Israelis and the Lebanese Christian Militia to massacre almost eighteen thousand of your people in less than two months. The same Americans who stood by and did nothing when the Russians invaded Chechnya. Rashid will tell you that what we're doing will change all that, once and for all.'

'And you agree with everything Rashid and his friends do and say?'

Gorev shook his head. 'No, I don't, Karla. You think I like it when their bombs go off and innocents are maimed or killed? My heart bleeds, as much as the next man. But if I've learned one thing, it's that sometimes justice can only be achieved through violence.'

'But what if we have to detonate the bomb?'

Gorev looked towards the sea, shook his head. 'If the American President does as he is told, there won't be a need. He knows the rules, and the consequences, so it's all in his hands, not ours, Karla. But one thing's certain. If he tries to outsmart Rashid and his friends, or double-cross them, he'll pay.' He got up off the rocks suddenly, as if to end the conversation, held out his hand to her. 'And now we'd better get going. I think it's time I met our friend Visto.'

Washington, DC 12 November 10.25 a.m.