Resurrection Day (36 page)

It was dark when Karla drove into Salem. Gorev was almost unconscious on the seat beside her, and when she felt his forehead it was ice cold. She was desperate until she found the address she was looking for, a couple of miles' drive from the town, along a tree-lined avenue of discreet, walled private mansions, out on the edge of the New Jersey countryside. She drove up to a pair of solid steel gates. The property was surrounded by high walls on either side, and tall trees behind. A security camera with an infrared light was mounted on top of one of the stone entrance pillars, and she saw it swivel round to study her as she got out of the car. She went up to the intercom to press the button, and a few seconds later a metallic voice said in English, 'Yes? What do you want?'

'To see Ishim Razan.'

'Who's looking for him?'

'A friend of Nikolai Gorev's.'

'Who?'

'Just tell Razan I need his help. Urgently.'

A panel in the gates slid back and a pair of hard eyes inspected her. The gates swung open moments later and two tough-looking Chechen men came out. Karla saw at least another half-dozen armed guards in the darkness behind the entrance, near a wooden security hut. One of the guards held a shotgun in the crook of his arm; another rested his hand on his hip, ready to draw his weapon. The two Chechens came towards her. They carried electric torches, and one of them flashed his light in her face, while the other man probed his beam around the Plymouth. They both saw the state Gorev was in, his shirt covered in blood.

'Who are you? What's going on here?' one of the Chechens demanded in English, his eyes slits of distrust. Karla noticed that the men wore small ear receivers of the type used by professional bodyguards. 'My name isn't important. This man is a friend of Ishim Razan's and needs urgent medical help. His name is Nikolai Gorev.'

'What happened to him?'

'He's wounded.'

'Your bag. Hand it here.' Karla handed him her bag from the car. The man searched it, looked at her driver's licence. 'Safa Yassin. That's your name?'

'Yes.' Karla was desperate. 'Please, he's losing blood ... '

'Be quiet.' The man lifted his left hand and spoke something in Chechen into a wrist microphone connected to his earpiece. Karla saw that the second Chechen was already moving round to the back of the car, opening the boot and checking inside, before he knelt on the ground and peered under the chassis with a torch, then lifted the car's bonnet and did the same. He came back and nodded to the first man, who finished talking on his wrist mike, then said to Karla, 'A necessary precaution. Ishim Razan is a powerful man, and powerful men have enemies. My apologies, madam, but I must search you also. Turn round, please. Lift your arms.' Karla turned, and the man's hands moved expertly over her body. When he found nothing, he quickly moved to Gorev, patted him down, and found the Beretta in his pocket. The Chechen turned back to Karla, his face hard. 'What's this?'

'It ... it belongs to Nikolai.' The guard's eyes narrowed with suspicion. 'Why did you come here?'

'There was nowhere else I could go. I couldn't take him to a hospital.' The guard slipped the Beretta in his pocket, spun Karla round. 'Stay still. I want to search you again. Hold your arms out.' The guard's hands probed Karla's body intimately for the slightest bulge. 'Please — Nikolai needs a doctor. Can't you talk to your boss?' The man finished searching her, spun her round again. 'I already have.' This time the Chechen had a pistol in his hand, and it was pointed at Karla's face. 'Get in the back of the car.' He pushed Karla into the rear. His companion jumped into the driver's seat beside Gorev and started the Plymouth, which sped through the gates.

Washington, DC 4.45 p.m.

Around the corner from the famous Willard Hotel, at 529 14th Street, two blocks from the White House, are the headquarters of the National Press Club. At a quarter to five, Bob Rapp was about to give an interview to Jerry Tanbauer from the Washington Times. The venue was the Press Club taproom, a well-know hangout of hard-nosed international correspondents, journalists and reporters, but surprisingly it was nearly empty that late afternoon, with less than a handful of customers at the bar. Rapp had known Tanbauer since the days they'd worked together at the Times. They were old friends, and the interview had originally been scheduled at the White House. Tanbauer wanted to do an in-depth piece on Rapp's role as press adviser to the President, and his elevation to the NSC, but that had been two days before the crisis had begun, and Rapp had decided that it might be best to keep Jerry Tanbauer well away from mansion territory.

A gnome of a man in his early sixties with a bad prostate problem and an even worse wig, Tanbauer was an accredited White House correspondent, a veteran newshound who could sniff a story a mile off. The President had cautioned his advisers to try to go about their business as normally as possible, and Rapp knew that if he'd cancelled his interview Tanbauer might have got suspicious, so he'd phoned his old colleague and told him he had a meeting at the Willard before the interview, and perhaps they might meet instead in the more casual atmosphere of the Press Club. Rapp thought the club venue was a good idea — at least he'd be seen out and about and behaving normally by some of Washington's press, no bad thing if he wanted to avoid arousing suspicion. Tanbauer didn't seem bothered in the least by the venue change, and he led Rapp to a quiet table at the end of the bar.

'Let me get you a drink, Bob. What will it be?'

'Soda and lime.'

'You're fucking kidding me. Since when are you on the wagon?' Rapp shook his head, smiled. 'I'm not, Jerry, just trying to keep a clear head.'

'Important business at the White House?' Rapp thought: Is he fishing? Tanbauer was always fishing, he decided, and laughed. 'Just too much Scotch last night. But hey, you go ahead.'

'Whatever you say, amigo.' Tanbauer laid his leather folder and palm-sized tape recorder on the table and scratched his groin, a hint of his troublesome prostate, not helped by a lifelong fondness for large quantities of single-malt whisky. 'I'll order the drinks, go take a leak, and then we can start, Bob. Be back in a sec.'

As Rapp took his seat, ten feet away at another table two of his Secret Service detail took up their positions. Rapp had got used to the protection. Not that he enjoyed the idea; he simply tolerated it. The Press Club had once been one of his favourite haunts. He'd met Andrew Booth in the same taproom, after the then Texas governor had given a luncheon speech. Rapp had been impressed by the speech, but boldly suggested to Booth he could do better.

The Governor smiled. 'Why don't you come work for me? To tell the truth, I could do with another writer, especially one of your calibre, Mr Rapp. I've long admired your work.' Rapp had a sneaking admiration for the Texan governor, down-home as he was. He recognised a sharp mind behind the homespun philosophy Andrew Booth sometimes liked to dole out to the public. And a rare thing — at least for a politician eager for the power of presidency — he was a genuinely nice guy. There was an honesty about him, a willingness to listen to the opinions of others — worthless though those opinions might be — without a shred of condescension or arrogance. And that was the key as far as Rapp was concerned: Andrew Booth listened. Not only listened, but acted on good advice. That was the kind of man Rapp wanted as his president.

After he started with the speeches, and Booth liked them enough to use them, they soon became friends. A friendship that culminated in Rapp's elevation to presidential adviser and a place on the NSC after Booth's election. It was exactly the kind of career move Rapp had always secretly hankered after. He'd learned that a journalist's words changed very little — but by being close to power, by being able to influence the most powerful man on earth, he had an opportunity he never dreamed of. For over twenty years he'd been a reporter — eight of those spent as a war correspondent — and had twice been nominated for a Pulitzer for his reporting. He'd witnessed the worst of human savagery: in Northern Ireland, Angola and then his watershed, Lebanon. The absolute worst, in terms of sheer brutality, had been Lebanon. He always remembered the day he'd walked through Sabra and Chatila and seen the terrible carnage inflicted by the Israeli-backed Phalangist militia after they'd attacked the impoverished Palestinian refugee camps. The butchery the Phalangists left behind them shocked him to the core. Kids, tiny babies, women, men, lying in alleyways and gutters, with their throats cut or their bodies ripped to shreds by bullets or blast bombs. He'd stepped into one ramshackle house and seen two pitiful corpses — an elderly man, clutching the body of a little boy no more than three or four, probably his grandson whom he'd tried to protect. Both bodies had their throats cut. He'd seen even worse that day, images that he could never forget, which still brought bile to his throat and tears to his eyes when he recalled them.

His reports on the attacks had earned him a Pulitzer nomination but he'd cracked afterwards. He'd had enough of war, and for a year after he returned from Lebanon he'd lived on pills, little white-and-yellow pills that helped him get through the nightmares. He'd mended slowly, but there would always be a part of him that could never be fully mended after Lebanon ... Rapp's cellphone buzzed, jolting him from his reverie. He flicked it on, heard the familiar voice of Paul Burton. 'Bob, this is Paul. Something's come up. We need you back here straight away.'

'I'm just about to do an interview with Jerry Tanbauer.'

'Jesus! Is he with you now?'

'He's gone for a leak.'

'Whatever you do, don't give the guy any indication that you're rushing back here. You know the kind of guy Tanbauer is. He'd start to get suspicious.'

'Don't worry, I'll handle it. I'm on my way.' Rapp flicked off his phone. His summons back to the White House meant there had to be a sudden development in the crisis. He just hoped it wasn't for the worse. Jerry Tanbauer came back with the drinks. 'Here we go. Soda and lime. You're going to poison yourself drinking this shit, Bob.' Rapp stood, put away his cellphone. 'Jerry, my apologies, but I'm afraid we're going to have to leave the interview until another time.'

Tanbauer frowned. 'Like when?'

'I'll give you a call later. Maybe we can do it over the phone?'

'What the frig's the matter, Bob? You got trouble at the mansion?' Rapp shook his head, hid the lie with a sad expression. 'Not at all. I just got a call from George Washington Hospital. An old friend of mine's been taken seriously ill. I've got to get over there right away.'

Salem, New Jersey 5.11 p.m.

The house was a mansion with a vast marble porch, double oak entrance doors, cathedral windows and tall stone columns. A huge water fountain gurgled away on the expansive, well-lit lawns. The moment the oak doors opened a couple of guards came out and the Chechen shouted an order to them. As the guards lifted Gorev out of the car, another voice barked, 'Handle him with care. He's someone I owe my life to, many times over.' Karla saw a man step out on to the porch. He was stocky, in his forties, wearing a well-tailored suit, and his left eye was covered with a black patch. 'Forgive my men, but they're well paid to protect me. No one is above their suspicion, least of all a beautiful woman.' The man studied her face. 'My name is Ishim Razan. You say you're a friend of Nikolai's?'

'Yes.'

'You could pass for a Chechen, but you're not, are you? Or even Russian?'

'No.'

'No matter. Come this way.' Karla followed Razan and his men down a long marble hallway to an annexe at the back of the house. It looked like a watch-room for the guards, with a couple of fold-up beds, a bank of TV security monitors, and a tiny kitchen. They had placed Gorev on a bed in a corner, and one of the guards took a first-aid kit from a drawer and gingerly began to examine Gorev's wound before checking his pulse. Razan said to him, 'Well, Eduard?'

'It looks nasty,' the guard replied. 'And he seems to have lost a fair amount of blood. How long has he been unconscious?'

'About twenty minutes,' Karla replied. 'He's been drifting in and out of consciousness for the last few hours, and it's got worse in the past while.'

'What exactly happened to him?' Razan said to her.

'He was injured by shrapnel. Please ... he needs a proper doctor.'

'That much is obvious.' Razan frowned. 'How did this happen?' Karla said nothing. Razan finally nodded and sighed. 'As you wish. The doctor's already on his way. Eduard here will manage until he arrives. He's skilled in first aid.'

'It's important the doctor is someone you can trust not to talk to the police.' Karla was anxious. 'Nikolai would want to be completely certain of that.'

Razan saw the concern on his visitor's face. 'Don't worry, I wouldn't deal with any other kind.' He put a reassuring hand on her shoulder. 'I've seen Nikolai live through worse. And you can take it from me, he's always had the Devil's luck.'

The doctor arrived ten minutes later. He was a large, middle-aged Russian with dark, sad eyes, a double chin and half-moon glasses that were held together with Scotch tape. His crumpled dark suit looked as if it hadn't been pressed in months, and he had the brown-stained fingers of a man who smoked incessantly. As if to prove it his suit jacket was smudged with grey patches of ash.

He felt Gorev's pulse and said, 'What happened to him?' They were still in the annexe at the back of the house. When Karla explained, the doctor took off his crumpled jacket and rolled up his sleeves. He scrubbed his hands at the sink, slipped on a pair of latex gloves, and carefully examined Gorev's wound, probing it with a finger.

Razan said to her, 'Don't let Arkady's appearance fool you. He's a true eccentric, but a thorough professional. Many years ago, before he came to work in America, he was a field surgeon with a Russian paratroop regiment, and saw service on the battlefields of Afghanistan. Trust me, he's an expert when it comes to this kind of thing. I've seen him bring men on their deathbeds back to life. Well, Arkady, what's the prognosis?'

The doctor looked up, his glasses perched on the bridge of his nose. 'It's bad enough, Ishim. At a guess some shrapnel is still lodged in the wound, and may have lacerated his gut. He's also lost a fair amount of blood. He'll need to be operated on, of course, and quickly.'

'Can you do it here?'

'I'd prefer to move him to a proper theatre, but if I really must.'

Razan nodded. 'It would be best.'

'Very well. But if we run into difficulty, we'll have to consider moving him. There's a private clinic in Atlantic City with a well-equipped theatre, run by a Russian surgeon. For a price, he can be relied on to keep his mouth shut.'

'As you wish.' Razan turned to his men. 'Make sure the doctor gets everything he needs. And bring one of the Mercedes round the front. Have it standing by, just in case we have to move the patient quickly.'

'Yes, Ishim.' One of the Chechen bodyguards left, while two of the others got to work, one of them drawing piping-hot water from the sink, the second man unfolding a small trestle table and covering it with a fresh white towel. The doctor opened his bag, laid out his instruments and began to fill a hypodermic with anaesthetic. 'This ought to kill any pain he's going to feel. But I'd prefer as few spectators as possible. So you may as well go for a walk, Ishim. This may take a little while.'

'Whatever you say.' Razan put a hand on Karla's arm, ushered her towards a back door that led out to the gardens. 'And now, Safa Yassin, or whoever you are, I think we need to have a talk.'

Afghanistan