Resurrection Day (47 page)

In the early morning darkness, just after 3 a.m., a light burned brightly in the window of a sixth-floor office at 500 C Street, Federal Center Plaza.

Patrick Tod O'Brien, the man who occupied the office, was a big, burly, red-haired New Yorker in his early forties, with broad shoulders and heavy arms. A guy who looked as if he should have been a second-generation Irish-American working as a construction site foreman rather than a senior planning specialist with FEMA, the Federal Emergency Management Agency.

Deeply anxious, O'Brien threw down his pen. On the desk in front of him was a notepad, a Dell desktop computer, a thermos of coffee, and a photograph of his wife and two young daughters.

Turning away from the glare of his computer screen, he rubbed his gritty eyes and stared out of his window for distraction. Six floors down was a complex of deli shops, restaurants, a Holiday Inn, and a tiny square with wooden benches where O'Brien sometimes liked to take a packed lunch when the weather was good. But that early morning, the Plaza — home to dozens of US government departments including FEMA's headquarters — was deserted, a cold November wind whipping in from the nearby Potomac. The only activity was the occasional taxi pulling away from the Holiday Inn, with which — absurdly — the FEMA building shared a common entrance.

Very few guests who entered the lobby of the famous hotel chain would realise that one day their survival might depend on a man like O'Brien and the nine thousand full- and part time FEMA employees in a dozen regional and area offices throughout America. Their job is one of the most daunting imaginable — to protect lives and property in the event of a major disaster striking US soil: hurricanes and tornadoes, floods and snowstorms, earthquakes and fire-storms, volcanic eruptions, an act of war or terrorism, be it a nuclear, chemical or biological attack. If disaster hits America on a grand scale, it is FEMA that co-ordinates the federal government response, and manages the messy job of post-disaster cleanup.

The Agency had proven its worth in dozens of critical disasters: in helping the victims of earthquakes in California, hurricanes on the Florida coast, tornadoes in the Midwest, raging snow blizzards, floods and wildfires in almost every state. O'Brien liked to think Agency staff were prepared to handle pretty much any disaster thrown at them, except maybe a hostile alien invasion. Besides, as his boss liked to jokingly point out, alien landings were a problem for Immigration.

The source of O'Brien's anxiety that morning was the special task he'd been given. Just before nine the previous evening he'd been summoned by a phone call to the eighth-floor office of FEMA's Director to be briefed on an urgent assignment: a disaster scenario to ponder. Emphasising that it was top secret, the Director wanted O'Brien's response by 8 a.m. the next morning. The scenario was this: what if Washington was hit by a large-scale terrorist chemical attack, using a deadly Novichok nerve gas ten to fifteen times more toxic than VX, and with no known antidote. The awesome power of the chemical, the likely method of its delivery, and its devastating potential in terms of human casualties had been outlined by the Director. O'Brien was astonished by the figures: two hundred thousand injured, three hundred thousand dead.

But managing disaster was O'Brien's job. He was used to dealing with horrifying scenarios in which the lives of hundreds of thousands, even millions, of people were at risk. Like certain of his colleagues — former military specialists — he had spent many years with the US Army, as a chemical and biological warfare expert. His task that day was to figure out how FEMA could respond: what measures it could take to minimise casualties before such an attack took place, and how to deal with both the survivors and the immense numbers of fatalities and injured in the aftermath.

A prime rule in managing a disaster was to try to have a firm plan already in place. FEMA liked to call it mitigation: taking sustained action to limit risk and damage to people and property before the event happened. For that reason, O'Brien's desktop computer was programmed with the outlines of dozens of disaster scenarios and the likely federal or state response. One of these was for a chemical attack by terrorists on Washington, DC. O'Brien had spent the remainder of the evening and early morning locked in his office, cut off from calls or visitors, studying the scenario using powerful software programs devised by FEMA and the US Defence Department.

Given the powerful toxicity of the nerve gas, O'Brien would adjust the programs accordingly: factoring in variables, modifying conditions, tweaking the figures, and then mulling over the projections. Then he would address the first big question he had to ask himself: could FEMA handle this emergency? And that was why he was deeply troubled. He still had some way to go before he completed his task, but deep in his gut he sensed he already knew the answer. No.

The damage figures were simply awesome. O'Brien sighed, turned away from his view of the Holiday Inn. Picking up his pen and the yellow legal pad, he looked back at the blue glare of his Dell screen. His task was Herculean. By morning he had to come up with an outline emergency plan for DC — to safely evacuate and decontaminate over one and a half million people, provide each one with food, shelter and any necessary medical aid, provide energy sources for heat and light, secure urgent hospital treatment for a staggering two hundred thousand injured victims, and maintain civil order.

And finally — a task so gruesome it made O'Brien shudder just thinking about it — figure out how to dispose of three hundred thousand dead bodies.

Chesapeake 7 a.m.

Karla awoke. She had slept badly, tossing and turning for the few hours she'd managed to rest, her mind still racked with worry over Nikolai. She dressed, went downstairs and made coffee.

Beyond the kitchen window the wind was gusting, the bay waters choppy. The cellphone Ishim Razan had given her hadn't rung all night, but she was still deeply anxious. She'd left the phone in her tote bag upstairs, and as she turned to fetch it and call Razan she started. Mohamed Rashid was leaning against the door frame, watching her. 'You woke early, Karla Sharif. What's the matter, couldn't you sleep?'

'I was worried about Nikolai.'

Rashid grunted. 'Come, there's something I want you to see.'

He went into the living room. Karla followed. He had returned after midnight, a look of satisfaction on his face, but he hadn't spoken a word to her before he went to his room. Now he turned on the TV, flicked to the NBC news channel.

A woman news reporter stood on a darkened Washington street. She spoke directly to the camera, and behind her, within viewing distance, was another street that looked like a war zone. It was cordoned off by dozens of uniformed police and lit by powerful arc lamps, and behind the police barriers there was a frenzy of activity: emergency rescue crews, fire department trucks, police vehicles, and fleets of ambulances. Karla saw wispy plumes of smoke rise into the air, and several of the buildings in the background looked badly wrecked or partly demolished. She caught the gist of the news report: FBI Headquarters on 10th Street had been ripped apart by a huge suicide truck-bomb explosion, and dozens had been killed or injured. Numbed by horror, she turned to look at Rashid, saw his face spark with triumph.

'I told you I'd teach the Americans a lesson.'

Karla, pale, said with disgust, 'Why? Why do it? Why kill those people?'

'Because action is the only thing these Americans understand. Now they've seen bodies on the streets, they'll take us seriously.'

Rashid flicked off the TV with the remote. 'A pity I didn't kill more.'

Karla bit back her revulsion. 'Who drove the truck?'

'That's irrelevant.' Rashid tossed her the Plymouth's keys.

'Now, Karla Sharif, you will fetch Gorev. And I warn you, don't return without him.'

Five minutes later, as Karla turned the Plymouth out of the driveway, she fumbled in her tote bag on the seat beside her. She found the cellphone, scrolled to the stored number, and punched the dial button to call Ishim Razan. She didn't notice the black GM Savana van with tinted windows parked two hundred yards away, or the two Chechens inside watching her through a pair of powerful binoculars.

Salem, 13 November 7.35 a.m.

Ishim Razan flicked off the cellphone. The call from Safa Yassin telling him she was on her way to New Jersey hadn't surprised him in the least. He had slept poorly, and when he had replaced the cellphone on the nightstand he climbed out of bed and slipped on a silk dressing gown.

Once he had showered and dressed, he went down the landing to another bedroom. When he entered, the room was in near darkness, the curtains closed. One of his men was reclined in a chair, his feet resting on a footstool, a magazine open on his chest as he kept watch by Gorev's bedside.

'How's the patient?'

'He seems reasonable, Ishim, and his temperature's back to normal.'

'Did he wake during the night?'

'A couple of times.'

'And?'

'He was delirious, wanted to know where he was. Once I assured him he was in your safe hands, he drifted back to sleep.'

Razan moved over to the bed. Gorev was still sleeping; there was no sign of bloodstains on the fresh bandage around his stomach. Razan had ordered his men to move him to a guest room just before midnight, after the doctor had administered the transfusion. 'Take a break, Pashar. Go get some breakfast. I'll stay with him.'

When the guard had left, Razan felt Gorev's brow, then crossed to the window, drew back the curtains and opened out the windows, letting a burst of fresh air gust into the room, billowing the curtains. Gorev came awake groggily. Razan smiled, sat on the edge of the bed. 'For a man with a conscience, you sleep like a baby, Nikolai.'

Gorev pushed himself up, his face creasing with a twinge of pain. 'Ishim.'

'Take it easy. How do you feel?'

'Better than last night.'

'That's something, at least. My man has told you where you are?'

'I can just about recall. I must have been delirious.'

Razan indicated the pills by Gorev's bedside, a pack each of painkillers and antibiotics, and explained what the doctor had done. 'Don't worry, he can be trusted. You have the luck of the Devil, Nikolai, you know that? How many times is it you've been wounded and pulled through?'

'Too many.'

'All these heroics have to stop, old comrade, or you'll end up screwed down in a wooden box.'

'No doubt. It comes to us all in the end.'

'But it needn't come so soon.' Razan laid a hand fondly on Gorev's shoulder. 'Are you hungry?'

'Starving.'

Razan smiled. 'A pity. The doctor recommended only liquids for the next few days. I'll have the cook fix you something nourishing, to keep the hunger at bay.'

Razan started to get up. Gorev gripped his arm, said gratefully, 'Thanks, Ishim.'

'What are comrades for? If it hadn't been for you, my bones would be bleaching in the Afghan sun.' Razan grinned. 'Instead, I'm a successful Chechen gangster, the most feared man from Grozny, remember?'

Gorev managed a weak smile. 'Maybe I've a lot to answer for. Where's Karla?'

Razan frowned. 'You mean Safa, surely?'

'Yes ... Safa.'

'On her way to see you. I told her you'd have to rest here for now.'

'I can't, Ishim. I've got things to do. And right this minute I need fresh air and to try to stretch my legs. You know me, I hate being cooped up.'

Gorev attempted to get up out of bed, his impatience obvious, but Razan put a hand firmly on his shoulder. 'Right now your recovery matters more. You can try a walk after breakfast, if you must. We can start with a gentle stroll in the garden. But try to leave and I might be forced to have my men restrain you.'

'You wouldn't dare, Ishim.'

'Try me. But we'll get to that discussion later. First, I'll fetch you something from the kitchen.' Razan stood, his tone sombre. 'And then, Nikolai, we need to have a serious talk.'

Washington, DC 13 November 8 a.m.

The President had barely slept, his body ravaged by tension. He had managed less than three hours, and as he entered the Oval Office he looked haggard. The FBI Director was already waiting. He started to stand. 'Don't get up, Doug.' The President slumped behind his desk. 'You wanted to see me.'

'We have the latest figures from the blast, sir. Thirteen confirmed dead and ten missing. Thirty injured, ten of them seriously. As for the explosive material, it was a mix of Semtex, ammonium nitrate and fuel oil. But Abu Hasim wasn't lying. We found no trace of nerve gas.'

The President sighed tiredly. 'If nothing else, at least there's that to be thankful for. What about the press?'

'We're telling them nothing except that our investigation is under way, but that we have suspicions it may have been the work of a right-wing extremist group.'

The President nodded. After his conversation with Abu Hasim, he and his shocked advisers had met for almost two hours, debating into the early morning, until they were all exhausted and the President had adjourned the meeting so that everyone could get some much-needed sleep — but only after they had reached a number of major decisions. One of them was that no blame for the explosion would be attached to any group external to the US, so as to avoid public and media suspicion.

'That's going to cause dismay and panic in itself, but it's still preferable to the alternative. What progress have you made with your investigation?'

'You mean the bombing, sir, or the hunt for the cell?'

'Both.'

'So far as we can tell, there was a single bomber. We caught the truck on our security cameras as he came in off Pennsylvania Avenue at nine-fifty-seven p.m., just moments before the blast. But what few human remains we scraped out of the mangled wreckage can't tell us for certain yet if the driver was alone.'

'What about the truck?'

'Rented a week ago from a Ryder office in Baltimore by a man named Sadim Takik. We've turned up nothing on him yet, but at a guess the name was probably an alias. Takik's driver's licence details we got from the rental office don't match with anything on our licensing databases, which suggests it was most likely a forged document. For now, the truck driver's real identity is a mystery. We can only assume he was one of the cell. And expendable, obviously.'

'And the hunt?'

The FBI Director explained the circumstances of the teenagers' murder in Maryland. 'We think the killer may have been one of the terrorists.'

The President's mouth pursed at the grim news. 'But you've got nothing solid?'

'No, sir. We're checking all hotels and rental properties, as well as those belonging to anyone of Middle Eastern origin, all within a twenty-five-mile radius, in case the suspect had a safe house in the area. But it's a big area, and it means another massive task, along with everything else we've got to contend with. It's going to take time, Mr President.'

'And time we don't have.'

'No, sir.'

The President, perturbed, looked away. For a long time, his hand on his jaw, he stared out beyond the White House lawns, as if trying to reach a decision. Finally, his hand fell from his jaw and he addressed Stevens. 'Doug, what are the real chances of ending this thing and apprehending the al-Qaeda cell within the next twenty-eight hours? Because that's all we've got left. Give me an honest-to-God answer.'

'Not good, Mr President.' The Director was gloomy. 'The Bureau's doing everything it can. Every man, every resource we've got is going into this. But the simple fact is, we haven't even covered a quarter of the ground we need to cover. Even if we were to pull in the police, military and National Guard on this, I still couldn't guarantee success. There's too much to cover, too many avenues to explore, in too short a time. If we had a couple of weeks, or even a month, to nail this down, maybe I'd be giving you a more hopeful answer. But as it stands, twenty-eight hours is impossible.'

'We're really up shit creek, aren't we?'

Stevens didn't respond. The President stood.

Stevens got up. 'What do you intend to do, sir?'

'The only thing we can. Start an immediate pull-out from the Gulf of all our personnel. But leave behind our equipment. Billions of dollars of military hardware gone to waste. Time permitting, we'll have a chance to destroy any sensitive material we can't take with us. But we'll try and leave that to the last minute.'

'When will you give the order, sir?'

'I've already given it. I'll be making my announcement to the Security Council in the next hour. General Horton's already got the pull-out under way. Our military transporters are en route to the Gulf right now, as well as chartered commercial aircraft from Europe. We're trying to spread out the chartered hire-ins, not use more than one or two aircraft from the same commercial company in case it gets noticed. As to whether we can complete the pullout in time that's another matter.'

'What does the general think?'

'He doubts it. I'm going to inform the Gulf royal families about what's happening later this afternoon. They're all going to hit the roof, you can bet on that, and it's going to leave them damned worried about what might come next for their countries, but there's nothing we can do about that right now.'

'And the press?'

'We worry about the press later. We'll draft a presidential statement, but leave any announcement until we're past Abu Hasim's deadline and he's neutralised the device. That's if we can believe the sonofabitch will do as he says. Personally, I wouldn't trust him an inch. I still have grave doubts that he's going to keep his end of the bargain. Either he'll still set off the device — like Professor Stern said, he really wants to hurt us, no matter what the outcome of all this — or else, even when we comply with his demands, he won't tell us where the device is. He could probably keep it hidden for days, weeks or months if he wants to, just to have the threat still hanging over our heads.'

The President moved to the window. 'We'll have to have evacuation plans for the District in place, and ready to go. Our experts are working on it now, and we'll be discussing their recommendations at a meeting this afternoon, along with Al Brown. The mayor's as anxious as hell, as we all are, that we have something concrete in place to try and save as many citizens as we can.'

'What about Kuzmin? Is there any hope there?'

The President's mouth tightened as he shook his head. 'He still refuses to change his mind about the Chechen prisoners. That's when I last spoke to him, at one a.m. However, he's agreed to discuss the release with his own council and get back to me by this afternoon.'

'That's as far as he'll go?'

I'm afraid so. As for the rest of the prisoners in Israel, Germany and Britain, we'll work on that problem today. And I've asked Dick Faulks to have his people in Pakistan provide Samar Mehmet with an electronic scrambling device for his phone, so any communication we have to make with him is kept secure.' The President glanced at his watch. 'If that's it, Doug, I've got some things to attend to before we start the meeting.'

Stevens said worriedly, 'There's one more thing, sir, and it's the real reason why I asked to see you in private before we went to the conference room.'

'Go on.'

'It's about the tape we made of your conversation with Hasim.'

'What about it?'

'I've gone back through the recording with Janet Stern, Franklyn Young and the CIA Director, and we think we've found something pretty disturbing.'

'The whole damned conversation was disturbing,' the President snapped.

'That wasn't really the context I meant, sir.'

'Then what did you mean?'

'In the heat of all that happened last night, there's something none of us latched on to, at least not immediately. But when we went back over the tape a number of times, and started to see what was between the lines, we really couldn't miss it. And it's got us all worried, sir.'

'What in the hell are you talking about, Doug?'

'There's something Hasim said that I'd like you to listen to again.'

Washington, DC 13 November 7 a.m.