Assassin (35 page)

Ross had the chart in his hand, studying lower Biscayne Bay. “Right. Well, at the moment it doesn’t look like he—”

The big Cigarette suddenly banked hard over to starboard, going on its side, throwing up a wall of white water as it carved a tight turn away from the mangrove swamp projecting from the northern end of the island.

Ross said, “Looks like we better pretend he’s smart.”

“Okay. Okay. We can deal with this. Next, he’s got to run southeast or southwest, inside or outside of what they call the Ragged Keys.”

“Which way is better for us?”

“The way he’s going right now, see? Boy turning inside. Yeah, going to try to shake us in all them mangroves. SEALs used to call that the ‘Deep Severe’ back in there.”

“Sounds like an ideal spot to lose us. Or, more likely, tuck in somewhere and wait. That’s the smart option,” Ross said.

“Maybe smart, maybe not. Mangrove swamp’s a lot like a marriage, Ross. Whole lot easier to stay out than get out.”

“We’re the last witnesses. He’s not going to let it go. All kinds of firepower undoubtedly prestashed aboard that thing, Stokely—he could be trying to set us up.”

“Of course he is, my brother! You right, as usual. One reason Alex Hawke holds you in such high esteem. Now. Look at him. See? What’d I tell you? He got to slow down in those shallows. Hold on to something Ross, we ’bout to make up a little time and distance on this nouveau cracker.”

“T
HIS DEVICE WAS DEVELOPED ON A CRASH BASIS BY THE
Iraqis in the waning Saddam years,” Consuelo de los Reyes continued. All eyes in the room at No. 10 Downing were on her. She asked for another slide. A group of low buildings in the rocky desert.

“Designed and built right here, at the former Tikrit al-Fahd laboratories northwest of Baghdad. Slide. A brilliant former Cal Tech scientist born in Bombay named Dr. I.V. Soong is the prerequisite evil genius behind this and many other little nightmares. The poison gas formulas used against the Kurds in northern Iraq, for example—”

“Poison Ivy, himself,” the home secretary said, “In cahoots with Chemical Ali.”

Conch smiled grimly. “Yes. Poison Ivy. Soong is also the scientific mastermind behind the miniature smart bomb which killed Ambassador Stanfield in Venice. He’s behind the recent revival of the ancient Indian sect known as Thuggee, by the way. Practioners of ritual murder who view the wholesale taking of human life as a pious act. CIA and NSA sources have linked this group to al-Qaeda. So far, Soong has successfully eluded extreme prejudice.”

“This bloody Thug renaissance,” a mustachioed officer said. “I thought we’d seen the last of them at the end of the Raj, and now they are in league with these bloody terrorists—”

“Afraid you’re correct, General,” Conch interrupted, “Dr. Soong’s Pigskin is one of the primary weapons of mass destruction our troops went looking for but never found. The perfect little Doomsday machine. Hard evidence at State indicates unknown numbers of these small bombs were smuggled into Syria. The labs were long gone, but I saw troops playing touch football with mock-ups just like the general’s holding.”

“Sorry, Madame Secretary,” Sir Anthony Hayden, the home secretary said. “This football design. Just to put us all in the picture. Is it meant to be some kind of inside joke? Like the president’s ‘nuclear football?’ ” Is this Dr. Soong some kind of homicidal practical joker? Or, does the design have some actual basis in science?”

“Let’s ask Dr. Bissinger.”

“The latter,” he said. “In plain English, the weapon’s football form is purely coincidental. A function of physics. Pinch the ends of a tube and you exponentially increase the destructive power of what were formerly known as suitcase nukes. Soong’s football nukes were flown out of Iraq by Saddam’s son Uday six days before the fall of Baghdad.”

“Christ in a goddamn wheelbarrow,” a shiny domed American Air Force general said. “How many of those bastards got out?”

“Over a hundred of them, General. Flown out of Saddam International on a Russian Antonov cargo plane. Landed here. Emirate of Sharjah. That’s the bad news. The good news is they were all purchased by one particular individual. In the last month, that individual got careless. All it took was one time. NSA zeroed in on digital cellphone intercepts, matched voiceprints, and we got close. Now, the work of a lone MI6 agent has confirmed who that individual is. Jack?”

Patterson looked over at Hawke, then got to his feet and took the laser pointer. “Thanks, Madame Secretary. Slide?”

On all three monitors, a photograph of a rugged looking middle-aged man in khakis, shielding his eyes from the glaring sun.

“This is Owen Nash,” Texas Patterson said, moving the laser point across the screen. “Or was. British MI6 operative working western Indonesia. Covered as a nature photographer for
National Geographic
out of Sydney. Australian national. Missing, presumed dead. His last transmission was forty-eight hours ago. He was on the remote Indonesian island of Suva, slide please, located just here, due west of Timor. These recons were shot by U-2 and dedicated birds in the last twenty-four hours. Questions?”

There weren’t any.

“Nash’s recent signals had him checked into a Hotel Bambah, the sole structure on the island. Slide. Sorry, there is another structure here on the island, as the next slide will show. Thank you. Airstrip here. Ten thousand feet, believe it or not. Used by jumbos ferrying Arab tourists in the eighties. And, here, a very large airplane hangar, newly built, with an older adjoining corrugated tin structure. An equipment shed; barracks possibly. According to Nash’s last transmission, travel agents from throughout Indonesia, Malaysia, and the Philippines, numbering approximately 400, were due to start arriving at the Bambah the next day.”

“Christ,” the home secretary said. “Travel agents. Clean passports. Visas. Immunization. Ideal cover stories.”

Patterson said, “Exactly. Agent Nash was wondering why four hundred Arab travel agents were suddenly getting together for a hullabaloo in the middle of nowhere. Suva’s not exactly Honolulu.”

“Let me guess,” the sardonic British prime minister’s principal secretary said, rubbing his chin. “Encourage more Arab air travel to America?”

“You got it, sir. Exactly our thinking. Anyway, your man Nash promised to confirm or refute prior intelligence at 0800 GMT yesterday. He never made that call. All efforts to contact him have failed. Questions?”

“Yes,” General Sir Oswald Pray said, “When were those photos taken? The Suva Island surveillance?”

“1800 hours yesterday, General. I think most everyone here knows Commander Hawke. I’d like to turn it over to him. Alex?”

“Good morning,” Hawke said, taking the laser pointer. “Slide, please. A surveillance photo of the mountainous Fatin region of the southern Emirate. Slide, please. Massive fortified structure. Built over the last three decades in a virtually inaccessible mountain pass. Elevation, 18,000 feet. Something regionally known as the Blue Palace.”

“Extraordinary!” Hayden said, “Looks like the evil version of Shangri-la!”

“Yes,” Hawke replied. “Now, the most interesting part of this morning’s slide show, gentlemen. Both the Bambah Hotel on Suva Island and the Blue Palace atop this mountain belong to the same man. Slide. Snay bin Wazir. The name on the lips of the dying woman involved in the abduction of Ambassador Kelly at Grosvenor House last week.”

A great deal of murmuring around the table ensued and Conch asked for quiet.

“Question regarding this chap bin Wazir, Lord Hawke,” Sir Howard Cox, a very senior Whitehall ministerial type with longish hair and gold-rimmed spectacles said, tipping back his chair and lacing his fingers over his expansive waistcoat. “His name was given to whom? First I’ve bloody well heard of it. I’m supposed to be in the loop, you know.”

“Indeed you are, sir.”

“Hell, Alex, I
am
the loop,” Cox said. There were chuckles around the table.

“Name was given to me, sir,” Hawke said. “The woman actually died in my arms a few moments after the abduction at the film gala.”

“Good Lord, Hawke,” Sir Howard said, “My reports said she died instantly. You chaps certainly managed to keep the lid on this bit, I daresay. What else did she give you?”

Alex nodded, accepting the equally implicit compliment or criticism, in stride. Over the years, he’d been forced to become an adept at avoiding the byzantine politics of Buckingham Palace, Whitehall, No. 10 Downing, and New Scotland Yard. Politics, if carefully avoided, could be relegated to a necessary nuisance.

“Yes, Sir Howard, the dead woman implicated this bin Wazir in her murder,” Hawke said. “Her dying words, in fact. We’ve yet to determine any motive. She also indicated that bin Wazir was the man responsible for the worldwide spate of attacks on American State Department officers and their families. She suggested it was only the beginning of action on a much greater scale.”

A portly, turnip-faced British Army officer wearing a spiffy Sam Brown belt spoke up. “This bin Wazir. Same fellow who owned Beauchamps here in London back in the nineties, if I’m not mistaken, m’lord.”

“Yes, General,” Hawke said, “the same man. Bin Wazir was under DSS surveillance at that time, suspected of slaying a junior State Department employee. Jack Patterson can speak to that. Jack?”

Patterson said, “Snay bin Wazir was responsible for the grisly murders of at least five young women here in London in 1997 and 1998. As well as terrorist attacks on the Lebanese Marine barracks that killed 166 of our boys, the two embassy bombings in Africa in 1998. On New Year’s Day, 1999, Mr. bin Wazir and his wife, Yasmin, disappeared without a trace.”

“You kept looking, I daresay?” Sir Howard asked.

“He’s been at the top of the DSS Most Wanted List for five long years. We’ve come close, that’s all I can say,” said Patterson.

“Until now,” Conch interrupted. “We’ve hit the jackpot. Langley has current cell traffic intercepts indicating that Mr. bin Wazir is at this very moment on the small Indonesian island of Suva. He got sloppy. Just once, but that was enough. Instead of his old analog phone, he used a hot phone, one Langley had coded in. Transcript I saw this morning indicates he’s preparing to leave Indonesia and return to his base of operations in the Emirate—excuse me—Mr. President, Prime Minister, welcome, please join us. Chief Patterson and Commander Hawke have just completed their presentations.”

The two new arrivals took their seats, and it was clear from their expressions that they’d been engaged in very serious discussions. Gone from President Jack McAtee’s face, Hawke noticed, was the genial bonhomie he’d seen earlier in the Terracotta Room. The prime minister cleared his throat and let his gaze range round the table.

“First of all, I want to go on record straightaway,” Prime Minister Anthony Tempest began, “and say the president and I have just had a most candid conversation regarding this horrific threat to the U.S. mainland. Tens of thousands of American lives are evidently at risk, maybe far more. I’ve just sent a signal to the First Sea Lord, Admiral Sir Alan Seabrooke, regarding the disposition of Royal Navy forces on station in the South China Sea and the
HMS Ark Royal
group in the Persian Gulf. I told Sir Alan that while I do not underestimate the challenges and difficulties we face in this new crisis, I have every confidence in our resolution and determination to see this through. I have given my great good friend, the president here, every assurance we in Britain will fully support whatever actions he intends to take.”

McAtee nodded and said, gravely, “Thank you, Mr. Prime Minister. The abduction of our ambassador to the Court of St. James is just the latest in a recent series of unprovoked and unspeakable attacks on our State Department. We believe these attacks are intended to destabilize American diplomatic officers around the world. To induce a state of paralysis and fear which would cripple America’s ability to prevent, or respond to, a devastating assault on our homeland.”

There was a discreet cough at the far end of the table and all eyes turned towards a ramrod-straight officer with a perfectly manicured mustache.

“Mr. President, if I may, Major General Giles Lycett here, Base Commander, RAF Leuchars in Scotland. My Tornado F-3 fighter aircraft patrolling the no-fly zone have just been grounded. Why? And, might I ask just what America’s immediate intentions are?”

“Yes, General, you may ask. Within the next seventy-two hours, American bomber wings based here in England as well as Tomahawk cruise missiles launched from both British and American fleets patrolling in the South China Sea and Persian Gulf are going to level both the command and control center in the Fatin Mountains and the terrorist base on Suva Island.”

“A preemptive strike?”

“A preemptive strike. Anything else?”

“Any truth to the rumor that some kind of 9/11 type attack is planned against numerous major American cities, Mr. President? Using civilian or private aircraft as weapons?”

“No comment.”

“Mr. President,” a senior staffer said, “Rumors floating about Whitehall suggest that a rogue stealth boomer is now prowling the North Atlantic and that the
HMS Turbulent
has been deployed to find this sub.”

“No comment.”

“Have you raised the threat level in New York and Washington?”

“No comment.”

“A hundred of these bloody Pigskin bombs have gone missing. And no one has even the foggiest notion where they are?”

“No comment.”

“Mr. President,” Hawke said, coming to his rescue, “If it’s all right with you, I’d like to move on. British and American intelligence sources are convinced Ambassador Kelly is being held hostage at bin Wazir’s Fatin Mountain location. Would you agree?”

“Yes. The seventh floor at Langley is almost one hundred per cent on that, Alex. That’s hard intelligence. We have thermal imaging and other, boots-on-the-ground, HUMINT confirmation.”

“Ah, Mr. President,” Hayden said, “Any idea why they’d want to kidnap Ambassador Kelly rather than assassinate him?”

“No comment.”

“May I ask then, sir, what immediate plans are being made to effect the ambassador’s rescue?” Hayden persisted.

“Mr. bin Wazir has demanded three things in return for the safe return of Ambassador Kelly. The immediate departure of all coalition forces from Arab soil. The cessation of U.S. and British control of all Gulf State pipelines. And the release of all terrorist POWs now held prisoner in U.S. detention centers at Guantánamo and elsewhere. We flatly reject all three. Naturally.”

“And, in answer to my earlier question, the plans for the ambassador’s rescue?”

“No comment.”

“But, with all due respect, Mr. President,” Hawke said, “I assume there are plans well under way for a hostage rescue prior to the bombing?”