Extreme Measures (27 page)

ARLINGTON, VIRGINIA

N
ASH woke up to the sound of his beeping watch at 6:30. He slid out of bed without any thought of the night before or anything else, for that matter. He knew if he did not keep his head down and his mind focused he would never get out the door. The shorts, socks, shirt, and long-sleeved pullover were sitting on the overstuffed chair in the corner of the bedroom where he had placed them before bed. He picked up the stack and quietly slid downstairs. In the mudroom he stripped off his sleep pants and put on his running gear. After a glass of cold tap water he stopped by the back door and opened the cupboard at the top of his cubby. On the top shelf sat a black biometric gun safe. He placed his right thumb over the glass eye, and a second later the safe beeped and the door popped open. There were three pistols and two extra magazines of ammunition for each.

Nash grabbed the Glock 23 off the top shelf, put it in his right hand, and with his left hand pulled back on the slide. He looked down and confirmed that the chamber was empty. He then yanked the slide all the way back and put one round in the tube. That left him nine more in the grip. He stowed the compact.40-caliber pistol in his fanny pack with his keys and one of his phones, which he didn’t bother to turn on. Nash turned the alarm off and then turned it back on before leaving and locking the door again. He did all of this without putting any thought into it. “Good habits breed success,” was what his high school wrestling coach had always said. In the Corps, the mantra was, “Discipline is what gives us the edge.” Now in this next stage of life it was Rapp telling him flatly, “You fuck up one time and you’re dead.”

Nash hit the sidewalk running. There were only two cars parked on the broad tree-lined street and they were both familiar. The Jeep Wrangler belonged to the Gilsdorfs, and the Honda Accord belonged to the Krauses. He headed for Zachary Taylor Park. There and back was three miles, and if he couldn’t do it in less than twenty minutes it would probably ruin his day. Right up until the explosion, he consistently did it in under eighteen minutes.

Nash ran for a lot of reasons, but more than any other, it was the clarity of thought it gave him. He’d made his toughest decisions during runs. He’d solved some of the biggest problems he’d faced, or at least figured out ways to get out of some pretty tough jams. This morning was no different. As his feet got lighter and he hit his stride it was like the beat of a drum in his head. First and foremost on his mind was Rory. The pain Nash felt over not being there for his family hurt every bit as bad as a piece of hot shrapnel slicing through his skin. Some things were going to have to change. He wasn’t sure what, but he did know that Rory needed him in his corner. He knew his wife well enough to know that despite what he had told her last night, she would strut that pretty little ass of hers into school and try to smooth things over.

“Not going to let that happen,” Nash said to himself as he pounded it out.

He was on call to go up to the Hill and testify. Kennedy had made it clear there was no way she would allow him to testify in an open hearing. If the Judiciary Committee closed it, they could compel him, but not if it was open. He hadn’t a clue as to how that whole mess was going to turn out, but Rapp seemed extremely confident that it would be fine. For the rest of the run he put together a mental list of things he needed to get done. Some were mundane, like the call he had to make to personnel about the auto-deposit they kept fucking up on one of his overseas operatives, and others were a little more tricky. Like explaining to Rapp and Ridley that he’d allowed Chris Johnson to stay in the field. Rapp probably wouldn’t give a shit but Ridley was likely to pop a bolt.

When he got back to the house, Maggie was in the kitchen feeding Charlie the gourmet baby food that made his poops smell so bad. He kissed the head of fine blond hair first and then the head of thick black hair.

“Good morning,” he said as he walked to the sink for a glass of water.

“Morning,” she replied, without any warmth.

“How’d you sleep?”

“Like crap. How about you?”

“Surprisingly well.” Nash reached for the hand towel to wipe the sweat from his face.

As Maggie slid a spoonful of food into Charlie’s mouth, she said, “You’d better not be using one of my dish towels to wipe your sweaty face.”

Nash looked at the back of his wife’s head and wondered how she’d known. He set the towel down and walked around the island. Charlie looked up at him with a gummy smile and a blob of something green at the corner of his mouth. Nash looked at him wildly and mouthed the word Charlie had been so fond of the day before. Charlie’s little feet started dancing and he blurted it out. Maggie groaned and put her head down on the table, defeated by a one-year-old.

“Nice work, honey,” Nash said as he left the room and headed upstairs for a shower.

Thirty minutes later he was back downstairs, cleanly shaven and dressed in the gray three-button Joseph Abboud suit his wife had got him for his birthday. Nash sat down at the computer in the office and logged on to his personal e-mail account. There were nine new e-mails since he’d checked it last night. He quickly scanned the From column for Johnson’s name. He frowned that there were none. Nash walked over to the bookcase and grabbed his work BlackBerry. He quickly scrolled through thirty-four messages and again came up empty.

Nash felt his stress begin to build as he racked his brain to come up with a reason why Johnson would have disregarded the new protocols. He could think of no good reason and a lot of bad ones. Nash knelt down and opened the cupboard door, revealing a safe. He put his thumb on the reader and then opened the safe and retrieved a Motorola phone. Once the unit was powered up, he called Johnson’s apartment. After eight rings, the answering machine came on and he hung up. He then tried his mobile number and again ended up listening to his voice-mail greeting.

The first pinprick of a headache started in his left temple. Nash put his hand up to his head and pressed down. “Not today, please. Not today.”

“You all right?”

Nash looked up and saw his wife in the doorway dressed for work. “Yeah, everything is fine.”

She looked as if she knew he was full of shit but also knew he more than likely couldn’t talk about it. “Rosy just called. She’s having car trouble, so she’s jumping on the bus. Can you hang out with Charlie until she gets here? I would, but I have a really important client breakfast.”

A small kernel of apprehension pushed its way into Nash’s thoughts. This was one of those moments in a marriage where something relatively small could blow up into something really big. Nobody liked being wrong, and Maggie had blown it with Rory. And then in her typical stubborn way she’d dug in her heels, and now instead of apologizing for her behavior and putting it behind them, she was throwing out this test.
Show me that I’m more important than your job. Show me that you still love me.

She was hurting in her own very real way from what had happened with Rory. She probably wasn’t feeling like the best mother at the moment. Nash thought quickly about how he could make it work. He’d brought Charlie into work before; the problem would be getting him back to the house and then getting downtown for the hearing that was scheduled to start at 9:30. He realized they would never start on time because half the senators would be late, so he said, “Yeah… I can take him into the office with me, and then drop him back off before I go downtown for the hearing.”

Maggie’s tense expression melted away and a hint of a smile, not a happy one, but a relieved one, formed on her lips. “Great,” she said. “I’ll get him ready.”

ANACOSTIA RIVER, WASHINGTON, D.C.

T
HE warehouse looked like something out of an Eastern European country before the fall of the Iron Curtain. More than half of the glass panes were missing from the skylights, and the roof itself was missing small sections. The corrugated metal walls were rusted, dented, and even peeled back in a few spots. Animal droppings dotted the oily concrete and rotted pallets; shredded tires and garbage littered a space approximately half the size of a football field. None of it, however, could cast a pall over Karim’s mood.

Aabad had returned just before sunrise with the three men who had helped him, just as Karim had ordered. The body of the spy had been stuffed into the trunk of a stolen car, driven to an abandoned lot, and the entire vehicle set ablaze. Karim thanked all of them for their devotion, and then as the first rays of the morning sun began to poke through the dirty and broken windows, he asked them to stay and pray. All thirteen men faced Mecca and knelt on the dirty floor. Karim’s men were not bothered by the filth. They had long ago learned to shut out such things. Aabad and his men, though, were obviously bothered. For a full thirty minutes they prayed, and when they were done, Karim hugged each man and thanked him for his sacrifice, even the three men whom Aabad had brought along.

He asked to have a word alone with Aabad’s men and led them back toward the door where they had entered. Karim spoke to them for a few minutes, and then without any consultation or warning, he drew his silenced 9mm Glock and shot each of the three helpers in the head.

Hakim was thunderstruck by the brutality of his friend. He looked around to see if the others shared his reaction, but all he saw were seven men acting as if nothing had happened. Karim had turned them into compassionless robots. Only Aabad was bothered by what had just occurred, but Hakim knew he was too feeble to protest.

Karim came to them across the open space, carrying with him the smell of gunpowder. He smiled and shook his head in a solemn fashion and said, “That was an unfortunate necessity.”

Hakim had had enough. “Why?” he blurted out in a confrontational tone.

“Because,” Karim said taken aback, “they had seen our faces.”

“And what does that matter?”

“The CIA will come looking for their agent. We can hardly afford to leave any loose ends.”

“Loose ends,” Hakim said, as he pointed at the bodies. “Is that what we call believers now?”

Karim would not allow his upbeat mood to be diminished. “Come now, Hakim, we have discussed this many times. Many have martyred themselves… millions of our brothers… but American Muslims have given nothing. Those three men have martyred themselves and they will be rewarded by Allah. They are on their way to paradise as we speak.”

They did not martyr themselves
, Hakim thought.
You martyred them, or more to the point, killed them.
He did not say it, for fear of his own life. He looked at his friend’s placid, almost euphoric face and finally realized just how much he had changed over the last year.

“Come now,” Karim said. “We have much to do. I have decided to move our plan up by two days.”

This got everyone’s attention. Karim’s men were too well disciplined to question their commander, but Aabad was not. “Today?” he asked in an unsteady voice.

“Yes, today,” Karim said proudly.

“But I am not ready,” Aabad said with his hands fluttering. “My office needs to be gone through… my apartment… there are final things I must do.”

“It is out of our hands. The CIA will come looking for their man, and we cannot wait for that. Once they have discovered what has happened, they will raise alarms and our job will become extremely difficult.”

“But my plane ticket… I am not to leave until tomorrow. What am I going to do?” Aabad was beside himself.

Karim put a fatherly hand on his friend’s shoulder. “Do not worry. I will take care of you. I want you to go to your apartment right now. Get only what you need. One bag,” he cautioned him, “and come right back here.”

“But…” Aabad started to say.

Karim covered his mouth. “Do not argue. This is a direct order. You must do exactly as I tell you. Now go and be fast.” Karim released him.

With great irritation, Hakim wondered why Karim didn’t simply shoot the imbecile like he shot everyone else. Instead he watched Aabad anxiously hurry toward the door, looking back every few steps. When he stopped at the door, Karim urged him on by repeating his instructions one more time.

“Now,” Karim said to Hakim as he put a gentle hand on his shoulder, “as you can see, my men are ready. Their martyr vests are all but done.”

The men had spent much of morning breaking the C-4 into smaller blocks and pressing ball bearings into the malleable explosive and then placing the blocks in vests that they would put on, and if everything went according to plan, die in.

“Are you sure,” Hakim asked with great concern, “about moving things up?”

“Yes.”

“I’m afraid by rushing we will make a mistake. A mistake that will cost us.”

“No,” Karim shook his head. “My men are ready. This is the right decision. Waiting is risky. This… this is seizing an opportunity.”

“What about the traffic cameras?”

“I was hoping you could call your man.”

“Right now?” Hakim asked as he computed the time difference between the Netherlands and Washington.

“Yes.”

“I can try,” Hakim said without much confidence. This had been arranged months in advance.

“You will succeed, my friend. You have always succeeded. That is why, despite your lack of faith, I have allowed you to be part of this great battle.”

“And if he can’t crash the system?”

“We will proceed with or without him. Is my message ready?”

He was referring to the prerecorded message that would be launched across the World Wide Web. A message that proclaimed Karim to be the Lion of al-Qaeda. When Zawahiri saw it, he was likely to have a heart attack. “Your message is ready. He should have no problem releasing it.”

“Good.”

“If he cannot crash the system” – Hakim leaned in so none of the others could hear – “you and I need to leave the city this afternoon.”

“Check with your man first,” Karim said casually. “Allah is on our side. I am confident you will come through for me once more. I have not come all this way to complete half the mission. We will succeed, or we will all die. Am I clear?”

“So you have changed your mind?” Hakim asked quietly.

“I have given myself up to my destiny. If Allah wants me to survive, I will survive.”

What about me?
Hakim wanted to ask, but he could see that his friend’s conversion to religious fanatic was finally complete. Hakim had seen the look in the eyes of far too many men in Afghanistan. Men that would stand up under withering American fire, convinced Allah would shroud them in protection. As Hakim looked into the wide, believing eyes of his friend he began for the first time to question why he was involved in this. His participation had been purely logistical. He would help get them into the country. He was to obtain separate financing, and to recruit the hackers that could help them crash the thousands of cameras that monitored the streets of Washington. And lastly he was to get himself and Karim back out of the country. All of this talk of Allah and destiny was suddenly beginning to sound like a suicide mission.