Grains of Truth (22 page)

Nevertheless, if the information checked out, it demanded immediate action.

Code Red action.

And what could be urgent enough for Julia Grant to request this break with protocol to call him, jeopardizing her cover? She knew the risk in that. Was she simply overwrought because of the murder? After all, Julia was an untrained civilian, he reminded himself sullenly. She didn’t know a damn thing about protocol, and who could blame her for being overwrought? Or could there be something else? Jesus Christ, what more could there be?

The presence of Alexander Bryant on the scene presented an unexpected stroke of good luck. Brad had had him checked out thoroughly and he was solid. At least as far as they could tell, anyway. He rubbed the stubble on his chin as he checked the time. Only an hour to go before her call. Bob Bronson would be back to participate in the conversation. The additional reports should be in by then and Brad had damn well better have a plan of action to suggest by the time his boss returned. 

~

It took several tedious tries before the call went through. When the connection finally came, Brad picked it up on the first ring. “Caldwell,” he said brusquely.

“Brad, its Julia Grant.”

“Yes, Julia. Bob is here with me. I’m putting you on speaker.”

Julia looked nervously over her shoulder at Mohamed, who waited outside the booth. His steady gaze and reassuring presence provided much-needed confidence. She smiled at him through the glass.

“Julia? Are you there? What’s going on?”

“Yes, Brad.” She drew a deep breath, attempting to focus on keeping her words as concise as possible. “Have you received the first message?”

“Yep. It’s in the pipeline. What else?”

She shook her head, not quite believing what she was about to say.

“There is more. It’s short but definitely not sweet. Quite the opposite. Is it safe to read it to you?”

The two men exchanged a pained look. “You have it with you, written down?” Brad asked, censure clear in his tone.

Fireworks exploded in Julia’s head. “No, damn it, of course not! I have the damn laptop with me, as per my strict instructions, okay? You’ll have to run it through Vocabulary.” Her knuckles turned white as she clenched the phone.

“Right. No criticism intended. Go ahead.”                                                                

The laptop lay open on her knees, open to the file with the original, coded message as it had been written on Zed’s folded piece of paper. She’d burned the paper—flushing the ashes down the toilet—and deleted the decoded file. She could hear the patter of his fingers on a keyboard and then silence as the message decoded at his end. The silence stretched out between them across six thousand miles.

Julia sat with head bowed, again agonizing over the full impact of what that message conveyed. How was it possible that these fanatics could imagine that God—their revered Allah—would condone this kind of mass destruction of humanity? It was unthinkable. Unimaginable. And yet, it could prove devastatingly real. The ground seemed to fall away beneath her.

Some inner compulsion forced her to break the long silence. “What can we do?”

Bob cleared his throat and responded with unmistakable authority. “You are to do nothing, Julia. Absolutely nothing. Your part is finished and we are forever in your debt. We’ll take it from here.” After a few seconds he added, “Be careful, finish the trip as planned and return home safely. Do you understand?”

A wave of relief engulfed her, though edged with guilt. How could she walk away now and forget all she’d learned? But, after all, what else could she do? Then she remembered to ask, “What about Alexander Bryant?”

Again the two men exchanged a telling glance and Bob nodded approval before Brad replied. “Bryant is definitely okay. Although retired from a distinguished military career, he still takes on the occasional assignment for us as well as the Brits. You can trust him.”

“But, Julia,” interrupted Bob, “I repeat: Your work is done. There’s no need for any further communication with him or anyone else regarding this matter. Do you understand?”

“Yes, of course. I understand.” Her voice grew tenuous as she asked, “Will I hear from you again?”

Brad’s response held a comforting ring of familiarity. “Keep sending your daily emails and checking the publisher’s website. Stick to the plan. We’ll be in touch before the end of the day.”

“All right then. Goodbye. And good luck.” Those words, while without doubt the most heartfelt ever to pass her lips, seemed hopelessly inadequate.

“Take care, Julia,” she heard Bob say before the line went dead.

Her eyes closed for a moment as she took a shaky breath. As she turned on the stool to push back the folding door, she raised a weary head, expecting to find Mohamed’s comforting presence. Instead she found herself looking directly into the hard gray stare of Alexander Bryant.

~

Brad Caldwell pressed the intercom for Ms. Manning. “I want everyone in the conference room in ten minutes. Everyone.” He replaced the phone in its cradle and looked at his boss. Bob had walked to the window and stood looking out at the lights glittering on the bridge and all across the bay. The night shone remarkably clear.

~

Bob Bronson sat mutely near the back of the room. He’d spent his entire career, indeed his entire life it seemed, in U.S. Intelligence. Straight from Annapolis, he’d been swept into military intelligence and from there to the CIA. When things on the international scene shifted several years ago into the current and treacherous minefield of global terrorism, his experience and level head propelled him to new heights of responsibility, focusing now on the organization and distribution of information. 

In over forty years of service, he’d seen and heard many mind-boggling and unspeakable things. Nothing in his experience had prepared him for dealing with a situation like this. He’d told Julia Grant they were in the fight of their lives. He inwardly shuddered at the thought of how true his words might prove.

If the Islamic jihadists got their hands on the Israeli nuclear weapons, it could mean the end. The end of everything. Try as he might to maintain a proper perspective, he found it impossible to keep from his minds-eye the image of Armageddon. And of the innocent woman he bore essential responsibility for placing squarely in the middle of it.

Caldwell strode into the room, thumping the door shut behind him. He scowled at a short computer printout before addressing the group assembled there.

“Okay. We suspect they already have a stockpile of perhaps as much as eighty percent of what’s needed to accomplish their goals and have laid strategic plans for the invasion from the borders of Egypt, Syria, Lebanon and Jordan. Funding is probably being supplied from numerous sources in several countries. The elimination of any one single cash flow would have no effect on disrupting the plan. Arms must be coming from several different sources as well, so the same principle applies.” He turned to face the map of the Middle East projected on the wall.

“We’ve already informed the State Department. Clearly, all governments concerned must be notified. Security will be strengthened around all Israeli borders as well as the nuclear facility. The governments of the bordering countries will begin exhaustive searches for the stockpiled arms. Unfortunately, we have no idea how many of the weapons have already been smuggled into Israel.”

He turned back to face the solemn group. “But here’s the hard part.”

“Here’s the hard part?” The flip question came from Linda Boyd, one of the more outspoken members of his team. Incredulity shone plainly across her intelligent face.

Brad frowned, ignoring the outburst. “There was an additional message. Again, we have no way to verify.” His lips tightened before opening Pandora’s Box. “It appears that their plan includes a ‘distraction’ to divert attention from the invasion and the take-over of the nuclear facility.”

He paused, all eyes riveted on his tense face, and a breathless silence filled the room. “The Mujahideen are planning to use chemical weapons indiscriminately on the entire population of Jerusalem.”

~

Julia’s hand shook as she added too much sugar to her brimming cup of café au lait. The table out by the hotel pool overlooked the river and stood far removed from other tables and chairs. Not that anyone was around who might overhear. Sunrise crouched on the edge of the horizon. Desert stars still blazed in the pre-dawn sky while a faint blue line lightened the rim of the distant hills.

The Fajr, the morning call to prayer, swelled across the rooftops. Mohamed discreetly excused himself to observe the call and show obedience to Allah. 

Alex considered the lovely, distraught woman across from him and once again struggled to suppress an almost overwhelming urge to take her in his arms and hold her close. Her face appeared touchingly thin in the growing light.

“I had to call the office,” she said quietly. “That’s all.”

He continued to study her, noting that her demeanor had altered perceptibly from last night: from suspicion and nervous confusion to profound relief tinged with a resigned, deep sadness. Whatever happened to render this change, it was imperative that he discover the cause, one way or another.

The laptop case she was never without lay on the table next to her cup. He suspected that everything he needed to know resided in that computer. But without her cooperation, it would take time to access the information. Time they might not have.

“Listen to me, Julia. We need to level with one another. Completely. Everything I’ve told you about my reason for being here is true. But there’s something else you should know.” He hesitated as she raised troubled eyes. “I’ll tell you all I know, in good faith, if you’ll do the same.”

“I can’t promise that.”

“Fair enough. But you should know that you and Mohamed may both be in grave danger.”

Her body jerked involuntarily. “What do you mean?”

He delivered a brief, edited version of his lunch conversation of the previous day. She sat dumbstruck, incapable of speech. This was the worst possible development. Not only had she put herself in a vulnerable position with these ruthless, murdering men, she had also, definitely and irrevocably, placed Mohamed squarely in their crosshairs.  

“Let me give you a piece of advice, from one American who is only trying to prevent more violence, to another: Call your contact back. Tell him what I’ve just told you and then let me speak with him. We can work together on a plan to get you and Mohamed safely out of this.”

~

The insistent phone was ringing as Brad Caldwell barreled through the door. He snatched it up with a curt, “Caldwell.”

Static on the line for a few seconds made conversation impossible before a woman’s voice said, “Brad, it’s Julia again. I, ah,” she paused momentarily at a loss for words. “I have more news.”

“Okay, Julia, go ahead.” His steady voice belied the roiling of his gut. He listened without interruption, trying to relax his grip on the phone. “Okay. Let me speak with Bryant. Then I’ll speak with you again.”

At least this latest bad news came with a silver lining. One of the decisions arrived, at only moments ago, was to bring Alexander Bryant into the loop. He, in turn, could alert the Brits. Unofficially, of course. This would circumvent having to try to verify the information before communicating it through proper channels.

Julia watched Alex’s tense face while he spoke with Brad. They stood disconcertingly close, crowded into the tiny phone booth. All of the conflicting emotions she’d felt for him in the past few turbulent days—attraction, disappointment, admiration,  aversion, suspicion—flew around in her head, like kites on a windy day.

“Understood. Understood.” Alex passed the phone back to her.

“Julia, are you there? Listen to me closely. I want you to share the full content of all you’ve learned with Commander Bryant. Give him the laptop. Show him the procedure. He needs to know everything you know.” Brad paused before adding, “Everything, Julia, do you understand?”

“Is that ‘just in case,’ Brad?”

He cursed under his breath. “We’ll get you out, Julia. You have my word on that.”

“And Mohamed?” she asked in a low voice.

“Uh, yeah. Mohamed too.”

Julia found the slightly hesitant reply far from reassuring.

“In the meantime, cancel your reservations back to Cairo and both of you check into the Old Cataract. The hotel has wireless internet access. At six p, your time, send your usual transmission. Check Special Events on the website for further instructions. Is that clear?”

“Oh, yes, Brad. It’s all clear. Perfectly clear.”

Acrimony plumped each slowly-delivered word. The thought came too late as she hung up that she’d forgotten to ask about the other agent on the boat who was supposedly assigned to keep an eye on her.

~

Mohamed removed his shoes and reverently began the ritual of washing of his face, hands and feet before entering the mosque. He had done this thousands of times in his life. A lifetime, he thought with despair, that may very well be nearing its end. Finding a place in the crowded building, he attempted to focus on his prayers. The voice of the Imam guided his movements while the voice of his conscience continued its tirade.