Liberty (11 page)
Authors: Stephen Coonts
“How'd you like to get out of here, Zelda?”
She didn't even look at him.
“I'm here to offer you a job. If you take it, you're outta here.”
She snorted in derision. “Who do I have to kill?”
“Nothing messy required,” Carmellini said. “I work for an agency of the United States government, and we happen to have an opening for a person of your talents.”
Her eyes were on his now. “What agency?”
“Don't get cute. It doesn't become you.”
“Last year you were CIA. Still with them?”
“Yes.”
“I conspired with murderers and thieves to steal a submarine. I pleaded guilty to thirty-seven felonies, Carmellini! They didn't charge me with espionage, but I'm guilty of that, too. The only thing I haven't done is have sex with a farm animal like you. Why in God's name does the CIA want me?”
“You're good with computers.”
“That's not exactly a rare skill.”
“A lot of people play basketball, but there's only one Michael Jordan.”
She was incredulous. “You're offering me a job in the CIA? When I get out in thirty years, or is this something I can do from my cell?”
“Osama bin Laden changed the world. Your skills are in demand. You'll sign the security agreements, get the building pass and green paycheck. Keep your nose clean and you'll have a new life. You can rent an apartment, buy a car on time, get in debt to your eyesâit's the American way, baby.'Course, if you cheat or screw up, you'll ride the magic carpet right back here to Alderson. We won't do parole or probation or any of that to get you out, so there won't have to be a hearing to put you back inâwe'll just call the federal marshals and they'll whisk you back to the joint before you can kiss your ass good-bye. Don't know if we can get you the same cellâyou might have to take whatever they have available.”
She put her elbows on the counter in front of her and lowered her face into her hands. After a long minute it occurred to Carmellini that she might be crying.
“Hey,” he said into the intercom mike. “Hey. Just say yes.”
She straightened. Her eyes were as dry as his. “So I give you assholes a good education and you say what the hell and call the marshals. That the way it'll go down?”
Carmellini shrugged. “This Christmas I'll send you a canary. You can become the bird woman of Alderson.”
“What guarantee do I have that you'll play fair?”
“None.”
“I love it when you sweet-talk me.”
“How's the pasta here? I heard they do really good mac and cheese in these federal crypts.”
“Of course, the newspapers will never learn that I'm out.”
“We'll have to give you a new identity,” Carmellini admitted. “I thought you made a good Sarah Houston, so I had them use that name on the birth certificate, driver's license, all of that. We used the computer on your photo,
dyed your hair and reshaped it. I'll bet you always wanted to be a blonde.”
dyed your hair and reshaped it. I'll bet you always wanted to be a blonde.”
“One condition,” she said. “You have to get Zip Vance out.” Zip had helped her steal the submarine. He also pleaded guilty at the arraignment.
Tommy Carmellini scrutinized her face. “You don't have a lot of chips left to throw on the table, lady.”
“I don't care how you do it. If you get me out, you must get him out of prison, too. Or no deal.”
“I'll bet you don't get a lot of job offers here in the joint. What if I say no?”
She rose from her chair and headed for the door. She was about to knock on it to call the guard when Carmellini said into the intercom, “Funny, Vance also refused the job unless we got you out.”
She turned, stared at him.
“I think the fool is in love with you, Sarah Houston.”
She rubbed her face with her hands, then muttered, almost inaudibly, “That's his problem.” She took a deep breath, then came back to the chair opposite him.
“You can really do this?”
“I've got low friends in high places.”
“Zip, too?”
Tommy Carmellini nodded affirmatively. “This is how it'll go down. A few days from now the prison will get standard transfer orders saying you're going to a federal country-club joint for white-collar scumbags. The following day two real, honest-to-God federal marshals will show up to take you there. They'll have all the proper papers, signed and sealed and genuine as hell. The marshals will bring you to Washington instead. Don't tell anyone anything. And this conversation never took place.”
She didn't say anything.
“See you in Washington,” he said, walked to the door, and knocked.
In the corridor outside the visiting room, Tommy Carmellini told the female guard, “I need to see the warden.”
The guard was bored, overweight, and surly. “Hey, I know you're some kind of federal officer, but the warden makes appointments and all.”
“Why don't you take me to talk to his secretary?”
The guard decided maybe that was okay. She led the way.
The secretary wanted to know if Carmellini had an appointment. It took five minutes for him to get in to see the warden.
The warden's name was Gruzik, according to the sign on his desk. He didn't get out of his chair or offer to shake hands. Carmellini produced an envelope from his inside pocket and passed it across the desk. Inside the envelope was a letter from the director of the Bureau of Prisons. Carmellini watched Gruzik's face as he read the letter, which instructed him to call the director immediately. Gruzik picked up the telephone and punched buttons.
When he hung up the telephone he looked at Carmellini with interest. “Who are you, anyway?”
“Nobody you want to know. Give me the audiotape you made of my visit with Zelda Hudson and forget you ever saw me. And I want the page I signed in the visitors' log.”
“We don't tape conversations betweenâ”
“Don't give me that shit. You heard the director. âFull cooperation.' I want the tape and the log.”
In two minutes he had the tape in his hand, a cassette. Three minutes later the visitors' log came into the room. Carmellini ripped out the page he had signed, folded it neatly, and put it in his shirt pocket. “I'm going to listen to this tape on the way to Washington,” he told the warden. “It had better be the right one.”
“The guard said it was,” the warden said sourly.
“I notice you have video cameras in the visitors' waiting area, in the corridors, and outside this office. I want the tapes. All of them.”
That took three more minutes. While they were waiting Carmellini reached across the desk and snagged the letter on Bureau of Prisons stationery. “Might as well take this, too.”
It turned out there were four videotapes. Carmellini put the audiocassette in his jacket pocket and carried the tapes in his hands. Before he left he said to the warden, “I want to make sure you're crystal clear on the situation. If you or anyone on your staff mentions my name, my visit, or this conversation with anyone at all and we hear about it, you'll be looking for another job. And there won't be a corrections facility in the country that will hire you, not even to peel potatoes. That's a promise.”
He closed the door carefully behind him.
After his shower, Thayer Michael Corrigan dressed in a dark power suit and red tie before he began the rounds of appointments and meetings that filled his days as the head of a large organization. When the schedule permitted, he and his executive assistant tackled the in-basket.
Yet in this mountain of paper that crossed his desk, not a scrap hinted at anything illegal. Naturally Corrigan never saw stolen documents of any kind, nor did he handle money. Other people procured and paid for documents and delivered them to the buyers. Money in payment came through various foreign consulting contracts. The head of the accounting department made sure the money came and went in innocuous ways and was properly accounted for. He didn't know why payments were made or money receivedâand didn't want to know, because he was paid twice as much as he would have been at any other company in New England. With stock options and bonuses, he was a rich man getting richer, and he liked it like that.
The only man Corrigan routinely dealt with who knew what was really going on was Karl Luck. He had two or three private audiences with Corrigan every day. A former CIA agent, Luck, too, was rich and becoming richer, although money didn't motivate him. He loved the action.
As usual, today he was waiting when Corrigan finished dressing in the private apartment beside the corner office. One of his duties was to sweep Corrigan's offices for bugs. He did a thorough job every morning before anyone came to work, then used a small unit for a spot check before he and Corrigan discussed anything. He was stowing the device in its case when Corrigan came through the door from the apartment.
“Morning, Karl.”
“Good morning, sir.”
“What do you hear from Dutch?”
“There was a firefight last night near the warehouse where the weapons are parked. Tonight”âhe glanced at his watch while he mentally calculated the time differenceâ“actually about two hours from now, the weapons will be transported to the dock and loaded.”
“Tell me about the firefight.”
“A rival militant group. The news of the warheads' presence has spread like wildfire. We knew it would. There was no way to keep that secret.”
“Why are the weapons still there? They should have been on that ship days ago.”
“Problems getting the ship loaded and cleared for sea. Bribes were paid, but we could only push so far.”
“The Egyptian?”
“Zuair is primed and ready. He's going to smite the infidels.”
“Problems?”
“None right now.”
“This has to go right. No screwups.”
“There won't be any.”
“Fine.”
Karl Luck left the office. Corrigan watched the door close, then smiled. Luck's name was misleading. He was effective because he didn't believe in luck; he made his own.
Corrigan didn't believe in luck either. He had made his fortune by ensuring that chance events couldn't ruin him.
Get good people, pay them well, and back them to the hilt. That was the formula he gave to the Power reporter. Amazingly enough, it really worked ⦠most of the time. Random chance and human weakness were always present in human affairs and occasionally created problems. One had to attack the problems ruthlessly and without remorse. Thayer Michael Corrigan and Karl Luck were very good at that. He didn't mention that to the reporter, though.
Get good people, pay them well, and back them to the hilt. That was the formula he gave to the Power reporter. Amazingly enough, it really worked ⦠most of the time. Random chance and human weakness were always present in human affairs and occasionally created problems. One had to attack the problems ruthlessly and without remorse. Thayer Michael Corrigan and Karl Luck were very good at that. He didn't mention that to the reporter, though.
Mohammed Mohammed was another man who didn't believe in luck. He had been entrusted with the leadership of an attack upon America because he was smart and a meticulous planner who left nothing to chance. Too many holy warriors, in his opinion, believed that since Allah was on their side, they would succeed.
Inshallah,
“God willing,” was their creed, the blueprint for their lives. What they forgot was that the forces of evil were everywhere, eternally at war with the forces of Allah. It must be so, he reasoned, or Earth would be a paradise where Allah ruled. It wasn't.
Inshallah,
“God willing,” was their creed, the blueprint for their lives. What they forgot was that the forces of evil were everywhere, eternally at war with the forces of Allah. It must be so, he reasoned, or Earth would be a paradise where Allah ruled. It wasn't.
No. Victory goes to those who earn it. Allah had arranged the universe that way. Mohammed Mohammed intended to earn his ticket to paradise.
This afternoon at the Liquid Sunshine Citrus Warehouse in Florida he paused in his task of loading crates of oranges onto pallets to watch the forklifts zipping around the building. He had been unable to operate a forklift yet, and he must learn how.
The foreman was a Mexican, fat and balding. Most of the workers were Mexicans and chattered to each other in Spanish, of which Mohammed spoke not a word. Although he and the Mexicans barely spoke English, that was the language they conversed in. Sometimes he couldn't understand the other workers or the foreman, nor they him. Mohammed had suggested to the foreman that perhaps he could learn to drive a forklift so he would know how if another forklift operator were ever needed.
The foreman seemed to understand, yet an invitation to climb onto one and learn the levers hadn't happened yet.
The foreman seemed to understand, yet an invitation to climb onto one and learn the levers hadn't happened yet.
He was going to need a forklift to get the bomb out of its shipping container and into a truck. It would already be on a pallet, but he couldn't risk dropping it. He needed to practice ahead of time.
Timing. Everything depended on timing. After the late shift left work, Mohammed and his men would load the bomb aboard the truck, then fill it with crates of citrus bound for Washington, D.C. The next morning when the truck pulled out, they would follow it, kill the driver at a rest or fuel stop, and steal the truck.
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