Liberty (20 page)

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Authors: Stephen Coonts

BOOK: Liberty
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Two bodies lay sprawled on the deck. Zuair ignored them as he studied the engine controls. Tentatively he closed the lever he thought must be the throttle. The beating of the engine slowed, and the revolutions dropped on the RPM gauge.
He didn't know how to secure the flow of fuel to the fireboxes, so he didn't try. He scurried up the ladder well and left the hatches open behind him.
On the weather deck he could feel the absence of vibration as the ship began to respond to the swells.
The man from the bridge was already standing by the starboard ladder. The other two arrived as the cabin cruiser made its approach.
When he and his men were aboard the boat, Zuair removed a radio controller from his backpack and turned it
on. The green light glowed in the darkness. He pushed the button … and heard the thump of the charges within the ship going off.
Olympic Voyager
's running lights were still on, so the ship was easy to see at a hundred yards from the cockpit of the boat.
He didn't know how long it would take for the ship to sink. A half hour passed as the ship lay motionless on the sea, then another.
He could detect no noticeable settling. Frustrated, Zuair pushed the second detonator to explode the incendiary charges.
Five minutes later a dull glow could be seen amidships. Fire must be coming up the passageways and ladder wells from the engine room. Soon the watchers smelled smoke, noxious, oily, greasy fumes.
The glow finally became open flame. Still Zuair waited. One of the men wanted to go before a ship came into view, but Zuair cut him off with a curt word.
He looked at his watch repeatedly. Finally he heard the explosions from the charges he had set while the ship was moored in Port Said, one boom, then two quick ones ten seconds later, and a fourth fifteen seconds after that. At last!
They pulled off and waited as the flame from the burning ship lit up the sea for a half mile in every direction. The ship soon began listing.
Frouq al-Zuair took the helm himself and steered the boat back toward the burning, sinking ship. He used a powerful spotlight to inspect her. She was visibly settling, listing at least twenty degrees. Satisfied, he turned the boat away from the ship and told the helmsman to take over.
As the boat sped away from the derelict, Zuair watched the burning ship in his binoculars. He hoped it would sink before dawn. “
Inshallah,
” he whispered, God willing.
Anna Modin didn't leave Zurich on the next plane. Her business required that she stay another day and she was afraid to leave before it was concluded. Her meetings ended too late the next day for her to catch the last flight out, so she was forced to wait for the first flight the following morning.
Before she checked out of her hotel room she made her morning call to Abn Saad, as she did every day, reporting the results of her meetings with the Swiss bankers and European businessmen. She tried to keep her voice calm and businesslike, the way she normally spoke. If he became suspicious now …
When she rang off, her mouth was too dry to swallow. She sipped bottled water from the hotel room minibar, felt the pulse throbbing in her forehead.
Oh, she sounded brave when she talked to Ilin, full of courage and noble purpose, ready to charge off to save an Islamic woman she had never met who might not even be in danger. In fact, she was risking her life to attempt to rescue a woman who might refuse to leave Egypt. Nooreem Habib might be married, engaged, happy … Ilin didn't know. All he could tell her was that Nooreem attended an English school for six years and was a brilliant pupil, a woman with a fine mind and much promise. The headmistress had believed in her, which was enough for
Ilin. Enough to trust her the tiniest little bit. The risk was small: She had never heard his name, knew nothing about his operation.
And yet, Nooreem Habib was a woman of courage. That Anna Modin knew for a fact. She had risked her life to supply evidence of terrorism, and that fact outweighed all the unknowns.
They would need American visas, Ilin told her. On such short notice, he could do nothing. She knew a man in Cairo, she said …
Anna Modin felt her stomach chum. She ran to the bathroom and vomited up her breakfast.
Courage? Ha! You are a fool, Anna Modin. A complete, utter fool.
Freddy Bailey! When she got to Cairo she would call Freddy Bailey!
Fool or not, she completed her packing and called the bellboy. Soon she was on the way to the airport in a taxi.
When he found the note on his desk that Jack Yocke, the
Washington Post
reporter, had called, Jake Grafton felt a twinge of anxiety. This was a professional call, obviously, or Yocke would have called the house and left a message with Callie. He did that a time or two a year, dropped an invitation to dinner, occasionally an evening at a Kennedy Center concert.
Jake waited until the noon hour, then called the reporter on his cell phone while he was on his way across the CIA campus to the cafeteria.
“Hey, Jack. Jake Grafton.”
“Admiral, thanks for returning my call.”
“Sure.”
“I wanted to ask you some questions, deep background.”
“Uh-huh,” Jake said, and stopped in his tracks. He looked around for a seat. There was a wrought-iron bench
nearby, so he parked his fanny on it and gave Yocke his full attention.
“I'm sorta digging into this army story. All these troops around New York, Washington, Los Angeles, San Diego, Miami … all over, using Geiger counters to search railroad cars and trucks. Have you heard anything about that?”
“I read your paper, Jack.”
“So you know what the Pentagon and White House are saying about ‘routine precautions'?”
“I read that.”
“Is there anything you could tell me, off the record, for deep background?”
“No,” Jake said, the word rolling right off his lips. “Can't think of a thing. Isn't that army and national guard?”
“Well, yeah, and of course you're navy, but I kinda thought you might know something about it.”
“Want to tell me why?”
“I heard a rumor.”
“Uh-huh.”
“That you're involved in a search for a nuclear weapon.”
“Where did you hear this vicious slander?”
“You know I can't tell you that.”
“Shipmate, I can't confirm or deny anything. This conversation never happened. But I want to know where that rumor came from. This is very important, Jack.”
“Maybe you can track it down.”
“You could help me on this. Your name will never come up.”
“All I can say is that I thought the rumor credible. The person who told me was talking out of school about a matter that I thought was probably highly classified.”
“I appreciate that. Think this person will ever call you again?”
“It's probable.”
“Have a nice day, Jack.”
“Thanks, Admiral.”
When Grafton got back to his office after lunch, he wrote a note to Tommy Carmellini. “Jack Yocke, a reporter for
The Washington Post,
said he has a source who told him I was hunting for a nuclear weapon. Have Zelda put someone to work finding out who his source is. He or she will probably call him again.”
Cairo is one of the world's great cities, a sprawling urban mass split by a great, legendary river. People have lived and farmed beside it since the first farmers learned to grow grain, yet the city of Cairo was not founded until 969. Its Western name, Cairo, comes from the Arabic al-Qahira, the victorious. In Arabic, both the city and the nation are known as Misr.
Modern Cairo is a curious amalgam of East and West, old and new, the past and the future sweltering amid the dirty, foul, gridlocked present. The influence of Europe and America is plain in modern buildings and boulevards, yet not far from the urban splendor is old, Islamic Cairo, a city of narrow streets and vibrant humanity.
If, when arriving on an airliner, the flight path brings one over the city, dazzling white stone can be glimpsed on some of the larger buildings, mosques mostly. The citadel and some of the older mosques are constructed of white limestone, the facing stones of the pyramids, removed from the pharaohs' monuments centuries ago when the Islamic civilization of Egypt's Arab invaders approached its zenith of glory and power.
And there is the river, that ever-present moving brown highway that flows northward from the desert, carrying water and mud from the tropical heart of Africa. Somehow it seems fitting that for millennia the descendants of the ancient Egyptians who inhabited this desert city never knew the source of the river that formed the center of their civilization.
At the airport Anna Modin passed through customs and
immigration and walked upstairs. In a quiet nook with some empty chairs, she dialed her cell phone.
“Freddy, this is Anna,” she said in English.
“This is a surprise,” he said bitterly. “I didn't think I was ever going to hear from you again. What's it been, three months?”
“Freddy, I need a favor.”
“I must have called you a dozen times. At least you could have returned my calls.”
“Freddy, you are a sweet man, but we aren't right for each other.”
“Isn't it amazing? I didn't have a clue until you dumped me.”
“I didn't mean to hurt you, Freddy, and I apologize. An emergency has come up at the bank; a colleague and I need to go to America immediately. We need American visas.”
“Stop by the embassy during working hours, and we'll run you through the computer and put you on the list.”
“Freddy! I have never asked you for a favor, and I wouldn't be asking now if I had a choice. Please.”
There was a long silence, so long that Anna thought the connection had been lost. Then he said, “You broke my heart, woman.”
“I'm sorry, Freddy.”
“I'll get in trouble, you know that.”
“Freddy, I speak to you from the heart. My colleague's life is in danger—”
“Yeah. Right.”
“We must go to America. That is all I can tell you. The bureaucrats at the embassy may be unhappy at you, but the people in Washington will not. That I promise you.”
He sighed. “Tourist visas, two weeks.”
“That will be sufficient, thank you.”
“Meet me at the bar in the Marriott at ten tonight. Have you forgotten it?”
“You know I haven't.”
“Sorry about the hour, but I have a date.”
He broke the connection without saying good-bye.
Anna Modin joined the queue at the Lufthansa ticket counter, pulling her valise on wheels. She purchased two tickets to Switzerland on the first flight in the morning for herself and Nooreem Habib, paid cash for them, then went out to join the mob seeking to engage a taxi. As usual, the driver of the vehicle she commandeered was not happy to hear her speaking Arabic with an Egyptian accent—he had taken her for a European tourist. He argued the fare halfheartedly, then muttered “
Inshallah.
” Away they went for the hour ride into the heart of Cairo.
As the taxi driver charged through traffic, Anna Modin took stock. She had money in her purse and her bra and underwear, American dollars she had withdrawn from a small bank account she had opened years ago when she worked in Switzerland. She didn't dare touch her Cairo account at Walney's.
She hoped Nooreem Habib had a valid passport and could get to it. If she didn't …
The risk was that Abdul Abn Saad would send someone after them. If they managed to get out of Egypt. Nominally Egypt was a limited democracy, but in reality it was ruled by a small number of very powerful men. Saad was not one of the elite, but he was definitely in the second tier. He had money and he knew people with more money, and they knew people with even more money … and he was in bed with the religious fanatics. Underestimating his power would be fatal.
Her stomach was calm as she watched the familiar sights pass the car windows, the hordes of people, the animals, small groups of police with automatic weapons carried every which way. It was very familiar. She had not thrown up again, perhaps because she had not eaten all day. She certainly wasn't hungry.
As was her habit on returning from a business trip during business hours, she went straight to the bank and took the elevator to her office. Then she went to Abdul Abn Saad's office and greeted the male secretary. In minutes
she was seated across the desk from Saad, reporting on the business that she had conducted in Zurich.
He seemed as he always was, engaged and sharp.
She concentrated fiercely on reporting the results of her trip, the discussions and decisions she had made and the commitment she had given on the bank's behalf. Saad knew most of this from her daily telephone calls, but he liked to go over all of it again after every trip while he watched her face and listened carefully to the reasons she had made the decisions she had.
“I, too, believe the business will be profitable for us,” he said finally, his eyes still on her face. “You have done well.”
“Thank you.”
“Please attend the morning meeting with the staff. I want them fully informed.”
Tomorrow morning. He wouldn't know she was gone until then. A great sense of relief flooded her, one she was afraid he could see. “Yes, sir,” she managed, then she was on her feet and walking out of the room, past the secretary at his desk, along the corridor to her small office.
She checked her watch. The back-office staff would be leaving soon. She must intercept Nooreem.
There was no alternative. The clerks didn't have telephones at their desks, so the office manager, a man, would answer. He would want to know the reason for the call, then might or might not call her to the telephone, might or might not pass on the message. She had no plausible reason to ask the office manager to send the woman to her office. She never had in the past.
If Nooreem was there.
Please God, let her be there.
She walked down the stairs and went along the corridor to the new computer center.
Through the door, looking … A half dozen Egyptian women were in sight, wearing Western business clothes.
The office manager was standing there. “Nooreem Habib, please.”
If he was suspicious, it didn't show on his face. He pointed her out to Anna Modin.
She walked that way. Nooreem was sitting at a computer terminal. She looked up as Anna approached, then stood when she saw Anna was heading straight for her. She appeared in her mid-twenties, had an intelligent face.
“Miss Habib, I am Anna Modin. May I have a moment of your time?”
Nooreem looked up at the Russian woman with large, intelligent brown eyes.
Modin spoke softly, almost inaudibly. “I am your courier. Follow me to the hallway, please.”
She turned and walked from the room, nodding respectfully to the manager, who was now seated at his desk near the door.

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