Liberty (27 page)

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Authors: Stephen Coonts

BOOK: Liberty
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Jake put both compact disks in his pocket. “I would like to talk with you later this afternoon. Will you stay for dinner?”
“If you wish. But first, I have a question.”
“Okay.”
“Who
are
you? Ilin gave me your name and address, but he never said what you did, who you serve.”
“I'm just a guy working for his country, just like every soldier, sailor, policeman, fireman, and civil servant you ever met.”
“Just a guy,” Anna Modin echoed.
“I'll see that she gets some rest,” Callie told her husband, who kissed her on his way out the door.
Sixteen days, Jake thought. A ship that sailed at ten knots—most of them went faster—would cover 240 nautical miles every day. Sixteen days, 3,840 miles. At fifteen knots, 5,760. Twenty, 7,680 miles.
“Tell me about your friend who was killed, Nooreem Habib,” Callie prompted.
“She was not a friend. Like me, she was a friend of Janos Ilin, and she made the CDs. Abdul Abn Saad would have found her eventually.” Anna was losing her composure.
She rubbed her eyes. “Do you have vodka or whiskey?”
Callie inventoried the liquor shelf in the kitchen, then poured Modin a bourbon on the rocks. She accepted it gratefully; sipped it in silence.
She was calmer when she asked for another. As she sipped the second, Callie said, “It sounds as if being a friend of Janos Ilin is dangerous.”
Modin thought about that comment, then said, “He said Jake Grafton was his friend.”
Callie didn't know what to say to that. She decided that she needed a drink, too. When she returned from the kitchen, she tried to change the subject. “So this is your first trip to Washington?”
“Yes.” Modin nodded and blinked, almost as if she were clearing her thoughts.
“You must be exhausted. How about a nap and a bath?”
“I have no other clothes. My bag was in the taxi by the cemetery, and the taxi driver sped away, I think.” She rubbed her eyes, then put the empty liquor glass on the table before her. “I thank you for your hospitality. I do not wish to be a burden. I have money. I have delivered my message. After your husband and I talk, I will go to a hotel.”
“While we wait I would suggest a hot bath and a nap while I wash your clothes,” Callie said. She showed the other woman the towels and soap, then closed the bedroom door to give her some privacy.
The weapons, Callie knew, were the warheads Jake was worried about.
Sixteen days … After she put Modin's clothes in the washer, she went out on the balcony of the apartment and automatically checked the potted violets. She stood in the sun with her arms crossed, facing the city, but her mind was on other things.
Jake Grafton spent four hours Sunday afternoon in the Pentagon talking to people in federal agencies who, like him, were too busy to take the day off. It was the Coast Guard officer, Captain Joe Zogby, who produced the first hard information. “
Olympic Voyager
is a Greek ship. The company that owns it is headquartered in Athens. They tell us that the ship left Karachi sixteen days ago, should have completed her transit of the Suez Canal last week, and is now en route to Marseilles. Estimated time of arrival is Wednesday evening local time.”
“Find out if we have a battle group in the Med,” Jake said to Toad. “Send an op immediate message, have them find that ship. Ask for a photo overflight, then have them stay on that ship day and night until it's searched.”
Toad shot out of the office.
“It's night in Athens,” Captain Zogby continued. “State says they will have someone from the embassy visit the owners' office and get a complete crew list and manifest.”
“Let's have State request that the French authorities intercept the ship and search it,” Jake said. “Maybe we can get them to hold her in quarantine until we can get someone over there with sensitive Geiger counters.”
“I've already talked to State, sir,” said Captain Zogby. “They're working on it.”
“Very good.”
“There's more. As she was crossing the Indian Ocean
Olympic Voyager
reported that she lost four containers over the side.”
“Reported to the owners?”
“Yes, sir. And the owners reported the loss to their insurance company, Lloyds, which reported it to the Global Marine Distress Safety System. Coast Guard headquarters printed out a portion of the daily listing for me.” From his attaché case he produced a dozen pages of computer printout, which he passed to the admiral. The entry of interest was circled in red ink.
Jake looked up from the list. “Do losses like this happen often?”
“It's been estimated that as many as ten thousand containers a year are lost in transit. On the other hand, over a hundred million containers are delivered annually across oceans. Container ships often stack those things six high. A stack that large can weigh eighty tons. Normally only the outboard stacks on both sides of the weather deck are secured with fasteners; which are steel turnbuckles. In a heavy sea the bottom containers can be crushed as the ship rolls, creating slack in the system that causes the fasteners to fail. Sometimes the fasteners weren't properly secured when the ship was loaded. Sometimes the fasteners just fail catastrophically. If the outboard stack goes over the side, occasionally the inboard stacks go, too.”
“Why does the Coast Guard get a report?”
“We meet and inspect any ship that arrives in an American port that reported a cargo loss while in transit. We inspect the remaining containers, condemn those that are damaged. Most other countries don't do that, though. The worst of it is, lost containers don't always sink. Occasionally they float around on or just below the surface like little steel icebergs, going wherever the wind and current take them. NIMA”—the National Imagery and Mapping Agency—“tries to track floating containers with satellite data. It's hit-or-miss.”
“Does Egypt search ships that report losses?”
“I don't know, sir. I doubt it. The insurance and shipping companies regard the losses as the normal cost of doing business.”
An hour later Jake had NIMA searching the databases to see if the analysts could spot the
Voyager
's lost containers. Since the loss report contained the date, time, and position of the loss, his task was not as hopeless as one might imagine.
He also got on the telephone to Coast Guard headquarters. That evening Coast Guard officers equipped with Geiger counters were on commercial flights to Athens, Marseilles, and Cairo to search the docks for radiation.
He felt hopeful. Finally, they had hard information to work with. The leads might turn up nothing, but the inaction was killing him.
T. M. Corrigan's man in Cairo was an Egyptian who called himself Omar Caliph. He was as loyal and trustworthy a man as money could buy. Honest he was not, but then, Corrigan didn't care about that—he wasn't honest either. Omar had worked for Corrigan on numerous projects in the past and had done highly satisfactory work, so he had been picked for this job and promised a mint, so much money that Omar knew he could—and probably of necessity should—retire when this gig ended. He fully intended to do so and had already made a deposit on a house in Argentina.
Omar Caliph lived in a new high-rise apartment building in a wealthy district in Cairo. From his windows on the tenth floor one could look across the sprawling slums of Cairo and the Nile and see, on a good day, the pyramids. He paid the equivalent of $2,000 American in rent and thought he had a bargain. The problem in Egypt—and most of the Third World—was that there were a great number of very poor people, a few enormously wealthy ones, and very few people in the middle. This absence of a middle class was nearly universal throughout the Arab world except for those few small countries that had spread the oil money around in the hope of buying social peace for the rich. Omar had been born and raised in the slums of Cairo; the journey to the tenth floor had taken him a lifetime.
This evening he was standing at the window thinking about Argentina when he heard the doorbell ring. He glanced at his watch. He was expecting no one, and the security guards in the lobby had not called. It was probably his wife—she was shopping and may have forgotten her key. He went to the door and opened it. Two men stood there with drawn pistols. Omar stared at the guns. It was several seconds before he realized that Abdul Abn
Saad was standing behind the gunmen looking at him.
Before Omar could react, the gunmen pushed the door completely open and forced their way in, pushing him back toward the center of the room. Abdul Abn Saad entered behind them and closed the door. He also shot the bolt.
One of the gunmen pushed Omar into a chair while the other man went off through the apartment. Nothing was said for almost a minute, until the man returned. He spoke to Saad. “No one else is here.”
Saad took a seat opposite Omar Caliph.
“Did the thought ever occur to you,” Saad said, “that you might know too much?”
The color drained from Omar's face. “What?”
“You are a man of the world who has had experience in extralegal matters,” Abdul Abn Saad continued smoothly, “so I wondered if it occurred to you that if we didn't kill you, Corrigan probably would? After all, you are the only link between us.”
Omar Caliph realized that he was in deep and serious trouble, the worst of his life. “Mr. Saad, I have never whispered a word of our relationship to any living soul. Why in the name of Allah would I? Doing so would be equivalent to signing my own death warrant. We both know that.”
Saad stood and walked slowly around the room, fingering the objets d'art, letting the tension build. It was then that Omar realized that Saad was wearing gloves. So was the other gunman whom he could see.
“Someone betrayed us,” Saad said slowly. “Bank records were copied and the copies stolen. Why now? I asked myself. Why not six months ago, or last year? Why now? And the answer I came up with is that someone is probably investigating the money trail between America and the Sword of Islam. Someone knows too much. You are not the only possible source for this knowledge, but you are the most probable one.”
Omar Caliph tried to speak but couldn't. His eyes were
fixed on Saad, who finally turned to face him. “You were the go-between. Now you are the only man alive who can personally testify about the people at both ends of the transaction.”
“Abdul Abn Saad, I swear on the beard of the prophet—”
“Someone betrayed us. Was it you?”
Omar tried to sort it out. “I swear on the beard—”
“The attack on our computer records is a serious matter. Lives are endangered—the very movement is endangered. I must identify the traitor. Was it you? Corrigan? Or someone who works for him?”
“It wasn't me,” Omar blurted. “I swear on the grave of my father. It must be Corrigan! I never trusted the man.”
“It was not Corrigan,” Abdul Abn Saad said flatly. “He would have no conceivable use for copies of records. He might wish to destroy the records themselves, but no such attempt was made. This was an operation by an intelligence agency. The question is which one. And where was the leak?”
“In the name of Allah, have mercy on me. If I had betrayed you or knew anything about it, do you really believe I would still be here? In my own apartment? Awaiting your revenge? You know it isn't so! I am not a fool! I have done only what I was hired to do—negotiate with you, transfer the money, and arrange for a ship. Nothing less and nothing more.”
Abdul Abn Saad stood in front of Omar Caliph and stared into his eyes. Finally, he sighed. “I believe you,” he said flatly. “You have appealed to Allah for mercy, so you shall have it.” He glanced at the man standing behind Omar's chair and nodded a quarter of an inch.
The gunman struck Omar on the head with the butt of his pistol. He collapsed in his chair.
“Put him out the window,” said Abdul Abn Saad, then turned and walked from the room. Standing in the hallway outside the apartment he tried the door, ensured that it had
locked behind him. As he walked down the hall he removed his gloves and pocketed them.
He was out of the building crossing the sidewalk when he saw people on the street pointing upward and heard them saying, “It was a man, apparently a suicide … . He fell from up there … . Landed on the roof of the foyer.” The foyer protruded from the building.
Abdul Abn Saad didn't bother to look. His chauffeur was holding the door to the limousine open, so Saad took his seat and waited for the chauffeur to resume his. Then the limo rolled away into the crowded streets.
The hangar had been dark for several hours when Tommy Carmellini heard the car drive up. Heard the engine stop, heard the doors slam.
Heard the key in the padlock on the door.
Heard the door open.
A light came on.
“He's still here.”
“Did you think he wouldn't be?”
Arch's face loomed above him. “Still paralyzed, all right. Slack facial muscles, drooling up a storm, can't focus his eyes. Hey, asshole, look at me. Look at me!”
Carmellini couldn't, of course.
Arch slapped him three or four times, stinging slaps that made his ears ring. Then he laughed.
“Tough shit, Carmellini. Hope you've had a hell of a bad day lying here getting ready to die. I went to a ball game. You'll be delighted to hear the Wizards won. Drank beer, ate good food, even got laid last night. How about that? And tomorrow I'm going to keep on living. Go to work, eat, drink, get laid, enjoy life. And you'll be dead!”
Arch tired of taunting him, finally, and checked the hardness of the concrete. Tommy could feel Arch lift his leg. He felt the weight of the concrete in the bucket, too, pulling on his muscles and tendons.
Arch dropped his leg roughly and the bucket banged.
“You're ready to die, Carmellini. And we're going to do it to you. Hope you enjoy the ride.”
Foster left him then.
Carmellini heard them opening the doors of an airplane, snapping latches, preflighting it, probably. Time passed—it was difficult to judge how much. They talked about the fuel and oil, even checked the air in the tires. Meanwhile he strained every muscle, trying to move something, anything. He tried so hard he felt his eyes leaking tears.
They came for him finally. Arch took his head and Norv took his feet, each of which had several gallons of concrete attached. With the concrete and his weight, it was all they could do to wrestle him off the table. They dragged him across the hangar floor toward the open cargo door in the right side of the airplane. The concrete was like sandpaper on his skin, ripping off hide. He could feel the pain, but he couldn't even groan.
The two of them somehow wrestled him up and through the opening in the side of the plane. The plane seemed to be a single-engine. He got a glimpse of the fixed gear. It was probably a Cessna 206, he thought, like those he had seen hauling skydivers. He was thrown on a bare aluminum floor. Norv got in and arranged the buckets that held his feet near the aft bulkhead. Then he used bungee cords to secure Carmellini in place, so he wouldn't inadvertently fall out the gaping hole in the fuselage, which had no door.
They left him there while they opened the hangar bay and pulled the plane out onto the taxiway with some kind of nose-tow tug.
He heard them climb into the front seats and the engine start. After a minute or so garbled voices came over the loudspeaker as the plane began taxiing.
Carmellini found himself focusing on a rivet in the floor. It was eight inches or so from his face, but he could see it clearly. He forced his eyes to move.
As the engine roared and the plane began its takeoff roll, he found that he could clearly see the cargo door in
the subdued light from the instrument panel. It wasn't much light, but it was enough. He could see! He could move and focus his eyes!
His hands were still tied in front of him. The tie wasn't tight; the blood was still flowing to his fingers. He forced his eyes down so that he could see his hands. He could barely make them out in the gloom. He flexed his fingers. And they moved. Perceptibly.
He could see and feel them move.
Jake looked exhausted when he got home at eleven on Sunday evening. Callie met him at the door.
“Any luck?”
“We're working the problem, as they say. The next guy who tells me that, I'm going to reach through the phone and punch him out. Have you eaten?”
“We ate when Amy got home. I saved you some.”
“What do you think of Anna Modin?”
“I thought she was telling the truth this afternoon. I don't think she's an intelligence professional. She says she's a friend of Ilin's. Says you are, too. I guess I buy that. On the other hand, she may be lying. The world seems to be full of good liars these days.”
Jake ran his fingers through his hair. “Okay,” he said.
“According to her, Ilin said to tell you that the Egyptians might make an attempt on her life.”
That stopped Jake. He sat heavily on the nearest chair. “Has she made any telephone calls while she was here?”
“No.”
He shook his head. “I certainly can't protect her from murderous fanatics. The FBI wants to talk to her anyway. Maybe she can file for some kind of asylum—I don't know. She's going to have to talk to the FBI—anything she can tell us that explains those CDs would be a help.”
“When will the FBI have the disks analyzed?”
“Not for a couple days anyway. They'll want to see what's on them before they talk to her.” He didn't mention
that he had Zelda make copies before he passed them to the FBI.
“Perhaps Anna could stay with us until then. I want to get to know her better, and she would really like to see Washington.”
Jake glanced at his watch. “You mean here in the apartment, or at a hotel?”
“I thought we could do the tourist thing and then she could sleep in Amy's room. Amy can sleep on the couch. Tomorrow we're going shopping together, get her some clothes. She needs clothes from the skin out.”
Jake took a deep breath, then exhaled. “Let me eat something, then let's go for a ride. I need to see it again, too.”
Modin wasn't sleepy. She was still changing time zones, and the nap earlier had refreshed her. Tonight she was wearing an exercise outfit of Callie's that seemed to fit fairly well. She and Amy sat at the table while Jake ate. They talked of Washington.
“The city isn't old, like European cities,” Amy explained. “In 1791 our first president, George Washington, commissioned a Frenchman, Pierre L'Enfant, to design a capital city for this site.” Callie broke out a map, and she and Amy showed Anna the design of the city.
After Jake got the dishwasher going, he drove the three women through the city. They crossed the Potomac and, after a few false turns, parked in the parking lot for the Jefferson Memorial, which was undergoing a major renovation. They walked around the construction barriers and were soon inside, looking at the statue of Jefferson and reading the inscriptions on the lintels.
Back in the car they drove the major avenues. They passed the National Air and Space Museum, slowly circled the Capitol, drove along Constitution Avenue past more museums, then parked and walked to the front of the White House. From there they drove back to Constitution Avenue and went west, toward the river. Jake parked again by a large statue of Albert Einstein; from
there they walked to the Vietnam Memorial, the wall.
Amy led the way up the steps of the Lincoln Memorial. “This is my favorite place in Washington,” she confided to Anna Modin as they stood before the seated figure of President Lincoln.
When the women came back outside, they found Jake sitting on the steps, looking up the Mall at the spotlighted white obelisk of the Washington Monument against the black sky. Callie sat down beside him and reached for his hand while Amy pointed out various buildings and monuments to their Russian visitor.
“I know you're tired. Thanks for giving us the tour tonight.”
“I needed to see it all again myself,” he said.
“These nuclear threats, to murder millions or destroy civilization—” Callie mused. “In his column in today's paper Jack Yocke said that even if the terrorists never set off a bomb, they are destroying our innocence.”
“They are pouring acid on the trust that holds civilization together,” Jake agreed. “The people doing it know what they are doing. They don't want civilization, not as it currently exists. They want the traditional village life. They ignore the fact that the traditional Arab/Muslim lifestyle cannot support all these people living here on earth. Ignore it or don't care.”
After a while they stood, dusted off their fannies, and went down the steps to join Amy and Anna.
As they went back to the car Jake walked beside Anna Modin. He slowed his pace and Amy and Callie walked on ahead. “Tell me again about Nooreem Habib and the men who killed her.”
Anna went through it again as they walked. Jake had parked the car across Constitution Avenue on a side of the street near the statue of Albert Einstein. Traffic was light, so Amy and Callie dashed across the avenue. Jake paused on the curb as Anna talked. She covered it all, including Freddy Bailey and the American tourist visa.
As Jake listened he watched her face, listened to the
tone of her voice, noted the pauses and hesitations as she searched for the right English words. She told it slightly differently than she had the first time, and that seemed right. He decided she was telling the truth.
“They may try to find you here,” he said.
“Yes,” she said simply. “Ilin said they probably would.”
“Does that worry you?”
“Of course. I do not want to die.”
The traffic light changed, and they crossed the avenue. Callie and Amy were already in the car. Jake led the way to the Einstein statue and sat down on a wrought-iron bench. Anna took a seat beside him.
“I want you to talk to the FBI,” he said. “They will have many questions, about the CDs, about Saad and his bank, about how he finances terrorism …”
“I will answer those questions,” Anna said simply.
“They will also have questions about Ilin, about the SVR, what you do for them.”
“I work for Ilin, not the SVR.”
Jake's skepticism showed on his face.
“I will not answer those questions.”
“You have discussed them with me.”
“Ilin trusts you. He does not trust the FBI or the American government. The SVR has penetrated your government. They have spies everywhere. Ilin must be protected.”
“But you talked to me,” he pointed out. “I am not Superman. I must tell my superiors what I know so that we can protect ourselves and utilize the information you have given us.”
“I trust Ilin, and he trusts you,” she replied, refusing to yield. “What you do and say is your business, but I will not say words to anyone who might betray Janos Ilin. He has many enemies. I know the identities of some of them, but not all.”
“How do you know he's on the side of the angels?”
“He is a good man, trying to do right. That I know to be true.”
“How do you know?”
She made a gesture of frustration. “I know!”
Jake pressed. “The risk is that you are wrong. The KGB and SVR have cruelly used people for almost a century. Don't tell me that you haven't thought about it.”
“I have,” she acknowledged. “Some people believe in God. They cannot prove He exists, yet they have faith and believe. I believe in Ilin. I can prove nothing. Yet I believe.” She thought about it a moment longer. “Perhaps some people need something in this world that makes life worth living. Perhaps I am one of them. I believe on this planet there is at least one good man. Janos Ilin is his name.”
In the car Amy and Callie sat watching Jake and Anna. They couldn't hear the conversation, but they could see Anna shaking her head obstinately.
“Who is she, really?” Amy asked.
“I only know what she told me,” Callie murmured.
“What's this all about?”
“We're in a war, Amy, and your father is fighting it.”
Jake had just gotten home when an officer from NIMA called him. “Admiral, we came up dry. We just didn't have a satellite in that area at the time of the container losses. A day later a satellite made a pass, but when we review the data, we don't find anything that might be a container.”
“It was a long shot, I know,” Jake replied. “I figured the storm would obscure the ocean.”
“Oh, there was no storm. We just didn't have a satellite in that area.”
“No storm.”
“No, sir. Considering the season, the last two weeks were pretty quiet in the Indian Ocean.”
The engine noise of the Cessna drowned out all other sounds for Tommy Carmellini. The plane seemed to bounce occasionally, move gently in the night air.
As the plane burrowed through the night he worked his fingers, tried to flex his legs, forced a shoulder to move. The wind coming through the open doorway was cool and welcome. It swirled around his face and dried the perspiration.

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