The Columbus Code (39 page)

Tejada was almost to Barcelona and he still hadn't carried out Abaddon's order. He picked up his phone three times en route only to toss it back onto the car seat. It was inevitable, of course. There was no doubt he would do it. He believed in the plan and had always seen himself in control of a global government. It was what he was born to do. The focus of his entire life. All he had to do was place one phone call and it would be his. Still, he couldn't bring himself to give the order.

Back then, it had not mattered that masses of people might die to accomplish his goal. Before, when he had not known how loss could feel, it didn't matter the consequences. Didn't matter that thousands of people might die. They were nothing to him. But that was before . . . before Maria had entered his life and turned his world upside down.

Near the city limits Tejada pulled over and walked to a wall that bordered the beach. The sun was sinking toward the horizon, promising a soft Mediterranean night. The beauty of it burned in his chest as he cupped the phone in his hand. Anyone within blocks of the Wall Street financial district would be disintegrated. If he made the call, he would have to live with the deaths of all those people. And the rest of it too.

“But that is the way it must be,” he said softly. “It is the path I chose long ago. And a destiny I cannot avoid.”

With a flick of his thumb against the keypad, he placed the call.

Is there anyone you
don't
know?” Winters asked Sophia.

“I try to be accommodating.”

Maria slipped out of the kitchen, leaving her father and Sophia staring lovingly into each other's eyes. Maybe if they hadn't been in this situation, she would have told her father to kiss the woman already.

The plan Sophia proposed was for a friend to meet them at an all-but-abandoned airport about fifty miles away and see that Maria and her father were flown safely to New York. How she knew someone who could do that, Maria didn't know. But it was a gift she was glad to receive. A way out without having to face Tejada . . . or Molina. And in the meantime, Winters had reached Donleavy with a better connection. According to him, Tejada and Molina did in fact possess a suitcase bomb and they intended to detonate it somewhere on Wall Street. That was the “ultimate solution,” according to Donleavy. Someone had to get there and stop him. Maybe Rebhorn would send an agent. But if not, Winters was determined to act on what he knew, if they could find a way to get to New York. That's when Sophia offered to contact a friend. And that's when the plan for them to leave came together.

Maria's job had been to procure a safe house for their arrival. One phone call to Nathan Todd at the church in Maryland had
accomplished that. She toyed with the phone again now. She needed to call Austin. To hear his voice and the comfort it brought. Because she was scared to death.

Austin's cell phone went straight to voice mail. “Sorry I've been
incommunicado
,” she said. “I need your help. Call me?”

Maria glanced at the phone once more. She hesitated to call Austin at the office. She'd been out of touch with Snowden, and for all she knew he was in on this too. But she had to hear Austin's voice so she dialed the number from memory.

“Gump, Snowden and Meir. How may I help you?”

Betsy Smythe. Maria silently cursed the fact that the firm was one of the few that still used an actual receptionist.

“Austin Faulkner, please,” she said, in what even she knew was a lame attempt at a Southern accent. It would be a miracle if Betsy took her for some relative of Austin's. The uncomfortable pause was a sure indication that it hadn't worked. Until Betsy said, “Mr. Faulkner is no longer employed here.”

“Since when?” Maria asked.

“I am not at liberty to divulge that information.” Betsy's voice slid out of protocol mode. “Is this—”

Maria ended the call.

She tried to resist the fear that pressed so closely, but with all that had happened lately, what was left but the worst possible scenario? They'd found out he was helping her get Elena away from Molina, she concluded. That was all there was to it.

Maria could hardly breathe.

Stop, she told herself. She had to stop, or she wasn't going to make it through what she'd already made up her mind to do. In fact, now was the time to inform her father. Now or never.

Winters and Sophia were sitting in the nook, saying nothing. Just staring at each other the way they had all morning. A plate of churros waited, uneaten, between them. Her father looked up first, his eyes filled with tears.

“Sorry to interrupt,” Maria said.

“No, please—join us.” Sophia pushed the plate toward the empty place at the table but Maria didn't sit down.

“I got the safe house,” Maria said. “We can go there whenever we need to.”

Just as she'd known it would, her father's face darkened. “You'll be going there straight from the airport.”

“Yeah, well, that's the thing. I'm staying with you.”

“No, you're not,” he responded forcefully. His finger jabbed the air in her direction, punctuating every word. “It's too dangerous.”

“I know.”

He waited, eyebrows arched, while Sophia excused herself from the room.

“That's it?” Winters asked with a wry tone.

“I'm not going to try to talk you into it, Dad, because I don't need your permission. This is my battle too. I started it and I'm finishing it.”

“You're going to disarm a bomb.”

“No. And neither are you.”

“I know who to talk to—”

“I can help—”

“You can help get yourself killed!”

“Dad—stop. For once, just listen. Not to what I think. Not to what makes sense. Just to what I feel.”

Winters looked away and Maria slipped onto the chair Sophia
had vacated. “I can do something,” she said. “I don't know what, but I can contribute. What I can't do is just stand by and watch another 9/11 happen to us.”

Winters swallowed hard. “You are your mother's daughter,” he said softly.

“No,” Maria said, taking his hand. “I am my father's.”

Carlos Molina didn't speak a word until the Catalonia jet touched down in New York City. Louis had slept the entire flight. Tejada sat behind them, papers spread around as he pretended to work. But as the wheels screeched on the tarmac, Molina turned to Tejada and said, “It was not in the plan for you to come. The Master did not order it.”

“And yet here I am.” Tejada kept his eyes on the documents as he tucked them into his briefcase.

“I am still to take down Winters?” Molina asked.

Tejada could feel Molina's gaze boring in on him. He smiled, without looking up, and said simply, “Your task remains the same. Winters has the journal. You watched the Conte woman give it to him when he left Málaga, yes?”

“Yes.”

“So retrieve it and take it to Abaddon. Do what you will with Winters.”

Molina gestured toward Louis, who was blinking at the early sunlight. “And him?”

“He will assist you. There are two named Winters, are there not?”

“I thought you—”

“I have had a change of heart.”

Molina's eyes narrowed. “Then may I ask why you are here?”

Tejada looked him full in the face. “Let us just say I have trust issues.”

Molina seemed caught off guard by the comment, but Tejada pushed on. “Do I have reason to believe you have carried out my orders regarding Wall Street? Including the change?”

“Yes,” Molina said.

“The trail of evidence will lead back to Iran?”

“Perhaps not. I had it in place for the carrier to be an Iranian student. Now that you've ordered a—”

“Aside from that, the trail will hold? With the CIA's cooperation?”

Molina's eyes narrowed with resentment. “When the Americans conduct an investigation,
yes
, they will find their information points them to the Iranians. The story was originally concocted to protect the CIA from its own operations.” Molina clenched his teeth. “It would be airtight if you had not changed the carrier.”

“I had my reasons, which are no longer your concern.” Tejada nodded in Molina's direction. “You will send the text on my command. In my presence.”

“Yes,” Molina said and he took a cell phone from his pocket.

Winters didn't open the note from Sophia until the cargo plane made its final approach into LaGuardia. He knew what it said and was certain if he read it sooner he would order the pilot to take him back to Spain. Maybe he was as crazy as Rebhorn said he was.

John
,

I know I must accept that our time together may have come to an end. Separating is far harder to do than anything else we have been
through, and that is saying a great deal, isn't it? Now my prayer vigil begins and it will not end until you have safely done what you must do. But please know, Agent Winters, that if you return to Spain, I will not be so gracious about letting you leave again
.

Te amo,
Sophia

“You're in love with her, aren't you?”

Winters looked over at Maria, seated in the sling next to him.

“It's okay,” she said. “I think Mom would like her.”

Winters nodded. “How's your Spanish?”

“Probably better than yours.”

“Do you know what ‘
te amo
' means?”

A slow smile—the first he'd seen—spread across her face. “Looks like the feeling is mutual. It means ‘I love you.'”

Moments later, the plane bounced onto the runway in New York. It was time to do this thing. And now Winters had twice the reason to stay alive.

According to the man Maria referred to as “Sophia's guy,” they were to meet their escort just inside the cargo terminal. He'd be in a brown work uniform with an orange
Transporte Internacional
logo above the shirt pocket. It would be identical to the ones Winters and Maria changed into during their flight. They had matching caps too, and Maria's hair stuck out beneath hers in every direction. It wasn't much of a disguise. Anyone who knew her would recognize her from the hair alone, but to Winters' relief they crossed the tarmac and stepped inside the terminal without incident. Their
Transporte
clone was waiting as promised, and led them through the hangar toward a door on the far side.

This guy could have a real future in the Secret Service. Serious
lack of facial expression. Monosyllabic answers. Even the shades he donned as he opened the door were standard issue.

“Louis?”

Winters went immediately on alert. Maria stopped short in front of him and he stepped on her heel.

And then it all went down in triple time. Maria's elongated scream. Her body slung over Louis' shoulders in a fireman's carry. Her body landing on the backseat of a car. Tires burning rubber as they sped away.

All the while, Winters lunged for Louis but he dove into the car after Maria with an agility that belied his heft. The door flapped as the car fishtailed across the pavement with Winters in pursuit on foot. As they pulled away, Maria appeared in the back window, waving him off and mouthing the words “Go to Wall Street.”