Whirlwind (6 page)

She pulled to an intersection a few miles west of the supermarket from which she’d stolen her minivan. She’d marked out this place earlier while driving east. Now she was back, and it was exactly what she wanted.

The Sun Land Mall. Two upscale department stores: Nordstrom and Macy’s. All the national chains: Eddie Bauer, The Body Shop, Ralph Lauren… and restaurants six of them according to the directory at the entrance. Something for everyone: organic vegetarian to pricey faux French.

Only the coffee shops were open now, but the other stores would be opening soon. Then the acres of parking surrounding the mall would fill. A

blue SUV would be only one of many, and would go unnoticed she hoped until the stores closed for the night, and the parking lot emptied.

That was twelve hours away. In twelve hours, she would be very, very far from here.

She cruised to the end of the lot. A thirsty row of live oaks lined the mall perimeter, prime parking, the only spaces with shade. Those spaces were not what she was looking for. Her objective, marked by a small sign pointing left, was the area designated: Employee Parking Only.

The workers will be the last to leave, she thought, the last to notice that a car has been stolen.

She followed the sign. The Ford crept between two buildings and into a courtyard lined with Dumpsters and heaped with empty shipping crates. More than three dozen cars were already there. There were parking spaces for at least another hundred.

After circling the lot twice, Irina chose a space nearest to the most promising vehicle: a dusty black Dodge pickup truck. She inventoried its qualities and found them pleasing: a little old, a little battered, but still sound. Four-wheel drive; off-road tires; tinted glass. No bumper stickers. That was important. Bumper stickers were second only to vanity license plates in making a vehicle easily identifiable.

All in all, the Dodge was ideal. Here, in the American Southwest, there would be hundreds thousands of similar trucks on the road. For all intents and purposes, she would be invisible.

Irina tucked her pistol behind her back, leaving her blue jumper loose so that no telltale bulge could be seen. Easing watchfully out of the Ford, she began to walk slowly down the row of parked cars.

Past the truck, eyeing it from the rear.

Around to the front of the parking lane, examining her target from another angle.

She edged by it on the passenger side, glancing through its windows. The doors were locked, but that was no more than a thirty-second problem.

Another car rolled into the parking lot. Irina kept walking, entering an alley that led out into the center of the mall. She stopped just where the passageway debouched into public space. Flipping open her purse, she began to rummage through its contents a punctual shop girl looking for her lipstick, getting ready for her day’s duties.

A middle-aged woman with unfortunate hips bustled out of the alley, barely giving her a passing glance.

Irina dropped back into the shadows, turned and sprinted. Mall workers would be coming into the parking lot in increasing numbers. What time did most of the stores open? Nine thirty, probably. Certainly no later than ten. She had to act now, before the crowd arrived.

Moments earlier, she, who wore no makeup, hadn’t been searching for lipstick. She’d been looking for the plastic shim she kept in her shoulder bag. As she slipped it into the pickup truck’s door, just as she felt it engage the lock catch, she heard her luck run out.

“Hey, lady, just whut the hell you think you’re doin’ with my truck?”

i3am was hiding something, and Charlie knew it. Frustrated, he silently reflected on what tone of voice might shake the truth loose. Outrage, he decided, icy outrage: “One last time: What the hell has this girl stolen? Whatever that big brown thing is, and whatever is on that computer disk that’s what’s driving her.” He shot an accusing finger at the national security advisor. “If I don’t know what it is, I’m just wasting my time.”

Same as the last four times Charlie asked the question, Sam shook his head. “No can do. As I’ve explained, this is no ordinary secret. The Joint Chiefs, the secretaries of state and defense, and five of us on the White House staff are the only ones authorized just us and the scientists assigned to the project. That’s the way it is, and that’s the way I intend to keep it. I will not, repeat will not, risk another security breach.”

Another security breach? Something about those words struck a false note. Charlie silently played back the national security advisor’s words, listening to them with an inner ear. He could mean what Kolodenkova did. But I don’t think so. He’s talking about something else. Something he doesn’t want me to know. “Sam, you’ve paid me twenty million bucks to ” “What twenty million? There’s no record of any payment to you.” Slippery sonofabitch. Even though he doesn’t know he’s on Candid Camera, the damned snake’s fundamentally reptilian instinct for self-preservation keeps him from saying a word I can use against him.

Charlie changed tactics, attacking from another flank. “Whatever. You want a girl a woman eliminated, and you want me to do it.”

“Now, Charlie, I didn’t say that.”

Precisely the problem. Sam had said little explicitly, although much had been implied “Spare me your pieties. We both know what you’ve been talking about.”

“I hope you haven’t misinterpreted me, Charlie. Nobody is talking about killing Ms. Kolodenkova. Although the president and I understand it’s a possible outcome, we would deeply regret it.”

Charlie felt like grinding his teeth. But for one irrelevant slip, Sam had said nothing incriminating. Bad news. Win, lose, or draw, Sam would sell him out. Selling people out was his job, and he went to work every morning with a smile. If Charlie couldn’t get his hands on something utterly damning, Sam would double-cross him. Again!

Another change of tactics. Make yourself vulnerable, he told himself. Sad and world-weary, and a little weak. He dropped his voice, turning his eyes away from Sam’s serpent stare. “How many people do you think I’ve sanctioned?”

Sam shook his head. “How would I know? Fifty or so, I’d guess.”

“Eleven.”

Sam’s surprise showed. “That few? From the stories they tell, I’d have thought “

Aft.” On the hook at last. “Eleven. Not counting self-defense and collaterals bodyguards and such, which I regret. The number you mentioned, well, that’s about the number I’ve been asked to go after. And turned down flat. You see, Sam, the thing is … the very painful thing is that I despise it, and it makes me puke. Oh sure, I know it comes easy to some. And I damned sure know that it’s easy enough for people like you to order. But doing it… no, Sam, there’s nothing to be said in favor of that. There’s only what can be said against.”

“But still, you’ve “

“I have, and it’s on my soul. When the time comes, the only alibi I’ll be able to offer the recording angel is that my targets were personifications of the greatest evil you can find this side of hell.”

Sam seemed genuinely astonished. “Uh… What can I say? I suppose I should say that I can respect that.”

“I suppose you should.”

To Charlie’s ears, Sam’s sigh of surrender sounded unfeigned. “Charlie, be reasonable. Do you think I’d be in this room if the nation wasn’t in jeopardy?”

“Maybe, maybe not. I don’t have enough information to decide.”

Leaning back in his chair, Sam massaged his forehead to relieve what were, Charlie devoutly hoped, painfully throbbing sinuses. “Hmm… yes, I can empathize with that. Very well, let me try to give you a perspective. You know what happens when you build a better weapon? Of course you do. Your enemy builds a better defense. Or if you invent a better defense, then they invent better weapons.”

“You’re saying this is about weapons technology,” Charlie spat. “That figures.”

“Defensive weapons.”

Charlie couldn’t stop himself. “Aren’t they all?”

“Tour cynicism does you no service. Now, do you want to hear this or not? Fine. Then please don’t interrupt. So teeter-totter back and forth that’s the way it’s been since the end of World War Two. Atomic bombs through cruise missiles through Stealth aircraft sometimes we have a little advantage, sometimes they have a little advantage. But little advantages aren’t worth much. Only fools pick fights without a winner’s edge. So we’ve got the arms race, and it never stops.”

“Tell me something I don’t know.”

“What you don’t know and what I will deny to my dying day is that we can stop it, stop it dead in the water. Listen, Charlie, suppose, just suppose, we came up with something so advanced that it puts us years ahead. Suppose we were developing a leapfrog technology, a breakthrough that wasn’t just a new ball game, but was a whole new sport.”

“I wouldn’t believe it.”

Sam drove a fist into his palm. “Believe it! It’s still got four or five years of work to go. Then we deploy. Hell, we don’t have to deploy. All we have to do is announce!”

“They’ll still catch up.”

As sanctimonious as a radio preacher, Sam grinned back: “That’s the beauty of it. They’ll ask their scientists, and the answer they’ll get is: Why bother? We’ll be at least a decade ahead, and picking up speed. They’ll know they can’t overtake us. It won’t even be worth trying. If… and it’s a big if, Charlie … if we can finish our research and productize the results before they find out what we’re up to.”

“You’re saying the Irina girl “

“You wanted to know what she stole. Now, I’ve told you. At least I’ve told you as much as I can.”

“This is all true? You’re not lying?”

“It is all true. I am not lying.”

Charlie knew it was so. He’d been watching Sam closely, baiting him to falsehood, then teasing him back into honesty. If he read his man right, Sam was telling the truth although not the whole truth and nothing but the truth, so help me God. His dissimulation was clear to anyone who knew the signs: eyes a little hooded, smile a little false, voice a little off pitch. Yeah, Sam was holding something back something more important than whatever gizmo a rookie FSB girl had in her hot little hands.

Charlie ran a quick mental audit of Sam’s repulsive rise. A Yalie and a Bonesman, he’d begun as a White House intern, just another newly hatched snake in a den of vipers. Then upward: a congressional aide, the Finance Committee, of course, because Sam liked to be near the piggy bank. Back then the gossip mongers whispered that Sam’s career was almost derailed by his viciously uncontrollable temper. However, Sam managed to rein it in, not by the traditional Washingtonian expedient of prescription pharmaceuticals, but rather through sheer force of will. Accordingly, just before his party got booted out of power, Sam was awarded a sinecure with one of the so-called independent agencies. Once his boys were back in control, Sam reemerged as undersecretary of something or another in the Commerce Department. He devoted his tour of duty to making sure he was in the room whenever deals were cut and campaign pledges were vowed, those two activities being more or less synonymous. Thus did Sam become what the insiders call an “honest broker,” getting the “broker” part right, if nothing else. Pacts, contracts, agreements, and negotiations the exchange of services for good and worthy remuneration, some small portion of which was fairly due and owing to the middleman who arranged the trade.

But money wasn’t quite enough for Sam, he wanted power too. The week after the World Trade Center went down, Sam popped up, now in the State Department. Ah, Foggy Bottom! One and a half percent of the federal workforce. Haifa percent of the federal budget. All the power in the world.

Sam’s definition of heaven.

Becoming a ranking official in the department that controlled, among many useful assets, the Central Intelligence Agency, sated Sam’s hunger. For a while. Just long enough for him to maneuver his predecessor as national security advisor into making an appalling blunder, good-bye, farewell, so nice to know you, why, yes, Mr. President, I would consider it an honor.

Now Sam was one of the most powerful people in Washington, face-to-face with the president every day of the week. That was the good news. The bad news was that he had to spend every minute of the day looking over his shoulder, scanning the ranks of his underlings, ever watchful for ambitious young upstarts who might do unto him as he had done unto others.

Great power, like great wealth, is harder to keep than it is to get.

One slipup, one misstep, one botched job, and he was history. Welcome to Washington. Enjoy your stay, however short it may be.

Charlie warmed at the thought.

Sam, old son, you’re running a cover-up. I don’t know what you’re hiding, but anything that would make you risk bringing me back into the game has to be major-league trouble. So then, you insect, let me tell you: if blowing the lid off Whirlwind is what it takes to clear my name, then may God have mercy on your sooty soul, for surely I shall have none.

Looking candidly at Sam, his face a mask of disingenuousness, he said, “All right, I think I have to buy what you’re saying.”

“Charlie, I am a man of my word,” Sam lied.

“I know you are,” Charlie lied back. “That’s why I’m willing to take on this mission …” pause, count to three, then drop the hammer, “if you meet my price.”

Sam’s eyes turned to slits. “Price?” he growled. “What do you mean price? I’ve already given you twenty million dollars plus the head of your asshole son-in-law.”

Gotchya! You are now recorded on videotape for all posterity. “The twenty mil was for the privilege of speaking to me. Sending Carly’s ex-husband to hell was and I believe I used the words explicitly a ‘down payment,” an ‘option.” If you want to exercise that option, it’s going to cost you.”

“In your dreams.”

“Nice seeing you again, Sam. Well, not really.” Charlie stood. “I’ll walk you to the door.” Go ahead, he thought, call my bluff.

“Sit down,” Sam whispered, soft and lethal. “Have you forgotten who you’re dealing with?”

“Not for a second.” Read that one any way you want.

“Then stop playing games and finish this negotiation. If you don’t, I’ll “