“Must be a yes,” Massina told himself.
Massina spent a good forty-five minutes at the party before Yuri Johansen caught his attention with a subtle wave from the portable bar in the corner. Massina excused himself and ambled over, stopping to say hello to the mayor’s wife, who was here alone tonight, her husband being in Washington on business.
“I’m so glad none of your people were hurt,” she told him after an air kiss.
“Yes, and it’s a miracle that you and your family were OK,” said Massina.
“We have good people around us. The bastards tried.” The word bastards came out of her mouth easily, even though it was a stark contrast to her otherwise dignified, nearly prim, manner. Evelyn—Mrs. Mayor to the press — was old-Boston Brahmin, a sharp contrast to her husband. Their marriage was the ultimate proof of opposites attracting.
“Anything that I can do to help us get back on our feet,” said Massina, “you’ll let me know. Make sure Bobby knows.”
“He does.” Evelyn grasped his arm. “Thank you, Louis. Your help means a lot.”
Massina nodded. Evelyn let go of his arm, then drifted away.
“You feel very strongly about your city,” said Johansen, who’d walked over while he’d been talking.
“Of course,” said Massina.
“I’d like to have a conversation.”
“Go ahead.”
“Needs to be private. Come on.”
Johansen led him out of the hotel to a waiting Escalade. As soon as both men got in the back, the Cadillac SUV pulled away from the curb.
They drove up to Atlantic Avenue, continuing north. Massina waited for Johansen to say something — anything.
“Mr. Johansen,” he said finally, “if you want my help, you should start by not wasting my time. It’s very precious to me.”
“We believe the Boston attacks were planned by a man whose nom de guerre is Ghadab min Allah — Allah’s Wrath.”
“I see.”
“He was in Libya. He’s gone. Where, we’re not sure yet.”
“Were the attacks launched against him?”
“Multiple targets. The administration—” Johansen paused. “Politics is a complicated thing.”
“I’m glad to hear that someone’s trying to get him.”
“Yes.” The word sounded odd, as if it came from a synthetic voice box, rather than a human being.
Johansen looked back out the window. “I’m putting together an operation.”
“You or the CIA?”
“It depends whether we’re caught,” said Johansen. His voice was too serious for Massina to take it as a joke, though perhaps it was meant as a dark one. “You were of great help in Ukraine. I could use some of those devices. And others.”
“What do you need?”
“Surveillance drones. An autonomous information-gathering system — we’d plant the bugs around an area and let the system do the heavy work. I won’t have enough people to watch everything and can’t risk them in certain areas. Your devices solve both problems.”
“I see.”
“We haven’t pinned down for sure where this guy is,” added Johansen. “But assuming it’s Syria, which is most likely, the political situation there complicates things. The Russians work closely with the Syrians, and in theory we’d have to work with them if we wanted to do something there.”
“But you don’t want to.”
“Not in a million years. Even if their hearts were in the right place,” added Johansen. “Talking to the Russians is in effect talking to the Syrians, and word inevitably gets back to Daesh. This has to be completely off the books.”
“Daesh?”
“ISIL, ISIS, scumbags — Daesh. Technically it stands for the phrase al-Dawla al-Islamiya al-Iraq al-Sham—the same as ISIL. But in Arabic, it sounds like slang for a traitor against Islam. That’s why people in the administration use ISIL — it’s translated as Daesh. It’s a silly game,” added the CIA agent. “But I guess you get your knives in where you can. They don’t like it, which to me is the best reason to use it.”
“I see.”
“Will you help us?”
Massina wanted to grab him and say of course. But he knew this was more like a business decision — or should be. He struggled to be systematic, to think, to divorce himself from the elation he suddenly felt.
A chance to strike back! You bet I’m in!
“Who operates the systems?” he asked Johansen.
“You train my guys.”
“When are you attacking?”
“As soon as we have a definitive target.”
“Training your people isn’t going to work. It’ll take months, and frankly, you’re unlikely to have the expertise.”
Johansen was silent for a few moments.
“I could take two people,” he said. Clearly he’d already considered this a possibility. “They stay behind the lines with me in Turkey.”
“Two may not be enough.”
“It will have to be. And I have to train them. For survival,” added Johansen. “Otherwise they don’t come. And volunteers. They have to volunteer.”
“Fair enough,” said Massina. “We’ll work it out.”
22
After the accident that had cost him his legs, Johnny Givens had undergone a series of operations and rehabilitation that not only rebuilt his body, but made it measurably better. His prosthetic legs, whose jumping strength alone was three times beyond his “natural” strength, were only the most obvious improvement. (The figure came from comparing his ability in the broad jump with his measurements in high school track events.) The medicine that had helped him recover had bulked up the rest of his body; the drugs that got his nerves ready for the grafts to his legs’ controls had accentuated not only the rest of his nerves but his brain’s processing as well. He literally thought faster and learned quicker as a byproduct of his recovery.
But these improvements had had an odd effect on his emotional state. Confident in his abilities before, he now wondered how much of him was real.
Assigned a counselor as part of his rehab — post-traumatic stress was among several fears — he found it impossible to describe precisely how he felt. The counselor, a man in his fifties with a beard that made Johnny think of Sigmund Freud, told him what he was going through was perfectly natural.
“What does that mean exactly?” Johnny asked. “What am I going through?”
“Adjustment.”
“Adjusting…?”
“Are you sad?” asked the counselor, stroking his beard.
“I wouldn’t say I’m sad. Meh, maybe.”
“Meh?”
Johnny shrugged. “Meh.”
“Describe it.”
But Johnny couldn’t. He dropped counseling in favor of more workouts; those seemed far more productive. He ran five miles a day, every morning, and used the Smart Metal gym as well. The facility was outfitted along the lines of a Gold’s Gym; what it lacked in muscle-conscious gym rats it more than made up in stat-obsessed health nuts. Computers — yours or a central unit — could track and critique every aspect of a workout, from breathing to posture to sweat content. There were four different personal trainer programs, each customizable for body type and goals.
Johnny eschewed that electronic assistance, but otherwise was one of the gym’s most frequent “guests,” as the system called them. Mornings from eight to ten tended to be rather busy, but otherwise the gym was big enough that it was easy to work through even the longest sequences without interruption. Johnny was often alone when he started, which could be as early as 4:30 in the morning on nights he couldn’t sleep.