Suddenly everything slowed. The helicopter pitched backward and the main wheels touched the desert floor. A second later the cabin was empty, except for Logan, who felt very exposed to the night streaming in through both doors. He pulled the slide back on his Colt. At least it made him feel safer.
The thud scared the shit out of him. Everything looked surreal through the goggles. The Marines were back, six of them still around the edge, their legs hanging out as before, and two, including the lieutenant, were in the center over…a body? The helicopter threw everyone back as it rose and moved forward, banking hard to the right until it was heading due north.
“Seal it up,” the lieutenant ordered. His men followed it smartly, bringing their bodies fully into the helo and closing the windowless doors on each side. One slid a heavy fabric curtain closed between the cabin and the cockpit. “Glasses off. Lights.”
Where before there had been a world of dancing green specters, there was now the harshly lit tomb of the Oceanhawk’s interior. The floor jumped with the turbulence of the low-altitude flight, bouncing the Marines against the walls. Some still wore their Kevlar helmets, and all looked quite emotionless in their painted faces. Young white eyes stared at the form in the center of the cabin.
Logan safed his weapon. One of the arms had fallen to the floor from where it lay against the chest, and came to rest on Logan’s boot. There was blood on the arm, caked with sand, and there was blood all over the floor beneath the right side of the head. The face — the eyes were lifeless — stared toward him, and the left side of the head seemed caved in. He knelt next to the man, straddling one arm. Logan had never seen a dead person so close.
“Looks like he popped himself, mister,” the lieutenant commented. “In the right, out the left.” He noticed the civilian’s discomfort. “Your guy made an exit, that’s for sure.”
Why? Logan thought silently. DONNER had made such a damn fuss about ensuring the pickup. Didn’t he want to get out? Logan shook his head as he checked the man for the last message. We pushed him. His pockets were empty, as was the holster at his side, except for one. He pulled the three pieces of paper out, unfolding the wrong one first. It didn’t speak to the questions his superiors wanted answered, but it did, at least partly, answer Logan’s.
“Well,” Logan said aloud, though it was drowned out by the turbine noise, “you win, DONNER.”
He opened the other papers. Their messages, to his mind, were secondary to what he had just read, but still important. The single-spaced typewritten pages were in Italian, both DONNER’s and Logan’s second language. Translating took a moment. Logan had a sense of what the whole picture was from the discussions with his bosses back at Langley; these messages completed the picture and scared him. The little he knew about nuclear physics was enough. A goddamn butcher would shit his pants.
“Major?”
“Go ahead, Mr. Logan.”
“How long to the Vinson?” This had to get to Langley fast.
After a pause: “Thirty minutes. Tops.”
Logan put the papers in his leg pocket. He could wait half an hour, but could the world? It was an overly grandiose question, he decided, one that DONNER had obviously reasoned and answered for himself. Had the man figured it all out? Probably not; the note pointed in that direction.
There could have been a great conversation when DONNER came out. Logan had looked forward to that. Case officers didn’t usually get that luxury. Of course he might have been allowed to spend some time with him at a later date. That wouldn’t have been good enough, though, and now it mattered not at all.
No one would ever know what Muhadesh Algar had made himself live through, least of all himself. Logan only knew that one life was over for the man known as DONNER. Such a benign code name for the man. He had lived to the extreme while trying to absolve his guilt, though no one would know that either. In the end only one person would feel some sense of relief from a life destined to end in futility, and that relief itself would somehow seem less than absolute considering the sacrifice.
Sixteen
THE PUZZLE’S CENTER
The line was silent. The director wasn’t known for his thoughtful pauses, leaving Art waiting uncomfortably.
“Who confirmed this?” The director’s voice hinted at irritation.
“Israeli Intelligence,” Art answered. “Meir Shari. He was their military liaison in D.C. when I met him. His information is solid.”
Jones had no doubt about that. The theory, though, was conjecture. There could be doubts about it. The problem was that it made sense, and couldn’t be confirmed or disproved. “We have a problem, then, Jefferson. If there is a third Khaled brother on that plane, and if the assassination was just meant to set things up as you think, there isn’t much we can do. And if you’re wrong, we might have to do something to prevent a possibility, something that just might kill a bunch of people.”
“I know that,” Art said. “But if—”
“If you’re right…” Jones thought on that. The information didn’t really change the equation in Washington, but it would end any speculation about how to respond. This would seal it, no matter what was on the plane. “Get back to your partner, Jefferson. What you just told me is going to the president. Good work.”
Art didn’t wait to hear the click. He hung up first. All Carol saw was her boss sprinting by, his jacket in hand.
The Chevy was speeding out of the underground garage three minutes later. The USC Medical Center was fifteen minutes away by car, ten if he drove hell-bent. Art would. It was his friend in there. He had to be with him.
There was no way he could know that the same pattern of logic, influenced by his growing emotional stress, had governed his fateful decision ninety minutes before. But the decision to deal with that improper action had already been made at one level of the Bureau, and would soon be approved by the highest level, the one whom Art had just finished with.
Landau slid the message from Logan into the DONNER file and tossed it onto the desk. It was late, and dark, but the lights from the CIA’s perimeter were faintly visible through the DCI’s window. The aged director reached and turned off the only light in his office, on his desk.
The outside world became instantly clearer when the office went dark. Those lights that were only specks before were now cones of light shining on the grounds. The rain had subsided hours before. Everything looked clean and fresh outside.
“Why?” Landau asked the outside light.
“Herb, you in here?” Drummond asked into the office.
The DCI turned his chair. “Yep. Right here.” He switched on the desk lamp.
The DDI waited at the doorway, leaning in. “Are you okay?”
“Yeah. Come on in.”
Drummond came in, but didn’t sit. He saw the DONNER file on the desk. “DONNER?”
“He’s dead. He did it himself.”
It should have surprised the DDI, but it didn’t. Assets, behind the sterile name, were people, with reasons for doing things that no one would ever know. His experience had taught him that time and again, though the loss of an agent never became “acceptable,” just “preferable” to some alternative. “Don’t try and read too much into it.”
Landau looked up, a slight smile forming. “Easier said than done, you know.”
He did. “Did he get the information we needed?”
“Exactly what we needed. I’m heading over to the White House in a few. The good news is that it’s not a bomb.”