He remembered the face. He would always remember it, distorted in anger behind a bank of microphones. She had led the opposition against his release from Guantanamo, a self-proclaimed crusader. So typical of the Americans, using words without beginning to comprehend their meaning.
Tarik smiled and reached for the mouse, double-clicking on the Events button on her webpage and scrolling down until he reached the bottom. December 25th — eleven days away. Only eleven days. The Pakistani leaned back in his chair, falling into meditation as the words of the sura flowed through his mind.
Do they feel secure from the coming against them? Of the covering veil. The wrath of God. Or of the coming against them — of the Hour. Suddenly while they perceive it not?
Harry had just finished loading the unconscious and zip-cuffed bodies of the deputies into the back seat of the patrol car when he sensed movement, a sound in the snow behind him.
He unceremoniously dropped the body of Deputy Sanchez onto the backseat, the Glock coming up level in both hands as he turned, aimed toward the threat.
Carol. He lowered the gun, taking his finger off the trigger. “I thought I told you to circle through the trees and wait for me down the road.”
She brushed a falling snowflake off her sleeve, never taking her eyes off his face as she moved closer. “You were also going to lie your way through. What went wrong?”
“They asked too many questions.” He closed the rear door of the patrol car. “We need to get out of here — this place is going to be swarming with Bureau types once they fail to report back in. And they’re going to have our license number.”
Carol looked at him. “Not necessarily.”
Harry shook his head, returning the Glock to the inside of his jacket. “They run the tags, their search is logged by the database. It’s SOP.”
Her lips parted in the first real smile he had seen from her since the beginning of the nightmare. “It is standard operating procedure — that doesn’t mean the database can’t be hacked. If I can switch the numbers before the search is flagged…”
It was tempting — almost too tempting. “We don’t have the time to run a hack,” he said finally. “Sorry.”
She took a step closer, her eyes burning into him with a formidable intensity. “I can do this. Five minutes.”
A long moment passed before he responded, an answering smile passing across his face. He reached out, putting a hand on her arm as he moved on past, to take up an overlook position down the road. “Knock yourself out.”
The op-center was buzzing when Danny Lasker came through the door, tucking his keycard back into the pocket of his shirt.
It wasn’t like the place ever slept — the Clandestine Service maintained a skeleton crew of comm specialists and analysts 24/7 — but this morning was different.
“Mornin’, Ron,” Lasker greeted as he passed the analyst’s cubicle. A grunt served as his reply. He dropped his coat over the back of his own desk chair before throwing a second glance at Carter.
Blue dress shirt, stained with sweat. Black pants that weren’t on speaking terms with a crease. The same tie, loosened at the neck, red and green Christmas ornaments dancing down its length.
His gaze swept over Carter’s workstation. A large thermos of coffee sat beside the LCD monitor on one side — a decimated box of bagels on the other. “You didn’t go home last night, did you?”
A shake of the head. “Take a look at this.”
Lasker gave himself a push, sending his desk chair rolling across the floor to Carter’s side. “What’s going on?”
The analyst opened a browser window, bringing a picture of Harry Nichols onto the screen. An old picture, surveillance-camera quality. “This is what went out to the Bureau and local law enforcement yesterday. It’s been altered.”
“Are you sure?”
Carter let out an exasperated sigh. “I’m a photoanalyst — of course I’m sure. Someone deliberately tampered with the picture before it was sent out.”
“Who had access?”
“That’s what I can’t tell — they clearly wanted to make the Bureau’s job tougher.” Carter’s face hardened, anger creeping into his bloodshot eyes. “That’s not the only thing. Somebody’s messin’ with us, Danny.”
A couple clicks and another picture came onto the screen. “What do you make of this?”
The image was clearly of the underside of a man’s arm. A dead man’s arm.
“A friend of mine at the Bureau sent these over last night. Morgue snapshots of the two Russian KIAs from the highway yesterday.” As Lasker watched, Ron used his mouse to draw a red circle around a small white patch of scar tissue.
“Looks like someone tried to have laser tattoo removal,” Danny observed, leaning back in his chair. “Old girlfriend of mine had a dragon taken off her lower back — looked just like that.”
Another time, Carter might have made a joke about it, might have given him a hard time. Not this morning. “Do you know what this is — it’s Cyrillic.”
“So? The Bureau said they were Russkies.”
An exasperated curse escaped Carter’s lips. “That’s not the point — these are the Cyrillic letters for AB. The other man has an O on the underside of his arm.”
“Their blood type,” Lasker breathed. It was like a light had been turned on. “Spetsnaz.”
“Exactly. Odds on, Korsakov’s men. And the Bureau’s acting like these are ODCs.” Ordinary decent criminals.
“That doesn’t make any sense. Why would they do it?”
“Don’t know. But hanged if I won’t find out.” Carter looked over at him, his dark face twisting into a grimace of sorrow. “I sent Luke to his death, Danny. I’m gonna know why.”
On-screen, figures in blue jackets with FBI emblazoned across the back deployed in the suburban Virginia development, moving from cover to cover. Their target, seen through the helmet-mounted camera of one of the agents: a white split-level at the end of the cul-de-sac, a gray Ford Excursion parked in the driveway.
As the agents moved forward, moving in a tactical formation, AR-15s at the ready — a gray-haired man emerged from the garage door of the split-level, still dressed in his housecoat.
Guns came up. “On the ground! Put your hands where I can see them! FBI!”
A quiet smile crossed Korsakov’s face as he switched off the video feed. “How long ago did this raid take place?”
“Twenty minutes.”
“Well, your instincts were correct, Viktor. As usual.”
The boy grinned. “Da. They were good,” he admitted grudgingly, “but sloppy. Maybe they work fast? A couple fragments of code left from the pre-hack entry in the database.”
“Is it enough to reconstruct the authentic license number?”
Viktor thought for a moment, running his fingers through the scruff of his beard as he stared at the computer. “Nyet,” he said finally. “They did a good job, but none of that matters.”
Right. “How long till Chambers’ tracker goes live?”
“Ninety minutes.”
“How long do you think we have?”
They were deep in the mountains now — had passed a couple snowplows a few miles back. The only vehicles they’d seen in thirty minutes. Harry tapped the brakes of the Excursion, slowing slightly to negotiate the curve of the mountain road. Snow softened the profile of the sheer drop-off to the one side of the road, but it was still there.