A nod.
The oligarch removed his gloves, moving behind Viktor’s chair so that he could see the screen for himself. A curse escaped his lips. “What are they doing there?”
“It doesn’t matter,” Korsakov interjected. “Give me twenty minutes to assemble my team and I can be on the road. Chambers will be dead before nightfall, along with this Nichols.”
Andropov seemed to consider the suggestion for a long moment. Then he shook his head.
“You and your men have made two attempts already. You’ve failed both times and each time your targets come closer to me. I fear this CIA officer is more dangerous than you give him credit for.”
Korsakov started to speak, but the oligarch held up a hand. “You have served me well in years past, Sergei, and I have not forgotten it. But our third chance will also be our last, and we must make it count. What is the update on your absent team members?”
The assassin took a deep breath, trying to master his emotions. His old comrade had lost none of his teeth.
He gestured toward Viktor’s screen. “They are en route to Philadelphia International. It’s the nearest large airport that isn’t under complete lockdown. Their flight has a scheduled layover in Chicago — they should land in LAX tomorrow evening.”
“Then we wait,” Andropov admonished. “And move with our full strength when we are ready. You are old enough of a warrior to know this, Sergei. Never allow your opponent to dictate your moves.”
“Well done,” he continued, patting Viktor on the shoulder as he moved away. One of his bodyguards handed him a cellphone. “I have contacts in the consulate. One of them should know why they are there.”
It was something they taught at the Agency. Maintain control of your circumstances.
The manual was somewhat fuzzier on what to do when you couldn’t. Harry glanced at his watch, then back through the glass to where Carol lay sedated in the dentist’s chair.
He had always resorted to prayer in those moments, as awkward as it felt to enter the presence of God with blood on his hands.
And so he prayed, standing there with his eyes open, watching for any signs of danger. Prayed for her safety, most of all.
“The security footage of our entrance into the consulate—”
“Has been erased,” Alexei interrupted. A smile crept across his aging face. “As I said, I am very much a law unto myself. The reward of decades of loyal service.”
Harry acknowledged the information with a nod. He had to protect her, that was all that mattered.
And it had nothing to do with his orders, he realized with shocking clarity. He actually cared for her, in a way he hadn’t cared about anyone in a very long time. It was an alien feeling.
Out there on the edge, he had learned not to care. You couldn’t manipulate someone you cared for. You couldn’t care for someone you had manipulated — they were only to be despised. And in a world where manipulation kept you alive, you quickly made the decision of what you could live without.
May God forgive me.
The lights of the office dimmed once, then twice, casting an eerie shadow over the double-headed eagle on the far wall, the old symbol of Russia.
Danger. The hairs on the back of Harry’s neck prickled, his hand flickering toward his hip, toward the now-empty holster. It was a movement born of instinct — he had left his Colt with Vasiliev’s security personnel at the rear entrance.
Overload the power grid, shut down the building’s security systems — then move in for the kill. It’s what he would have done. It’s what he had done, he thought, his mind flashing back across the years to a long-ago night on an airport tarmac in Paraguay.
“Give me your sidearm,” he hissed, staring across at the Russian.
A peculiar smile on his face, Vasiliev opened his jacket. He wasn’t wearing a weapon.
The lights surged back to full power and the smile grew wider. “This is California, Harry. Out here, we’ve gotten used to ‘rolling blackouts’, as your media likes to call them.”
False alarm. Harry closed his eyes, willing his body to relax. “You don’t carry a weapon?”
“Rarely. I entered the service of my country at the height of the Cold War, and firearms training was not the priority of the First Directorate.” Vasiliev’s eyes grew reflective. “Those were the days, Harry, back before everyone strapped it on like James Bond. There were rules to this game — back before these religious fanatics came bursting upon the scene with their fatwas and wild-eyed clerics, Visigoths come to ravage Rome. Yes, those were the days.”
“When you tortured men and women in the basement of the Lubyanka,” Harry replied flatly. There were no rose-colored pictures of the past.
Vasiliev spread his hands. “I said there were rules, not that we agreed on all of them.”
His cellphone rang and he stepped away from Harry to answer it, a grim expression coming over his face as he listened.
The call didn’t last more than ninety seconds — Harry timed it, keeping an eye on his watch as Alexei carried on a conversation in rapid-fire Russian.
“We have a problem,” Vasiliev announced, tucking his phone back into his pocket. “Someone is making inquiries about the identities of our American visitors. Someone powerful.”
This is the Hell of which ye were repeatedly warned. Embrace ye the Fire this day, for that ye persistently rejected Truth. Tarik Abdul Muhammad closed his Qur’an and laid it aside, a strange feeling of disquiet settling over his body. Something was wrong.
It was a gift from Allah, the ability to sense danger. He knew enough not to ignore it. It had saved his life twice in the years since the American government had released him from Guantanamo. Since they had come to realize their mistake in so doing.
But what was it now, as he moved so close to fulfilling the will of God? Brushing a speck of lint off his slacks, Tarik rose and moved toward the window of the imam’s living quarters. Nothing out of the ordinary in the street outside.
A loud vibrating buzz rose from his cellphone and he palmed it off the desk. Jamal.
“Yes?”
The torrent of words that poured forth from the young man was more than even Tarik could process. “Stop,” he said finally, his eyes growing dark. “Start again, slowly this time. And remember, this is an open line.”
Slowly. Of course. Jamal took another look out the window of the parked Sebring, forcing himself to calm down. He felt as if he was hyperventilating. Flashing lights filled the highway scarce a hundred meters away from where he sat, illuminating the gathering dusk. Red, white, blue.
“Ya Allah, it happened so fast. There was just no time.” He heard more sirens, an ambulance closing in fast from the south.
“No time? What are you talking about?”
The college student closed his eyes, reliving the horror. It had all started an hour before, as they’d field-stripped the Kalashnikov, placing it back in the Honda’s trunk, underneath a basket of dirty laundry.
That was when the trouble began. Emboldened by an afternoon with his familiar weaponry, Walid had insisted on driving, on proving his manhood on the open road.
“You weren’t here,” Jamal stammered, wavering between anger and a holy awe. Surely if the Shaikh had only been present…