As quietly as possible, they eased the boat to the bank and secured the bow to a tree. With Tanner in the lead, they jumped ashore, found a narrow game trail, and started walking.
Not far from the pier they found a trail leading into the forest. The foliage at the path’s edge was freshly trimmed.
“Here, Briggs,” Cahil called, crouched a few feet away. Tanner joined him. “Pretty heavy foot traffic.”
There were dozens of overlapping footprints; beside them were parallel ruts in the dirt. “A cart of some kind,” Tanner said.
Cahil grinned. “Natives taking their bananas to market?”
“Doubt it.”
They started down the trail. Traveling in the open was against Tanner’s better judgment, but hacking their way through the jungle would be not only noisy; but it would consume precious time.
Cahil was walking point when the trail abruptly opened into a clearing. He ducked down. Tanner scuttled forward and peeked through the foliage. Sitting in the middle of the clearing was a helicopter.
“Sikorsky UH-60,” Cahil whispered. The 60 could carry eleven men.
“Let’s take a look around,” said Tanner. “I’ll meet you back here.”
Five minutes later, they were again crouched on the trail. With a cat-and-canary grin, Bear showed Tanner a pair of .45 pistols. “Found them under the pilot’s seat.”
Tanner hefted one of the guns, glad for it. Several times in the past weeks he’d wished for a weapon, but in the real world, spying and guns were a bad mix. “I found another path across the clearing,” he said. “Looks like a lot of recent traffic heading inland.”
“Let’s go,” said Bear.
Almost immediately, the new path took a sharp turn to the right. Tanner stopped, halting Cahil in midstride. Tanner turned, studying the edge of the trail. Something there... Suddenly it snapped into focus: They were standing beside a low concrete wall, its facade overgrown with foliage. He mouthed bunker to Cahil, and they backtracked until they found a path that led them to a clearing.
The bunker was enormous, roughly the size of a football field. Its exterior was so interwoven with vines that only patches of stonework were visible. Spaced at intervals along the walls were huge gun ports; between these, machine gun slits. Briggs tried to imagine what the Marines would have faced here and found himself applauding the Allies’ decision to bypass Parece Kito.
They settled into the underbrush and watched. The jungle squawked and buzzed around them. After fifteen minutes, nothing had moved.
“Shall we?” Bear finally asked.
Tanner nodded. “Let’s go find out what Mr. Takagi’s hiding.”
37
After almost two decades of chasing spies and terrorists, Latham had learned plenty of lessons, but one topped the list: Regardless of how well-trained, dedicated, or disciplined a bad guy may be, he will make a mistake. It may be a harmless mistake, or it may be something that puts him away. The most common error — especially among terrorists — was the tendency to assume a safe house was just that: a sanctuary where you can let down your guard. Standing in the Taub home staring across the meadow, he knew this is exactly what had happened here.
In the past twenty-four hours, the Arabs had made half a dozen phone calls. All but two turned out to be benign. These were the two that led Latham’s team to a stylish condo in Glen Echo, which, according to the real estate office, had been rented by a Ricardo Pamono at approximately the same time Henry Awad rented the Greenbelt house.
A team had been watching the condo since the previous morning, but so far, the occupant had neither shown himself nor made any phone calls.
Randal walked into the living room. “Anything?”
Latham shook his head. “The condo?”
“Quiet. Whoever this guy is, he’s a homebody.”
Just past sunset, the cameraman in the stakeout van watched a Diamond Cab pull to a stop down the street and a woman get out. She was in her early fifties, stylishly dressed, wearing a headscarf and Jackie O. sunglasses.
“Talk about conspicuously inconspicuous,” he said. “Looks like our boy might get a visitor.”
“You get the car number?”
“No, the angle’s wrong. Okay, yep, she’s going up the walkway.”
“I’ll call Charlie, see if we can get some help from the cab company.”
As a pair of hastily recruited DCPD officers were recording license tags from the 200-plus cars in the parking lot from which Diamond had picked up the woman, Judith Smith and Fayyad had just finished making love. She lay with her head on his chest, her hand tracing circles on his belly.
“You’re angry,” she whispered. “I should have called.”
Yes, I’m angry, Fayyad thought. The further he kept her from this, the better chance she had of staying alive. Even that was not certain, however. What was Vorsalov planning? When would he move?
“No, Judith, I am not angry. How could I be anything but pleased to see you?”
“You mean that?”
“Of course.” God help me, I do. “We must be careful, though. How are things at home?”
“Better than normal. He’s a lamb when he’s not feeling well.”
“I don’t understand.”
“He’s been home since yesterday. From what I heard, he nearly fainted during a meeting. He hadn’t eaten anything that day and hadn’t been sleeping well, so—”
Fayyad’s heart lurched. “Is he all right?”
“He’s fine. The doctor said it was just stress, bad diet, that sort of thing.”
Her words were so indifferent, as though she were describing an ailing houseplant. Her bond to the senator was quickly unraveling. The professional in Fayyad was pleased; inside, he was unnerved. “So he’s not ill?” he asked.
“No. Since when do you care so much about Herb?”
“I don’t, but like it or not, he’s a part of your life. If it affects you, I care.”
She kissed him playfully. “My hero.”
Fayyad glanced at his watch. “Darling, I’m sorry, but I have to go.”
“Where?”
“I have a meeting with a professor at school. I’ll call you a cab.”
Five minutes after the cab left, the condo’s front door opened. In the FBI van, the cameraman was already recording “Ah, at last, he appears.”
“What’s he doing?” said his partner.
“Heading to the garage. Door’s up….”
“Shit.”
“Car’s coming out. License, four hundred twenty-one-romeo-zulu-november. Looks like a brown Toyota Camry… nope, make it an Avalon. How’re we doing at the lot?”
“The cops got called away; they only got about half the plates. Charlie’s trying to break somebody free to tail her. Gonna be close, though.”
“Well, our boy’s moving. Get Charlie on the horn.”
Latham had known it would happen sooner or later. Too few agents, too much territory. Something had to give. “Stay on him,” he ordered. “We’ll have to give up the woman. Janet and Chuck are heading to the lot. I’ll divert them your way. Stay on this channel, let them know where you’re headed. As soon as they’re in position, head back to the condo.”
“You got it, boss.”
“Did you get a look at him and the woman?”
“Not really. We’ve got some good film, though.”
“Transmit it over here, will you?”
While one agent drove and the other transmitted the camera’s digital images, Fayyad led them north on River Road, then south on 495. Ten minutes later, Fayyad veered off the highway onto Leesburg Pike. “We’re heading into Falls Church,” the driver called. “South on the pike.”