Jimmy rolled his eyes, then looked apologetically at Farrah. “I'm sorry.” Turning to his wife, he said, “Suki, don't bother people.”
“No,” Farrah said. “It's quite all right. There's room for one more.”
“Tank you,” she said, sliding up next to him as she gave Jimmy an “I told you so” look. “I live in Medica pipteen years, neba see presdin.”
“Ah, well, I suppose you'll get to see him momentarily.”
“You not Medican, heh?” She looked at him quizzically. “You accent Yango Namja, Englishee.”
“Yes, ma'am,” Farrah said. “I am British.”
“You here bacation?” Suki asked.
“No, business,” Farrah said, looking impatiently toward the heavily guarded vehicles from which the last of the leaders were slowly dismounting.
“I been England once,” Suki said. “I bisit my baby bruda at Manchessa Unibersty, maybe nineteen ninety six. He pray chuku dere.”
“I beg your pardon.” Farrah was surprised to hear his own university named by such an uncouth person. “He played what?”
“Chuku…uh…” She turned to her husband, “Jimmy, wassa chuku call?”
“Soccer,” he said, “or football in England.”
Farrah was shaken, and a shocked look crossed his face. “What was your brother's name?”
“Yi Ji Sung. He pray pootball dere mebe two year, den get on Manchessa United and pray. Now he too old pray, but he still sisstan coach.”
“Dear God,” Farrah said. “I know Ji Sung. We were close friends on the football team. We tried out for United together as well, and he got my spot after I backed out.”
“Wha?” Suki said, her eyes stretching wide, “Wow, das is amajing. Whassa you name? I call him tonight, maybe gib him you numba. My name Suki. Wassa you name?”
The Air Force Band interrupted their conversation, blasting a fanfare to present the foreign leaders as they mounted the stage in procession. Farrah snapped back to his senses.
“Oh, here dey come,” she said, turning toward the dignitaries. “I talka you later.”
Suki’s full attention locked on to the famous men climbing the stage, looking at them as if at any minute one of them would come down and hand her an award from the UN.
Smiling and chatting with each other like school boys filing into a classroom, they looked down on the crowd imperiously, kings and emperors eying their subjects. Farrah put his hand back into his pocket and slid his finger over the three buttons on the key fob. One button for each of the three explosive devices in the tunnel. Three tiny plastic dots that would change the face of the world.
A row of hard-looking, observant men stood at either side of the platform, their presence visible, but not intimidating. The governor of the State of Alaska stepped up to the microphone.
“Ladies and gentlemen, it is with pride and great pleasure that I welcome to the Greatland the president of the United States of America.”
The crowd let out a roar of applause and cheers as the presidential fanfare sounded and they turned their gaze toward the man ascending the podium. The president of the United States in past incarnations had only visited Alaska twice. Ronald Reagan had a secret meeting with Pope John Paul II in 1986. George W. Bush visited Elmendorf Air Force Base to see off a large troop headed to the war in the Middle East in 2005. This was the first time a sitting president addressed the general public in the Frontier State.
Farrah's heart thumped against his rib cage. The president stepped up to the microphone, raising his hands and stretching his face in a smile that seemed much more genuine than Farrah expected. As he began his speech, the president looked legitimately happy to be on the stage in front of this crowd of Alaskans, and they seemed to feel likewise.
To his left, Suki fanned herself furiously with the program card that had been passed out at the entrance, her husband positioning himself such that he caught the excess breeze she threw past her own face. The midday temperature in the direct sun, somewhere north of eighty degrees, drew a constant stream of sweat that steadily ran into his eyes. Farrah reached up and wiped his forehead, sending droplets coursing down his face. He let out a quavering breath, took a deeper one to calm himself, then glanced at the clusters of body guards at either side of the stage. He willed himself not to show nerves beneath their searching gaze.
It was time — there was no need to wait any longer. Farrah stared directly into the president's face, listening to the tempo and tone as he began his speech. He waited until the president’s voice started toward a climax in pitch — he’d put an exclamation mark on the sentence for him. The sound rose in volume, and when it seemed its highest, Farrah pressed the first button. Nothing happened. He pressed it again. Nothing. He quickly pressed all three in sequence. No explosion. The presidential speech continued. Farrah kept his eyes straight ahead, expressionless, unable to hear any more of the speech. He glanced to his left. Kreshnik, dressed in city maintenance worker's coveralls, stood at the edge of the park with a group of similarly attired men. Their eyes met. Farrah blinked twice, then returned his gaze to the stage. Kreshnik’s eyes turned back to the president, then he pulled his cellphone out of his pocket and held it up to his ear as if receiving a call and backing out of the crowd. He moved away west, toward the tunnel entrance.
Suki’s husband, Jim, sidled up behind her. As he adjusted his position, putting his face into the full breeze from her fan, the Englishman wiped his hand across his forehead, then let out a shaky whoosh of breath. The sound and movement drew Jim’s attention and he glanced toward him. Sweat trickled down his face, almost immediately replaced by new beads of moisture welling across the Englishman’s skin. Jim's attention zeroed in on an irregularity. Tiny dots of sweat expanded evenly across the man's forehead and cheeks and clean-shaven upper lip, but some parts of his face were dry. Jim could see pores on the skin outside of his eye sockets, the back half of his jawline, and his nose, but in those areas, no droplets formed. Rivulets of sweat ran over those places, but none originated there.
Farrah turned his head, looking past Jim to a point at the edge of the crowd. As he turned, a drop of sweat broke loose, trickling from high on his cheek in a fast-moving stream across his skin, then vanished as it came to the dry spot. Jim felt a familiar flush, the sense of standing near death. He'd last felt it while sneaking his boat through Republican Guard lines in Iraq and had hoped never to experience it again.
Chapter 29
Warner saw the thick-looking city maintenance worker making his way along the periphery of the crowd talking into a cell phone. He pulled out his own phone and looked at the screen — there was no signal. The jammers Tomer mentioned were working. Warner discreetly followed the man until he came to a small brick structure behind an office building, unlocked the door, and went in. He waited until he thought the man had descended the steep staircase to the subterranean passage. A moment later, he entered slowly, pausing to allow his eyes to adjust to the light. Warner drew his weapon from inside his jacket and continued to the bottom, soundlessly walking tiptoe down the metal stairs, knees slightly bent, body in a partial crouch, ready to pounce into combat.
Leka watched his cousin go into the underground tunnel, and saw the tall FBI agent follow him in alone. He made his way toward the same tunnel entrance, going in slowly, producing a resin knife from inside his boot. The knife, hard and razor-sharp and invisible to both x-ray and metal detectors, had been easy to smuggle onto the grounds. Kreshnik had one too, as well as a handful of deadly throwing darts made from the same material, tucked within their boots as well. After all the years of protecting the president, the Secret Service still overlooked things their technology could not pick up, all in the name of protecting citizens’ privacy.