“Have your people made a decision?” he asked in Arabic.
The man said, “They’re interested, but they’re nervous. They fear the potential retributions.”
Typical, Koschey thought in silence. All bluster, no guts. Still, he knew they were close to biting. He just needed to press some more and be more convincing.
“Tell them the retributions are coming at them anyway, whether they do anything or not,” Koschey told him. “You know the Americans and the Israelis are gunning for them as well as I do. It’s only a matter of time. They’re not going to let them keep their reactors and their centrifuges. They’re never going to let them into their exclusive club. But if we do this,” Koschey said, using the “we” to include himself in the circle of interested plotters, “we’d be hitting them first. And we’ll have something to threaten them with that’ll make them think twice about retaliating. Attacking them like this is the best defense. And after Stuxnet and Flame,” he continued, referring to the sophisticated U.S./Israeli cyberattacks that had been wreaking havoc on Iran’s computer networks and crippling its uranium-enrichment programs, “the irony of our method won’t be lost on them. Even if they won’t be able to prove it.”
“Since when has that stopped them from doing anything?” the man grumbled.
“We have a small window in which to do this. I’ll need an answer by morning.”
“I’ll let them know,” the man said. “I’ll have an answer for you by then.”
Koschey ended the call and stared at his phone in silence. He knew they’d find his offer hard to resist. He was giving them a chance to strike at the Great Satan in a way they would have never imagined possible. And even that wasn’t the whole truth.
Koschey hadn’t told them who his real target was. They would have never agreed to that. They would have been too scared. But if they did accept his proposal, as he expected, his conversations with them would be enough to frame them for what he really had in mind, and they were hardly in a position to plead their innocence while acknowledging that they’d agreed to bankroll a different terrorist strike on U.S. soil.
Everything was in place. Koschey’s central concern was now time. He needed to do it quickly. Pressure would be mounting and the noose around him would be tightening with every hour now that the Americans realized what he had. Which would make his disappearing act all the more difficult the longer he waited.
He nodded to himself, then turned to retrieve Sokolov and finish what they’d started.
The second hundred million dollars, a new face, and a new beginning were only hours away.
57
Miraculously, Thursday night had come and gone without us having to call in another convoy of coroners’ wagons.
I’d made it back from DC on time and spoken to Aparo on my way home. He’d confirmed that nothing noteworthy had happened while I was out of town. He pressed me on how my trip had been and when I was going to let him in on “Whatever the hell it is you’re getting yourself into,” as he put it. I’d said we’d talk about it in the morning and driven home to Mamaroneck, where I managed to grab some quality time with Tess before she glided into sleep and I mulled over whatever the hell I’d gotten myself into.
Then Alex had woken up, just before five a.m., with another nightmare. What frustrated me to no end was that I couldn’t go to him then and comfort him. I was worried it might only make things worse, given what they’d seeded about me in his head. Tess had spent the rest of the night-both hours of it-in bed with him. She was great at calming him down. I was truly lucky to have her in my life.
It was seven thirty and all four of us were in the kitchen, wolfing down pancakes-with slightly more elegance than Kurt had that day at IHOP, I hoped-along with a small mountain of raspberries and blueberries. I glanced at Alex and smiled, and he smiled back like everything was perfect in the world.
And right there, for that brief moment, it was.
A little over an hour later, I was back at Federal Plaza, and the ants in my pants were on tenterhooks, both from the frustration I was feeling regarding our lack of progress on tracking down Koschey and from wondering when I was going to hear from my favorite libertine.
As far as Koschey was concerned, we were at a standstill. Apart from hoping the APB on the van paid off, the only thing we could do was keep monitoring for any relevant chatter or hope for an NSA intercept that could clue us into his current movements. Homeland Security had a major lock on airports, ports, and border crossings, based on the assumption that Koschey had to be getting ready to get out of Dodge, with Sokolov and the van in tow. If not the whole van, then at least whatever it was Sokolov had put in it. But we live in a big country, and it’s not that difficult to smuggle something or someone out of here if you really put your mind to it.
By ten, I needed some air and some decent coffee and Aparo needed to hear what I was up to, so we stepped out of the building, did a pit stop at my favorite food cart, and took a bench across the street by the African Burial Ground monument.
Aparo didn’t take it too well.
“Jesus, Sean,” he said when his blood pressure finally settled enough to allow him to speak coherently. “You could go to jail for this.”
I shrugged. “I know. But what the hell. If it all gets that messy, maybe that’s how I’ll finally get to the truth.”
“You know that’s a pipe dream as much as I do. They can clam up and claim national security and lock your ass up faster than you can say patriot.”
“You have a better idea for how I can find him?”
Aparo frowned at me, shaking his head slowly from side to side. “Let’s hope this Kirby really wants to hang on to his wife. ’Cause from where I’m standing, it’s not something I would gamble on.”
I was thinking about what he said when an unfamiliar ringtone warbled in my immediate vicinity. It took me a couple of seconds to realize that it was coming from the prepaid phone I’d bought before flying down to DC, the one I’d purchased specifically so I could give Kirby an untraceable phone.
You work in law enforcement long enough, you learn a few tricks from the criminals you spend your life chasing. Basic, in this case, but handy given my current predicament.
“It’s him,” I told Aparo as I flipped open the flimsy plastic clamshell phone. At least, I hoped it was him and not some CIA security officer calling to get a lock on who and where I was before the troops swooped in.
“You know what you’ve asked for isn’t exactly easy to access,” he said. His tone was hushed and clearly irritated, which was hardly surprising.
“If it were, I wouldn’t have needed you, would I? Do you have the name?”
“Reed Corrigan is mentioned in three case files,” he said. “All three were flagged, but I managed to pull them without tripping anything. Two of them are dormant and one’s active.”
I was crushing the phone with my grip. “His name, Kirby. What’s his name?”
“I can’t access it. These files are redacted. I can’t get to the clean ones without authorization, which means I’d have to tell them why I want them. And anyway, his name wouldn’t be in them. They would only ever mention his code name.”
A charge of fury went right through me. “That wasn’t our deal,” I hissed.
“Hey, nothing was ‘our’ deal,” Kirby shot back. “It was all your deal. It wasn’t open to negotiation, remember? Anyway, this is the best I can do. At my clearance level, anyway. If I get promoted tomorrow, maybe you’d be in with a chance. But I wouldn’t hold my breath.”
I tried to push back the searing sense of frustration that was engulfing me. “Send me the files.”
“I can’t,” Kirby said. “I can’t take them out of here and I can’t leave that kind of electronic trail. The e-mail would get blocked before it even left our servers.”