He had met The Fallen, the head guy, by the fountain in front of the Schlöss Charlottenburg in Berlin, just another old man feeding pigeons. Except up close the guy wasn’t that old. He said to call him Fallen. He spoke in the harsh, hard accent of a native East Berliner, which had confused O’Hara because all the intel he had gleaned on the guy suggested he was Chechen or maybe Russian.
He took the money and he took the sex and he convinced himself that this Chechen guy or this Russian was strictly a Russian or Eastern European problem. But now Fallen had come home and O’Hara was starting to feel like his nuts were being roasted over an open fire. He was thinking about escape plans.
He had twenty grand take-a-powder money in his safe at home with three different passports. He had a bag packed.
He could catch a train out of Washington, D.C. and fly from a smaller airport, maybe Frederick, to Atlanta. From Atlanta, almost anywhere. Atlanta to L.A. to Hawaii to the Phillippines. From the Phillippines he could lose anybody, hopscotch through Asia, backpack, slip back into Europe, the Mediterranean maybe, under a new identity. This might be the time for it.
His phone rang. He stared at it, transfixed. After three rings he picked up, saying, “O’Hara, FBI.”
“Do you remember Schlöss Charlottenburg?” The same voice, accented. He had Fallen on the phone. O’Hara brushed a suddenly clammy hand over his jaw, his heart thudding in his chest.
“Yes,” he said.
“We have a problem.”
O’Hara felt like he was choking. He tucked a thumb under his collar and pulled it away from his neck. “What… sort of problem?”
“No,” said Fallen. “That’s not the correct answer. The correct response is: ‘What can I do for you?’”
“Okay,” O’Hara said, suddenly visualizing his escape route.
“Good. I need confirmation. Your people have a Russian woman in for questioning.”
“Yes,” O’Hara said.
“Her name is Irina Khournikova.”
“Yes.”
“I have weighed our risks. This woman, though she is personally very important to me, has now become a major liability. She must be eliminated.”
“Um… I don’t… understand.”
“Yes, you do.”
O’Hara leaned back in his chair and looked around. The division was a mob of activity. Here it was, 4:30 in the morning, and everybody was on duty. Everybody was on their computer, on their phones, or flying around the city or the world backing their informants into corners, demanding if anybody knew about this attack at U.S. Immuno; more importantly, if anybody knew about Sam Dalton and his attack on the White House. Nobody was looking at him. Brady Gallagher, the agent whose cubicle was to his back, had left an hour earlier to “have a friendly chat with a Serbian pal of mine who works at the U.”
“What you’re asking,” O’Hara said, “is impossible.”
“Is your computer on?”
“Good. You’ve got mail.”
O’Hara turned to his computer screen, looked around to see if anyone was watching, then clicked on his e-mail. Sure enough, he had just received a file with an attachment. The message said, We’re not negotiating. F.
Stomach churning, O’Hara clicked on the attachment. There were three files. One was the entire transactions list of his numerous off-shore numbered bank accounts, starting with the Swiss account The Fallen Angels had created for him. He quickly deleted it, swallowing hard.
The second was a video file. He clicked on it and saw a video of him and Ekatarina having sex in a Moscow hotel. He deleted that before it could last ten seconds. Bile filled his throat.
The third file contained what appeared to be the contents of a Russian dossier on the arrest of a woman believed to have been involved in the theft and sale of Russian stinger missiles to al Qaeda cells in Tunisia, Iran and Afghanistan. It was a large file and it held interrogation records thoughtfully provided in Russian and in English, lists of known contacts — his name was on it — and photographs before and after her death by lethal injection. The woman was the blonde, Ekatarina. There it was, a nice trail tying him to known terrorists.
There was not, he noticed, any record of a jury trial. Ah, the Russian way. Something the U.S. had somewhat adopted post-9/11; call them enemy combatants and lock them away for an extended interrogation session, isolated from family, friends and legal council.
He deleted the file.
In his ear Fallen said, “Still there?”
“Yes.”
“I have the e-mail addresses of quite a number of people who would find those materials interesting.”
“I’ll… take care of your problem.”
“See that you do. Soon.”
O’Hara flinched away from the buzzing in his ear and slowly hung up the phone. The agent opened his desk drawer, withdrew his handgun, checked that it was loaded, and left the division, heading for the restroom. He knew where the Russian woman was being held. But could he do the job and get out of the building? He had to have a plan.
As he splashed cold water on his face, he thought of one.
41
Ling removed the final needle from Derek Stillwater’s sweat-drenched body and placed it carefully on the tray. Stillwater appeared to be unconscious, yet Ling did not think he was. He was impressed, despite himself. Stillwater had stuck to his story about Irina Khournikova being turned over to the FBI. Ling did not actually believe the story. He knew from years of experience extracting information from political prisoners in China that Stillwater had been in tremendous pain. Also, when his patients were under that intensity of feeling, they would change their story. If they were telling the truth and the pain persisted, they would make up things, anything that they thought their torturer wanted to hear, hoping that something would satisfy them and end the pain.
Stillwater never changed his story.
And Ling did not believe the story. He believed Derek Stillwater was physically strong. But he had broken physically strong men. They always gave in eventually. Clearly this man had a certain type of intellect, a psychological flexibility and strength that allowed him to deal with the pain in some fashion.
Ling believed all human beings could be broken. He had dedicated his life to it. He had harnessed his talents to the man who called himself Fallen, who had a vision and plan for the world. Ling believed he could, with time, break Derek Stillwater. But time was not a luxury he had today.
Ling believed from experience that the thing that was keeping Derek Stillwater in control was a sense of mission. He had tortured many, many people. The most difficult to break, he had found, were the believers. Religious people, in many cases; or people who had a profound believe in something: God, social justice, perhaps family. They believed they must hold onto some slim reed of belief while the world became pain and it was this reed that Ling began to pick away at when he had time.
“You may open your eyes, Dr. Stillwater,” Ling said. “I know you are conscious, so you can stop playing me for a fool. Open your eyes.”
Derek opened his eyes.
Ling said, “I am done with you, I believe. Perhaps this is a lucky thing for you. To all eyes you appear to be telling the truth. Fallen shall return shortly with knowledge of your honesty or your deception. If he has proof that you speak true, very well. But I, Dr. Stillwater, know you to be lying. What do you believe in, Doctor? In God? In life everlasting? In your government? Your country?”
Derek didn’t reply.
Ling began to clean Derek’s wounds, suturing them, covering them gently with dressings. He injected Derek with Ampicillin, explaining to him what he was doing.