Keyes and I quickly and cautiously walked to the second floor. I followed her to a black Toyota Corolla. She knelt down and removed a key from under the car. “Get in,” she said.
CHAPTER FIFTY-SIX
Roy Perkins hadn’t heard from Harris in forty-eight hours now. No one had. He decided to use the information that Scott James had given to Harris, and pull the plug. He had to end this thing before it was too late and more people got hurt.
Perkins’ people hit Keyes’ apartment, picking the lock silently and slipping in unobserved. Obviously Keyes and her new doctor friend had just fled. Perkins’ “cleaners” worked the place over. The electronics and the databases would take time to sort out. The documents, most of them having been cross-shredded, could also be sorted out, in time. The cleaners searched every nook and cranny of the apartment, top to bottom.
Rectangular shapes on the dust-covered bedroom floor and bedroom furniture indicated that larger pieces of equipment had been removed from the apartment in the past twenty-four hours. Fingerprints were taken throughout, and sent back to Peary. CIA forensics ran through the worldwide databases and found only James’ print matched.
A record of Keyes, on the other hand, could not be found.
Piecing together the names and addresses that James had acquired, Perkins could see that he had to keep this thing quiet. He knew where part of the ISIS cell was, but not the location of Quasart, or the missiles that James claimed had to be out there somewhere.
Perkins dispatched two teams to The Swan Motel.
The Pakistani bugging team in the motel room had benefited from Harold Simpkins’ nefarious deeds. They’d heard enough to know that they could be discovered at any moment. As soon as they heard the helicopter overhead, they began grabbing their already-packed bags.
Their van was waiting, parked nose out. They flooded out of the motel room and immediately heard faint whooshes from the sky as snipers started picking them off.
A helicopter touched down briefly in the parking lot and two men jumped out. The aircraft took off, and the two from Perkins’ team found the key, started the van, and then pulled the bodies aboard and took off.
The aircraft and the van were gone within minutes of the assault.
CHAPTER FIFTY-SEVEN
Keyes drove away from the garage and through the back streets. Her face was red and she was breathing excitedly. “There’s no time to waste, Scott. You promised to help me, and now you have to fulfill that promise. I’ve looked everywhere in the hospital for the drone control center and have tried to follow Waters to it. Even though he stays somewhere in the hospital when he’s firing his missiles, I’ve never been able to find him.”
“I don’t understand why you need me.”
“I’ve been all over his Penthouse and there’s no control station there. I’ve even placed surveillance cameras all over the hospital and the Penthouse. His drones are flying over Iraq now as we speak. He’ll go to his station to fire his missiles sometime today, which means that I’m dead soon if we can’t figure this out.”
“I still don’t know what you want me to do.”
“You know the hospital better than anyone, and you know Waters. Maybe you can think of something I’ve missed.”
Looking into her eyes, I saw something I’d never seen before: Panic.
My head was screaming. “I’m not going to help you bomb the hospital.”
“There may be another way.”
She looked at me.
“Scott, they’re going to kill me.”
“They’re going to kill me, too,” I said, “But if there are missiles somewhere waiting to be fired, and if Waters is in the hospital, then a lot of people will be killed in a missile attack on him. I will not be a part of that!”
Suddenly, Keyes’ phone signaled a text message. She read it aloud. “Celena: Waters has disappeared.”
“Scott, maybe I can kill Waters and deactivate his control center. Maybe that will be enough. Maybe we can find Waters and stop him. If we do that, then maybe they won’t launch the missiles.”
I pleaded with her. “Let’s alert the police. Maybe I can convince them that this is a real terrorist threat.”
She made a sharp turn, which threw me against the car door. “Look, Scott, Farok programmed my cell phone for me. If I press “6” and “Send,” the missiles are sent. But if I press “8” and “Send” a suicide bomber will come. I never had any intention of dialing six and calling for missiles.”
“This is bullshit! These guys want to reap massive destruction on America! They’re just like the 9-11 attackers! And they’re not going to let you get in their way!” I yelled. “Where are these missiles? We have to stop them! Now!”
I picked up her phone to call the police. “Where are the DAMNED MISSILES?!” I shouted.
Keyes looked at me, eyes wide and mouth open. “I… I don’t know.”
“Don’t lie to me! WHERE ARE THEY?!”
She shook her head. “They don’t tell all their operatives everything. I learned that in the Al Qaeda training. In case someone is captured and tortured, they don’t know certain information. But Anna Duke will know.”
She punched in a number. Anna answered immediately. “Anna, where are the missiles right now?”
“I can’t tell you.”
Keyes asked again, begging Anna to tell her the location of the missiles, but Anna held firm. “Don’t give me any shit! Just find the target! Now! Or I’ll find you and kill you myself!”
Keyes almost rear-ended the car in front of us, swerving around it in the nick of time.
“We have to call the cops,” I shouted, “or the CIA, or someone, and get help!”
“You have to help me!” she shouted back.
She reached into the back seat, grabbed the plans of the hospital, and shoved them in my lap. “Where is he? Where could he go?!”
Suddenly I got a better look at the Rolex hidden under the long sleeve of her blouse. It had so many diamonds and sapphires you could barely see the numbers on the face. I thought about the watch. Most Rolexes keep perfect time. Hers was five minutes slow.
We’d been winding our way toward the hospital, and now it came into view. I looked at the big building. What she’d said about me knowing the hospital better than anyone was true. And suddenly I knew where the control center was. It was all very clear. Keyes couldn’t find it because it wasn’t in the hospital. Not exactly. I just couldn’t believe I was going along with all this. It was practically impossible to understand what was going on.
The newest set of drawings in the roll of hospital plans were diagrams for recent rewiring. A variety of lines representing new electrical cables ran across the page. They now ran all the way down the Sub Basement — all the way to Mariner’s Wood. “It’s in one of the mobile units behind the hospital, near Mariner’s Wood. I’ll bet it’s in one of the Emergency Disaster Units. Waters had one decommissioned about two months ago.”
CHAPTER FIFTY-EIGHT
The moment that came out of my mouth, we heard gunfire. First, a couple of shots, then a short firefight. It was coming from behind the hospital. I told Keyes to park in Mariner’s Wood.
As we pulled up to the woods behind the hospital, a man with an M-16 jumped out into the road in front of us. Keyes stopped to avoid hitting him and rolled down the window. “Bathar! It’s me, Celena! Don’t shoot!”