Now he had only to reach the safe house before he was run down or bled to death on the highways of Dubai.
31
In New York, a crowd circled a large flat-screen monitor hanging from a wall in Larry Kanter's division. The news station played over and over the footage of the collapse of the Martyrs Monument, narrated by a quickly assembled expert commentary to put the significance in context for the American viewer. All watched in silence, memories of nearby towers falling close in their thoughts. The video was grainy and shook in a jarring fashion, shot from a tourist's handheld device, and yet all the more powerful for it. The footage cut from the tower collapse to the afternoon rescue efforts at the Great Mosque and around the monument. People who appeared to have been bathed in ash shuffled past the camera. Some fell to their knees with arms outstretched, crying up to the heavens. Bodies could be seen lining the roadway.
“Dear God,” said Kanter to the hushed room.
“It's them,” said Cohen flatly, not taking her eyes off the scene. Tears welled in her eyes. “I don't think there can be any doubt anymore.”
“Yes,” said Savas. “Same MO.”
“Yeah, I'd say,” said Miller. “Blow the shit out of some important Muslim building and leave bodies all over the place.”
Kanter let their argument pass.
“Someone's got to stop this, Larry,” said Rideout. “These are major, major hits, one after the other in a span of months. There's never been anything like this before. Al-Qaeda at their best needed years between each major terrorist attack. These guys are like fucking commandos or something.”
Kanter shook his head. “It's unprecedented.” The screen showed the wounded being loaded on stretchers, or, more commonly, carried by hand. The footage turned to showing angry crowds filling the streets in Algiers, chanting “Death to the infidels.”
“This will turn into World War Three if it keeps going,” said Savas.
Kanter turned to face his division members. “OK, everyone. If we all needed any reminders about what we're up against, or why we get up every morning, well,” he said, pointing back to the screen, “it's right up there for you to see in full color. Now, I want to call…”
He was interrupted by the sound of a woman shouting his name. Everyone turned to see Mira Vujanac running across the room, dodging personnel and desks in her black pumps. Breathless, she stopped near Kanter and Savas.
“Larry, I'm sorry,” she gasped. Seeming to recognize herself again, she straightened her blouse and hair quickly. “It's Agent Jordan. The CIA just phoned me. Their base in Dubai left a message. He's critically injured, shot up pretty bad. They don't know if he will survive. He is being flown to an army hospital in Germany.” She paused and caught her breath. “They also said he got the records.”
“Mira, come with me to my office. Everyone, back to your groups and back to work. Intel teams, we'll update you as soon as we can on this.” He took Mira's arm and led her toward his office.
King looked over at Savas. “What the hell did he get into?”
Savas could only shake his head.
“I hope he's alright,” said Cohen. Savas turned to her and saw the real anxiety in her eyes. He realized with some annoyance that he shared her concern.
“He's being taken to some of the best military doctors around. He'll be in good hands.”
Angel Lightfoote swept beside them and stopped as Savas finished. She turned her head slightly toward him and said in a distracted tone, “He's closer to God now. Much closer.”
With that, she turned and walked off toward her desk.
32
Late that evening, Savas was trapped in thought. Rain was pouring against the windows of his office, the darkness outside nearly impenetrable to the eye. As the night drew on, a weight increasingly settled on him, one he could not simply dismiss as related to the cloud fronts rolling in, plunging the city into blackness hours before sunset. The offices were emptied, and he felt a loneliness descend that he had not felt in some time. There were just too many reminders, too many conflicts stirring long-constrained emotions within him.
Jordan's heroics, his very existence, was like a stone kicked off a ledge, leading to an avalanche below. He triggered so many clashing thoughts in Savas's mind that it forced him inward, toward his own demons, monsters he had thrown into a pit and covered but that now stirred inside. My own private Tartarus.
He wanted to hate this man. He did hate this man in many ways. He could not wrap his mind around how an American citizen could embrace a religion whose practitioners around the world likened his nation to the Devil, burned American symbols, and supported and carried out murder against its citizens. Yet, here he was, this Muslim CIA agent, having risked his life on a lead. It was like an immovable object of prejudice was meeting the unstoppable force of a real man's character. In the middle of it was Savas's dead son Thanos and what had happened at the World Trade Center.
The rain worked in earnest against the windows of his office, like some maniacal typist drumming incessantly in the night. Savas opened a desk drawer and pulled out a fraying envelope. He opened its contents. Addressed to Thanos Savas from the NYPD — his letter of acceptance to the force. Savas was not sure who was more proud the day that letter arrived — him or his son. Not one year later, he was sitting next to his ashen-faced wife at the memorial service. He felt his eyes well up with tears.
A soft knock sounded on his door. His lights were off, the lightning like a strobe light flashing through his room. He got up awkwardly, rubbed his eyes on his sleeve, and stepped over to the cracked door.
It was Cohen. In the darkness he could not be sure whether she had seen his face, seen the pain etched across his features, but her expression told him that if she had not, she was clairvoyant. “John, are you OK?” she asked.
“Yes, Rebecca. Just tired is all,” he said with difficulty. Crazily, he felt his defenses dissolving, and his emotions, rather than demanding to be further suppressed, were raging all the more to be freed. “Not feeling well. I think I'll head home.”
Astonishingly, she placed her fingers to his mouth. Her soft skin brushed his lips, and a shudder ran through his body. He felt like a great wave was rising from the sea, and there was no place to flee from it. With her other hand, she took off her glasses and laid them on a shelf. Looking into her eyes, he saw what seemed to be an endless sea of compassion, focused on him, and it took all his strength to hold back the tears that wished to pour out. He could smell her breath, the scent of her body, its warmth like fingers stroking his skin. Her hair curled over her shoulders, spilling across her chest as she cupped his cheek in her hand and brought his lips to hers. For an instant, it was as if a creature, long split in two and languishing incomplete for an eon, had found its other half. He felt a life force rush through him, a force more than his life or her life alone. A force that promised magic and miracles.
John Savas pulled back, stumbling backward. Cohen looked into his eyes, her own eyes wide and concerned yet filled with longing. He grabbed his coat off the hook on his door and brushed past her, rushing down the corridor. “John, please!” she called out behind him, but he did not turn or respond as he cut past the elevators to the stairway and sprinted recklessly down the steps. When he reached the ground floor, his chest heaving, out of breath, he opened the door and stepped into the alley behind the FBI building. Rain rushed down over him, and he lifted his face to the skies to receive it.