“Not exactly how the Quran describes paradise.”
“Don’t tell me you believe in seventy-two virgins.”
“I’m not sure I believe in virgins, period.”
Bourak laughed.
“How did a man with your convictions rise so far in the muk?” The secret police were not exactly fans of the Muslim Brotherhood.
“They need a few of us who know the prayers. But colonel is as high as I’ll ever get.”
Wells put his hand over his heart. “Let’s pray, then, Alim. For Egypt.”
“And peace.”
21
THREE DAYS…
Cairo International Airport was as ramshackle as everything else in Egypt, a maze of potholed access roads and unfinished construction. Hall 4, the airport’s VIP wing, was the inevitable exception, modern and high-ceilinged. Nearly empty, too. Wealthy travelers weren’t visiting Cairo much these days.
So Wells had a lounge to himself as he waited for Bourak. Duto’s jet had landed, but Wells couldn’t reach it without a new passport. Bourak didn’t have the juice to walk Wells through border control without identification. And Wells didn’t want to use either of his current passports. The NSA was surely watching for both John Wells and Roger Bishop.
Duto held the solution. The bag of toys he’d picked up at Shafer’s house included a fresh passport. Wells had never used it before, and he was sure it wasn’t on any watch lists. Even better, it was several years old, with a slightly blurred photo, so face-recognition software wouldn’t jump it. Wells could again travel without fear of being picked up, at least for a few hours.
One day he’d run out of spares, and life would get even trickier. For now, he was still in the game. As soon as Bourak returned from the tarmac, Wells would be on his way to Duberman. He stuffed away his impatience and he watched the headlines scroll across CNN Internationaclass="underline"
AMERICAN DEADLINE LESS THAN 72 HOURS AWAY… NO TALKS SCHEDULED… PENTAGON: 82ND AIRBORNE FULLY DEPLOYED… IRANIAN PRESIDENT ROUHANI: NUCLEAR ENRICHMENT IS “RIGHT AND DUTY”… SUPREME LEADER KHAMENEI: “ALLAH WILL PROTECT US”…
Until the words BREAKING NEWS flashed in foot-high letters, and the scroll changed:
AMERICAN AIRLINES JET MISSING OFF SOUTH AMERICAN COAST… 767 LEFT RIO FOR JFK 7 HOURS AGO, LOST FROM RADAR 2 HOURS AGO… AA 964 CARRIED 229 PASSENGERS, CREW… BRAZIL, US, VENEZUELA SENDING SEARCH TEAMS… DEBRIS FIELD REPORTED…
Then the real surprise:
SECOND PLANE FROM RIO ALSO MISSING… DELTA FLIGHT LOST IN SOUTHERN CARIBBEAN… DISAPPEARED SAME TIME AS AA JET… DELTA: 257 PASSENGERS, 14 CREW ON BOARD…
Five hundred more people dead, and the war hadn’t even started. The odds that two planes from the same airport had both crashed accidentally at the same time were infinitesimal. The Iranians were warning the President that they would disrupt aviation worldwide if the United States attacked. This time, they had covered their tracks, sending the evidence to the bottom of the Atlantic. Washington would accuse, Tehran would deny, and the deadline would tick closer. Wells hated Duberman for causing this chaos, and himself for not finding a way to stop the man.
The lounge door swung open. Bourak walked in, passport in hand. “Yours, I think, Mr. Michael.” The passport was in the name of Michael Ishmael Jefferson. Wells made sure he had its biographical data memorized, then tucked it away and gave Bourak his other passports. They could only cause trouble.
“I should hold them?”
“Burn them.” His lives, real and fake, turning to ash.
But nothing came easy this mission. The immigration agent took immediate exception to the new passport. “Bad photo.”
“Sorry.”
“No entry stamp. You came through Cairo?” The guard tapped at his keyboard. “I don’t see it.”
They’d run across the only government worker in Egypt who wanted to do his job. Bourak flipped out his mukhabarat identification. “This man has been a guest of mine.”
“Then maybe you tell me why there’s no record,” the guard said in Arabic.
“Because your computers don’t work,” Bourak said. “I appreciate your boldness, taking this tone with a colonel in the GID.” The General Intelligence Directorate, the muk’s official title. “Call your supervisor. I want to tell him you’re such a good officer.”
The guard muttered under his breath.
“What?”
“I said, I’ll take his picture, and yours, too, and send him on.”
A minute later, they were through. Wells followed Bourak downstairs to an unmarked door that led outside the terminal, onto the tarmac. Bourak embraced Wells, the emotion genuine. “Maybe one day we’ll take the hajj together.”
“I’d like that.”
The jet was a Gulfstream G650, long, sleek, and white. No corporate insignia, nothing but the registration number tattooed on the engine. Duto didn’t stand, instead offering Wells a cheap finger-to-temple sideways salute. “Cap’n.”
“Crunch,” Wells said. “Do I want to know whose ride this is?”
“For now, it’s ours. I told the people who lent it to me you were good for it. More important, where are we going? Pilot says we have fifteen hundred miles of fuel left. We need to top up?”
“Not yet. Tel Aviv.”
“You hear that?” Duto yelled through the open cockpit door to the pilots. “Ben Gurion. Refuel there. Make sure they know it’s an American jet so they don’t give us any trouble about landing rights.”
“Yessir.” The cockpit door swung shut.
“We meeting Rudi?”
“Duberman.”
Duto grunted in surprise. “How’d you work that?”
“I didn’t. He asked. Through Salome. Didn’t say why, but I’m guessing it’s not a confession.”
“So he wants a meeting, and you come running to me to protect you.” Duto gave Wells an I’m-not-going-to-let-you-live-this-one-down smirk.
“I don’t know any other senators, and after what happened in Russia I needed someone who could guarantee safe passage.” As soon as he explained, Wells wished he hadn’t. Duto surely already understood. “Speaking of. Where’s Ellis?”
Duto’s momentary hesitation told Wells the news wasn’t good.
“Lucy Joyner gets in early. Lucky for us. She came to me yesterday about an hour before you called. Shafer showed up at her office around seven a.m., made her take his picture. He thought the seventh floor was going to grab him, and he was right.”
“He’s under arrest?”
“Not yet. But Justice is involved. Best I can tell, they’re holding him as a material witness right now, no charges.”
“Any idea why now?”
“He passed Lucy the name of a website he found that connects Salome and Jess Bunshaft. I don’t think you’ve met Bunshaft. He’s a Hebley guy. Mid-level. It’s nothing that proves anything, just a picture from a couple years ago. But maybe that freaked them out.”
“But they can’t hold him indefinitely—”
“Long enough. From their point of view the easiest move would be to toss him in a cell for a couple weeks. But maybe he told them that Lucy had his picture. So, for whatever reason, they decided to get Justice involved.”
“Good, right?”