But who was the person they suspected? Was it Quraishi? And if it was, what would that mean for him?
Richards’ guts stirred as he considered his options. Should he say something? Should he admit to his knowledge? If he said something now, before he was accused outright, would things go easier for him?
Or was Olsen just fishing? Maybe he had no idea who it was. Richards had never heard of this al-Zayani character before, and had no idea if he could lead US intelligence to Quraishi. And if they were sure it was Quraishi, Olsen would definitely have said something by now. Wouldn’t he?
Richards decided to take the initiative, just as he’d been taught at West Point all those years ago.
‘From my meeting with Quraishi,’ he began tentatively, ‘I’m not sure we can trust the man fully. I’ve known him for a while, but he seems to have changed. He was talking about some pretty wild things — about the House of Saud, that is. Treasonous things really.’
‘What are you saying Jeb?’ Olsen asked.
‘I just think we need to keep a close eye on him, that’s all,’ he said. ‘He wasn’t very forthcoming with information on the AIJ, and I think he knows more than he’s letting on.’
Olsen nodded his head. ‘That’s interesting Jeb, thank you.’ He cleared his throat. ‘In actual fact, that’s very helpful — Quraishi is the man at the top of our list for heading up the AIJ.’
Richards could see Olsen holding his gaze, as if checking his reaction. And once again, he wondered if anyone suspected him. But on the other hand, why would they? And he had just covered himself by selling out his old friend anyway.
‘But that information doesn’t leave this room,’ Olsen said. ‘Does everyone understand that?’
There was muttered acceptance around the table, and Olsen moved on.
‘Getting back to the weapon,’ he said. ‘As far as we can tell, it was then taken on to a safe house by a man known within the AIJ as the ‘hammer of the infidel’, an enforcer for the Lion who goes by the name of Amir al-Hazmi. A lifelong terrorist scumbag, and a real piece of work.
‘The threat, of course, is that the AIJ plan to use this weapon against the United States. We think that the safe house might be a base of operations, where people can be injected with the weapon and then sent out, possibly — probably — to America. The Lion — possibly Abd al-Aziz Quraishi — has been quite clear that he wishes to wipe out the ‘Great Satan’ once and for all — and this weapon gives him the opportunity to do just that.
‘Imagine it,’ Olsen said gravely, ‘a dozen, two dozen, suicide time bombers boarding planes to the US completely undetected, with no way to trace them, the bioweapon already ticking away inside them. They land, they move to areas with large populations, attend big public events, the time comes and’ — Olsen’s hands opened wide across the conference table — ‘boom, their skin erupts, the spores spread, infect thousands, then millions, then… well, you get the picture.
‘We’d have to close ourselves off completely to the outside world, quarantine ourselves to make sure it didn’t spread beyond our borders. Could we manage that? And what would it do to us if we could? Our economy? Our people? How long would it take for us to recover?’ Olsen sighed as he contemplated the situation. ‘Could we recover?’ He shrugged his big shoulders. ‘I just don’t know.’
The melancholy was only momentary; then his backed straightened, his shoulders squared, and he faced the men and women around the table.
‘Ladies and gentlemen,’ he said, ‘it is with no hint of overstatement that I say that this is the worst crisis we have faced as a nation since 1962. Our very existence is threatened.’
Richards’ stomach turned as he thought about what he had done; he had assisted a madman in a plan which could kill US citizens not in the low thousands as he’d been led to believe — and which he was mentally and morally able to accept — but in the tens of millions.
He sagged in his chair and made the decision to hold his tongue. What would he say anyway? Sorry everyone, I’ve known about Quraishi for years. I even know about the attack he’s been planning, but it’s okay — I only thought he was going to use a dirty nuclear bomb, not this crazy bioweapon shit.
Yeah, Richards thought, he was better off just keeping his mouth shut and hoping for the best.
‘Bullshit,’ Clark Mason said with uncharacteristic bluntness; and for the first time since the crisis began, Richards found himself wishing that his new-found friend would keep his mouth shut too. ‘Where’s all this intelligence coming from? We seem to know one hell of a lot all of a sudden.’
‘And you have a problem with this?’ President Abrams responded acidly.
Mason nodded his head vigorously. ‘I do if it means we’re violating international law. Am I right, Milt?’
Mason turned to Milt Staten, the Attorney General, who looked around edgily and shrugged his shoulders in a gesture of helplessness.
‘There’s been a presidential finding,’ Staten said almost guiltily. ‘Due to the serious threat to the primacy of the United States and the clear and present danger posed by this bioweapon, we’ve instigated emergency procedures giving us… well, more latitude in our actions abroad.’
Mason shook his head in disbelief. ‘And I’m hearing this now?’
‘There wasn’t time before,’ Abrams interjected, bringing the matter to a close. ‘You will appreciate the urgency of our situation here.’
Mason continued to shake his head but backed down, accepting the situation for what it was.
Across the room, Richards watched him, understanding what was going through the mind of the Secretary of State. The look of anger — of betrayal — that had flickered across his eyes when Staten had spoken bode ill for the Attorney General; Mason’s memory was long, and equally bitter.
And Richards also knew that Mason would be watching the unfolding events with a very close eye; if anything went wrong, he would be the first one to point the finger and try to get some political capital out of it.
Richards could almost read the man’s mind –
It’ll serve the bitch right.
But, Richards figured, that was if Quraishi’s plan didn’t wipe them all out in the first place; even Mason would be hard put to get political capital out of the situation if he was a fleshless corpse lying in a ditch with a million others.
‘At least,’ Mason said eventually, ‘tell me that you know where this al-Hazmi is, where this safe house is.’
Richards watched Olsen exchange uneasy glances with James Dorrell and Bud Shaw, before turning to Mason.
‘We’re working in it,’ he said with a confidence he obviously didn’t possess. ‘We’re working on it.’
4
Abd al-Aziz Quraishi had sensed something was wrong straight away.
Eventually — miraculously it now seemed — he had at last managed to escape from the American agent; Dan Chadwick, Mark Cole, the Asset; whoever the hell he had been.
The man had turned out to not be entirely invincible after all; the shattered remains of The Globe restaurant falling on his head had seen to that.
Quraishi himself had been escorted under armed guard from the Al Faisaliyah building, ushered into a waiting vehicle where he was ferried directly back to the headquarters of the Ministry of Interior. He was keen to get back, anxious to lambast the Air Force commander for the reckless actions of his pilots.
But then he had felt the first warning signs; a tightness in his gut, a rising of the hairs at the nape of his neck. A part of him told him to ignore it, that it was just the after effects of the adrenalin which had been coursing through his bloodstream all afternoon.