A Picture of Guilt (35 page)

“Sniffing gear?”

“Gamma ray and neutron flux detectors. Kind of like fancy Geiger counters.”

The men split up into teams of twos and threes and scattered through the trees toward the substation. I stamped snow off my feet. “What are they doing?”

“Making sweeps of the area. Looking for the device.”

“What time is it?”

Clarence checked his watch. “One twenty-six.”

Eleven minutes left. “What—what happens when—if—they find it?”

“They disable it.” He started rubbing his hands together. “Actually, that’s the easy part,” he said. “Or it would be if they had enough time.”

“What do you mean?”

“There are a couple ways to go. You could bring in a robot—disable it by remote control. You could also bring in a huge tent and fill it with foam.” He blew on his hands. “To contain the radiation in case the bomb blows.”

I winced.

“I don’t know what they’ll do this time. The military’s supposed to handle these things. Maybe they’ll try to blow the bomb’s wiring.”

A man ran out, opened a van, grabbed something, and ran back in. I stiffened.

“What time is it?”

“One twenty-eight.”

Nine minutes.

Lights flashed. More vehicles converged on the scene. Several men and a woman got out. One of the men was leading a dog. Then another van, filled with Chicago Police Department Bomb Squad personnel, pulled in. They disappeared through the trees.

Suddenly a man’s voice shouted through a megaphone. The wind snatched the sound and tossed it around in the air. “All unauthorized personnel must vacate the premises immediately. All unauthorized personnel out. Now.”

I grabbed Clarence’s arm. “What does that mean?”

He grimaced. “It means they found something. I have to go in. The radio.”

“No! Don’t leave me!”

But he was already running to the van. I followed him over. He opened the door, grabbed a mask from under the front seat, and headed into the trees.

Alone, I tried to wiggle my fingers, but they were numb. I should never have bitten my nails. It was an annoying habit. Rachel had inherited it from me.

I leaned in to check the time. One thirty-three. Four minutes left.

I started to shiver. The snow was up over my shoes. I wished I had boots that buckled all the way up. Like the shiny pink boots I had as a kid. I never buckled the top strap. Mother always chided me about it.

Suddenly a shout went up. My stomach twisted. I strained to look through the trees, but the falling snow and parked cars blocked my view. LeJeune ran out and started dragging me toward the van.

“They found it! Get out of here!” His face was haggard. “Now!”

Panic radiated out from my stomach. I threw myself into the van. The engine caught right away. I tried to tell myself it would be okay. The bomb squad was handling it. I checked the clock on the dashboard. One thirty-five. Two minutes left. They’d do it. They had to.

I threw the van in reverse. If these were the last two minutes on earth allotted to me, I wanted to be with my family. I started to back up, then stopped, the engine still idling. Dad and Rachel were twenty miles north. I’d never make it. With less than two minutes, I probably wouldn’t even make it to the highway. But now what? What should I do?

I was deliberating the absurdity of spending my last two minutes alive with nothing to do and nowhere to go when a dark colored sedan pulled up. Turning into the yard, it slowed to a crawl, and a window rolled down. I looked to see who was driving, but between the snow and the darkness, I couldn’t tell. The car rolled a few yards forward, then stopped a few feet from the van. As the driver opened the door and climbed out, I gasped.

It was Abdul.

I cut the engine, my heart banging in my chest. Where was Nick? I had to warn him. That’s what I was supposed to do. Make sure he got Abdul. I jumped out of the van and sprinted away from it. I was veering right, angling toward the substation entrance when there was a blinding flash of blue light, and the silence was rent by a roar. A scream tore out of my mouth. I threw myself to the ground.

It took a few seconds to realize I was still alive. There had been no explosion. No fireball. A chopper, its blue lights flashing and its motor whining, had broken through the overcast and was descending. It banked over my head, narrowly missing the utility towers, and landed fifty yards away in the street.

More men poured out, some of them suited up, some in uniform. The military. They ran into the substation.

I got up and brushed off the snow. LeJeune. Abdul. There had to be less than a minute left. I counted steps as I moved through the trees, twisting around and seeing my footprints in the snow. I was just at the entrance to the substation when the megaphone voice barked again.

“Make way…make way! Everybody back! Let’s get this sucker out of here.”

A knot of men emerged from the substation. In the middle of the group were several men in hazmat suits carrying a steel suitcase on what appeared to be a flat wooden board. They were moving very slowly toward one of the vans; other men surrounded them. I caught a glimpse of Clarence in the group, his mask on. He gave me a thumbs up.

Once the suitcase was in the van and the van had taken off, the men in hazmat suits tore off their masks. Others high-fived each other and laughed. A few wiped tears from their eyes. I looked for LeJeune, but I didn’t see him.

I whipped around. I’d confront Abdul myself, although what I would say or do when I found him, I had no idea. I raced back to the van, cold, bone-weary, but resolute.

But when I got there, Abdul had disappeared. His car was gone. The only hint it had been there at all was a set of tire tracks in the snow that were fast filling in.

I checked the clock. One forty-one. More men poured out from the substation.

It was over. With nary more than a whimper.

C
HAPTER
F
ORTY-SIX

I never found LeJeune, and Clarence followed the van with the bomb. Someone else gave me a ride to my car.

When I got home, I took a shower and brewed coffee, then called Dad. Rachel and he were fine; she was still sleeping. I told him I’d pick them up around noon; he should pack an overnight bag so he could spend the weekend with me.

The snow tapered off, and a weak slash of sunlight inched across the kitchen counter, coming to rest on the wall. I prowled around the house, restless and unfocused, too exhausted to sleep. On the surface my world seemed normal and stitched up, but underneath was a crack, a fissure so deep I wasn’t sure it would ever mend. I knew I would never look at the world in quite the same way again.

The doorbell chimed around ten. LeJeune. He’d put on a clean shirt, but he needed a shave, and there were dark smudges under his eyes. He kissed me. “What smells so good?”

I’d tried to pretend everything was okay, heating up the oven, putting in the pie, starting to sauté celery and onions. “Pecan pie. For tomorrow. I’ll get you some coffee.”

While I poured, he wandered around the kitchen. I wondered if he was feeling the same way as I. I got out sugar and milk.

He leaned against the counter. “We picked up Hanjour and Reedy.”

I spun around. “Both of them?”

“Customs nabbed Reedy trying to hop a flight to Frankfurt. She told us where to find Hanjour. We found him and one of his pals inside a White Hen in Orland Park. Stocking up on donuts and soda.”

“Doughnuts? He was buying doughnuts?”

“His pal went for a knife, but we disarmed him. Hanjour just threw up his hands.” He stirred his coffee. “Guess we won’t need that sequel after all.”

“It’s really over?”

He hesitated, as if he couldn’t quite believe it himself. “We’ve already cased their apartment, and we’re going through their e-mail. They were trying to get as far away as possible before it blew.”

“They didn’t want to die for the cause?”

“When you’ve been living stateside for a while, I guess martyrdom loses its appeal.”

“And yet they wanted to destroy it.”

“Ellie, no one ever said these guys had a tight grip on reality.”

I refilled my coffee, then tore open a package of sweetener and dumped it in. “You know, I can’t help thinking if I’d found the antenna the first time I met Reedy, none of this would have happened.”

“Don’t be too hard on yourself,
chér.
In a way Reedy may have saved your life.”

“How do you figure that?”

“When you first met her, you had no reason to link any of the events to Arab terrorists. You thought it was a Mafia scam.”

“So?”

“As long as you were running around looking for wise guys, she was able to rein in Hanjour. Convince him to go after the tapes instead of you. Persuade him she’d handle you.”

I thought about it. He was right. The last time I’d seen the SUV—until a few days ago—was the day LeJeune and Coates came to the house. I met Dale Reedy the next day.

“She never had any intention of producing a video, did she? She brought me in just to find out about the tape. To play me and see how much I knew.”

He nodded.

“Why did things change?”

“There’s no guarantee of unanimity when you’re dealing with terrorists. There probably was a disagreement over how to deal with you from the beginning. At least that’s what she’s saying.”

“Reedy’s talking?”

“Louder and quicker than a scalded cat. She’s not stupid.” He took a sip of coffee. “She did lay down one condition, though.”

“What?”

“That MI5 or Scotland Yard pick up her kids and make sure they’re safe.”

“Did they?”

“She talked to them on the phone a few hours ago.”

I tapped my spoon on the table. “What did she tell you?”

“The bomb was originally supposed to be detonated around the time of September eleventh, but in all the confusion, the final order never came down. Then, afterwards—”

“It was supposed to be part of September eleventh?”

“Apparently. You know how splintered and isolated these cells are.” He stared into his coffee cup. “At any rate, with all the attention on security and Arab terrorists, Samir’s plans fell into disarray, and he had to abort. Months later, when things calmed down, Reedy got the word to put it back together. That’s when they planted the second one.”

My stomach twisted. “Got the word? Oh my God—I never got the chance to tell you, Nick. Abdul was there. At the substation. The one I think is in charge.”

“Ellie…” He paused. “Abdul’s a Saudi intelligence agent. We’ve been working with him since May. He’s been tracking Islamic terrorists for years. He’s the one who tipped us to the threat in the first place. Something happening with water. This summer. In the Midwest.”

“Abdul’s an agent?” I stared. “But he never…”

“He couldn’t blow his cover.” He grinned. “Of course, you managed to do that for him.”

I wrapped my hands around my mug. “But I met him at the Greenbrier. What was he doing there?”

“He was trying to run down a training camp in rural West Virginia. A place where Arab terrorists reportedly train next to white separatists.”

“No.”

He shrugged. “When you’re overthrowing a government, the enemy of my enemy…”

“So that’s how he knew the countryside so well.”

LeJeune looked puzzled.

“You remember. When he told us about the coal mines—” I stopped. I was confusing LeJeune with David. I bit my lip. I remembered the sheet of paper with Abdul’s number at the Four Seasons. “If he was tracking Dale Reedy, why was he calling her at Great Lakes Oil?”

“He was trying to confirm her identity. She’d changed her name, remember? He was sure he would know her voice.”

“So the plant acquisition
was
a pretext.”

“You got it.”

I sat back in my chair. “So if Abdul wasn’t in charge, who gave Reedy the order to put it back together?”

“Aziz. Her husband.”

“Why did they need two bombs?”

“To make sure the radiation covered the entire Loop.”

“My god!”

“For insurance purposes too. In case the first one didn’t work. Remember, it had been underwater for months.”

“But they were still getting a radio signal.”

He looked grim. “Maybe after they saw the devastation in New York, they decided to up the ante.”

“So Samir got a job at PE and cased it on the side.”

LeJeune nodded. “Terrorist or not, he needed to make a living. And what better place to rip off supplies?”

I shivered. “Do you think they were planting the crib bomb the night Mary Jo and Rhonda were at Calumet Park?”

“Hard to say. They might have been doing a test run. Or a safety check afterwards. But whatever it was, Samir panicked when he saw the two women.”

“And killed Mary Jo.”

He nodded again.

“After which he thought everything was under control—until I testified.”

“That’s why he showed up at the trial. He had to find out how significant that RF damage was. And whether you knew where it came from.”

“Which is where he saw Rhonda Disapio. And realized she’d been the one with Mary Jo at the park.”

“You got it. She’d always been a loose end.”

“How did he kill her—tamper with her brakes or something?”

“Yeah. Reedy wasn’t happy after that. She realized he was a loose cannon. That’s when she came down on him. Told him to go after the tapes, not people.”

“The fire at the studio.”

“Yes.”

“And Brashares.”

“Like the cops say, he was in the wrong place at the wrong time.” LeJeune drained his coffee. “They thought they’d patched up all the leaks. Until you screwed things up again.”

“Because I saw Reedy’s antenna.”

“You also had the last copy of the tape.” He looked over. “You were in their sights from the beginning,
chér
.”

We were quiet for a moment.

“Do you think she was sending me a message when she canceled the video?”

“A message?” He laughed. “Not hardly,
chér.
She was busy saving her own skin.”