It was a typical, low-rent motel room that could have been anywhere in the world, with a queen-sized bed, faded flower-pattern cover and white melamine-veneered chipboard furniture. The curtains were closed and the air-conditioner was off to save electricity.
I took the Do Not Disturb sign from the inside handle and put it on the outside as I fiddled around trying to find the lights. Sarah passed me as I closed the door and pulled the latch across. I went over to the air-conditioner and, leaving the curtains closed, switched it to full-blast heat.
Sarah was sitting on the bed, pulling her trainers off. I walked back to the other side and checked the window, a sealed, double-glazed unit which overlooked the landing. The only way out was by the door. I visualized my escape route. There were two staircases; I could either get down to the ground or onto the roof. Once on the ground I would head back to the carpark and hijack a vehicle. If push came to shove, I’d kill her here beforehand. I picked up the remote from the bedside cabinet – it was attached to a curly bit of wire so I couldn’t nick it – and started flicking through the channels trying to find some news. The faded silver plastic TV must have been about ten years old – so were most of the programmes.
Sarah went towards the air-conditioner, pulling off her jacket and muttering, ‘I need a shower.’ She started to take off the rest of her clothes, placing them item by item on the heater, then weighting them with ashtrays and a telephone directory to keep them in place. The air was blowing them about as if they were on a clothes line in a gale.
I watched her undress as I lay on the bed. I couldn’t stop thinking about what she’d said the guys in the house were planning, and about how lucky we’d been to get away. I just hoped she hadn’t killed any police; even if she was telling the truth about the assassination plot, we’d be in deep shit over that.
I’d made a conscious decision to let her keep the weapon; if any police had been killed, she had the weapon that linked her to that, and to the Lance killing. London would have to do a mega-deal with the Americans.
I watched her naked body walk across in front of me, heading for the bathroom. She’d always been at ease with nudity, almost nonchalant, in the way models are. Her body was beautiful and still well trained. I watched her thigh muscles flex as she moved; her skin was usually so healthy it glowed, but with those cuts and bruises she wouldn’t be showing her legs off in short skirts for a while.
As the shower started splashing I lay back against the headboard, flicking through the channels with the sound on mute. I couldn’t see anything of use yet, like the news, but if I’d wanted to buy a diamond necklace and earrings or an ab-cruncher, it was my lucky day. My chin was resting on my chest, my back propped up by the pillow. I could smell myself: wet, mushy and, like her, in need of a shower. Looking in the mirror to the left of the TV, I saw a scarecrow who needed a shave.
I finally hit a news channel that was showing pictures of forests, then the lake. I didn’t bother turning it up. This must be it; we were famous. There was film of different emergency vehicles toing and froing, police and ambulance crews running around with waterproofs over their uniforms. Then a policeman gave an interview with the same sort of thing going on in the background. I really didn’t want to know what he was saying. If there were dead police, a picture of them would soon be on screen. It wouldn’t change what I had to do, even though it might make it harder.
The news was replaced by a commercial. I was in a semi-daze, trying not to nod off. My eyes were stinging as much as my forearm now; at least that had started to scab up a bit. I’d sort it out later. If I’d got tetanus I’d be finding out very soon. I smiled at myself in the mirror as I thought, I could always sue the police department. This was America, after all.
I watched a child’s toy commercial, where two small girls were playing with dolls. Shit! I leaned over to the bedside cabinet that held the phone and a Days Inn notepad and pen combo, and wrote a big ‘K’ on my left wrist. Next to the pen was a small book of matches; I put it in my jeans pockets, along with the mags.
My body was aching all over. I forced myself up, and pulled the phone book off Sarah’s jeans. They fell to the floor and I couldn’t be bothered to pick them up.
I trawled through the Yellow Pages, looking for car hire, called a freefone number, and was told that, for a charge of $43 a day, plus tax and insurance, they’d be with me inside an hour and a half.
Sarah came out of the shower just as I was putting down the receiver. She had a large towel wrapped around her, and a smaller, still-folded one in her hands. As she walked across to check her clothes I could smell the soap and shampoo.
‘Who was that?’ she demanded as she threw the towel by the TV and bent down to pick up the jeans and put them back on the heater.
‘I’ve hired a car.’
‘Excellent. How long before we move?’
I didn’t know why she was so pleased. We weren’t going anywhere she wanted. ‘We?’ I said. ‘What the fuck’s with this
we
business?’ I always seemed to regress to South London gobby twang when pissed off. ‘All the bollocks you’re on about is your problem, not mine. The only
we
about this, Sarah, is that
we’ve
got the North Carolina police, FBI and whoever else wants overtime looking for us, and if you have killed a policeman and they catch up with us, we’re in a very big world of shit. Take my word for it, we won’t survive any containment; they’ll hose us down on sight.
‘
We
are going to do nothing. What
I
am going to do is, first, get us out of this shit; then I am going to get us both back to the UK. End of story. I don’t care what is happening elsewhere, or what you want to do about it. I have enough shit here to deal with. Fuck Netanyahu.’
She sat on the end of the bed and looked at me. I knew she was going to give me a sales pitch, but tough, I wasn’t going to let her get to me.
‘Nick, I’m going to tell you anyway. It’s important. I need your help.’
I cut in. ‘Sarah, I’m not interested in your stories. Not now, OK?’
She wasn’t going to give up. ‘Look, I am the UK liaison in a contact group set up by the CIA. It’s called the Counter-terrorism Center, and we’re based at Langley. Our general remit is to disrupt terrorist—’
‘Sarah, I told you, shut the fuck—’
Her voice got a bit louder. ‘—to disrupt terrorist operations; my particular cell is co-ordinating a US effort with European and African nations to roll up Osama Bin Laden’s networks.’
‘Bin Laden? What the fuck…’
She looked at me, waiting for me to continue. I didn’t, but she knew I was now starting to take an interest. She drew a breath and continued. ‘Yes, Bin Laden. We had a common cause while he was fighting in Afghanistan, that’s true. But the problems began after the ’eighty-nine Russian withdrawal and his return to Saudi. As far as he was concerned, Nick, Afghanistan wasn’t destroyed by the Russians, but by Afghans who had turned their backs on their religion and their country for money and power. Once he returned home, he saw the same corruption in all the Arab nations that had adopted Western values – above all, in Saudi, the land of the two most holy places, Mecca and Medina.’
I looked at her blankly, wondering if she would be saying all this if she knew her life depended on it.
‘The whole situation was made worse by the Gulf War. To him, the presence of hundreds of thousands of American and other foreign troops on Saudi soil was a desecration of Islam, the return of barbarian Crusaders to defile Islam’s holy places. He vowed to wage war against their presence in Saudi, and against the Saudi leaders who had brought them into the country. As far as he was concerned it had become an American colony. He wanted to strike back at the West – in fact, at anyone who was non-Muslim and in Saudi.
‘The thought that former mujahedin would one day come to the United States and conduct operations didn’t enter anyone’s head at the time.’ She allowed herself a small smile. ‘The CIA has a word for it: blowback – a poisonous fallout, carried on political winds, drifting back home from a distant battlefield.’ The corners of her mouth went serious again as she added, ‘Bin Laden has become, over the last several years, the international terrorist posing the most serious threat to Western interests. He has an incredibly effective infrastructure and, of course, he has lots of money to fund it all himself. The ASU at the lake was funded by him. That’s why I was there.’
I shrugged. ‘Listen, if there’s shit on, call Washington, London, whatever. Let them sort it out. There’s the phone, call them.’
She looked across at the bedside cabinet, but made no movement towards it. Her eyes stayed fixed on mine. I wasn’t too sure if she was actually listening, or just waiting for me to say more.
I got up and went over to the vanity unit outside the bathroom. It had a sink, mirror, shaving plug, soap and hand towels; it was time to clean up my arm. If she was telling the truth, all she had to do was pick up the phone.
I took off my jacket, pulled up the shirtsleeve, and surveyed the damage: two rows of nice clean puncture wounds that any German Shepherd would be proud of. If I collected any more scarring I’d start to look like the Cabbage Patch doll Kelly said I was. I turned on the taps and Sarah remained silent for a few seconds as I rinsed the dried blood and mud off my arm. The puncture wounds were deep, but less jagged than I’d expected.
‘Nick, don’t you imagine that I’ve already thought of that?’
I glanced in the mirror and saw her sitting on the bed.
‘Making contact with anyone is not an option, because it’s not a solution.’
I washed the wound slowly with soap and waited for that first horrible stinging to die down, trying to work out if what she’d said was any more than her usual cocktail-party performance. The room heater was working overtime and making my eyes sting.
‘Nick, how do you think the ASU were going to get close to their target here in the US? Just walk up and give him a little tap on the shoulder?’
I shrugged. It didn’t matter if I knew or not, she was going to tell me. It came at me in a flood. ‘Nick, Bin Laden has a highly placed source. We think it’s possibly as high as the National Security Council. Think about what that means: the group that blew up the World Trade Center… and Khobar Towers in Saudi, remember? Nineteen American servicemen dead. They also did the ’ninety-five bomb in Saudi. Another five Americans killed.
‘Those are the people who have someone within the administration. That’s why I can’t just pick up the phone and get inside help: the source would find out, then close down for a few years and never be found. He is the key to stopping Bin Laden.’
I could see the passion in her eyes as she continued. ‘Nick, the source has access to Intelink. Not only does that mean he would know before virtually anyone else of any contact I made, but just think about what information is being passed on to Bin Laden and anyone else he then decides to sell or give it to. Don’t you think I would love to call this in?’
Well, if all this was true, that was the phone call question taken care of. Intelink is a top-secret network, through which all the US and some Allied intelligence agencies share information, very much like their own private Internet. Within it, all agencies also have their own intranets, separated by firewalls from the main system. There are about a hundred sites that need top-secret security clearance to get access to. Whoever the source was, if he or she had access to it, then they must be big time.
I washed, thought and said nothing. If she was telling the truth and Netanyahu was killed and the source did exist, it would be a drama, but it wouldn’t make much of a dent in my life. Come to think of it, would it affect anyone else’s very much?
I could still see her reflection in the mirror. ‘Hey, kill one Israeli prime minister,’ I said, ‘another pops up. So what?’
It seemed that something I’d said had amused her, because her nose twitched and a big smile lit up her face. ‘They’re not going to kill just Netanyahu, Nick. The main target is Arafat. Bin Laden hates him – hates him even more than Netanyahu, for reining in Hamas and other Islamic fundamentalists and supporting the peace process.’
I looked down at my arm, trying to hide my smile. ‘He’s not too keen on making friends, old Bin boy, is he?’
My joke wasn’t appreciated; she just carried on as if she was Elizabeth giving me a brief. ‘For Bin Laden, the important thing about this attack is what it will say to the world. When CNN asked him about his plans, he said, “You’ll see them and hear them in the media, God willing.” Since then, the Islamic Jihad group have sent the United States a warning: that they would soon deliver a message to Americans “which we hope they read with care, because we will write it, with God’s help, in a language they will understand”.
‘His message is that nowhere is safe for United States citizens and their friends. It’s the logical extension of the bombing of American interests overseas. The one place that should be safe – here in the US – isn’t. Think about it, Nick. Two world leaders killed while guests of the most powerful nation in the world. A perfect demonstration that Allah’s avenger can strike wherever and whenever he wants. Just think what a boost that would be for the fundamentalists. As you would say, there’d be shit on. And the source is there, Nick, every step of the way.’