Authors: Eric Van Lustbader
Herr arranged a demonstration—the victim was not a prostitute, not a woman at all. He knew Werner was expecting a real test, so he chose a Marine.
“Too easy,” Werner had said. “I want him to really show me something. Have him take out a SEAL.”
“A SEAL?” Herr had been momentarily taken aback. “Won’t that cause a shitstorm of an inquiry?”
“Leave that to me,” Werner had said. “You concentrate on this killing machine’s target.”
The result impressed even Werner. Three days later, Herr met Reeder for breakfast and offered him a job. Reeder had a newspaper open to an account of the brutal murder of a Navy SEAL outside a downtown bar at the hands of a pair of wacked-out meth-heads, both shot to death by responding members of Chief of Detectives Leonard Bishop’s High Crimes Unit. The story perfectly delineated, accepted by the press without hesitation. Twenty-three victims had for the moment sated him; he was ready to move on to fresher abattoirs.
In Herr’s mind, if there was a negative about Reeder it was that he took his own sweet time. Reggie would have preferred that Reeder and his team begin their assault on the eighth floor of Bethesda immediately upon studying the plans, but this was Reeder’s MO, the one that had allowed him to feast off of twenty-three people without leaving behind the slightest clue for law enforcement to discover.
“Just get it done,” he had told Reeder just before he left to rendezvous with the Bell X-1. It was a needless command—Reeder had never failed an assignment Reggie had given him—but it gave Reggie a sense of being in control.
Now Reeder, meticulous and dogged, addressed his team of four people he had handpicked from the pool Herr had provided, and gave them their final instructions. All four were, of course, one half of twins from Werner Ax’s project, though Reeder had no knowledge of this, nor, if he had, would he know what to make of it. Only Werner and Reggie, himself a member of that special fraternity Werner had created, knew and understood.
Still, Reeder could sense a certain homogeneity of both concentration and purpose in the four individuals, as if they had trained at the same facility, which was what they had, in fact, done, all their lives. Reeder looked from one to the other, and briefly wondered what it would be like to possess their indefinable, almost godlike fervor.
Then, shrugging off such useless introspection, he once again took them through the stages of the assault from first moment to last. Reeder was bald, a man with wide shoulders, a barrel chest, and the demonic eyes of a goat, perhaps a direct consequence of having witnessed too much death, most of it inflicted by himself. Apart from those eyes, it would be difficult to pick him out of a crowd, which was why he often wore sunglasses, and often a hairpiece, in public.
As the team finished its last run-through, Fillin, the electrician, said, “I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, I don’t like it.”
Reeder fixed him with his goat’s eyes. “What don’t you like?”
“This here.” Fillin’s forefinger stabbed out. “You’ve given me thirty seconds to get to the main junction box and bypass both the main and the backup alarm circuits.”
Reeder cocked his head. “That’s not enough?”
“No, it certainly is not.”
Reeder’s left hand was a blur, connecting with Fillin’s jaw. As Fillin stumbled back, grabbing his face, Reeder said, “How about now, cocksucker?”
Silence, apart from Fillin’s harsh, uneven breathing, like puffs of smoke from a brush fire.
“As for the rest of you, get some sleep,” Reeder said, fixing them one at a time in his animal stare. “When I wake you, we go.”
* * *
“I
’M OUTTA
here,” Vera said when she encountered Alli just outside the situation room.
“You need to stay right where you are.” Alli tilted her head.
“Please, Alli. I can’t stand another minute with that cold-hearted bitch.”
“You two need to find a way to get along.”
Vera tossed her head. “Fuck, has the whole world gone crazy?”
“Come on,” Alli said.
When they reentered the situation room, Caro was busy on Leopard’s laptop.
“Find out anything new?” Alli asked.
Caro glanced up, then back down again. “Nothing of interest.”
“Then what are you doing?”
“Waiting for my father to die.”
Alli watched Caro working away for a moment, then, without a word of warning, snatched the computer from out of her lap.
“Hey!”
She glanced down at the screen, which was filled with text concerning Mirage AirTransport and one of its subsidiaries, MimicAir. “What the hell is this?” she said.
Then she saw that both companies were owned by LightFast Optical Networks, which was part of Owl Offshore Trust, which, in turn, was owned by Hyde Rubber & Tyre, Ltd., which was owned by Picketline Metalworks GmbH, which was owned by Linolean Properties Pty HK, on and on, through a maze of more manufacturers, corporations, trusts, and holding companies, until reaching the center.
Alli looked up. “Damnit, Caro, what is this?”
Caro passed a hand across her face. “I don’t —”
“Come on, Caro. Spill.”
“I guess there’s no point in…” Caro hesitated, then nodded in acquiescence. “It’s a map of the Syrian’s holdings.”
* * *
“E
VERYONE YOU
asked for is on this call,” Paull said. “We reestablished contact. Werner von Verschuer is in a villa on the outskirts of Rome that has its own airfield.”
“Rome,” Jack said from his seat on the plane. Putting Paull on hold, Jack called a flight officer over, told him to inform the pilot of their new destination.
“We’ll have to refuel, sir.”
“Quick as you can,” Jack told him.
The officer nodded and went back up the aisle as Jack returned to his call. “I think I know Acacia’s target.”
“The Iranian supreme leader.”
“It would seem that Acacia’s been re-formed to succeed where the previous iteration failed.”
“I don’t have to tell you what an insane plan this is. With no clear successor or plans for the aftermath, the attack has the very high risk of setting off a nuclear war, even if it succeeds. China and Israel are certain to become involved, then Russia. We’ll be sucked in, and devil take the hindmost. I’m scrambling a SEAL team to the area, but there’s no telling if they’ll arrive in time. Thirty hours from now we’ll have a night of low loom.” That was military-speak for low moon luminosity, the ideal moment for a night raid. “Acacia is von Verschuer’s baby. He controls the group. It’s up to you to stop him at all costs.”
“I understand.”
“Still, I’m at a loss to understand why all this is being undertaken.”
“One step at a time,” Jack said. “Cakra Holdings is owned by the Syrian. Alli and I found that name in his villa we raided last year.”
Paull made a noise in the back of his throat akin to that emitted by a lion prior to an attack. “From the information Caro and Alli wrested from Leopard’s laptop, the local African airlines used to transport Acacia are owned jointly by Three-thirteen and the Syrian.”
“That can’t be a coincidence.” Jack switched his mobile from one ear to the other. The plane had started its steep descent. “Three-thirteen, Acacia, Werner von Verschuer are all connected with the Syrian.”
“An unholy alliance if ever there was one. But why would Three-thirteen ally itself with the Syrian?”
“He’s got unfathomably deep pockets.”
“True enough,” Paull admitted, “but that doesn’t explain what the Syrian gets out of the alliance.”
Jack thought a moment. “Alli?”
“Here, Jack.”
“What’s your read on Caroline? Is she still secretly working for the Syrian?”
“Hard to say for sure. She’s devious enough, so it’s certainly possible. What I do know is that she didn’t want me to see the information on Mirage and MimicAir.”
Jack considered for a moment. “I had asked her to find out who owned Mirage.”
“Right,” Alli said. “I don’t think she was going to tell you.”
“Why?”
There was a small silence, Alli thinking. “She must still be connected with the Syrian in some way.”
“Or,” Jack said, “she’s been using Leopard’s laptop to rechannel the Syrian’s fortune into her own accounts.” He considered. “I think she’s in real and imminent danger.”
“Alli,” Paull said, “lock down the eighth floor now. Absolutely no one in or out.”
“I’m on it. Anything else?”
“Yes. Try to find out whose side Caroline is on.”
“Caro is on Caro’s side.”
“Get confirmation, then. I want to know what she’s up to.”
“Right.”
“Nona,” Jack said, “are you on?”
“Yes, Jack. Secretary Paull and I are both in my brother’s hospital room.”
Jack felt the plane begin its descent toward the airfield the pilot had chosen for refueling. “I’m so sorry about Alan. I know what the two of you meant to each other.”
“I appreciate that.”
Her voice was soft, subdued, and Jack imagined her tamping down hard on her emotions.
“I’d like you to go over with me everything in Frankie’s kit bag.”
“Okay.”
Nona went through the list. When she came to the coins, Jack said, “Stop right there. Tell me what countries they’re from.”
“Eritrea, Somalia, Djibouti, Iran, Sudan—”
“Wait.” Jack was pressed back as the plane hit the runway, then the pressure came off as they began to taxi. “Did you say Iran?”
“That’s right.”
“Frankie was part of Acacia?”
“I … I don’t know.”
A sudden revelation bloomed in Jack’s mind. “Are you and Frankie twins?”
“Yes, but—”
“I think he was part of Acacia.”
“How could that be? He never made it out of the Horn of Africa.”
Good question,
Jack thought. “Do you know what happened to him?”
“He was hit in a mortar attack on the compound. He was very near the epicenter.”
“That jibes with the official record,” Paull interjected. “I’ve checked.”
“I’m not interested in the official record. Nona, how did you hear about Frankie?”
“A general came by to see me. He was there. He sat with me and answered all my questions.”
“General Tarasov?”
“Yes. How did you know?”
“This is all one gigantic spider’s web,” Paull said. “But I’ll be damned if I know what’s at the center.”
The plane rolled to a stop, overalled mechanics jumped off the truck as it pulled up beside them, and they began the refueling process. The pilot must have put the fear of God into them, because they were working as fast as a pit crew at the Talladega Superspeed way.
“I have a feeling that only Werner von Verschuer can tell us,” Jack said.
“Maybe,” Paull said. “But I still don’t see the connection with Iran. I maybe see the insane logic of neocons wanting to assassinate the Iranian supreme leader, but the Syrian is a businessman and a terrorist. What could he possibly gain from a regime change? He has many interests throughout the Middle East. It seems to me that an areawide destabilization and a possible nuclear war would be the last things he’d want.”
Paull was right on all counts. So what weren’t they seeing? Jack wondered whether Frankie held the answer in his impenetrable mind.
“One thing that bothers me,” Jack said now. “If Acacia was made up of members of von Verschuer’s twins program, why was Frankie recruited?”
“Frankie and I are twins,” Nona said.
“Yes, but neither of you were in von Verschuer’s program,” Paull said.
Refueling complete, the jet began to race down the runway, lifting off in a precipitous climb into the clouds.
“Dennis, take care of her.”
“Then there’s the matter of Bishop. We have no solid evidence to charge him with. All we have is Nona’s word against his regarding the meeting with General Tarasov. It’s not enough to—”
“I’ll take care of Bishop,” Nona said.
“I don’t think you’re in any state of mind to—”
“No offense, Mr. Secretary, but you don’t know me well enough to accurately assess my condition.”
“She’s right, Dennis. Neither of us knows that part of the equation like she does. Nona, do you need backup?”
“That will only complicate matters, Jack.”
“Dennis?”
Paull gave his grudging consent.
“Okay, then. As soon as either of you has anything more, call me.”
Jack sat back, staring out the window. Rain slanted down from a darkened sky, the drops striking the Perspex window and juddering down. Then the darkness lifted. They pierced the cloud bank, flying into absolute stillness.
He had yet to understand what role Dyadya Gourdjiev and, by extension, Annika had in all this. For some reason he was not looking forward to finding out.
“D
AMNIT,
A
NNIKA.
”
Radomil looked from the Syrian to Annika. They were confronting each other, appropriately enough, in the pool house in the Syrian’s Roman villa. Outside, the wind gusted fitfully, moaning through the pencil pines, sending tiny ripples across the water of the heated Olympic-sized pool. Steam rose from its surface, swirling like dust devils in the desert.
Annika smiled. “It has been a long time, Iraj.”
The Syrian was an anomaly in the postmodern world: willing to work with anyone of any race, religion, or creed in order to achieve his goals. His was a method of inclusion, rather than the exclusion that these days had become the norm. But after all was said and done, what was the Syrian? Incredibly wealthy businessman, international criminal, terrorist? None of those, or all of them? He was an enigma, reclusive to the point of obsession, patient to the point of sainthood. More than anything else, he resembled an immensely careful spider, spinning his web for years, encompassing people in far-flung corners of the globe, who would, at the moment he chose, work unwittingly to fulfill his design. In all these traits, he resembled Dyadya Gourdjiev. They both had grand designs, thought as strategically as chess masters, and planned for the future.
“How is your grandfather?” Iraj said.
“Old.”
“But not ill.”
The Syrian missed the slightest tremor in the corner of her eye. “Thankfully, no.”