Shadow Knight's Mate (33 page)

“Perhaps eighty meters. Thirty meters past the closest point to the stage.”

Rachel pointed back the way she'd come with a gesture of her head. “The other exit's about fifty meters back. You've got the better deal.”

The Syrian grinned. “I don't know about that. Ready?”

“Meet you up top,” Rachel said, and began moving forward very slowly.

By shifting to the side, they could pass each other with their bodies sliding along each other. Hassan took the opportunity to feel her all over, including spots where she could not possibly have been carrying a bomb big enough. But Rachel did the same. Sure, they'd made nice in the tunnel, but how could she completely trust someone who'd gone to Columbia?

The four got past each other nervously, and in the case of the men who frisked each other, with great embarrassment. By contrast, slithering the rest of the way down the drainage tunnel was simple. Rachel and Captain Bernie kept their flashlights on and did their jobs, checking the tunnel thoroughly. Rachel had equipment, some of it of her own design, that would supposedly detect explosives even if they were made of plastic. They found nothing.

Rachel could count on the fingers of one hand such relief as she'd felt when she emerged from the other end of that tunnel. The relief was physical, composed of the nerve endings in her skin exhilarating with freedom, the smell of fresh air, even her scraped elbows feeling good at no longer grinding along concrete. But there was more to the relief than that. She had been afraid this end of the tunnel would be blocked, that they would have to crawl back the way they'd come, and by the time they got there the Syrian would have blocked the only other exit, too.

But they were free, they had done their jobs, and she felt confident that this path, at least, was closed to terrorists.

“Stay here,” she said to Bernie. Then she walked back across the square. In another day and a half this area would be filled with people, watching eight world leaders appear onstage together, some of whom had never been that close together before. Tonight the place was just crawling with security people. That was the problem. There were uniforms from nearly a dozen countries, some of those countries nearly at war with each other, others mistrustful. Too much security was worse than too little. They all had to keep checking, then checking what the other security teams had checked.

She thought she recognized the body of the man walking to meet her. She had known it intimately, but only in the dark and for a minute or so. But he smiled as he drew closer, and she knew he'd been thinking the same thing. Hassan swept off his cap and bowed. He was unshaven, dark, wearing an olive uniform that didn't tell her much. Rachel was thinking how bad she must look, and possibly smell.

“Hello, Princeton,” he said. “Now what?”

“Seal those two exits, right now, while we know the tunnel's safe. I left my captain back there. You left your man at the other end?”

“Of course.”

Rachel looked around. The place looked strangely like a military compound, but one put together by a boy who didn't have enough soldiers of the same uniform to make a full army, so he had mixed them all together. “Let's get two people from two other security forces to accompany us, and go and seal them now.”

“That's three countries per end?” Hassan nodded. “Sounds about right. I pick French.”

“All right. I pick British.”

“Ah, you're just trying to throw me off. You were sure I thought you would say American.”

Rachel smiled up at him. “You and I are the Americans, Hassan.”

He chuckled, but made no move to walk away. “What?” Rachel said.

“It was hard to see down there,” the Syrian said quietly, studying her. Rachel, who had an unfortunate tendency to blush in such moments, tried to control her skin. “I was afraid we would get up top and I would be embarrassed at having been so close to someone who—you know, I wouldn't want to be seen with in public.”

“God, you must have women crawling all over you back home. Mr. Smooth. Look, I just slithered a hundred and thirty meters through a drainage tunnel. I'm not—”

He must have thought she was apologizing for her appearance, which was not at all where she was going with the sentence. “Oh no,” Hassan said, reaching out to touch her arm. “I just wanted to say that you are someone I would be happy to grope even not in the line of duty.”

“Catch me if I swoon.” Then Rachel chuckled in spite of herself. “Okay, Columbia. After we get the tunnel spiked, you want to get a beer?”

After all, it was part of her lifelong job to make contacts, wherever she could. Rachel had her limits, but having a beer with an enemy who might be a potential friend was well within those limits.

Hassan smiled at her. “Boola boola,” he said.

Rachel kept her eyes on him. “I think that's Yale.”

He grinned. “I was giving you a test. I was checking you out.”

“I think you did that already, about twenty feet below where we're standing.”

He saluted her with another grin, and they went off to find other soldiers.

“You wouldn't believe the problem I'm having,” Stevie said.

“It's too easy?” Alicia Mortenson guessed.

Stevie stared at his computer screen. At this distance there was a lag time of a second or two. He waited to see Mrs. Mortenson's smirk. When her face hadn't changed its expression of polite interest—slightly raised eyebrows, slightly cocked head, slightly smiling lips—he concluded she actually hadn't changed expressions. “All right, I guess you
can
believe it,” he said grumpily.

“I'm sorry, Stevie. I've just been at this a bit longer than you have. And I hope I understand the world a little bit.”

But I'm here on the scene and you're not,
Stevie thought. Oh well. “Yes, it's a little too easy. I'm finding a lot more pro-American sentiment here in Poland than I thought. The same as in Prague. There are more people than you'd think—well, than most people would think—who remember Communism, and think America put an end to it. I'm trying just to put a lid on it, because Jack said to wait until I—”

“Stevie?” Alicia interrupted. Her face shimmered on his MacBook screen. He might be about to lose his connection. “Take the lid off,” she said.

“Oh. Really? Is Jack—”

“It will be okay. I promise.”

“Yes, ma'am. I'd say day after tomorrow. Maybe Friday. Some people want to wait for the weekend to riot, you know.”

“That will work fine. Good work, young man.”

“Thank you. Mrs. Mortenson?”

She raised that one eyebrow a tad higher. It occurred to Stevie that Alicia Mortenson read people so well, and had been doing it for so long, that she must have turned down the volume of her own expressions and body language. She expected her listener—at least, a listener like Stevie—to read her well.

“Where's Jack?” Stevie finished. “I haven't heard from him since he was here. He's okay, isn't he?”

“Oh yes. I just talked to him.”

But for a moment he had seen something flicker across her face. A blink, a pause. The lowered eyelids of anxiety. Maybe it was just a trick of the time lag. Because if someone like Alicia Mortenson was scared, it was time to panic.

She reassured him again, and as he was asking about her husband the connection was broken. Stevie shrugged, closed his laptop, and went back to his job of talking ugly about America in cafes and union halls. He thought he would set off the demonstration within two days, and just hoped he didn't get beaten up in the process.

Craig was early to meet his wife. They were to meet on the mall near six o'clock, in the shadow of the Jefferson Memorial. Corny, but Craig liked corny. He stood for a few minutes staring up at the standing statue, the slightly lidded eyes that really looked as if thoughts were passing behind them. Thomas Jefferson had not been a member of the Circle, but Craig had a private theory that Jefferson had inspired its formation—behind the scenes, more subtle than the masters of subtlety. There was absolutely no evidence of this, which to Craig confirmed his theory. Because if a man like Jefferson set out to do something secretly, there
wouldn't
be any evidence, would there? Except for those children of Sally Hemmings', of course, but that was a different matter. Craig held another extremely private theory that Jefferson had wanted to be found out on that score, as well.

Brooding about the founding of nations and the secrets of
founding fathers, he began to have an idea. As he thought he walked, something he often did, and quite unconsciously. It was not unusual for him to find himself miles from home and with a few lost hours at the end of some deep meditation.

His mind turned, as it often did, to the middle east. There seemed no way out of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict: two peoples claimed the same land as home. But Craig Mortenson didn't believe in insoluble problems. This, after all, was the man who had brought down Communism. Something needed to be done to lift all the combatants' eyes from their immediate conflict. Give them a larger conflict, perhaps?
My enemy's enemy is my friend.
Could there be a common enemy for the Jews and Arabs? Who would that be, and who would be willing to play that role, perhaps for a generation?

Craig continued to think, his feet continued to wander, and by the time he had solved the middle east problem he realized that it was dark and he didn't know where he was. Looking around, he no longer saw crowds. Slowly—coming back from miles and years—he oriented himself. He had walked down toward Lafayette Park. Alicia would be waiting for him. With that amused look of hers. She would spend the time communing with Mr. Jefferson and her own thoughts and wouldn't be angry, especially after he told her what he'd come up with on his ramble.

He turned and the shorter, paler of the two thugs stuck a gun into his stomach. “Wallet!” he snapped.

“Certainly,” Craig said, holding his hands out to the sides in a placating manner.
Idiot,
he thought to himself. Wandering into a dangerous area like a tourist. And looking lost in thought, the perfect target.

So he stopped looking like that. His eyes hardened. He looked into the robber's face. The man was thin and pale, blond hair poking out from beneath a navy watch cap. His hand holding the gun was steady, and there was no nervousness in his gaze.
Oh, shit.
This was an experienced criminal, not a druggie with an impulse. But maybe Craig could use that to advantage.

“My wallet contains very little cash, and only one credit card
with a small limit and large identity theft protection. You could do better than this.”

He looked past the man holding the gun on him. The partner was larger, African-American, equally calm, with almost dead-looking eyes. His hands were in the pockets of his coat, which looked as if it had come from Goodwill after two or three owners. But something didn't fit. Black-and-white teams were common in the movies and police forces, much less so among criminals in real life. Criminals usually came from classes that harbored prejudices, and if they had spent time in prison, as most criminals had, they would have fallen into groups segregated by gang membership.

Glancing down as if at his wallet, Craig saw the black man's shoes. They were black loafers, polished and tasseled.

“My gratitude would be worth a great deal more than the contents of this wallet. If you wouldn't mind escorting me back to my hotel…”

The gunman grinned. He didn't even glance over his shoulder at his supposed partner. “Sure. Let's go.”

Craig turned, taking a quick survey of the area. They were at the bottom of a small hill. There were people within a hundred yards, but not many. He was quite sure these two wouldn't let him get to the top of the rise. Was there any message he could send, any clue he could leave?

But as they continued to walk he came to a worse realization than that he was about to be murdered. They were using him to lure Alicia. They would let him get back to the Jefferson Memorial, let her see him, before they made their move. Crowds of sightseers wouldn't matter to these two.

Craig stumbled and fell. Neither man made a move to help him. In fact they stepped back. The one with the gun growled, “Get up,” and his partner took his hands out of his pockets.

Craig came up much faster than they expected, with two handfuls of mud. He flung them both as he kicked at the gunman's gun hand.

He had been right about the African-American man, who had a fastidious sort of look. He flinched away from the thrown
mud. The gunman didn't, so it hit him right in the face, obscuring his vision as Craig spun to the side. The gun fired, but Craig was no longer standing where he had been. The shot missed. He kicked the man in the crotch, reaching for the gun. He was much faster than they'd expected.

But that was why they'd brought back-up. The black man lifted the automatic in his own hand and fired twice. Both shots hit Craig Mortenson in the chest.

And a scream pierced the night.

The sound didn't come from the victim. It froze the two assassins for a second, then they turned and looked up. Alicia Mortenson stood at the top of the hill, an expression of utmost horror on her face. The two men started running toward her.

Alicia had accomplished what she'd wanted, distracted the men from her husband. Could Craig survive two shots? At least they weren't shooting him any more.

But now the men came relentlessly toward her.

Level 5

In Phase 2 of Level 5,
Jack typed on his screen,
we switch strongholds.

Words appeared slowly on his screen:
you didn't tell me that rule.

Jack made the symbol for a shrug.
it's just a game. here we go.

The figures of the opponents disappeared from the screen. Seconds later each player found his character in the other character's headquarters. The other player, who Jack was certain now was Dennis Wilkerson, the National Security Advisor, began looking around his new environment curiously. Jack sat unmoving. On his split screen, his character just stood, hands at his sides.