The Book of Names (19 page)

It was late morning when he opened his eyes again, his mind still, his shoulders relaxed for the first time in weeks.

Suddenly, he knew what he'd overlooked. A subtle variance of the ELS skip, but it could change everything.

And it did.

This time, after only an hour of churning through the server's myriad data files, there was finally something hew across the top of his screen.

He scribbled down the letters, and ran the variance again. Each time, the results were identical.

It was a name. A name he hadn't culled before.

Jack Cherle.

Two minutes later, he shot the name across the network. It wouldn't take long to give the Dark Angels what they needed to know.

If Jack Cherle was currently alive, he wouldn't be for long.

Without stopping to shower or to eat, the Serpent plunged back into his work.

QUEEN MARY 2

Jack Cherle threw open the doors to his balcony and watched the moonlit Atlantic roll by. There were two full days remaining before the ship reached Southampton and he intended to savor them both.

This was the trip of a lifetime. His wife had often daydreamed of taking a cruise on the QE2, but the ship's successor, the
Queen Mary 2
, was a ship beyond anything either of them could have imagined.

He loved watching Yasmin sigh with delight over the high tea every afternoon that came complete with musical accompaniment. Loved hearing the excitement in her voice as she announced it was nearly time for their onboard course from Oxford. Loved holding her close on this balcony every evening after they'd overeaten meals to die for.

He'd decided to splurge for this trip to mark their thirtieth wedding anniversary. They were treating all three sons and their wives and children to six nights at sea, followed by a week in London. Yasmin could scarcely contain her joy. This was the first family vacation they'd taken since their oldest went off to Cornell.

Their life in St. Louis was comfortable, but their time off from their busy pediatric practice was spent on children other than their own. Each year, Jack and Yasmin packed their sunscreen, shorts, and sandals, took their preventative vaccinations, kissed their grandchildren good-bye, and flew off, as part of Doctors Without Borders, to a different region plagued by war and disaster.

Jack thought about the malnourished children they'd treated last summer in Darfur, and the five colleagues who'd been murdered a mile away from them in Afghanistan the year before. Here, looking out from the balcony at the endless expanse of inky sea and sky, Jack could almost forget about the chaos in the world. Almost.

Still, it tugged at him. They'd almost canceled this trip after the recent tsunami in Japan. If not for disappointing their children and grandchildren, and the fact that they'd booked their passage a year ago, they'd have taken off for Asia. Instead, he and Yasmin had compromised, changing their two return tickets so that they could fly to Tokyo directly from London, foregoing the British Airways flight home.

Some days Jack fantasized about the two of them simply packing up the practice and traveling the globe together for months at a time, tending to the most vulnerable children adrift in the world.

Maybe someday . . .

A knock at the cabin door drew him back inside. Yasmin was brushing her teeth so he opened the door to find their eleven-year-old granddaughter, Emily, grinning up at him, a beach cover-up draped over her pajamas.

“I need another goodnight kiss, Poppa. Timmy's driving Mommy crazy because he wants to order room service. He claims he's
starving.”

“Thank God your brother will never know what starving really is,” Jack said, smoothing back Emily's long brown bangs. “That's better. I can see your beautiful eyes now.” He leaned down and kissed his middle granddaughter's fresh-scrubbed cheek.

“We only have two days left on the boat,” Emily sighed as she lingered at the door. “Don't you wish we could all stay here forever?”

Jack chuckled. “You don't really mean that, Em. You have plenty of adventures waiting for you the rest of your life.”

“I guess,” she shrugged, then brightened. “So do you, Poppa.”

“Of course,” Jack began. Suddenly, a breath of ice wisped down his back and vanished.
Now what was that?

With a shiver he glanced at the open balcony door where the sea flowed in foamy caps. But the sudden chill had gone.

Yasmin emerged from the bathroom and Emily ran into her arms. By the time Jack walked her back to the cabin down the corridor, he'd forgotten about the odd sensation. He'd forgotten about everything but the gentle roll of the sea and the precious days ahead with his family.

PYONGYANG, NORTH KOREA

Half a world away, a computer secreted in a building owned by the Central Bank of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea pinpointed Jack Cherle's whereabouts. Within moments, a team of three Dark Angels stationed in Wales set out to greet the
Queen Mary
when it docked in Southampton.

 

JFK was jammed with travelers trapped by all the delays. Amidst the din of thousands of inconvenienced customers, ticket agents worked feverishly trying to rebook tickets and juggle passengers and flights. David was stuck in a line that snaked through roped lanes five deep as he waited to purchase a round-trip ticket to Israel. His nerves stretched taut as he wondered if the ticket agents up ahead were already on the lookout for him.

In another line, Yael looked calm and unfazed as she waited between a mother with two unruly children and a group of teenagers wearing soccer uniforms. They'd chosen separate lines as a precaution in case David was stopped.

He glanced again at the passport in his hand, marveling at the remarkable facsimile Avi had procured on short notice. But as he inched up in the line, he prayed that the harried airport employees didn't have his photograph taped beside their computers.

“Next.”

The blond ticket agent, who looked so much like Kate Wallace he nearly did a double take, tucked a strand of
hair behind her ear and regarded him through bloodshot eyes. “What can I do for you today?”

So far, so good. David requested a round-trip ticket to Tel Aviv via London. He knew the next flight, leaving the following morning, was the one Yael was booking, too.

“Let's see, the next flight leaves at nine
A.M
. tomorrow. You'll arrive in Tel Aviv at five thirty-five
A.M
. There's only a two-hour layover at Heathrow. And,” she added, still checking her computer screen, “you're in luck. Five seats left. Most people aren't getting their first choices today. Name, please?”

For a moment David's mind went blank. He felt his entire body going cold with terror. For a man obsessed with names, he was having trouble getting this one out.

“Alan Shiffman.” He let out his breath slowly, hoping she couldn't hear the thumping of his heart as she typed his name into the computer.

“May I see some identification, Mr. Shiffman?”

David was appalled to see his hand shaking slightly as he slid the passport across the counter. The Kate Wallace look-alike peered at it closely, then handed it back.

“And will you be putting this on your credit card?”

“I'll pay cash.”

Hotshot Avi Raz had gotten “Alan Shiffman” a passport, but neglected to procure him a matching credit card.

David had been stunned on the way to the airport when Yael informed him they'd be meeting a contact in the bar who was bringing him yet another passport. She warned him to behave naturally—as if they were three business acquaintances having a preflight cocktail.

Still, it had flummoxed him when their “acquaintance,” a middle-aged woman with chin-length red hair and a toothy smile had suddenly exclaimed, “Oh, Alan, you dropped your passport!”

David was about to correct her when Yael kicked him under the table. As the woman slipped off the barstool and scooped a passport from the floor, David caught himself.

“You certainly don't want to lose this,” the red-headed woman chuckled, handing him the open passport.

David saw it looked identical to the one Avi had brought him earlier, except for the name attached to his face.

Alan Shiffman.

That's who he was now. Alan Shiffman, whose passport had been issued seven years ago in Chicago.

He'd forced a smile, and downed the rest of his drink. “Thank you
very
much. I wouldn't get very far without this.”

He couldn't imagine how Avi had pulled it off on such short notice, but he was grateful. Still, traveling under a false identity, especially out of the country, especially when you're wanted for questioning, had to be a crime of some magnitude.

David didn't want to think about the possible consequences. Right now he had to keep drilling the name Alan Shiffman into his head—as if there weren't enough names rattling around in there already.

Leaving the ticket counter, amazed he'd pulled it off, he spotted Yael sitting nearby, pretending to organize her tote. She rose from her chair as their gazes met, and started toward the security line. He followed at a short distance.

Alan Shiffman
, he reminded himself, heading toward the first checkpoint, the passport gripped between his fingers. As he passed the entrance to the men's room, a deeply tanned loudmouth in a Coors Light t-shirt, baseball cap, and leather flip-flops came barreling out. Cell
phone to his ear, he nearly tripped over a tow-headed kid bent over the water fountain.

“Well, nail her ass then, man. Get yourself a lawyer and screw her before she screws you. I told you she was only out for—”

“Hey—” David spoke sharply, as Mr. Coppertone charged ahead, swerving so quickly to avoid knocking down a shuffling old man that he collided with a flight attendant dragging her carry-on behind her. She lost her footing and would have fallen, had David not lunged toward her and caught her elbow, dropping his passport in the process.

“Watch where you're going, buddy,” he called out, scowling at the oblivious jerk's back.

“Here, you dropped this,” the flight attendant said, stooping to retrieve his passport. She smiled up at him. “Good catch.”

David's fingers closed around it. Dammit, he'd lost track of Yael. But as he quickened his pace he spotted her waiting for him twenty feet ahead. Her eyes briefly met his as he strode right past her.
She wants me in the lead
, he realized.
She's going to follow me through the checkpoints.

He scanned the throng of passengers waiting to be screened and stepped up to the next place in line.

Two checkpoints to go. Two chances to be caught.

 

Jeff Fortelli slurped down one last cup of joe in the TSA lounge before clipping on his identification badge. His twelve-hour shift started in about ninety seconds. And even though his supervisor was an idiot who changed his mind about procedures every other day, Jeff knew that timeliness was important. Almost as important as a keen
eye and a clear head. That, and a sense of discipline, were the hallmarks of any good security man.

Especially one with the TSA at a major international airport
, he thought, hitching his dark pants up over his hips. JFK was one of the major crossroads of the world, although his supervisor and fellow screeners often lost track of that fact. Half the time they seemed more interested in rushing the passengers through than in conducting thorough screenings.

Hell, his buddies down in baggage told him all the time that the airlines bitched about how many bags didn't make it on the planes in time. They whined about what it cost them to deliver those bags, ordering the handlers to screen them faster, to get those bags on the planes on time even if it meant skipping screening a couple of them.

What kind of way was that to run security at a time like this?

Jeff tossed his Styrofoam cup in the trash and headed to the bulletin board as he did every night before he went on duty. He was diligent about keeping up with the security alerts posted there, memorizing the bulletins, looking for new names added to the no-fly registry.

Nothin' new tonight.

Then he saw the APB out of D.C. His thick shoulders bunched as he leaned forward and, with his thumb, traced an imaginary line beneath the subject's name.

David Shepherd.
Wanted for questioning about a murder in his home.

Too bad there's no face to go with the name
—
yet.

He reread the APB, committing the subject's vital statistics to memory. An easy name to remember—David Shepherd.

Now if I was the one to ID that guy, I'd really have a
leg-up on making supervisor. Gotta catch someone or something significant to make you stand out. And one of these days I will. And then, bada-boom, bada-bing.
The Times
will be interviewing the most eagle-eyed and fucking indispensable screener at JFK.

Jeff Fortelli's blood pumped with anticipation. Man, how he'd wave that front page story under his old man's nose. Show him that his second son was no slouch—even compared to son
numero uno
, golden boy Tony, who'd gotten his fool foot blown off in Afghanistan and won himself a Purple Heart.

Well, Pop, I'm on the front line, too. I'm the Homeland's first line of defense
—
right here, before anyone even reaches the X-ray machine or takes off their stinkin' shoes.

Fortelli punched in and strode toward the security gate, ready to take on the trail of endless, faceless passengers waiting to get past him.

Okay, David Shepherd. Come on down, and make my day.

 

As David advanced through the security line, he caught a glimpse of the first TSA screener. A young woman with short blond hair pulled back into a stub of a ponytail, her spiky bangs poking out of purple barrettes that clipped them back at the temples. David guessed she probably had a pierced tongue, too, but ditched the metal stud while she was on duty.