He glanced over at Mark Ingersol, sitting with crossed legs. The man had pretty much figured things out, he assumed. With David Lunow’s help he could hardly not. But his new appointment to Special Operations would ensure that he keep this one to himself—he had too much to lose.
The door suddenly banged open and the national security advisor, Robert Masters, walked into the room with Myles Bancroft, director of Homeland Security. Bancroft held the door for the president, who walked in ahead of two aides.
Friberg stepped past Ingersol and extended his hand to the president, who took it cordially but without greeting. His gray eyes didn’t sparkle as they did for the cameras. They peered past a sharp nose—all business today. He swept a hand through his graying hair.
The president seated himself at the head of the oval table and they followed suit. “Okay, gentlemen, let’s skip the formalities. Tell me what’s going on.”
Friberg cleared his throat. “Well, sir, it appears that we have another threat on our hands. This one’s a little different. Two hours ago—”
“I know about the threat we received,” the president interrupted. “And I wouldn’t be here if I didn’t think it held some water. The question is how much water.”
Friberg hesitated and glanced at Bancroft. The president caught the glance. “What can you tell me about this, Myles?”
Bancroft sat forward in his seat and placed his arms on the table. “The message we received two hours ago was from a group claiming to be the Brotherhood, which, as I’m sure you know, is a terrorist organization. They originate out of Iran, but they’ve been largely inactive over the past few years—since our crackdown on Afghanistan. They’re a splinter group outside Al qaeda gone underground. They’re reportedly giving us seventy-two hours to deliver a recently defected agent to the Hotel Melia Caribe in Carabelleda, Venezuela. If within seventy-two hours the agent isn’t delivered, then the group threatens to detonate a nuclear device that it claims to have hidden in the country.”
The president waited for more, but none came. “Is this a real threat?”
Friberg answered, “We have no evidence whatsoever of any nuclear activity in the region. We’ve handled dozens of threats, which, to use your words, hold more water than this one. The chances that the Brotherhood has anything resembling a bomb is highly unlikely. And if they did, a threat like this would make no sense.”
The president turned to Bancroft. “Myles?”
“Frankly, I agree. My guess is that they don’t have it, but I’m basing that on nothing more than my gut. Nonproliferation has had nuclear components under the highest scrutiny since the Gulf War. Despite all the experts who insist suitcase bombs are available on any black market street corner, assembling all the components to actually build a bomb is, as you know, nearly impossible. I can’t see it, especially not in South America.”
“But it still involves a weapon of mass destruction,” the president said. “We treat them all the same. What were the chances of Iraq getting the bomb? Tell me about the man who issued the threat. This Abdullah Amir.”
Friberg answered, “We have no idea how Abdullah Amir came to be in South America, or whether in fact he
is
in South America.”
The president just looked at him.
“It’s more likely that the threat came from one of the drug cartels in the region.” Friberg made a decision then, hoping desperately that Ingersol would follow his lead. Sweat wet his brow and he took a deliberate breath.
“We recently sent an agent operating under the name Casius into the jungle to take out a powerful drug cartel in the region. A black operation. Our information is a bit sketchy, but we believe that the agent attempted an assassination and failed. We believe the cartel is responding with this threat. But it’s important to remember what Bancroft said, sir. It’s highly improbable that the cartel has anything resembling a bomb at their disposal.”
“But it is possible.”
Friberg nodded. “Anything is possible.”
“So, what you’re saying is that you initiated black operations against a drug cartel and your guy, this Casius, missed his target. So now the cartel is threatening to blow up the country?”
Friberg glanced at Ingersol and caught the glint in his eye. “Isn’t that pretty much your assessment, Mark?” His nerves ran taut. Ingersol’s next few words would cast his position. Not to mention Friberg’s future.
Ingersol nodded. “Basically, yes.”
“And this Brotherhood threat is just to throw us off ? We’re not dealing with Islamic militants at all but some drug runners?”
“That’s our assessment,” Ingersol answered.
The president looked at his security advisor, Masters. “Make sense to you, Robert?”
“Could be.” He looked at Friberg. “DEA involved in this?”
“No.”
“If this agent of yours failed in his assassination attempt, why is the cartel so uptight? Seems like an unusual reaction, doesn’t it?”
Friberg had to get them off this analysis until he and Ingersol had time to talk. “Based on our information, which I should reiterate is still sketchy, Casius took out some innocents in his attempt. He has a history of high collateral damage.”
Friberg threw the lies out, knowing he had now committed himself to a far more involved cover-up than he’d imagined. His mind was already isolating the potential leaks. David Lunow topped the list of potential snitches. He would have to be silenced.
And as for the Rangers, they were puppets without political agendas— even if they stumbled into something down there, they wouldn’t talk. Mark Ingersol had just committed himself to going along for the ride. It could be done. It had to be done—as soon as this bomb foolishness passed.
It dawned on Friberg that the other three were staring at him. “I really think it’s as simple as that, sir. They know how excited we get over things like nuclear threats. They’re playing us.”
“Let’s hope you’re right. In the meantime, we treat this thing like any other threat of terror. So let’s hear your recommendations.”
Friberg took a deep breath. “We deliver Casius and defuse the demand.”
“Beyond that. Myles?”
“We activate full Homeland Security measures and put all law enforcement on alert. And we look for a device, particularly in the path of recognized drug routes. Despite the unlikelihood of there actually being a bomb, we follow full protocol.”
Friberg wanted to get past this foolishness. Seventy-two hours would come and go and there would be no bomb. He’d seen it a hundred times, and each time they’d had to run through this nonsense. A year ago in the wake of the big attack it had been one thing. But getting all worked up every time some nut yelled
Boo
was getting old.
Myles Bancroft continued, “We’ve already made a preliminary search plan that starts with the southeast coast and the West Coast and expands to all major shipping points in the country. The Coast Guard will bear the heaviest burden. If the cartel did manage to land a bomb in our borders, it was most probably through a seaport.”
The president frowned and shook his head. “It’s like trying to find a needle in a haystack. Let’s pray to God we never actually have to face a real nuclear bomb.”
“No system’s perfect,” Masters said.
“And if they have managed to get a device through, you honestly think we have a chance of finding it?” the president asked, turning back to the director of the CIA.
“Personally?” Friberg asked.
The president nodded.
“Personally, sir, I don’t think we have a bomb to find. But if there is a bomb, finding it in seventy-two hours will be extremely difficult. Every bill of lading identifying merchandise which entered our country from South America during the past three months will be reviewed, and those that indicate merchandise which could possibly harbor a bomb will be traced. Merchandise will be tracked to its final destination and searched. It can be done, but not in seventy-two hours. That’s why we start with southeastern and western seaports.”
“Why not just take the cartel out?” Masters asked.
Friberg nodded. “We’re also recommending positioning to move on the cartel’s base of operations. But as you say, if the threat is legitimate, all it would take is a flip of a switch somewhere and we could have a catastrophe on our hands. You bomb them, and you’d better be sure that first salvo will kill them or they might twitch their finger and detonate. You don’t play strongman with someone who has a nuclear weapon hidden somewhere.”
“No? And how do you play?”
He paused. “Never been there.”
The president stared at a window across the room. “Then let’s hope we aren’t there now.”
No one spoke. Finally the president stood from the table. “Issue the appropriate orders and have them on my desk right away. You’d better be right about this, Friberg.” The president turned and walked toward the door.
“This is only a threat. We
have
been here before, sir,” Friberg said.
“Keep this sealed. No press. No leaks,” the president said. “God knows the last thing we need is media involvement.”
He turned and left the room, and Friberg released a long, slow breath.
SHERRY FOLLOWED Casius up a long flight of stairs behind the hotel he’d taken earlier on a weekly basis. She was certain the assassin’s mind had left him during the trip.
On the river they had talked only once about their captivity. A riveting conversation in which he mostly stared off to the passing jungle, grunting short replies. He had shut her out. She had once again become baggage.
Now his eyes remained open only as a matter of courtesy to his brain, which was thoroughly engrossed with what he would do next. And what he would do was return and kill Abdullah. Destroy the compound and slit Abdullah’s throat. When she asked him why, he had simply drilled her with those dark eyes and told her the man was a drug runner. But the explanation hardly made sense.
She asked him again what he thought she should do if there actually was a nuclear weapon in the jungle. But he dismissed the notion outright, so strongly that she began to question her own memory of the vision.
In the end it all came down to their beliefs. He’d come to the jungle to kill. Nothing more complicated than that. Just kill. Like the skull-man in her visions, like a demoniac. She, on the other hand, had come to die—if not literally, as Father Teuwen seemed to suggest, then to die to her past. To find life through a symbolic death of some kind. Maybe she had found it already in the prison back there. A reliving of her death as a child.
They talked about the jungle, finally. It seemed like a common bridge that did not lead to some allusion to life or death. Casius seemed more knowledgeable about the local jungle than anyone she could imagine. If she didn’t know better, she might assume the man had grown up here, in this jungle instead of the ones north by Caracas.
For a terrifying moment she even imagined that if Shannon had lived, he might have become a man like this—tall, rugged, and handsome. Shannon would be a gentler, kinder man, of course. A lover, not a killer. She shoved the comparison from her mind.
At some point floating over the brown waters, she had finally decided that he struck a chord of familiarity with her because he was meant to play this part in her mission. He, too, had been drawn by God and the fact resonated with her like a memory.
Maybe he had been right in saying their worlds were not so far apart. Like heaven and hell kissing up against each other, but separated by some impenetrable steel plate. Maybe that explained the growing ache in her heart as they approached the sleepy town of Soledad in the afternoon.
They walked into a grungy room on the third floor. He shut the door.
“This is your room?” she asked, looking about the dimly lit hotel pad. Other than a queen bed and a single dresser, the room was bare. Soledad had a dozen hotels with far better accommodations than this, but at least the dresser had a mirror.
“It’s not exactly the Hilton, but it has a bed,” he said, fumbling for something in the bathroom. “I’ve paid through tonight. You probably want to find something a little cleaner.”
Casius stepped out of the bathroom and tossed two well-stuffed money belts onto the bed. Evidently killing paid well. He dropped to his knees, pulled some folded clothes and a waist pouch hidden under the bed, and tossed them next to the money belts.
“Travel light, do we?” Sherry asked, grinning at the small pile of possessions.
The assassin looked at her without smiling. “I’m not exactly on a vacation.”
“I could use some clean clothes and a shower,” Sherry said.
Casius motioned to the pile of clothes on the bed. “You’ll find those a bit large, but they’ll do until we can get some clothes from the market. Go ahead, clean up. The water’s hot and there are towels in the bathroom.”
Sherry nodded and took the clothes. A bit big indeed. She would float in his clothes. On the other hand, the white T-shirt hanging from her own body was literally falling apart. Her denim shorts had survived in remarkable condition, considering the jungle. A good wash and they would do. She tossed his pants back onto the bed and turned, holding his white cotton shirt.
“Thank you,” she said and stepped into the bathroom.
Sherry took a long shower, relishing the steaming water, scrubbing the dirt from her pores. She washed and wrung out the jeans, donned his shirt, and ran her fingers through her hair. Not exactly fit for a prom, but at least she was clean. She debated removing her colored contacts. They normally stayed in place for a month at a time, but the journey through the jungle had worn on her eyes and she decided to remove them despite the questions a sudden change in eye color might draw from the man.
“Thank God for hot water,” she said, stepping from the bathroom.
Casius kneeled at the dresser, writing on a tablet. “Good,” he said without looking up. His mind was obviously buried in that tablet. She plopped onto the bed and lay back, closing her eyes.
“I’m going to shower,” he said, and when she looked up, he was already gone.