He studied the man carefully for a full five minutes before moving forward. He slowly edged his way closer to the shifting guard. For Shannon, armed with only a knife, stalking a trained killer armed with an automatic weapon, stealth would be the difference between life and death.
He stopped, crouched low behind the foliage, and studied the husky man. Regardless of their confidence, most of these white boys didn’t belong in the jungle—at least not
this
jungle.
Shannon drew back his knife, held it for a second, and then hurled it at the man’s exposed head. The startled soldier had barely started his turn when the butt of the knife smashed into his temple and dropped him. Shannon waited for a few moments, allowing the adrenaline in his veins to ease. Confident that no alarm had been raised, he slid next to the unconscious Ranger, retrieved his knife, and quickly removed a nine-millimeter revolver from the man’s waist. He left the man on his back and slipped through the trees toward the cliff pass.
Laying the Ranger out hadn’t been necessary, of course. He could’ve just as easily made his way past the team unnoticed. But since the CIA had gone as far as inserting Ranger forces to stop him, the least he could do was let them know he appreciated the gesture.
He thought of the woman briefly, like a distant memory now.
No, you can’t change what I am, Tanya. And I am a killer. It’s what I do. I kill. I do not die. There has been enough dying. Dying is for fools.
LUMBER LOADING dock D on the southern tip of Miami Harbor received the order to close six hours after the director drafted the recommendation. Three of those hours had been spent chasing down the proper naval authorities, who were evidently indisposed at a convention in Las Vegas. It had taken the port authorities another two hours to implement the orders. In sum total, the ports along the southern tip of Miami closed their doors to business eight hours after the decision had been made to do so.
Not bad for a monolithic bureaucracy. Too slow, considering the stated operational goals of Homeland Security.
During the last two hours of operation at loading dock D, a large converted fishing vessel bearing the name
Marlin Watch
unloaded the last of her cargo and pulled back out to sea for its return voyage to Panama. No one paid much attention to the unmilled Yevaro log set among the others. It was, after all, just a log.
Thirty minutes after it had been unloaded from the ship, the mid-size log was put aboard an eighteen-wheeled lumber rig with six other imports and transported to the Hayward Lumberyard on the outskirts of Miami proper.
Six hours later, an eighteen-wheel International rumbled into the yard, loaded the log, and left without filing any paperwork.
Farther north a clipper named
Angel of the Sea
moved steadily up the northeastern coastline of the United States.
Farther south, just entering U.S. waters, another ship, a larger one called the
Lumber Lord,
steamed up Florida’s eastern coastline.
“HOW MANY?” Abdullah demanded, dropping his empty glass on the desk.
“Eighteen
.
The men passed the perimeter security line at the base of the cliffs three minutes ago, three groups in single file.”
Abdullah whirled around and slammed his fist onto the desk. “They don’t believe me? They’re attacking?” He glared at the wall map. “Eighteen men, single file—they are professional soldiers. How long until they reach us?”
“An hour, if they move quickly. An hour and a half if they are careful,” Ramón responded.
So then, they were coming for him. Eight years of waiting and now it was happening. The Americans weren’t taking him seriously.
He shuddered, as if a nerve had been touched in his back. But then a nerve had been touched by the heat that rose through his spine. Maybe it was better this way. They would have their guard down and the blasts would rock their smug little world. Even if they did bring him down in the process, they would still feel a little heat.
He turned to Ramón, who stood waiting anxiously. “Tell Manuel to take his six best men and position them for surveillance near the northern edge of the compound. They are not to engage the soldiers unless they reach us.” He twisted his head and looked at the map that outlined the perimeter’s defense system. The old Claymore mines were buried just beneath the surface of the jungle floor in a three-meter band that circled the entire complex. It had taken them over two months to lay the three thousand mines, and for three years now, they had remained undisturbed.
“Activate the compound mines and inform the men to stay clear.” He swung to Ramón. “Do it!”
Ramón left quickly.
Abdullah rounded his desk and sat carefully. The room was silent except for a slight scraping sound that came from the bugs in each corner. They were hard-shelled species that clung to each other’s backs with long bipeds.
It was time to send another message. The Americans had never felt terror, not really. Not lately. They had never had their limbs severed or their wives raped or their children killed. So now he would change that.
Where was Jamal?
What if Yuri’s bomb did not detonate? Abdullah shuddered and closed his eyes. Sweat soaked his collar, and he ran a hand across his neck.
Someone walked into his office and Abdullah opened his eyes. The room seemed to shift off center before him. Everything doubled—two doors, two Ramóns. He twisted his head and blinked. Now there was one. He lifted wet palms to the desk and set them before him. A fly settled on his knuckle but he did not bother it.
“Where are the bombs?” he asked.
“The boat with the larger device should be entering Chesapeake Bay now. It will be in place with time to spare.” Ramón’s voice quaked—he was afraid, Abdullah thought. Imagine that, afraid.
“The
Lumber Lord
is still off Florida’s coast, going north.”
Abdullah nodded. At his right hand the black transmitter sat facing the ceiling.
“Send a message to the Americans,” he said quietly. “Tell them that they have thirty minutes to withdraw their men from the valley.”
He ran a finger over the green knobs. His world had slowed. A drug had entered his body, he thought. But even the thought was slow. As if he had slipped into a higher consciousness. Or possibly a lower consciousness. No, no. It would have to be a higher state of mind, one that approached greatness. Like those boys marching off to their death on the minefields.
“Tell them that if they do not withdraw the soldiers, then we will detonate a small bomb. Don’t tell them it will trigger the countdown for the larger one,” he said, and his fingers trembled on the box.
MARK INGERSOL stood with his arms dangling, sweating as though it were a sauna and not a situation room he and Friberg had retreated to.
They had received a third message.
A thousand books lined oak bookcases, wall to wall, surrounding the long conference table. But no amount of book learning would help them now. The crisis had gone critical and Friberg should have gone ballistic. The tall leather chairs around the wood table should be occupied with a dozen high-ranking strategists. Instead, there sat only one man and he slouched, numb, barely able to move.
“Do we tell him or not?” Ingersol asked.
Friberg lifted his eyes, looking more like a puppy than top shop man. “Tell who?”
“The president! You can’t just sit on something like this. That madman down there has given us thirty minutes—”
“I know what that madman down there has given us. I’m just not sure I believe it.”
“Believe it? If you don’t mind me pointing out the obvious, we’re way past believing here. We’ll find out soon enough whether or not they have the bomb. In the meantime, we should be briefing the president.”
“I’ve been in this game long enough to know what is obvious,
Ingersol
. What’s obvious here is that you and I are in a hot spot if this idiot has the bomb. You think there’s anything anyone can do about this in thirty minutes? How about putting out an all-points bulletin, flood the news channels with the message—‘Get out, ’cause a nuclear bomb is about to explode down the street from you!’ We’d lose more to the panic than to the bomb.”
“Either way, the president should know.”
“The president is the
last
person who should know!” Friberg had come back to life. His face twisted in a red snarl. “The less he knows the better. If there is a detonation, we have a problem. Agreed. But we don’t need to draw attention to the issue now. There’s been a threat and we’re handling it—that’s all he needs to know. I updated him less than three hours ago. We’re proceeding systematically. Just a routine threat, that’s all. Get it through your head.”
Ingersol blinked and took a step back. “And how will it look if this thing goes off and it’s discovered that you withheld information?”
“We
,
Ingersol.
We
withheld information. And it won’t be discovered—that’s the whole point. Not if you pull yourself together here.”
A chill descended Ingersol’s spine. “We should at least pull the Rangers back. Sending them in now is crazy. Abdullah will detonate!”
The director nodded. “You’re right. Pull them back immediately.”
Ingersol lingered a moment, thinking he should say something else. Something that would diffuse this madness, make his heart ease up. But his mind had gone gray.
He turned from the table and left the room. They should have sent the message to the Rangers ten minutes ago. As it was, the men would have less than fifteen minutes to retreat before Abdullah did his thing.
Whatever that was.
TANYA COLLAPSED under a tree at the perimeter of the river clearing within minutes of Shannon’s hasty departure. It occurred to her that there might be creatures in the brown water a hundred feet off, but she’d lost interest in her own safety.
The madness of eight years was slowly unwinding in her mind; she could feel it as though it were a snake uncoiling. She did not know how just yet, but somehow this was all forming a collage with meaning. The notes were beginning to make music. The words were carrying a message. And it was all flowing through her.
She spent the first few hours in a haze, barely aware of the curious birds squeaking above or the parade of insects crawling over her shoes and legs.
The words she had spoken to Shannon were not her own. Oh, they had come from her own mouth and even her own mind, but her spirit had handed them off to her mind. She knew that because a warmth had started to glow in her spirit and it wasn’t her own.
God was warming her. He was holding her and breathing his words of comfort into her like a father whispering to a crying baby.
And with his breath came a new understanding of Shannon. An ache for him that burned in her bones. He had been tormented for years, she saw, much like she had been. But his tormentor had been from hell, grinding him into the ground. Her torment had been a gift from heaven, a seasoning to soften her spirit, as Father Teuwen had suggested. A thorn in her flesh, preparing her for this day. This colliding of worlds. This crescendo of clashing cymbals, like the finale in a grand symphony.
There was the matter of the dream and the bomb and all that, but in reality none of it seemed important to her anymore. Now it was all about Shannon.
Tanya lay her head on her forearm and closed her eyes. “Shannon, poor Shannon,” she whispered. Tears immediately flooded her eyes. That ache in her heart swelled for him. It wasn’t love as in the classical sense of romantic love, she thought. It was more like empathy.
“I’m so sorry, Shannon.” The sound of his name coming softly from her lips threw her mind back to a time when they spoke in hushed tones to each other. I love you, Shannon. I love you, Tanya.
What’s happening, Father? Speak to me.
Then Tanya tumbled into an exhausted sleep.
SHANNON KNELT on the edge of the jungle, breathing hard from the run. Before him the old plantation sprawled with awful familiarity, like a landscape pulled from an old nightmare and shoved before his eyes. He caught his breath and swallowed. The mansion had deteriorated to flaking boards several hundred meters to his right. The once manicured lawn on which his mother and father had been ripped apart now swayed with waist-high grass.
Tanya’s voice whispered in his ear.
Are you ready to die, Shannon
? An absurd question. A wedge of heat ripped through his skull.
Are you ready to kill, Shannon?
Yes.
He jerked his gaze to the left, where the entrance into the mountain processing plant sat closed off by a large hangar door. Apart from two guards standing on either side of the overhead door, no other humans were in sight. The field hands probably lived in the old mansion, he thought. God only knew what they had done in there, who had slept in his bed all these years. He should burn it as well. To the ground.
Shannon stepped back into the forest and ran along the perimeter toward the hangar. He had encountered another set of guards earlier and found them incompetent—lazy from years of facing no trained adversaries. They might be able to butcher natives in their sleep, but today he would advance their training. He dropped to his knees now thirty meters from the nearest guard.
A single entry door opened, and Shannon pulled back into the shadows. A man dressed in a white lab coat stepped out briefly, talked to the guard, and then retreated back inside.
The grass between the jungle and the hangar stood two feet high, uncut in recent months—a foolish oversight. Shannon slid the green backpack loaded with explosives to his chest and lowered himself so that the bag dragged on the earth. He snaked from the tree line, keeping just below the grass.
He’d covered half the distance to the two guards before he stopped and eyed them carefully. Using the gun he’d taken off the Ranger would be like waltzing in with a marching band, but then he’d always preferred the knife anyway. Both guards leaned against the tin siding, their rifles propped within easy reach.