He didn’t know which would be worse, if Americans discovered he was still alive and captured him or Al Qaeda. The Americans would detain him, probably take him to Guantanamo Bay, subject him to grueling interrogation but in the end he was still an American. He’d be given his civil rights, injected into the judicial system where he’d be locked away in solitary confinement for decades while his lawyers battled his fate in the courts with appeal after appeal. In the end, he’d get the needle.
If Al Qaeda found him first, he would have to endure agonizing torture, as his skin was slowly peeled, layer-by-layer. They’d keep him alive as long as possible to maximize the pain. Days. Perhaps as long as a week. Then he would die the worst death imaginable. Anything the Americans did would pale in comparison to the sadistic manner he’d die at the hands of Al Qaeda.
Khan spent over an hour inspecting and verifying the supplies in the catering truck. Along with the catering order placed by the museum, Khan’s special equipment was packaged as he requested.
He summoned his driver, “Take me to the bank.”
Fifteen minutes later Khan slid out of the sedan and walked into the elaborate bank lobby. Marbled floors and mahogany furnishings adorned the exclusive global bank. Khan stood in line at a desk waiting for his turn while he scanned the lobby. Most people weren’t paying attention to their surroundings; they were focused on concluding their banking business and getting on with their lives. Two women and one man sat in a waiting area; one woman fiddling with her iPhone, the other woman reading a magazine, and the man reading the
New York
Times
. Nothing looked out of place to Khan.
Khan stepped up to the woman behind the desk and presented the key. She smiled and pressed a button on her phone, spoke softly to someone, and within twenty seconds Khan found himself being escorted to the safety deposit box vault. The man inserted a bank master key after Khan inserted his key. The man turned both keys simultaneously and the door to the box popped open. The man pulled out a long metal box, locked at one end. The man removed Khan’s key, handed it to him, and pointed to a small room with a heavy red velvet curtain used for privacy.
“Please let me know if you need anything,” the clerk said.
“Thank you.” Khan took the key and the box into the small room, placed the box on the table and pulled the curtain closed. He opened the box. Inside the metal box was another box, locked with a five-digit combination, Khan’s box. He dialed in the combination and opened the box. Everything was as he’d expected. Inside the smaller box, a sealed package. Khan broke the seal and removed the contents, exchanging it with the documentation and credentials of Esteban Menendez. When he walked out of the bank, he walked out as Paul Scot Rayburn. What was left of Esteban Menendez would remain in the vault for another twenty years until the lease ran out. By then, the world would have changed and the long-dead astronomer’s credentials would be meaningless.
When Khan reentered the lobby, he noticed the two women were gone but the man was still there—still reading the
Times
. Khan exited the bank to his waiting black sedan.
† † †
Jake noticed the man when he walked in the bank’s lobby and how different he looked from the man from Paris and the man that had shot at him on the Cantabrian Sea. Yet still, there was something familiar about him. His mannerism, his hunched shoulders. But when he saw the man’s eyes he knew.
Khan.
Thanks to Isabella Hunt’s knowledge of Hilal Shipping Company’s banking practices, Wiley’s information was correct, as usual, and now Jake had him. Khan was getting ready for a one-way trip to hell. Jake knew the most dangerous part was to ensure the threat against the museum and the children had been neutralized before he took Khan down. Had Khan already planted the device…or devices? And how did Khan plan to detonate? So many hanging questions made Jake realize the volatility of the situation.
He debated calling Bentley for reinforcements, but finally ruled it out. Time was not his ally. It was too late. Bentley would have assets close by but he could not risk them tipping off Khan. What if he failed? He couldn’t live with that either. He formulated a plan to stop Khan. The terrorist had eluded him twice before, but not this time. Not again. Jake knew he had to stop the bombing then kill Khan…in that order.
If Khan recognized him, Jake knew it would be over before he could do anything about it. He had to remain undetected until he’d ascertained how Khan planned to blow up the museum. He’d been staking out the bank since the doors opened for business, studying every man that entered. He couldn’t afford to let Khan get away. Khan wasn’t the only master of disguise; Jake created his own illusion for the terrorist. The Yankees ball cap, glasses, oversized bowling shirt and cane didn’t warrant a second glance.
He hadn’t had to wait long before the man entered. After he tagged his target and was certain it was Khan, he waited. His plan was already in place. Jake had a taxi waiting outside, meter running.
Khan walked back through the lobby, glanced his way but failed to recognize him. The terrorist continued out of the bank where the black sedan was waiting.
While he waited in the lobby, Jake pretended to read the
New York Times
. After Khan left, he folded the paper, tucked it under his arm, and followed Khan onto the street.
Two vehicles back, Jake’s taxi was waiting, meter running. He crawled into the back seat, and gave the cabbie instructions. The driver nodded and followed the black sedan for the next twenty blocks until it pulled into an alley and stopped. Jake jumped out and sent the taxi on its way. He had studied a map in the back seat of the taxi, following along as they drove. Khan stopped five blocks from the museum. His heart raced with anticipation. This had to be it.
CHAPTER 67
I
SABELLA WATCHED HIS eyelids grow heavy. Gregg’s pain medicine made him drowsy. He was resisting, she could tell.
“Gregg, go to sleep. We can talk later.”
“But—”
“Shh.” She placed her finger on his lips. “We’ll talk later.”
That was three hours ago and she still hadn’t decided what to do. She was a woman and wanted to share this with him. In her mind she could see how the next few months would play out. His leg would heal; he would take time off work, and spend it all with her. They would travel and do all the things couples do, just in a compressed time frame. They would make love every day, taking in as much of each other as they could…
Then it would be over.
The morning after they had made love in Tripoli, it started. Early morning headaches and nausea. Two weeks later the headaches were followed by vomiting, which oddly seemed to make the headaches go away. From her symptoms she reasoned she was pregnant. How could she have been so stupid? There were so many other signs, but she just ignored them. Once, on her mission in Yemen, the headache was accompanied by blurry vision, which exacerbated the magnitude of the headache, followed by a brief loss of consciousness. She blew it off as fatigue and stress from the mission.
The symptoms were all there, and lurking somewhere in the back of her psyche she knew it was serious, yet she refused to acknowledge it. To be struck down by something she couldn’t see and couldn’t control was too frightening. So she ignored the symptoms, again and again, as if that would make it go away.
After the CT scan upon her return from Yemen, the doctors told her she had a cerebral aneurysm, fixable only by surgery. The silent killer could strike at a moments notice. Once ruptured, she’d be only minutes from death. But the recommended surgery was too risky—nearly a 75 % mortality rate.
It was at the suggestion of Elmore Wiley that she consult a physician in Belgium who had developed a new, less-risky surgical procedure to repair the aneurysm. Using a camera and robotic tools, the physician would go in through the veins and insert a surgical mesh or screen to permanently correct the aneurysm. His mortality rate was under 30 %. Still risky but much better odds. And with it, the possibility of getting her active lifestyle back.
No, she couldn’t tell Kaplan. He would insist on putting his life on hold and staying by her side. It wouldn’t be fair to him.
Their feelings for each other would have to languish and fade away. Isabella’s eyes filled with tears. She gently kissed the sleeping Kaplan. Her heart ached for what it may never have.
† † †
Khan signaled the driver to stop outside the rear entrance of the abandoned building. He got out of the sedan and waved the driver on. He pulled the keys from his jacket pocket, looked over his shoulder as he walked toward the small door next to the vehicle entrance he’d used earlier.
The building was empty except for the box truck. Across from the truck was a small office with a gym bag sitting on top of an old wooden desk. He walked into the office, unzipped the bag, and pulled out coveralls and a cap that matched the logo of the catering service along with a company identification badge, a fake driver’s license, and cargo manifest.
He removed his jacket and pulled on the coveralls, zipping them within two inches of the top, just enough to show the white button down shirt underneath. He slipped the ID badge onto the left breast pocket, his driver’s license into his pocket, grabbed the manifest, and walked out to the truck leaving his personal belongings in the bag on the desk.
Startled by a noise above him, he jumped. He looked up and saw birds flying around overhead. He opened the cargo door to the truck and climbed inside. He moved three boxes to the side to get to the five packages he was after, four small ones and one large one.
He opened each package and activated the device inside, closed and resealed them. It was time and he was ready. An hour from now he would take his place in history. An hour from now New York City’s first responders would again be rushing to a major calamity with visions of September 11
th
filling their infidel minds as another New York City building collapsed to the ground killing its occupants.
But this time it would be worse.
Mothers and fathers would be unable to protect their children as the world watched them die.
Four thousand children.
Khan climbed into the truck, started the engine, used the remote to open the back door, and drove out. His next stop, the loading dock at the American Museum of Natural History.
† † †
Jake exited the taxi and, as soon as the sedan dropped off Khan and drove away. He ran down the alley toward where the man disappeared. When Jake reached the door to the building he realized there were no windows on the ground level. He tried the door handle. Locked. He stepped back and looked up, a fire escape, but the ladder was fifty feet farther down the alley.
Khan was inside and Jake needed to find out what the terrorist was up to. He ran to the ladder and climbed to the second floor level. Next he walked down the rickety metal structure to the windows where Khan had disappeared. An anchor in the brick mortar gave way under Jake’s weight and the platform moved banging against the side of the building. Startled birds flew from their nests inside the building, most escaping through broken windows.
Jake crouched then eased up to eye level with the windows. He saw Khan dressed in some sort of uniform walking toward a box truck with a catering service logo painted on the sides. Khan went inside the back of the truck, out of sight, then after a few minutes came back into view. Khan closed the cargo bay door, climbed into the driver’s seat and started the engine.
Jake scanned the room from his lofty viewpoint for exits—only one—directly below him. He needed to get off the fire escape and into a position to follow the truck, even though he already knew where the truck was going. When Jake moved, the platform slipped again as a cement anchor broke free from the concrete wall. If the fire escape fell, he’d fall with it.
Desperately trying to stabilize his weight distribution on the platform, he slowed his steps. The metal door beneath him rolled up and he heard the catering truck accelerate toward the door. He was in plain view for Khan to see him.
He reached the end of the platform by the metal steps at the same time the truck exited the building. Jake lay prone on the platform until the truck turned the corner and drove out of sight. Sliding down the ladder by cupping his feet and hands around the outside of the rails allowed gravity to pull him to street level.
He recalled the envelope Bentley had given him. The clippings with the shamrocks. He let his anger build like a swelling wave gathering strength. He focused on his two targets. Connected only by his lust for revenge, he saw the faces of the two men he would kill.
Khan and Collins.
He sprinted out of the alley and onto the sidewalk as fast as he could toward the museum. Without breaking stride he darted across West 79
th
Street raising his hand at oncoming traffic to avoid being hit. Tires screeched and horns blared as Jake continued to run toward the museum.
When Jake rounded the corner, the catering truck was stuck in traffic two blocks ahead of him. He steadied his pace to keep equal distance from the truck. He couldn’t risk being seen by Khan. He slowed his breathing and blended with the crowd of people on the sidewalk. After he killed Khan, he still had unfinished business with Ian Collins. He hated Khan but it was a personal vendetta against the Irishman. Collins had systematically destroyed everything around Jake.
An eye for an eye.
CHAPTER 68
K
APLAN WOKE UP in pain but with a clear head. With every heartbeat, every pulse of blood through his body, his leg throbbed.