Twice a Spy (41 page)

On its underside, he found a curved rectangular panel the size of a Pop-Tart and plucked it free. Now he needed to find the two reds from among the jungle of wires inside the ignition barrel. Nervous perspiration burned his eyes.

He spotted the reds. Without much hope that it would work, he touched their ends together.

The engine sputtered to life.

Charlie would marvel later. Now his eyes darted toward the lobby door.

The usual.

The scant
sunlight had failed to burn the heavy fog off Mobile Bay by late morning. Although sixty degrees, the day remained too blustery and generally dismal for most pool or waterfront activities. A few joggers and bicyclists used the trails through the Grand Hotel’s lush grounds. The G-20 security teams couldn’t have been more conspicuous. Many of the agents wore shiny black coats emblazoned with
SECRET SERVICE
and
HAZMAT
and
COUNTERSNIPERS
. The conference wouldn’t kick off until evening, but guard stations already formed a wall around the hotel’s main lodge and surrounding buildings. Still more security types swarmed the grounds.

In hope of passing for one of the joggers, Charlie donned the running suit and Nikes he’d purchased at a strip mall on the way out of Hattiesburg. As he loped away from the hotel, he heard high-pitched squeals and giggles. A hedgerow parted, revealing children on a playground, well within the blast range of the plastic explosive in the ADM he suspected was at the Mobile Bay Marina.

He continued toward the marina. To someone on the lookout for him now, any of the wigs would be a giveaway. So he had also bought a battery-powered hair clipper and, standing at the mirror of the mall’s deserted men’s room, shaved back most of his hairline. The rest he trimmed into a buzz cut. Gel slathered over his newly bald areas made it appear that years had passed since he’d had any hair there. He added wraparound sunglasses whose “fire-iridium”—the manufacturer’s term for “red”—lenses would divert attention from his features.

Unfortunately, he wasn’t much of a jogger. And propelling himself
forward now proved an even greater struggle than usual due to the bullet wound in his shoulder as well as the two layers of long underwear he wore beneath his running suit, intended to make him look stocky.

A few yards shy of the marina’s side entrance, he dropped his hands onto his knees as if catching his breath. No pretense necessary. A shiny white power boat that looked like a miniature cruise ship now occupied the Campodonico slip by the end of the dock. Reclining in a canvas chair on the stern deck was a man of between thirty and forty, face buried in a magazine. He wore dark glasses, a Grand Hotel golf windbreaker, and a pair of Bermuda shorts. He had dark brown hair and a goatee. The Bermuda shorts alone—really, the bronzed, muscular legs the shorts revealed—were enough for Charlie to recognize the glasses, brown wig, and glue-on goatee for what they were. Ever the peacock: Bream should have worn long pants.

Instead of feeling the thrill of being right, Charlie was stumped. He had no idea how to stop Bream. He could alert the Secret Service, but they’d probably just throw him back in the local drunk tank, and then, worse, alert Bream. The CIA might help, but not before cables for authorizations ate up the remainder of the day. Or Eskridge might have Charlie thrown back in the drunk tank.

Charlie weighed contending with Bream himself. The pilot had probably deemed it too great a risk to entrust his cargo to anyone but himself, meaning his plan was to charm Captain Glenny, then hang out on the yacht until he made the transaction. Or possibly he was waiting for all of the G-20 leaders to arrive, at which time he would switch to a car and drive beyond the blast radius. Thirty miles on the interstate ought to do it. There he would detonate the bomb by pressing a button on a remote control, or, if he had adapted the detonator, by dialing a cell phone.

Charlie wished he had a gun. He reeled from flashbacks of the pawn shops he’d blown past. With all of his damned preparation, how had he gotten to this point without even a penknife?

He considered luring Bream away from the yacht, then somehow getting aboard himself. Once he found the washer, he could permanently disable the detonator by dialing an incorrect code three times, activating its safeguard, a capacitor that would essentially fry the system. It would take him two minutes, tops.

But how could he get Bream out of the way, even for one minute?

Charlie looked around for a fire alarm to pull, then realized that Bream would just stay by his yacht. A boat surrounded by water wasn’t a bad place to be during a fire. At best, the alarm would clear the marina, making Charlie’s approach as conspicuous as if he’d set himself on fire.

What about a pizza delivery?

Less stupid, the more Charlie thought about it. As on several of the boats docked here, a few of the Campodonico yacht’s windows were opened a crack to keep the cabin from getting stuffy. While Bream and the Domino’s guy stood in the parking lot trying to get to the bottom of the delivery error, Charlie could squeeze through a window and into the cabin. Unless the Domino’s guy brought the pie right to Bream’s yacht. Either way, Bream might notice. As would Glenny—Charlie detected movement behind the frosted glass window of the harbormaster’s office.

He was mulling a more discreet approach via the bay, capitalizing on the kayaks sitting on the beach at the hotel, when Bream stood up and locked the door to the cabin from outside.

Crouching behind a bush, Charlie watched the pilot straddle the starboard rail, thump onto the dock, and walk with purpose toward the parking lot. Possibly he was going to the little village to get lunch. Whatever he was doing, if it involved leaving the marina, he ought to be gone long enough for Charlie to gain access to the yacht. And it might be Charlie’s only chance.

With a
silent prayer to the nameless divine entities he called upon when one of his horses took the lead in a race, Charlie started jogging toward the marina. He tried to think of himself as a Grand Hotel guest, entitled to romp wherever he damned well pleased, and he hoped he projected this air. Particularly to Captain Glenny.

Bream had been gone for a couple of minutes when Charlie reached the pier. He exchanged a friendly smile with a man on a catamaran, then ran—although not too fast for a jogger—toward the Campodonicos’ yacht.

There was no sign of anyone aboard. Charlie heard only the wind and the creaks of the yacht as it rose and fell in the water. Stepping onto the stern, he ought to have been nervous, but he felt something akin to exhilaration.

A few steps along the narrow side deck and he reached one of the slightly opened cabin windows. The glass slid all the way open with a gentle pull. He fit through, barely, tumbling onto a cream-colored carpet and into a corridor lined with enough framed maritime maps for a museum.

He followed it to a spacious dining room with a table for eight. The adjacent kitchen had all of the necessary appliances found in a luxury home. Except a washing machine.

Holding his breath, he tiptoed down a spiral staircase, with solid mahogany steps, to the lower deck. A television glowed in one of the staterooms, giving him a start, but no one was there. The two other staterooms contained only tall beds and built-in cabinets.

Still no washing machine or sign of one.

At the end of the corridor was a closet. Without expecting much, Charlie pulled open its bifold door to find a surprisingly compact laundry alcove with plenty of shelves, a foldout ironing board, and, alongside a modern dryer, a cheap, boxy Perriman Pristina, still spotted with muck from the cavern.

Eureka, he thought.

He reached to pull open the top-loading lid when he heard a bolt snap above-deck.

Fear hit him like a bullwhip.

The cabin door creaked open. He heard at least two sets of footsteps.

“How ’bout a cold beer, Steve?” Bream asked. “I got you the nonalcoholic stuff.”

“Very kind, thank you.” A low, raspy voice with a strong Middle Eastern accent. “But let us get on please with the business?”

“That’d be just fine,” said Bream, letting the door bang shut and tramping in the direction of the staircase. “All due respect.”

Charlie considered the staterooms, distinctly lacking in places to hide. Ducking beneath the ironing board, he stuffed himself into the ten-inch gap between the rear of the washing machine and the wall. He would have tripped over the washing machine’s tattered orange power cord, stretched into a wall socket, but there was no room to fall.

He sank to one knee. The space was dark and otherwise like the back of a clothes closet.

“While I’m thinking of it, you should have these, just in case you need to move the boat for whatever reason,” Bream said, jangling something. His leather sandals came into view at the base of the stairs.

Charlie held still, hoping the jackhammer that used to be his heart wouldn’t draw Bream’s attention.

Stepping into the lower deck’s corridor, Bream handed a set of keys back to Steve, a swarthy boar of a man, probably twenty-five, with close-set, black eyes. His crisp Levi’s and shiny new Florida Marlins jersey and Converse All Star high-tops ironically accentuated his foreignness.

“Thank you kindly,” Steve said, pocketing the keys. He looked around until his eyes settled on the washing machine. He stared.

Charlie’s heart nearly leaped out of his mouth as Steve advanced for a closer look. Charlie used muscles he hadn’t realized he had in order to hold still.

Steve pointed to the washer’s control panel. “So is this button actually the trigger?”

Bream stepped up, so close Charlie could have reached out through the gap between the washer and dryer and touched his knee.

“You mean the start button?” Bream leaned forward and clicked it.

The blood drained from Steve’s face.

The machine belched and the length of hose running past Charlie swelled, filling with water from the copper piping on the wall. Water splattered into the washer.

Taking in Steve’s disquiet, Bream chuckled. “The water trickles in for about five minutes, then drains out and the machine turns back off. It’s a little special effect in case a customs inspector happens to turn the thing on, which they do sometimes.”

Steve heaved a breath of relief. “I was not ready yet.”

Steve is about to martyr himself, Charlie thought, and Bream is fucking with his head. Whatta guy.

“Check this out.” Bream flipped open the lid.

Steve looked in, surprised. “No water.”

“The water goes into a special compartment in the back of the machine.”

“Ah.”

“Of course, if the inspector opened the lid, it’s game over. There’s no way of disguising the bomb.” Bream pointed into the washer. “See the three dials there?”

“Yes. The progressive action links. I received thorough training with them from Doctor Zakir.”

“Good. You’ll be glad to know that to save you the trouble, he dialed in the code to arm the device. Then he paused it, two seconds into a ten-minute countdown. Here …” Bream handed Steve a device that looked like a TV remote control. “The good doctor rigged this, too. At game
time tonight, you simply click the big red button and the countdown resumes at nine minutes and fifty-eight seconds. If you need to pause for whatever reason, click the button again. It’s basically a play and a pause button in one. The batteries are fresh, and you’ve got more up on the kitchen counter. If for whatever reason the remote malfunctions and you need to use the PALs, the code’s here.” Bream pointed to the area of the control panel where, Charlie recalled, the serial number had been engraved onto a strip of metal.

Steve nodded.

“So you ought to be all set.” Lowering the lid, Bream turned to go. “The fridge is stocked with all your favorite stuff—don’t worry, all halal.”

“And you will be where?” Steve asked.

Bream turned toward the staircase. “Outside the blast radius.”

“What if there’s a malfunction?”

“If anything goes wrong, Cheb Qatada knows how to reach Zakir or me—I know you’ve got the boss on speed dial.” Bream inched toward the stairs.