Anonymous Sources (25 page)

He sighed and turned his attention back to the road.

We were speeding along the bank of a river that I assumed was the Potomac. I don't know Washington well, but I was pretty sure it only has one river. Soon the silhouettes of the Jefferson Memorial and the Washington Monument appeared on the far bank.

I pulled out my phone and tried to figure out what to do. It was still two hours before my appointment with Lowell Carlyle. If that even mattered given what had just happened. Whom should I call? Hyde? Elias? The police? And tell them what, exactly? That a passenger sitting next to me on a plane had died, and that I feared it was meant to be me instead. It made no sense. Almost nothing that had happened these last couple of days made sense.

I screwed my eyes shut. The red-haired woman on the plane was already starting to seem unreal. Perhaps I had dreamed her. Perhaps . . . the blood on her collar was a mosquito bite she'd scratched, perhaps she really was just sleeping.

But no. My laptop bag. It was gone. It had not disappeared on its own. I tried to remember what was in there, what information I had on the computer. And my checked suitcase. I wondered in a detached way whether it was still circling on the baggage carousel, or whether a porter would have lugged it away by now. It would find its way back to me eventually. My phone number was on a tag on the handle.

My phone number. A chill went down my spine. It was entirely possible I was imagining all this, that I was losing my mind. But if I was not—if that puncture wound had really been intended for my neck—how had someone known to look for me on a British Airways flight to
Washington
? I had only changed plans this morning. The only people I'd told were Hyde and Elias, when I e-mailed them from Heathrow. And Lucien, when he called me in the lounge.

I had no idea how these things worked. Would someone who knew what they were doing be able to break into my e-mail account that easily or listen in on my calls? This was more Elias's world than mine. My typical workday—at least until recently—involved trying not to doze off during faculty meetings. It was Elias who ran around meeting sources in trench coats and signaling for meetings by moving flowerpots, or however they did things on the intelligence beat. He was the one who reported on classified code words and wiretapping and warrants. Not that someone into murdering people would likely pause for a warrant, mind you. For Christ's sake.

I considered my phone again. A terrible, paranoid thought occurred to me. I tapped on Google maps. A message appeared:
Mapping would like to use your current location. Allow?

A couple of seconds later, there I was: a flashing red dot, moving down the bank of the river. If I could see this, who else could? I felt nauseous. We were turning. I looked up. The taxi had swung right on to a wide bridge. The square façade of the Lincoln Memorial loomed straight ahead. I rolled down my window and breathed in the humid air. Toward the middle of the bridge, I flicked my wrist and threw as hard as I could. The phone sailed out across the water.

The driver looked back at me with alarm.

Where to?

“Take me to the White House,” I told him.

LOWELL CARLYLE'S SECRETARY LOOKED ONLY
mildly surprised at my turning up an hour and a half early.

I'd been pre-cleared through security into the White House. It still took a few minutes for the guards manning the checkpoint outside the West Wing to examine my passport, consult their list, and shepherd me through the X-ray and metal-detector machines. I was directed to
cross the lawn. A wall of TV cameras was lined up in what looked like a permanent formation on the right. Cameramen stood smoking and drinking coffee in pairs, waiting for correspondents to rush out to do their live shots. The door to the West Wing swung open and a couple of reporters shot past, chasing a woman I recognized from TV as the president's press secretary. No sign of Nora, thank God for small favors. Inside was a large and dimly lit waiting room. The receptionist took my name again. Aides scurried past.

Ten minutes passed before Mr. Carlyle's secretary appeared. She offered me tea and coffee.

I declined. Instead I smiled politely, thanked her for working me in, and asked whether I might see him earlier than scheduled. Like, how about now?

She raised her eyebrows in an expression that meant
You've got to be kidding me
.

“He's in with the president just now, as it happens,” she said, stretching her lips into a thin smile. “And it's amazing he's here at all, what with the funeral and Mrs. Carlyle still in Cambridge. So terrible.” She shook her head. “Anyway, so far he's running on time for your interview. Anything else I can get you while you wait?” She had already turned and begun sidling away.

“Actually, a phone. If there were somewhere where I could make a couple of calls?”

A few minutes later I was installed in a cupboard just outside the briefing room. All the major news organizations keep cubicles somewhere in the press warren. The few remaining newspapers with national ambitions were clustered in one corner. The network television and cable-news channels shared their own hallway, cleaner and reeking of hair spray. Closest to the briefing room—and thus to the news—were the wire services. An aura of panic and deadline pressure radiated from behind the half-shut doors. I could hear keyboards clicking frantically inside. Mr. Carlyle's secretary tried to usher me into the
Chronicle
's booth,
but thankfully it was locked tight and Nora was nowhere to be found. So now I found myself in what appeared to be a general-use/transient space. The closet-size cubby contained a buzzing fluorescent light, the curling transcript of a speech the president had given three months ago, and several chewed-on styrofoam cups in which stewed the remnants of God-knew-how-old coffee. All that, and a phone. Hallelujah.

I picked up and dialed Hyde's cell phone. No answer. Then I tried Elias.

“Hello, Elias Thottrup,” he answered, sounding harassed.

“Elias. Thank God.”

“Hello?” A pause. “Alex?”

“Hi. Yes. It's me. I need—”

“Hey. Are you in DC yet? Listen, I'm on deadline. But I got your message—”

“Never mind that. I'm at the White House. I'm going to do this Carlyle interview, but I really need to find Hyde—”

“I got your message,” he continued, as if he weren't listening to a word I said, “and I've got to go now, but I wanted to tell you—”

“Elias!” I shrieked. “Please—is Hyde there in the newsroom?”

“What? No. He was before. You can stay tonight, by the way. But what I was going to tell you—”

“Please, can I just—”

“Shut up, Alex, for once,” he barked. “What I was going to tell you is, I remembered the banana thing.”

“The banana thing?”

“Your Pakistani guy ordering all the bananas. And it was bugging me that I'd just heard something interesting about bananas.”

“Elias—”

“It was at this big Homeland Security conference the other week,” he pressed on, ignoring me. “They get waved past radiation detectors. Because of the potassium. I was at this panel talking about dirty bombs, and how the screening systems at ports in places like Newark and LA
are basically useless. Because all kinds of stuff apparently emits low-level radiation. Kitty litter and denture cleaners and, let's see, manhole covers. And bananas. The detectors can't tell the difference between fruit and a nuclear bomb. Unbelievable, huh? This one guy on the panel, from Los Alamos, he said they just wave banana shipments right through.”

He paused. “Alex?”

“Yeah.”

“I thought it was funny. I mean, funny in a freaky kind of way, right? Since this banana baron of yours actually works on nuclear weapons at Kahuta.”

I was gripping the desk in front of me tightly. I felt sick and quite cold at once.

When I didn't reply, he added, “Anyway, I've really got to run, okay?”

“Listen to me,” I said finally, and my voice was shaking. “I don't quite know what is happening. But something is wrong. Very wrong. I need to talk to Hyde. And to the police. In that order, I think.”

“The police?”

“I don't have my cell phone anymore. Or my computer. Can you—can you get a message to Hyde? Tell him the interview with Lowell Carlyle might be about to go in a very different direction. Tell Hyde I need to see him, in person, tonight.”

I hung up and sat staring at the phone. I was starting to get a bad feeling about why someone on that plane might have wanted me dead.

LOWELL CARLYLE LOOKED JUST LIKE
you would expect the president's lawyer to look. Gray hair, gray suit. Patrician.

He stood up from his desk to greet me, and as we shook hands, I could see the exhaustion sketched on his face. He sat down again heavily.

“I'm very sorry for your loss, Mr. Carlyle.”

He nodded. Even this small movement looked as if it caused him
pain. “Thank you for your reporting, Miss James. It's been . . . thorough. I wasn't planning to give any interviews. But after the funeral yesterday, Anna and I—we felt it was time to do one. To share how we will remember Thom. The
Chronicle
is our hometown paper. And so it felt fitting. Thom grew up reading the
Chronicle
. Well, the sports pages anyway.” Lowell gave a small, sad smile.

I nodded. “I gather he was quite an athlete, sir.”

“Yes.” He cleared his throat loudly. I thought I saw moisture in his eyes, and I looked away while he collected himself. “Yes, he was. That's relevant here, actually. It's what I want to talk about. Anna and I have decided to establish a scholarship in Thom's memory. At Harvard. To honor and encourage student-athletes. When Thom was a boy . . .” And he was off, launching into a long story about Thom's Little League triumphs.

I scribbled down some notes and let him go on until I couldn't stand it anymore.

“Mr. Carlyle, I—forgive me for jumping in. It's just that I know your time is limited. And there are some other things I need to ask you about.”

His jaw tightened, just for a moment. He was not a man accustomed to being interrupted. But he nodded and leaned back. “Go ahead.”

“As far as I've been able to find out, the police are still trying to figure out how Thom died. I mean, why he fell from the bell tower. I know this is painful, but I wonder whether you've learned any more detail about what happened that night?”

He shook his head. “I was going to ask you the same.”

“Did your son ever mention a man—a man named Nadeem Siddiqui? They would have met in England.”

He frowned. “No, not that I can recall. Why?”

I took a deep breath. There was no going back now.

I told Thom's father about how Petronella had found Nadeem rummaging around in Thom's room. Thom's
locked
room, and after Thom had died. I told him that no one had seen Nadeem since then,
that he seemed to have disappeared. I told him about the massive banana shipments. That the latest one had landed here in Washington yesterday.

Lowell Carlyle listened to all this carefully.

“Now, here's where it gets weird,” I said.

He shot me a look that suggested he thought we'd already crossed that threshold.

“Please. Just give me two more minutes and then you can throw me out,” I pleaded. “A woman was killed today, and it is somehow connected to all this.”

This seemed to get his attention. He put his left hand to his temple and started rubbing little circles.

I kept going.

I told him about Nadeem's work at the nuclear lab in Pakistan. I told him how bananas would slip past a nuclear detector (I prayed Elias had his facts straight on this one). I told him about my odd encounter with Crispin Withington, and how he had warned me to back off. And finally I told the White House counsel about the redheaded woman on the plane today, the drop of blood on her neck, her pulseless wrist, how she'd been sitting in the seat assigned to me.

Lowell Carlyle shot up in his chair. “Are you quite sure she was . . . dead?”

“Yes.”

“What was her name?”

“I don't know.”

“And you've given all this information to the police?”

“I—er—no. You're the first person I've told.”

His eyes opened wide. “What? Why?”

“I came directly here from the airport. I wasn't sure if I was still in danger—I mean, if whoever killed her would realize their mistake. That they'd gotten the wrong person. If they did get the wrong person . . .” I suddenly felt very stupid. “It would have taken so long to explain everything
to the airport police. And I didn't think I'd get another chance to speak with you if I didn't show up this afternoon.”

To my relief, he nodded. “It's—quite a story, Miss James.” He sat appraising me thoughtfully.

“You're trying to figure out if I'm insane.”

He was too polite to answer directly. “I'm trying to figure out how any of this might fit together. Or whether there might be reasonable explanations for most of what you've told me. The only thing clear to me is that if a woman really did die, and you were the last to see her alive, then you need to tell what you know to the police. Immediately. I'll call the Secret Service in and they can help you sort it out.

“As for the rest of it . . .” He shook his head. “I'm sorry. It's been a long few days. I was planning to spend this time talking about my son. And instead—” He spread his hands. “I'm not sure what any of this has to do with Thom. Perhaps . . . perhaps you should speak with someone on the NSC. The National Security Council. While you're here. You can tell them what you've told me, and they can pass it on to the appropriate channels. Yes, that might make the most sense.”

He picked up the phone and began making arrangements. He looked even grayer and more tired than when I'd first sat down. He seemed a decent man. I wondered what his and his wife's nights had been like, whether they'd slept since they'd gotten that terrible phone call.