Blown (15 page)

Chapter 28

BERLIN, 7:14 P.M.

Wally Aronson eyed the dark-haired man lounging on the opposite side of the conference table and compiled a mental dossier.
Ernst Haller, thirty-nine years old, born and educated Heidelberg, grandfather a Luftwaffe pilot World War II shot down over British Channel, grandmother killed in bombing of Dresden. Despises Americans. Christian Democrat by birth, BKA by training, reputed fascist by inclination. Boss already fired at last week’s government ouster; our boy Ernst has little or no future in the present climate. He badly needs a victory.

“I’d like to extend the thanks of the entire U.S. government, Herr Haller, for your resourceful and dedicated pursuit of a man I can only describe as one of the most dangerous, violent, and sought-after criminals of the past decade,” Wally said handsomely in the German that was mother’s milk to him.

It was probable Haller had a similar mental dossier on Wally and knew exactly how many members of his extended family had died at Dachau sixty years before, which might account for the nostrils pinched as though sniffing the acrid air of the ovens; but the BKA’s finest smiled swiftly and bowed his head, an angel submitting to benediction, basking for this instant in the ardent gratitude of the last foolish superpower on earth.

“It was simply a matter of solid police work,” Ernst replied in English, a false politeness designed to demonstrate his immunity to all American blandishment. “And, naturally, the cooperation of
yourself,
Herr Aronson. But for your phone call—”

Wally waved a hand distractedly, as though to say
Just doing my job,
when in reality it was unheard-of for the U.S. embassy to throw away one of their own without first summoning the FBI, and any self-respecting federal policeman should have known as much and smelled a rat—“We have a number of details to discuss, I’m afraid.”

“Jurisdiction,” Haller suggested delicately.

“Well—
yes
. I realize you badly want this man up before one of your federal judges on a charge of murder, and I completely understand the desire to see justice done—I mean, that
poor woman
with her neck broken, lying like so much trash on the floor of the terrorist lab—I suppose there’s no question she’d entered it legitimately? She must have had
access,
I mean? Possibly . . . a member of the terrorist cell herself?”

“A receptionist,” Haller said primly. “Most respectable. It is unlikely she had the slightest inkling of the true nature of the company’s operations.”

“No. Surely not,” Wally mourned. “Although the hour at which the alleged murder took place was, I understand, somewhat unusual for a receptionist? The middle of the night, I think your medical examiner said was the time of death—?”

Haller shrugged. “Murder is still murder, no matter what hour of the day it occurs.”

“Of course. I merely wished to suggest that this loss, however regrettable, came nearly a week after the kidnapping of our vice president. That crime—and Mrs. Payne’s subsequent death—might be considered to outweigh or supersede, purely in
prosecutorial terms,
of course, the unfortunate death of this . . . receptionist.”

“Meaning . . . ?”

“That I have been authorized to formally request the extradition to the United States of . . . Nigel Benning, Michael O’Shaughnessy, whatever he calls himself . . . as soon as humanly possible. You
understand,
Herr Haller,” he added appealingly. “The American public needs some kind of resolution. A sense of closure. A culprit for the enormity visited upon Mrs. Payne. They need to see justice done.”

Haller steepled his hands. “You want the man delivered to the airport tarmac at five o’clock in the morning so that a chartered plane may depart without the notice of the enraged German populace, which blames this terrorist for the recent destruction of a piece of historic Berlin?”

“Exactly,” Wally returned affably. “The United States government understands you wish to earn full publicity value from this arrest. The President is willing to offer his official thanks to the new chancellor. Your own name will be highly praised in letters of appreciation to your department head for the efficiency of your entire operation. But we want the man returned.”

“That is not what
your boss
has told me.” Haller’s eyes gleamed with wicked amusement from the opposite side of the table, and abruptly Wally sat back in his seat, as though momentarily puzzled.

“My boss?” he repeated. “I’m afraid I
have
no superior in Berlin. You’re speaking to the top of the food chain, Ernst.”

“No, no, no,” Haller returned softly. “I refer to your agency’s counterterrorism chief. Your . . . Mr. Sorensen. He telephoned me only this afternoon. But a few hours ago.”

“I see.” Wally trailed his pen indolently over the notepad in front of him as though the information were unimportant.

“It is Mr. Sorensen’s ardent wish—and the wish of your entire organization, as he so forcefully assures me—that this man should be tried and sentenced in the German courts.” Haller’s bland gray eyes stared innocently at Wally. “Now will you tell me, Herr Aronson, exactly what kind of game you are playing?”

Eric lay on the thin mattress that covered the concrete slab jutting from his prison wall. The room was roughly six feet wide by ten feet deep, and in addition to the bed held a toilet bolted to the floor. He had been stowed in the twenty-four-hour-lockdown section, where the most dangerous men were kept; his wrists and ankles were shackled. Unlike a regular cell, which admitted light and air through the bars of its cage, this one had a solid steel door. A square foot of grille served as the only window on the cell block corridor.

The prison sat in the eastern sector of Berlin on the outskirts of Prenzlauerberg: It had once served as a madhouse under the Communist regime. Communist East Germany did not admit that criminals existed—merely perversions of a mental or philosophic nature that could be ascribed to unrepentant capitalist mania. Unification had returned the madhouse to its proper usage, and West German funds had spiffed up the paint and the drains. The steel box still reeked of urine and fear.

In his solitary confinement, Eric had leisure to see that his predecessors in lockdown had whiled away the hours by scratching graffiti into the steel with the links of their chains. It was painstaking work; and all with an end to the most banal of expressions.
Sternheim sucks dog cock.
He closed his eyes. He had a lot to think about.

Did you kill that woman?
Wally had asked as he paced the length of the interrogation room, his hands in his pockets and his balding head shining with the discomfort of his situation.

“She came at me with a scalpel.” He’d pointed to the ragged wound in his neck. “Nearly cut my fucking head off.”

“Are there any others? Thirty April survivors?”

“I don’t know. None I’ve found.”

He had wanted to scream in agony at the man.
Why did you do it, Wally? Why did you turn me in?
but there would be microphones embedded in the walls, and surveillance cameras. Any kind of real communication was impossible. Wally was playing a part. He hadn’t looked Eric in the eye since the moment he’d returned to Sophienstrasse with the federal police in his pocket. Wally knew the answer to every question he’d asked; they had rehearsed this, in the high-ceilinged room with the gray shadows, while Wally rolled tape around Eric’s ribs. Something was going on—Eric could smell deception like a dog scented heat—but whatever it was, Wally wasn’t telling.

“You’ll be provided with a German lawyer,” the station chief had offered at parting. “And you can expect a U.S. debrief team. I’d tell them everything you know. It’s your best hope, Mr. O’Shaughnessy, regardless of whether you’re tried in this country or extradited.”

Everything you know.
Which of the stories was Wally expecting? The cover lies—or the truth? There was very little to choose between them—Eric had lived his cover too well. There was the child he’d shot in Bratislava. The break-ins and kidnappings all over Europe. The murders he’d witnessed and failed to stop. The voice of conscience he’d strangled in his sleep.

He’d called that life a necessary compromise. If he’d showed squeamishness—hesitated even once to carry out 30 April’s orders—he’d have died long ago. And he wanted to live, wanted to baby the trust he’d earned until the moment he could betray 30 April from within. For years, he and Scottie Sorensen had agreed:
It is impossible to penetrate a terrorist group and destroy it without becoming a terrorist yourself.
But the American public refused to understand this brutal truth. On the one hand, they demanded perfect human intelligence of coming threats. On the other, they screamed at the CIA’s habit of buying information from known killers. Scottie’s methods would never have stood up to Capitol Hill’s scrutiny; he was
dirtying his hands
. And so he and Eric had agreed to complete deniability. Complete operational silence.

Why had it all mattered more than anything else in life? Eric could no longer remember. Because Scottie had chosen him? Because a plane blew up and friends of his died? Whatever it was—this passion that had killed every raw feeling in his soul—it was over now. He just wanted to go home.

With a screech of metal, the bolts on his door were thrown back. He rolled to an upright position, his eyes narrowed at the dazzling flood of light.

Wally stood there, a guard at his elbow. The station chief held a pad of paper casually toward Eric. Scrawled on it in black marker were the words
Cell’s bugged
.

“Good evening, O’Shaughnessy,” Wally said. “I’ve come for a chat. We’ve got exactly fifteen minutes.”

Chapter 29

WASHINGTON, D.C., 5:03 P.M.

Steve Price was used to working on very little sleep. He had covered two wars and three national elections for the
Washington Post
during the nearly fifteen years he’d worked in the capital, and since his divorce seven years earlier he’d earned the reputation of a hard partyer. He’d been known to arrive at his cubicle in the National section of the vast newsroom before dawn, still wearing black tie and reeking of Scotch-laced cigarette smoke; but his personal life rarely affected his prose. He might be one of the most sought-after dinner guests among Georgetown’s league of ambitious hostesses—he might be privileged to call no fewer than seventeen senators by their first names and to fly-fish with three Cabinet members—but Steve was a pro. He would answer his cell phone in the middle of an orgasm, if necessary, and be on the scene of a story twelve minutes later, smelling faintly of semen and already composing his lede. He could write through a missile attack and required no editing.

His managers at the
Post
were terrified he’d be seduced away from the political fold with a foreign correspondence offer from the
New York Times;
as a result, Steve was paid the earth and given his choice of Paris or Moscow. So far he’d refused both. Nobody was sure why he preferred to remain in Washington, but nobody bothered to ask too many questions. Steve was entitled to his secrets. His employers were simply glad he stayed.

By four o’clock that afternoon he’d filed four stories, two of which had already gone up on the Internet edition as breaking news; all four would appear under his byline—though one of them was shared—in Tuesday morning’s paper.
Dana Enright, Speaker’s Wife, Dead at 37
was one; it recounted the midnight scene at Sibley Hospital and the fact that the ailing marathoner had provided the FBI with the killer’s composite currently being broadcast all over the country. A companion piece updated the appalling statistics of the latest ricin victims, fifty-three dead and seven hundred ninety-eight in critical condition; it was accompanied by a heartrending photograph of a mother holding her son that some people were already calling “the Terrorist Pietà.”
Director of Central Intelligence Assassinated in Georgetown Home
included interviews with the medical examiner and the FBI’s Tom Shephard, and suggested vaguely that Dare Atwood’s killer might well be a former military sniper. Finally, Price’s favorite piece:
Administration Flounders in Face of New Crisis.
Every journalist alive dealt to a certain extent in schadenfreude—the ghoulish appreciation of another person’s misery—and Steve was no exception. He enjoyed making Jack Bigelow squirm.

Even Jonathan Wills, the
Post
’s hard-bitten managing editor, would agree that Steve Price had done his bit for the glory of the rag during the past sleepless two days; so that when the reporter yawned prodigiously and kicked his chair away from his desk, announcing to the journalistic world in general that
Fuck I’m tired I’m going home to get drunk and screw,
nobody argued. Some wondered who he was planning to fuck, exactly, and others started a furtive betting pool on likely candidates; but none of them attempted to teach him his job. If Price wanted to walk away and miss the breaking shit in the war going on down there in the rush hour Monday streets, the mounting deaths and the panic among policymakers and housewives alike, so be it. They could all write circles around Steve Price anyway.

As he swung out of the newsroom, he was thinking how pissed they’d all be when they saw his exclusive interview with Caroline Carmichael the next morning. He intended to e-mail this crowning glory to Jonathan Wills in a few hours. But Wills called him back before he reached the escalator. Ricin Boy’s latest fax had just come across the wire, announcing to the world the rescue of 30 April’s anointed one. Jozsef Krucevic had vanished.

Spavac,
Caroline read, and clicked in frustration on the icon that led nowhere.

She had found three of these Croatian file names buried in the data Eric had sent home on his pirated computer disc.
Spavac, Alat,
and
Saka
. Someone—Cuddy?—had translated the words as
Sleeper, Tool,
and
Fist
. Each had the symbol of a folder next to its name, and each listed between thirty-five and forty kilobytes of information stored. But when she tried to open them, she got a completely blank screen.

Encrypted,
she thought,
or the data failed to transfer when Cuddy copied the disc.
He would have suspected encryption and put one of CTC’s techies onto the problem. Or would he? Cuddy had been wary of the secret of Eric’s operation leaking throughout the Counterterrorism Center. Maybe he’d been afraid of asking for help—or had simply given up on these. He’d already gone through most of Eric’s intelligence in the week since Caroline had returned home.

She could follow her branch chief’s trail by the havoc he’d wreaked in 30 April’s interests worldwide. Five front companies in the Netherlands, Germany, and Slovakia had already seen their assets seized by Interpol; a network of embedded operatives in Poland had been arrested four days before. Krucevic’s primary financial backers—a charismatic Catholic politician in the south of France and the head of a private relief organization operating throughout North Africa—had resigned abruptly from their posts. Both were facing criminal investigations. The FBI had formally requested the freezing of nearly one hundred million euros held in Swiss banks. It had been a good week for counterterrorism—until Ricin Boy struck.

Sleeper, Tool,
and
Fist.
What did they mean? Bits of undigested data that Eric had copied by mistake? Names of genetically engineered bugs that 30 April had intended to unleash upon the world? Operational tags for hits that had never taken place—murders, kidnappings, bomb sites yet to explode?

But to Caroline, they sounded like names.

A rattle of keys in the front door’s bolts brought her head up swiftly. She clicked out of the CD and closed the laptop’s cover. From her position on the living room floor—back pressed against Steve Price’s dark blue sofa—she had a perfect view of the entryway. Her snub-nosed Walther TPK was already leveled at the door.

“Caroline!” Price’s head curved around the jamb and he shot her a smile. “Guess what? That kid you saved just broke out of jail.”

She gleaned two things immediately from the reporter’s glib account of Jozsef’s disappearance: Norm Wilhelm hadn’t fought his killer—indeed, he seemed to have gone placidly to his death by prearranged appointment—and Jozsef’s kidnapping might just be Eric’s salvation. With the boy missing, Eric was the last hope the government had of learning where the next terrorist blow would fall.

Her gut instincts were right: Jozsef had told the truth. One of Sophie Payne’s trusted staffers knew 30 April intimately.

Beneath her sick worry for the boy, Caroline’s mind leaped with hope.
Tom Shephard would finally understand.
He would know that she and Jozsef hadn’t steered him wrong. His quick wits would travel from the place of execution to the heart of West Virginia, and to the spider’s web of connections Norm Wilhelm had left behind. Within hours, Tom would jump on the next of kin. It was a waste of time for her to head in the same direction. Instead, she made Steve Price repeat every detail he knew, spent a few moments in careful thought, then called Dr. Bill Lewis at Bethesda Naval Hospital.

Lewis was the head of Jozsef’s medical team. It was he who’d released the boy into Caroline’s safekeeping only that morning; he wouldn’t hesitate to talk to her.

“Do we log telephone calls from patients’ rooms?” he repeated blankly after she commiserated about Jozsef’s apparent kidnapping. “Sure we do. You wouldn’t believe the places some people call. Tibet. New South Wales. We’ve got to be able to pin them for charges.”

He put an administrator on the problem and buzzed Caroline’s cell phone a bare twelve minutes later. Jozsef had made only one call during his week-long stay: two hours after Dare Atwood’s murder the previous morning. The number was local.

“We have tracing capability at the
Post,
” Price told her. “But why do you want to know? You think the kid
arranged
to be picked up at White Flint Mall?”

“It’s a possibility,” Caroline said heavily. “His timing—pulling me out of the funeral just as a drive-by shooting occurred—was far too perfect. Yeah, I think he made contact.”

“I’ll get the name and address,” the reporter returned, as though raising her bet in poker, “if you’ll give me the story first.
Your
story. No bullshit, just the straight poop. Deal?”

She hesitated only a second. “Deal.”