Burned (Vanessa Pierson series Book 2) (10 page)

When they were still 100 meters from the closest vehicle access to the central courtyard, the Mercedes flashed into view moving fast, its wheels rolling over a curb and onto a lane normally restricted to utility and security vehicles.

Vanessa had lead this time and she accelerated her pace, sensing Aisha and Khoury moving with her. As she opened the car door she heard the driver’s voice for the first time, a deep, rumbling bass.

“La vidéo, True Jihad.”

He spoke rapidly with a thick provincial accent, but Vanessa got the gist: True Jihad had made good on their promise to release a new video—their latest terror threats—to Al Jazeera.

Inside a converted warehouse located in a bleak industrial district, a suburb of Paris, DCRI had assembled a satellite studio for technical analysis, a state-of-the-art outpost.

Vanessa, Khoury, and Aisha joined Chris, Fournier, and other members of Team Viper as they stood clustered around an array of large, wall-mounted screens worthy of a glossy spy movie.

Hays, apparently now working seamlessly with French techs,
extricated himself from a heated geek huddle. He said, “As far as we know, only Al Jazeera has seen this—and they’re cooperating with us.”

The screens shivered to life: Four men faced a camera, black hoods covering their heads. They were seated around a table. Black fabric obscured most of the visible background. Draped behind them, a white banner with a crudely written
True Jihad
in both English and what Vanessa now recognized as Arabic script.

She took several deep breaths; it looked like the banner used on the execution video.

Three of the men wielded AK-47s, while the fourth held no visible weapon.

As he began to address the camera in Arabic, Vanessa recognized his voice—the terrorist who had executed Farid in cold blood. Her skin pricked goose pimples at the same time that she registered her revulsion.

Khoury spoke up quietly. “He says, ‘Death to the infidels; we are warriors in global jihad.’ The Arabic on the banner reads ‘The way of True Jihad according to the Qur’an.’”

A graphic of the Eiffel Tower surrounded by Photoshopped flames filled the screen; that was followed by the image of the Centre Pompidou dripping with blood; and then a quick montage of Notre Dame Cathedral and the British Museum, both alight with flames; and, finally, the easily identifiable façade of the American embassy in London—the last image followed by cut-in footage of teenage boys and girls donning suicide vests, and then the ominous visual finale of a massive nuclear explosion and a mushroom cloud blooming into the skies.

There was an awkward cut back to the unarmed terrorist who stood facing the camera. He began to speak again in Arabic.

Khoury continued to translate: “He’s saying, ‘We will exterminate the infidels, our Western enemies . . . We don’t want to harm the devout . . . Muslims stay out of Western landmarks and public places . . .
Infidels believe we will deliver the harshest punishment to those who defame Allah and God . . . Our enemies will suffer and we will wipe you from the Earth . . .
No place is safe for infidels, we have struck before yesterday and we will strike again soon—make no mistake, we will kill millions.’”

The screen finally went black. Vanessa collapsed into herself as Chris spoke her fear aloud: “Let’s hope to Christ they’re not holding a stolen nuke in their hands.”

Seconds passed in charged and weighted silence, until Hays cleared his throat and said, “We’ll start going through this frame by frame. We’ll find clues . . . and now we can run comparisons with the first video. There’s a good chance we can zero in on the location where they filmed . . .” His expression solemn, he said, “The more footage we have, the better.”

One of the French techs added, “Our linguists will analyze the leader’s dialect and locate his origins geographically.” He tipped his head nervously, as if these efforts sounded less than adequate to his own ears, but he still forged on. “Working with translators, we should get some good profiling data as well.”

Chris pushed his silver-rimmed glasses against the bridge of his nose. “Al Jazeera has agreed to release clips of the video, but not all of it. These bastards want attention so we’ll give it to them, but we’ll do it our way.”

Vanessa realized her fingers were clenched, making fists. She stared at Chris so hard her eyes felt like bullets—
Get me my damn access to Dieter Schoeman!

Chris met her gaze and she thought that just maybe she saw him nod.

Fournier closed the meeting with one final message: “We will keep the curfew on the city, but it will remain voluntary, for now. And let’s get these bastards before they make good on their promise.”

Roughly 120 kilometers northwest of Paris, where the winter-hued landscape dipped and swelled, rolling in earthen waves, the man with the rash of scars on his face stood in the center of an old stone building. He held the steel briefcase (under his constant watch) suspended from his shoulder and gripped in his left hand, the cable biting into his formidable wrist. His senses alert, his bearing straight and starched, he listened intently for any sound of an approaching airplane. The air inside the thick yellow limestone walls felt ten degrees colder than the air outside, but he seemed impervious to the temperature.

His team had done their job. There was little to betray their presence. The cheap table and stools had been broken apart; the thin, black drapery and red banners had all been burned. The traitor’s body had been disposed of. The old blind caretaker kept pigs; pigs ate everything, including bones and gristle.

The man did not like domesticated pigs; they were filthy and the fact they devoured a dead body proved it. Unconsciously, he scratched at the scattershot scars on his face.

Most of his team had moved on ahead to meet up with him at their next destination. Only one would stay behind to receive the second hostage. The kidnapper was an unholy man, but he had a solid reputation in his field. He had done the first part of his job—he had quietly kidnapped the second hostage and was on his way to deliver.

He inhaled the musty smell of old stone and wood and mold. His work here was finished.

A restless energy ran through him. Was the plane late?

He pulled a silver-plated watch from his pocket. It had belonged to his father, who died during the fighting between Muslims and Coptic Christians over the general elections in December 1995. In honor of his father, he had paid a watchmaker in Cairo to modify the pocket watch to hold an extendable piano wire hidden inside its ornamental frame. If the small silver ring was pulled, the wire could be extended to serve as a simple and lethal garrote.

He clicked the watch open—1112 hours: three more minutes before the plane’s ETA.

The second video would be in official hands by now. He and his team had completed two additional videos that were ready to be released to the media and intelligence officials when the timing was right. The analysts would be deconstructing every bit of digital footage.

He didn’t know or understand all of the technical details, but he knew that eventually they would find a trail. If it led them here, so be it. They needed only a few more days and then everything would change . . .

His chin lifted as he caught the first sound of the approaching plane. His ride. He tightened his grip on the case. Safe inside, the spool-shaped electrical device was protected by layers of heavy foam. It was the final piece they needed. Considering the contents, the scope of the destructive power it would trigger and unleash, it was surprisingly light.

As he turned toward the rough wooden door, the phone clipped to his belt vibrated. He pulled himself up even straighter as he answered.

He used his native Arabic to greet the caller. He listened for fifteen seconds and then he switched to almost perfect English. “It is landing as we speak.”

He listened again, and then said, “I have the small package with me, yes. Has the other package been delivered to the tinker?” The man was especially proud of the job he and his team had done in Jordan last fall to gain possession of it.

As he listened, his face relaxed. “Good. And the small package is on its way.”

Conversation over, he disconnected. The ancient caretaker was already busy burning trash and cuttings, and he would toss the phone into the fire before he boarded the plane.

He opened the door, stepping out into faint sunshine. The light was so beautiful a prayer came to him and he recited it softly—just as the plane began its descent to land.

Time to move to Phase II.

After viewing the True Jihad video and engaging in a detailed Q&A session with Hays and the French techs over what their analysis might yield, Vanessa had caught a ride with Jack back to the 6th Arrondissement. At her request, he’d dropped her at the Hôtel Pont Royal, just a few blocks from the intersection of Rue du Bac, Boulevard Raspail, and Boulevard Saint-Germain. She was desperately craving
un café express
and sustenance (something more than croissants, yogurt, cheese), and the hotel’s café made good sandwiches and had remained open through the curfew.

But in addition to her physical needs, she craved the deep solitude possible in a city under threat. The latest video had stirred up the most haunting images from yesterday. But the doubts were worse. Like invisible harpies, they screamed through her brain: What if they couldn’t stop the terrorists? What if she failed to make the right judgment calls? What if Bhoot was using her to throw intelligence off his trail?

She ducked out of the café before her order was ready, and then she stepped down a narrow alley and pressed her back against the
brick walls—waiting minutes until the voices finally dropped to a whisper and then went silent.

She’d opted not to take the shortest route back to the safe house and she made herself stick with the plan; a longer, indirect course offered the opportunity to make sure she wasn’t being followed. The suicide bomber had recognized her yesterday. If Bhoot wasn’t behind True Jihad, then someone else was aware of her true identity. Either way, it was bad.

When Vanessa walked into the dining room of the safe house, she immediately felt the collective tension and unrest.

Fournier stood at the head of the table, flanked by Aisha and Canard—a data sheet on the table in front of them. With Vanessa’s entrance, Aisha glanced up, her expression wary and sharp.

Khoury, Jack, and two others clustered around what Vanessa assumed was a copy of the data. Khoury acknowledged her with a nod and a look that was both pensive and preoccupied.

Fournier slid a printout to her across the table. “Our analysts isolated the dirty bomb’s radioactive signature,” he said with his usual terseness, “and they’ve linked it to a plant in Ukraine.”

“Where?” Vanessa asked, already scanning the values on the printout. “Which plant?”

“Lugansk region.” It was Aisha who had answered.

Vanessa looked up, meeting her eyes. “Which plant?”

Aisha’s gaze slid away and she shrugged. “A private reprocessing facility in Krasnyi Luch.” She pulled her shoulders back. “Familiar with it?”

Vanessa took a breath and a moment to remind herself not to get caught up in Aisha’s irksome and apparently endless pissing contest. She said, “After the collapse, and after the army deserted the storage bunkers that held uranium and other glowing parts, the Soviet nuke sites were stripped clean.”

All eyes were on her, but it still felt like a private conversation
between the only two women in the room. She said, “So now the army sites have been picked over and finally dismantled, but processing plants like the one in Luch continue to offer opportunities for thieves to sell off whatever they can steal.”

Aisha shrugged. “You’ve done some homework.”

“I’ve done my job. There are half a dozen operators from that region and they sell off scavenged radioactive waste from medical and industrial facilities, and Dieter Schoeman handled their trade for Bhoot before he was locked up. It was part of Dieter’s territory—and now his proxy handles things while he’s in prison.”

“It’s still
my
territory,” Aisha said, the edge in her voice marking a clear challenge.

“Fine,” Vanessa answered sharply; okay, maybe she wasn’t totally above a bit of brashness. She’d carried her dark mood in the door, and at the moment she didn’t care; it felt good to take it out on someone, especially Aisha. “Those guys in
your
territory will sell anything they can get their hands on—everything from X-ray machines to actual warheads.”

Aisha stared at Vanessa, her eyes gone eerily flat. “So?”

Vanessa crossed her arms. “So, just like that, you know which one of the dozen-plus scavengers, crooks, and small-time punks sold off this particular bit of nuclear waste?”

“No, but I’ll find out tonight from my asset. She’s a little broken bird, but she’s reliable,” Aisha said, crossing her arms, a mirror of Vanessa. “You know the Russian saying ‘The less you know, the better you sleep’?” Aisha’s mouth curled into a bitter smile. “I don’t sleep much.”

“Take Vanessa with you tonight,” Fournier said to Aisha.

Aisha instantly answered back in fast, regional French that was indecipherable to Vanessa. Except that she was clearly registering a protest.

“I thought we’re all part of a team,” Vanessa said, feeling both irritated and weary.

Aisha shrugged again. “I told Marcel that I don’t have time to babysit.”

“And I don’t have time for bullshit.” Vanessa shook her head. “I’m used to working with people who accord each other basic respect. You’re wasting everybody’s time with your attitude. I have other things to do.”

Aisha’s mouth tightened, but she managed a quick shift and offered a smile meant to be conciliatory—except it didn’t reach her eyes. “You’re right,” she said. “I’m sorry for the rudeness. Meet me by Brasserie Balzar on Rue des Écoles, at 0100. It’s close to the Sorbonne, only two Métro stops. It’s going to be a long night.”

“Fine.”

“And make sure you”—Aisha waved a hand, gesturing to Vanessa’s casual jeans and pullover sweater—“dress for clubbing, try to look a little sexy, so you don’t stand out.”