Collateral Damage (16 page)

“Oh, I will,” Jasmine said, accepting the passport and tucking it into her bag. She rolled her bag through customs, unimpeded, and emerged into a large hall where a group of livery drivers held up signs with their passengers’ names on them, one for Ms. Avery. She handed the handle of her case to the driver and walked alongside him.

“Good flight?”

“Perfectly normal,” Jasmine replied.

“Our people will be glad to see you.”

“And I, them,” she said.

She settled in the rear of the black Lincoln sedan and took a deep breath. She had slept remarkably well in first class and felt ready to greet the day.

Two changes of cars later she was set down at the curb in front of a pretty town house in the West Forties with geraniums growing in window boxes.

“Basement,” her driver said, then drove away.

She walked down a few steps, towing her case, then under the main stairs to a heavy door and rang the bell. She looked up into a surveillance camera and smiled.

A moment later the door opened and a fashionably dressed, middle-aged man in a business suit let her in. “Welcome to New York,” he said. “I am Habib.”

“Everybody’s Habib,” she said, then rolled her case into the apartment. It was bigger than she had thought it would be, with a large living room with a dining alcove. Habib took her case and rolled it to the rear of the apartment, showing her the bedroom.

“Do you need to sleep?” he asked.

“I need to blow up something,” she replied.

“I’ll be at the dining room table when you’re ready.”

Jasmine hung up a few clothes and put some things away, then returned to the front of the building and sat down at the dining table.

Habib unrolled a map of the city. “There are a number of potential targets,” he said, and they discussed each.

“I want the CIA station on the Upper East Side,” she said.

Habib tapped his finger on the map. “It’s right here. We’ve been surveilling it.”

“Do they have an underground garage?”

“Yes, but it’s well guarded.” He showed her some photographs of the building. “There’s a steel door with a keypad. Cars have to be admitted from the inside. The security station and barrier are about eight feet into the building,” Habib said. “Covered by armed guards.”

“Good,” she said. “I like armed guards. Do you have a person to deliver?”

“I have two,” Habib said. “A young man and a young woman.”

“What sort of accent does the young man have?”

“American. He was born in Pakistan but came here at the age of two with his parents.”

“The young man, then. I want him to drive a black Lincoln like the one that met me at the airport. It has a very large trunk, so we can maximize the size of the device. You have a reliable bomb builder?”

“I am the bomb builder,” Habib replied, “and my devices are very reliable. I have one ready to go. I need only add more plastique to fill the trunk.”

“I want cell phone activation,” she said, “and I want to be here.” She tapped a spot on the map around the corner from the garage entrance. “In a New York yellow taxi.”

“I will drive you,” he said. “I think it is best you do not try to make an escape by car. Immediately after the detonation, the streets will become impassable. There is a subway station here.” He tapped the map. “You should take the subway twenty stops downtown, to here.” He moved his finger downtown. “Another car will meet you there and bring you up the West Side to this house. I will supply you with a Metrocard.”

“Excellent,” she said.

“Why do you want to observe the attack?” he asked.

“Because it will give me pleasure,” she replied. “Let’s execute during rush hour tomorrow morning. Is that feasible?”

“Perfectly. We have only to obtain the two vehicles, which will be done tonight.”

“Good. Now I will have some food and a nap.”

—

Stone and Holly were sitting up in bed having a full English breakfast from a room-service cart. The TV was on the morning news, and the news was of heavy fog in London, preventing most flights.

“Looks like we might be stuck here another day,” Holly said.

“I can handle that,” Stone replied. “We can just keep ordering room service.”

“Stone, you are always good in bed, but last night was really something.”

“Takes two,” Stone replied, biting into a muffin.

The phone rang, and Holly answered. “Yes?”

“It’s Inspector Harry Tate,” a male voice said.

“Good morning, Inspector.”

“I thought you might like a report on the raincoat we took from your State Department’s personnel office.”

“Yes, indeed.” She motioned to Stone to pick up the phone on his side, then put a finger to her lips.

“The coat was unremarkable—a cheap knockoff of a Burberry raincoat, and we got nothing from the coat itself.”

“Was there something else?”

“There was a lipstick in one pocket,” Tate said. “The fingerprints were smudged, but we got enough DNA for a match. If we get her, we can place her at the office definitively.”

“Very good, Inspector,” Holly said. “Would you be kind enough to get the DNA profile to our FBI?”

“Of course, and to Langley, too.”

“That’s very kind of you.”

“Is there anything else we can do for you?”

“A latitude and longitude on Jasmine Shazaz would be very nice.”

“The moment we get it. Good morning.” He hung up.

Stone and Holly hung up, too. “I suppose that’s progress of a kind,” he said.

“Yes,” Holly replied. “Now we’ll be able to positively identify her remains.”

“That’s pretty cold of you,” Stone said.

“Yes, it is,” Holly said. “I find myself getting colder about these things.”

Jasmine sat in the rear of her stolen taxicab, leaning against a door and looking out the rear window toward the building on the corner behind her.

Habib’s cell phone rang. “Yes? Thank you.” He hung up and turned around. “The car is one minute out,” he said.

“You gave the driver my instructions?”

“Yes. When he rings the bell he is to say that his passenger is Director Katharine Lee.”

“Good. Now let’s move down the street to the end of this block. I’ll still be able to see the garage door from there, and I don’t think we want to be this close.”

“As you wish.” Habib put the idling taxi into gear and rolled down the street. As he stopped, a young woman walked up to the cab and rapped on the front passenger window.

Jasmine stiffened. “What does she want?”

Habib rolled down the window and accepted a shopping bag from the young woman, then he rolled up the window, and she walked away. He turned around and handed Jasmine the shopping bag. “Cover,” he said. “Purchases from Bloomingdale’s made a few minutes ago, complete with receipts.”

“Good,” Jasmine said, breathing a sigh of relief. She looked out the rear window. “Here comes our package,” she said.

The black Lincoln turned into the driveway of the corner building, blocking the sidewalk. She watched as the driver’s window slid down and a hand reached out toward the metal box cantilevered toward arriving cars. Half a minute’s wait ensued, then the garage door rolled up, and the Lincoln drove inside. Suddenly, flashes of light came from the garage, and she heard automatic weapons fire. She pressed the speed dial button on her cell phone. Seconds later, a roar of sound and flame erupted from the garage, engulfing pedestrians and cars on the street.

“Go,” Jasmine said, but she did not stop looking out the window. “The building didn’t collapse,” she said.

“Perhaps it is strongly reinforced,” Habib replied, putting the cab into gear and turning downtown at the next corner. “Subway coming up on your right,” he said.

She handed him the cell phone. “Dispose of this,” she said, then hipped her way across the backseat and got out of the cab, which immediately drove away. She saw the off-duty sign on top go on.

Jasmine walked down into the subway station, inserted her Metrocard in the slot, and made her way through the turnstile. She had stood on the platform for less than a minute when the train arrived, and a flood of people got off. She waited for them to clear the car, then got on and took a seat. She checked her pulse: seventy-two, not bad. She began taking slow, deep breaths, and she noticed that she felt wet between her legs. The train rolled out of the station; after it had traveled only a few yards the lights went out in the car and the train squealed to a halt. Probably a momentary power failure, she thought, but it turned out not to be momentary. She sat in the car for perhaps five minutes when she realized that the train had probably been deliberately stopped.

A uniformed policeman entered the car from ahead. “Stay in your seats, please. This is a police stop. We’ll get moving again as soon as we can.”

The train had stopped for her, she realized. She opened her bag and removed the wallet Habib had given her the night before, containing a New York ID and several hundred dollars in cash. For just a moment, she considered trying to get the car door open and fleeing down the tunnel, but she restrained herself.

They sat there quietly in the dark for another seven or eight minutes, then the lights came back on, but the train still did not move. She looked out the window and saw flashlights playing on the wall of the tunnel, and a moment later the door to the car behind her opened, and four men, two of them uniformed policemen, came into her car.

“Listen up, everybody.” He held up a badge. “We are New York City police officers, and we are going to check the ID of everybody on this car,” he said. “Now sit quietly and keep your hands where we can see them. Get out your ID and be prepared to show it.”

Jasmine took the wallet from her large purse and removed the New York State driver’s license from it. The cops worked their way down the car, checking IDs, and finally stopped in front of her.

A detective took the driver’s license from her hand and compared the photo on it with her face. “What’s your address?” he asked.

“Five-ninety Park Avenue,” she said, reciting the address on the license.

“Where did you get on the train?”

“At the last station.”

“Where were you before that?”

“At Bloomingdale’s,” she said, holding up her shopping bag.

He dipped into it and came up with a cashmere scarf and some panty hose. “Handbag?” he said.

She opened her handbag and held it up to him. He rummaged in it for a moment. Then stepped away. “Thank you for your cooperation,” he said, then moved on to the next passenger.

Another half an hour passed before the train began to move again. Jasmine picked up a discarded
New York Post
from the seat beside her and began to read it. She was safe.

—

She got off at the specified stop and looked around. A young man lounging against a Toyota sedan stood up straight and looked at her. She walked toward him.

“Ms. Avery?” he asked.

“Yes,” she replied.

He held open the car door for her, and she got in.

He turned right at the next corner. “We’re going over to the West Side Highway,” he said. The East Side is all screwed up with traffic.”

“I understand,” she replied.

The driver made his way across town slowly. “The traffic is always like this,” he said. “Nothing unusual.”

“Fine.”

—

Twenty minutes later, he drove past the safe house slowly, and they both looked for signs of police. He let her off at the next corner and she walked back to the house, careful not to hurry. She went to the basement door and rang the bell.

The door opened almost immediately, and Habib let her in. “Everything all right?”

“Perfectly normal. There was one surprise: they stopped the subway train. It must be part of their plan after an attack.”

“That’s new to us.”

“The Bloomingdale’s bag was a brilliant idea. It may have saved me from further interrogation.”

“Thank you. I believe we’re safe in this house, no need to move you again.”

“I’ll take a day or two off before we begin again,” she said.

Holly was awakened by the flight attendant, who was holding a tray. “Some lunch?”

“Thank you,” Holly replied. Stone was already eating his.