Dead Zero (43 page)

FOUR SEASONS HOTEL

SUITE 500

M STREET NW

WASHINGTON, DC

1800 HOURS

The suit—bespoke from Jay Kos, New York, dark gray lightweight Italian silk—fit superbly but with a muted elegance, too light for a funeral, too dark for a nightclub, perfect. Cuff links, gold, by Tiffany, thank you very much.

Glory to you, oh Allah, and yours is the praise.

The socks: Egyptian cotton, black, John Weitz. The shoes, again bespoke, from GJ Cleverley, Jermyn Street, London SW1. The tie, red, with small, subtle checks of gold, by Anderson & Sheppard, also Jermyn Street, London SW1. The shirt, bespoke of course, blindingly white, the white of movie star teeth, Anderson & Sheppard, Jermyn Street, London SW1.

In the name of God, the Infinitely Compassionate and Merciful, praise be to God, lord of all the worlds, the Compassionate, the Merciful, Ruler on the Day of Reckoning.

Cologne: Chanel. Mousse: Revlon cosmetics. Fingernail polish (clear): Revlon cosmetics. Underwear: 100 percent silk, Anderson & Sheppard, Jermyn Street, London SW1.

You alone do we worship, and you alone do we ask for help. Guide us on the straight path, the path of those who have received your grace, not the path of those who have brought down wrath, nor of those who wander astray.

Jewelry: gold diamond ring, Cartier; gold necklace with Islamic talisman in 24-carat gold, Jacques du Ritz; watch . . . watch? Watch?

I seek refuge in Allah from Satan, the Accursed. God is great.

The watch: black plastic, Casio DW5600E-1V G-Shock classic digital, Walmart, $37.95.

“Sir, the limousine to the White House has arrived.”

FBI HQ

FBI INTERROGATION SUITE 101

HOOVER BUILDING

PENNSYLVANIA AVENUE

WASHINGTON, DC

1900 HOURS

Okay, Jim, just a second.” He covered the mouthpiece. “Jim Stanford is head of counterespionage, DC. His people monitor, follow, infiltrate, tap, whatever, various ‘diplomatic’ initiatives here in the capitol.” He went back to the phone. “Jim, I’m with my staff now trying to figure out what’s going on with this guy. Can I put you on speaker?”

“Sure, sure,” said Jim and waited while Nick tried to figure out the phone, couldn’t, and a young agent came over and pushed the necessary buttons.

“Okay, Jim, you’re on loud and clear, go ahead please.”

“A week ago you sent out a confidential e-mail request to all coalition intelligence services with offices in DC embassies asking for any updates they came across on Ibrahim Zarzi, right?”

“I did. I got nothing out of it. But frankly, I expected nothing out of it, I did it to cover my ass in case later anyone said, ‘Why didn’t you blah blah.’”

“Understood. But of course Mossad got it from a dozen or so sources.”

“They’re pretty good, huh?”

“Not since the hot days of the Cold War and the classic KGB operators have I seen guys so good.”

“Cool.”

“You probably knew that. But here’s what you don’t know. The Israelis have a guy at the Four Seasons.”

“Wow.”

“He’s contract, probably would work for anybody, but he’s real good too, freelancer, keeps tabs on diplomatic guests whose policies might have a bearing on Israel.”

“Got it.”

“He told them, they told me, and now I’m telling you something that may or may not have some significance.”

“We’re listening.”

“A week or so ago, Zarzi was in a very strange mood. This is a cosmopolitan man, mind you, with the tastes of a Saudi prince and the morals of an alley cat.”

“We’re aware of that.”

“But he does this very odd thing. He offers a servant a choice between two watches. As a gift. Never done that before, never done that since, not known for that, a parsimonious man who tips the minimum and basically treats staff like cattle.”

Nick looked around at the people in the room.

“These two watches were both expensive. But one was really expensive. It was one of these custom jobs, a Paul Berger—Paul makes twelve or so a year, the big richies love them, it takes a fifteen-year wait to get one, that sort of thing, and it doesn’t keep time any better than a Timex, maybe even worse. It probably costs a hundred thousand or so. Of course the kid chose the wrong one, even if it was a nice watch, but the larger issue is: what the fuck?”

“Yeah,” said Nick, “what the fuck?”

“Maybe it fits into a pattern, I don’t know. Maybe it’s just a tell on his psychology of the moment. But it’s so out of character for this actor. That’s all. Thought you should know.”

“And you’re sure on this?”

“I am. My guy is one hundred percent with me. He does me, I do him, you know.”

“I got you. Thanks, Jim.”

He put the phone down, faced a dozen bewildered faces.

“So?”

Nobody said a thing.

Then, of course, Swagger: “A guy like him only gets rid of wordly treasure when he’s preparing to die. No other reason.”

“Well, then wouldn’t he dump it all?” said Nick. “Not just a selective, tiny percentage?”

“He knows if he did that, it would be noticed. This is ‘symbolic,’ or some crap that an egghead psycho nutcase like him would take as ‘symbolic.’ He’s the kind of asshole who needs symbols.”

“It’s a reach,” said Nick. “There’s nothing solid there.”

“He’s dumping his shit because he’s getting ready to blow himself up. And the president and the cabinet and the head of the CIA and all those generals, all of them, along with him. Tonight’s the night, this is the hour, and the minute is very close.”

“Impossible,” said Susan. “Not merely because of the exhaustive psychological penetration we’ve put him through, but also because White House security is extraordinary and there’s no way at all he can get an explosive beyond it. Even if he’s swallowed it or, excuse me, had it anally implanted, he will be examined and x-rayed, he agreed to that. He can’t be cleaner.”

“Then why’s he passing off watches to peons?” asked Bob. “It ain’t a bit like him.”

“Possibly he had an erectile dysfunction,” said Susan, “and he couldn’t find his Viagra and he was really depressed at his failure and in that vulnerable mood he uncharacteristically gave something of value to a servant. Been known to happen.”

“It’s not really actionable, Nick,” said Chandler. “Provocative, as Mr. Swagger says, but not actionable. I’d hate to take it to the White House.”

Nick glanced at his watch. “Practically speaking, there isn’t time to take it to the White House. They’re committed to this event, it’s already starting, we’d only get the duty officer and it would never reach the president. Anyhow, Chandler, pick an office and make the call with our recommendation that the event be canceled. Just so we’re
on the record.”

“Yes, sir,” said Chandler, trundling off.

“Now what?” Nick said.

“Well, well, well,” said Susan.

“What?”

She pointed to one of the many monitors in the room; this was a security feed from the White House, just beyond the 15th Street entry, where all guests were wanded, prodded, poked, sniffed, and inappropriately touched to make sure they weren’t carrying any fizzing, bowling-ball-like cordite bombs.

“It’s the man himself. Can you rewind and show the last ten seconds?” she asked. “Number 5, the center screen. Go back to 1745 or something.”

Nick said, “Someone young, make it happen.”

A couple of junior agents scurried off, and in seconds the images on monitor number 5 began to run backward until they reached 1745, at which point they froze, showing a blur, then lurched forward.

The crew in the room watched as an obedient Ibrahim Zarzi allowed himself to be probed, etc., etc.

“There. Stop,” she cried, and the image froze.

It caught Zarzi with his hands up, his elegant suit momentarily drooping sloppily from the awkwardness of the position. His hands above his head as someone blurrily waved the metal-seeking wand across his body, his sleeves fallen back under the power of gravity. The angle, from slightly behind him, was such that his watch was displayed.

“Well, unless I miss my guess, that’s no fifteen-hundred-dollar Cartier, much less a Berger hundred-thousand-dollar model. It looks more like something you’d pick up in a Seven-Eleven,” she said, as if someone as elegant as Susan, much less Zarzi, had ever been in a 7-Eleven.

“Some kind of big, ugly plastic junk,” said Nick. “Again, unlike him.”

“Very unlike him,” she said.

“If he’s getting ready to do something nuts, the way his mind works,
he wouldn’t wear a good watch,” said Bob.

“Very good catch, Ms. Okada. But . . .”

“But so what, you’re saying? Maybe Swagger is right. It’s an indicator.”

“Nick,” said ever-rational Starling, back from her call to the White House, “it is another indicator. But it sure as hell isn’t actionable. This is very touchy stuff, seeing as he’s an official State Department guest, under their protection.”

“I don’t see how I can do anything on that,” said Nick. “Let’s note it, and it goes into the CIA file, just in case this turns out real bad.”

The monitor reverted to real time, and it now displayed the actual time, 1814.12 and emptiness at the security point. Other monitors showed something else: all the heads and swells were gathered in the Rose Garden in the warm late summer evening, and in a few minutes the president would come to the podium, make a few kissy-kissy comments, call Ibrahim Zarzi to the podium and present him with the Freedom Medal as a ringing endorsement of his commitment to America, to democracy, to the joint future of their countries, to the friendship of Islam and the West, to a bright and bloodless tomorrow. Then it was over. A few minutes and it was over.

Nick thought:
It is not going to happen. It is too fantastic. There is nothing he can do.

And then he thought:
That’s what everybody said on 9/10 as well. They are cunning assholes. They are not smart, but they figured out how to destroy a nation’s confidence and plunge the world into extended decades of darkness with $19 worth of X-acto knives.

What the fuck do I do?
he wondered.
Pray for a miracle?

“All right,” said Swagger, “I got a last little card to play.”

THE WHITE HOUSE

THE ROSE GARDEN

FREEDOM MEDAL PRESENTATION CEREMONY

1922 HOURS

How lovely it was. The flowers seemed endless, their blossoms bright even in the declining light of late summer. A kind of ambrosia filled the air, and there was just a tint of pink glow over the looming silhouette of the Executive Office Building.

The America that counted was here. The president, so charismatic that he even outshone the glowing Zarzi, his wife; the vice president, his wife; and all the others in suits and uniforms: chairmen, joint chiefs of staff; the service chairmen; the director of the Central Intelligence Agency; a dozen powerful senators, some even from the other party in the spirit of ecumenicalism; the cream of the liberal punditocracy from the great papers of the East Coast; the television heads, hair shellacked unto perfection; a variety of Washington-style women, all of whom seemed to have that tawny elegance over slender legs; and an audience consisting of dragooned staffers from the Administration, a sea of littles well primed to clamor and go wow for the TV cameras. All were gathered here to sell the world an important message: this man counts. This man we trust. This is the man who will bring us peace. This is the man we can work with. This is the man who understands. He is, well and truly, our man in Kabul.

He bowed as the president slid the ribbon necklace over his head, and he felt the weight of the huge gold disk added to his neck.

Oh the indignities to arrive at this moment: wanded, x-rayed, touched, even probed. Subjected to chemical tests, sniffed by dogs and men, touched again, touched yet again. But he had signed up for that; it was the price of the moment.

The president finished, speaking so eloquently as was his gift, of a vision of a world without IEDs and young men of any faith bleeding out in the dirt of a far-off country, and then stepped back to hand the lectern over to the Glorious Zarzi for some brief remarks.

FBI HQ

FBI INTERROGATION SUITES

HOOVER BUILDING

PENNSYLVANIA AVENUE

WASHINGTON, DC

1923 HOURS

They all looked at him.

“Let’s hear it,” said Nick.

“I want you to run a search, Google, or super FBI Google, some high-tech, high-speed data search on the following. See what links there are between our friend Dixson in there thinking he’s a hero and the director of National Intelligence, that guy Ted Hollister.”

“Why?”

“Dixson’s clearly in on this, whatever this is. But he only knows so much and nothing more. He’s told us everything and he thinks he’s a hero. And he ain’t heavy enough to go beyond what he’s done. He knows about the contractors and the policy and that’s it. I got an inkling from something Hollister said at that meeting he might know a little bit more than we think about all this.”

“Swagger,” said Susan, “Hollister was long gone from the Agency before Jared was even recruited.”

“Please. I can’t explain, ticktock, ticktock, time’s wasting. Please: check it out. He said something he shouldn’t have said at the meeting. Let me just see if there’s a link.”

Nick nodded. “Youth movement, prove your worth,” he ordered.

Young people stirred and hustled. Time crept by. Up on the monitors, from a dozen angles, the U.S. Army band played “The Star-Spangled Banner” in the Rose Garden, and men and women stood with hands on hearts or at perfect salute in tribute to their country.