Enemy In the Room (50 page)

As they approached the jet David saw a
single armed guard standing by the closed door at the back of the
fuselage on its left side. Before they reached the plane, the door
opened and a portable staircase automatically deployed. As they
parked next to the stairs, David could see another man, dressed in
a blue jeans and a Western shirt, starting down. When he reached
the ground he pulled a pistol, also carrying a silencer, from
inside his coat and opened David’s door.

“Get out,” he said and stepped back
slightly.

As David turned to exit, he heard Kamali
open his own door, and he knew that he had two guns trained on him.
He stood up and looked at the new man, who was expressionless.
Kamali came around the car, and said, “David, meet Victor Mustafin.
He’s going to take very good care of you.”

“I got an email from Knox,” Mustafin said.
Turning to David, he said, “So stupid!”

Kamali led the way. “I’ll go in first, and
then you follow our guest up the stairs.”

Still light-headed, David climbed the stairs
and ducked to enter the jet. Aft of the door was a single row of
seats, one on each side of the fuselage, as well as a galley and a
head. Forward, to the left, were more seats, all plush leather, one
on each side. About two-thirds of the way forward the aisle shifted
to the left, and there was a conference table on the right, with
four seats around it. Then there were two more seats and, finally,
the command console with its own chair, work station and computer
monitors. Kamali was standing up by the console and waved David
forward with his pistol. Behind him he heard Mustafin retract the
stairs and close the door. It was eerily quiet inside; the only
sound was that of the air conditioning running in the
background.

“Here. Take off your coat, then sit down.”
He motioned to the single seat to David’s right, facing forward,
between the conference table group and the command console. Kamali
nodded to Mustafin.

David slowly removed his coat and sat in the
single seat. While Kamali held his pistol near David’s face,
Mustafin took out a pair of handcuffs. “Give me your cell phone,
David.” He put the phone in his pants pocket and then locked one
cuff around David’s left wrist and the other through an opening in
the metal frame of the left armrest. He put the key in his other
pocket, pulled forcefully on the cuffs, and said to Kamali, “He
won’t be going anywhere.”

Kamali lowered his gun. “David, you’re a
fool. You had it made. Soon you’ll be dead. I hope you have lots of
insurance for those kids you suddenly care so much about.”

David felt a wave of nausea overtake him. He
was weak and lay back in the seat.

Kamali returned his gun inside his coat and
smiled, stepping aside to let Mustafin move forward to sit in the
chair at the command console. “We called the airline and cancelled
his reservation. We even told the lady that some pressing business
meetings had come up. Hopefully she’ll remember that.

“Victor, it’s all yours now for the last
act. I’ll join Knox after his lunch with the other business leaders
and President Harper. We’ll go over to the office early. The
missile team is reporting in by satellite every hour. North and
Beleborodov are ready to monitor the flight for the first thirty
minutes, when control passes to you, here. I’ll call you when the
Presidents leave the reception, in case it’s not on the live news.
Then Knox and I will drive back here as quickly as we can, and
we’ll depart—after leaving our former colleague here with your
friends. Except for Sawyer’s stupid move, everything seems to be
going as planned.”

Mustafin nodded. “Yes. But he’s just a small
bump. Do you have the GPS repeater?”

Kamali touched his coat pocket. “Yes. All
set.”

“Then have a good reception. Say hello to
both Presidents for me.”

Kamali moved down the aisle, pulled the
lever that opened the door and departed the plane. Mustafin
followed him and closed the door while Kamali sped off in the same
car that had brought them out.

It was late in California, but Kristen and
Callie spent over an hour on the phone with Elizabeth, who was
still in Rob’s hospital room. In between asking about Rob’s latest
tests, Callie told her mother everything, from the videos with Alex
to her call that evening with her father. Kristen passed on to
Elizabeth the terrible news from David about Omid, and Elizabeth
asked them both many questions. There were tears and smiles on the
call, and Kristen finished by telling Elizabeth that they hoped to
be home the next afternoon.

While Callie got ready for bed, Kristen
called the airline to book two seats out of LAX in the morning.

As Kamali drove off to meet Knox, Mustafin
walked past David, who had not moved, and sat at the console. He
depressed some buttons, and USNet’s live news came up on one of the
smaller monitors to the left of the console.

Mustafin swiveled around so that he was
facing David. “Can you see that monitor? European version of our
news. Looks like they’re outside the lunch meeting, which will soon
start at the U.S. Embassy. You’ll want to watch the news closely
later today.” He smiled.

David’s nausea had subsided, and he’d tried
to follow what Kamali and Mustafin had been talking about, but he
wasn’t sure. He looked at Mustafin, about six feet in front of him.
“Missile? What missile were you and Kamali talking about?”

Mustafin smiled. “Good, David. I wasn’t sure
you were listening. You look a little ill. It’s the missile we’re
going to use to take out both Presidents. You see, that move to
Mexico for your daughter probably won’t have to take place after
all, and the news of your death in Moscow will be small potatoes
because this afternoon, after the reception, President Harper will
cease to exist. For someone in our businesses, that’s great news,
don’t you think?”

“Are you serious?”

“Absolutely! Why do you think we wanted to
get Harper over here, and to our reception?”

“But…she’s so well guarded.”

“Yes, she is. But not from an enemy you
can’t see until it’s too late. A cruise missile in its final homing
stage. Pretty ingenious, don’t you think? And, most importantly,
we’ll rid the world of two crusaders, two enemies of Allah!”

“What are you talking about?”

“What Mr. Knox, Akbar and I do with RTI.
Making money is only a small part. It’s true that we don’t
influence outcomes,
unless
they advance Allah’s kingdom on
earth. Then we are glad to.” Mustafin smiled.

“I don’t understand.”

“Since no one else will ever talk with you
and you have a front row seat, I’ll tell you. We share our RTI
intelligence, when appropriate, with patriots, mullahs and
jihadists around the world. With this capability, the West and
Christendom will fall, destroyed from within and without. What a
glorious moment it will be when the first European government votes
to install Sharia Law!”

“You share RTI with Islamic terrorists?”

“Not terrorists, David. Allah’s holy
warriors.”

“Where?”

“Wherever it can be useful, and we can mask
the actual source. London, Detroit, Iran, Somalia, Yemen…anywhere,
really.”

“Iran? Have you been sharing my phone calls
to my cousin Omid with the mullahs?”

“Yes, but probably not for too long. Ever
since you told Akbar about helping your cousin. Since then we’ve
been using his calls to follow and gain information on his whole
group. Thank you for the tip.”

“You killed him.”

Mustafin shrugged. “A traitor to Iran, Islam
and Allah. And, again, thanks for your help.”

When David didn’t answer, Mustafin
continued. “And, by the way, this will not be the only missile
today. A couple of hours after the Presidents and their advisors
are killed, we have two martyrs, one on each coast, who will bring
down two commercial airline flights, also using missiles. At JFK in
New York, and in Los Angeles. Lots of fireworks for the Fourth,
don’t you think? The coverage should be quite good, but I’m afraid
that by then we’ll be on the way, and you’ll be in the hands of our
friends. We’ll probably have to divert to Canada, but I guess our
discomfort will be less than yours.”

He smiled and swiveled back to face the
console and brought up the main menu, then punched in some numbers
and brought up a map of Europe, which he slowly focused until it
showed only Moscow inside the Ring Road. With the push of another
button, the box that tracked their USNet ID card repeaters appeared
in the top right corner of the screen. It had six blank boxes, and
Mustafin scrolled in 654321. As David watched from his seat behind
Mustafin, a small white blip appeared in the lower left hand
corner, moving northeast.

“Kamali is inside the Ring Road, headed
toward the center. See? The repeater he’s carrying is working
perfectly. We decided to use a missile countdown for its code.”

He swiveled back to face David. “And now you
know that we have to kill you. You’ve seen too much in the last
hour to let you live. You should have left well enough alone.” Then
he turned back and continued to increase the resolution on the map
read-out.

David’s initial weakness and nausea were
wearing off, and he no longer felt so light-headed. He looked
around.
I’m cuffed to a chair with madmen bent on killing our
President, and me
.

I’ll never see my family again. Never hold
Elizabeth. All the things I wanted to do. To make a difference. Now
I won’t. I wish I could talk to the kids. I wonder what it will be
like to die. Will there be a ‘boom’? Pain? Where will my soul go? I
wish I’d had more time with Kristen so she could explain that. I
think I should try to pray.

God, I’m trying to believe in your power
because of what I’ve seen in Kristen’s life—and now in Callie’s.
You must be real, as Kristen says you are. Thank you for Callie
forgiving me…and for her willingness to come home. And for Rob.
Please, God, I don’t want to die like this. I want to know more
about you and your son, as Kristen explained to me. I don’t know
exactly what to say—but I want you in my life—to save my soul.
Because of what you’ve done, I do believe in you. Please forgive me
for all the things I’ve done. To Elizabeth, our children, others.
Please change me. Save our President. And those people on the
airplanes. Save our family. Save Todd.

Several hours went by. Over Mustafin’s
shoulder, David watched USNet’s European edition, which included
occasional live coverage of the historic Moscow Presidential visit.
And every hour on the hour there was a short message on the main
screen about the operational readiness of the missile.

At one point David convinced Mustafin that
he had to go to the bathroom. The Kazakh blanked the monitors,
called in the armed guard from outside and stationed him at the
back of the plane. Then he handed David the handcuff key and told
him to unlock his wrist, all the while holding the gun at his
chest. David then walked to the head, both guns on him, and was
allowed to relieve himself without privacy. As soon as he was
reseated, Mustafin locked the cuff around his now chafed wrist,
repocketed the key, and stationed the guard outside again.

After the four o’clock readiness check,
Mustafin made a video call to what appeared to be two men in a
command center. They talked about the weather, which was clear over
Moscow, and the missile team, which David eventually decided were
Russians.

While they talked, David again looked
around.
I have to get free! I can’t just let them kill the
Presidents, so many others, and me without trying to do something.
But I’m a real estate guy, not a commando. What do I know about
escape and fighting? God, please help me. If I die, I want it to
count for something—to save others. Are they going to blow up the
reception?
But nothing, no plan, formed in his mind, as he
pulled again on the handcuff that fixed him to his chair, and the
time wound down.

At USNet’s new Russian headquarters,
preparations were in their final stages for the upcoming visit.
Peter Goncharov stood in the middle of the upstairs meeting room,
surveying the final checklist with his assistant. Knox was
downstairs, greeting their early guests.

As their security head walked by, Peter
again asked him to check on whether anyone at the hotel had seen
David Sawyer since he left Mr. Knox’s room that morning. The man
stopped and talked on his special phone. Peter noticed that the
answer took some time and that the man nodded several times. When
he hung up, he turned back to Peter.

“They say that no one can be sure, but they
think he got into a Mercedes shortly after Mr. Knox last saw him.
If it was him, the bellman cannot remember anything about his
destination. The interesting news is that the airline confirms that
Sawyer called early this morning and made a reservation to fly
today
, but then called back a few hours later and cancelled.
So they have no further idea.”

“That’s really strange. Thank you. Please
let me know if you hear anything.”

Peter finished with his assistant, glanced
again at the large photos of their early operation, and decided
that it all looked pretty good. He went downstairs, and, after
politely waiting for a break in the conversation which Knox was
having with a large Russian businessman—through an
interpreter—Goncharov said, “Mr. Knox, there’s still no word on
David, or why he’s not here.”

Knox looked disturbed. “What could have
happened to him?”

“I don’t know.” Then he recounted the
airline information.

“Home today? That doesn’t make any sense. We
just arranged for him to fly home with us tonight. We talked about
his role at the reception, and I asked him to join us in the
receiving line. He left us quite happy. You saw him at breakfast.
Did he seem like he was about to go home and miss this event?”