Homeland: Carrie's Run: A Homeland Novel (9 page)

CHAPTER 10

Glen Burnie, Maryland

She met Jimbo Abdel-Shawafi for an early lunch at a Chick-fil-A in a mall in Glen Burnie, just outside Baltimore. He had texted her: “ever had disabled sex?”

“can u get it up?” she’d texted back.

“4 u, I can try harder.”

“hard is the word im looking 4.”

“c u anyway? something u need 2 c.”

The redhead was waiting for her in his wheelchair at a table in the mall food court. It was early enough that the tables weren’t too crowded with shoppers grabbing a quick bite.

“Why here?” she asked.

“Far enough away from both our shops so we won’t run into anyone,” he said, leaning toward her. “Plus, access.” He indicated a wheelchair sign. “Besides, it’s cheap and I like the chicken sandwich,” he said, taking a bite.

“What’ve you got?” she asked, poking at a salad with a plastic fork.

“We reactivated tracking COMINT on all the phone numbers. I programmed my input streams to alert me if anything popped up. There were no messages of particular interest, so I decided just for the hell of it to run face-recognition software, especially on anyone taking interest in the U.S., and look what popped up.” He showed her a passport photo on a DS-160 online application form for a visitor’s visa, the kind foreigners use to come to the United States, on his laptop computer. She stared at it.

The hair was different. Instead of being long, black and sleek, it was short and streaked, but Carrie recognized her immediately. It was Dima. She’s alive, she thought excitedly.

“Is it her?” Jimbo asked, holding the original photo of Dima she’d given him next to the photo on the screen to compare.

“It’s her,” Carrie said, her heart beating fast.

“And this,” he said, showing her on his laptop. Displayed in another window on the screen was an airline reservation entry from Beirut to New York on British Airways with a stopover in London. Also, a Lebanese passport page and the DS-160. “As you can see by the passport and reservation, she’s using the cover name Jihan Miradi.”

“God,” she said. “I could kiss you.”

“Who’s stopping you?” He grinned.

She got up, came around the table and kissed him on the cheek.

“I think you missed the target,” he said.

“I like you, Jimbo. And I owe you, big-time. But I don’t want you to get the wrong idea.”

“Well, at least I got a peck on the cheek,” he said.

“For stuff like this, anytime. Any idea where she’s staying?”

He winked at her. “The reservation was made by a travel agency. Seems she’s alone.”

“Trust me, she’s not alone,” Carrie said. She said it without thinking, but now that she thought about it, it was true.

“Have a look,” he said, showing her a copy of the airline reservation. It was made by Unicorn Travel on Rue Pasteur. She knew roughly where that was. In Beirut’s Central District, not far from the harbor. “She’s staying at the Waldorf Astoria in New York. She must have money.”

“Not her own. She knows how to get men to spend it on her,” she said.

“Not the only woman in the world who knows that trick.”

She looked at him sharply. “We’re not all like that,” she said. “Not even close.”

“Sorry. Didn’t mean that the way it came out.” Then he brightened. “Would I like her?” He grinned.

“You like anything in a skirt.” She smiled. “But yes, you’d like her. Definitely.”

Suddenly, it was as if all the cylinders in a slot machine stopped on sevens. Dima had set her up with Nightingale, who tried to grab or kill her. Dima had disappeared and now was suddenly surfacing in New York right after the rape and killings in Abbasiyah. Dima was here on an op. But for whom? GSD? Hezbollah? That didn’t make sense. If anyone was going to avenge Abbasiyah, it would be al-Qaeda. This had to have been set up before then. There’s a missing piece somewhere, she thought. And it’s in Beirut.

She looked at the airline and hotel reservations again. Dima was due in New York in four days. Estes had mobilized the entire CTC in anticipation of something aimed at the U.S. Saul had said the target would be either Washington or New York. Was this it?

What was happening at the Waldorf or anywhere in New York this week? She had to get back to her OCSA computer fast.

“Jimbo, thanks,” she said, putting her hand on his arm. “This is a big deal. Really.”

He looked at her. Blue eyes. He really did have beautiful eyes, she thought.

“Maybe we could get together sometime?” he asked.

She hesitated. “No.”

He took a deep breath and let it out. “It’s the chair, isn’t it?” He put both hands on the wheelchair’s armrests.

“Maybe a little,” she said, ducking her head. “Maybe more than a little. But that’s not it.”

“I don’t do it for you?” he said, looking away.

“I don’t know. I hate being put in this situation. That’s always a problem for a woman—and anyway, it’s beside the point.” She took a breath. “I like you, Jimbo. Thing is, I like you too much to screw you up—and that’s what I do. I know you think it’s bullshit, but trust me, I’m doing you a big favor.”

“Sounds like bullshit.” He frowned.

“It’s not. I’m not kidding. Besides, I’m kind of involved with someone,” she said, thinking of Estes.

“You’re a fantasy girl, you know, Carrie? You should let someone in. Here.” He handed her a flash drive with the data he’d shown her on it.

“I will, someday. But not today. This,” she said, getting up and showing him the flash drive, “is going to save lives. You did something important, cowboy.”

“Listen, there’s something else on the flash drive.”

“What?”

“I reinstituted tracking on those three cell phones of Fielding’s that had been deleted. Those are all the calls he’s made on them since. There are a bunch to a single number. A woman. I put the data on the flash.”

“You really are something,” she said, and kissed him on the forehead. “Thanks.”

“Glad to help. Listen, you be careful,” he said. “Not everybody likes this cross-agency communication. I’ve been warned.”

“Makes two of us,” she said, every fiber in her screaming to get back to Langley. She had to figure a way to turn Estes. What was it Saul had said with his vaguely Catholic turn of phrase? God, he knew her. Shades of Holy Trinity High. “Bring him to the light,” he’d said.

Dima was on her way, courtesy of British Airways, and if she couldn’t figure out a way to stop her, she was bringing death.

CHAPTER 11

F Street, Washington, DC

David Estes was already seated when Carrie walked into the brasserie at the Monaco, a boutique hotel with a columned façade and red awnings across the street from the National Portrait Gallery. The maître d’ looked at her, but she shook her head and went over to the bar. Estes was having dinner with a man who had the well-fed look of a congressman from a safe district, the kind who didn’t have to bottom-feed on K Street because the lobbyists would come to him.

She’d worn her sexiest outfit, a form-fitting sleeveless embroidered Terani, a midthigh minidress with a plunging neckline that left as little to the imagination as she could get away with. The second she walked over to the modernistic bar, three men jumped off their stools to make room for her. Nice little ego boost; guess the dress worked, she thought.

Back at Langley after lunch with Jimbo, it hadn’t taken thirty seconds to figure it out. There was a Republican Party fund-raiser at the Waldorf the day after tomorrow. The Vice-President, the governor of New Jersey and the mayor were the name draws. The obvious targets.

She couldn’t just turn it over to the FBI. They’d have to be briefed and in any case, she would have to be there in New York, she thought. For her, Dima wasn’t just a photo. She knew her. The problem was Estes and bringing him to the light.

The man whose stool she’d taken in the brasserie bar was distinguished, fortyish and graying, in an Armani suit. Odds-on a lobbyist. Ten-to-one he made his living selling something—or someone, she thought.

“K Street?” she asked.

He nodded, grinning like he’d just pulled the third ace to turn a high two pair into a full house.

“What are you drinking?” he said.

“Margarita, with Patrón Silver.”

He motioned to the bartender and gave him the order.

“Where do you work?” he asked.

“Foggy Bottom,” she said, meaning the State Department. “Just another paper pusher.” She shrugged and looked over at Estes’s table. “Who’s that man with the black guy? He looks like somebody I should know. Maybe from TV or something?” she said. Sometimes playing dumb was the smartest thing a girl could do, she thought.

“You don’t recognize him? That’s Congressman Riley. Hal Riley, chairman of the House Appropriations Committee. He’s a heavy hitter on the Hill.” He winked.

“You know him?” she asked, thinking if this guy’s ego got any bigger, he’d start to rise like the Goodyear blimp.

“Played golf with him on Tuesday,” Armani Suit said. “Good guy, but”—he leaned closer to whisper in her ear—“with him, every other shot is a Mulligan. What does that tell you?”

“That he cheats, like half the people in this town. I guess you really do know him,” she said, wondering how long it would be before Estes came over.

“Don’t know the African-American though,” Armani Suit said. “Probably deputy director of some bullshit agency.”

“I guess,” she said, watching Estes out of the corner of her eye, wondering if he’d spotted her yet. She hoped he would soon. Another twenty minutes and she’d have Armani Suit’s hand on her ass, whispering sweet nothings about a weekend in the Bahamas.

Estes looked up, spotted her, leaned over and said something to the congressman. He got up and came over to her at the bar.

“I was just telling the little lady—” Armani Suit started to say.

“What do you want?” Estes said to her, ignoring him. “Are you following me?”

“We need to talk,” she said.

He frowned. “This is unprofessional. We’ll talk tomorrow. At my office.” He turned away.

She grabbed at his sleeve. “No, now,” she said. “It’s urgent.”

“I’m with Congressman Riley. He’s—”

“I know who the hell he is,” Carrie interrupted. “Get rid of him.”

Estes looked at her, a muscle in his jaw twitching. He turned, went back to his table, said something to the congressman and the waiter, then came back to her.

“We can’t talk here. Let’s go,” he said, glancing at Armani Suit, then went to the rack and grabbed his coat. Carrie got hers and the two of them walked out of the restaurant into the hotel lobby. They walked over to one of the square columns near the gas-burning fireplace.

“This better be important,” he said. “I’m trying to convince that asshole that the bad guys are still around and not to gut us.”

“We can’t talk here either,” she said, glancing around. “Washington’s like a small town. I booked a room upstairs. We can talk there.”

Estes looked startled, then his features hardened. “Are you insane? What the hell is this?”

“This is business,” she said. “What do you think it is?”

“You better not be jerking me around, Carrie. I want to know what this is about. Are you stalking me?”

“Don’t be stupid. Why would I stalk you? I know where you work. C’mon,” she said, heading for the elevator. He watched her go, then, after a moment, followed.

They didn’t say anything in the elevator or in the corridor with its elegant patterned rugs and striped wallpaper. She unlocked the room and they went inside. He turned on the light, but she turned on a single lamp and clicked the ceiling light off.

“Now what the hell is this all—” he started to say, but couldn’t finish because she threw herself into his arms and kissed him.

He pulled her arms from around him. “If this is a setup, you are in more trouble than you can believe,” he said.

“Two things. Just two—and then you can fire me or do whatever the hell you want,” she said, holding up two fingers. “One. Dima, the contact who set me up for the snatch in Beirut, is alive. Dima who connected me with Nightingale, who by the way is in bed with Hezbollah, something your buddy Fielding didn’t tell you, and who tried to kill or kidnap me. Are you listening, David? I got that information from NSA, the people you ripped me a new one for just talking to. And she’s headed our way, right after Abbasiyah? Do the math.” She didn’t tell him where Dima was headed in case he tried to stop her.

“And two,” she said, coming close, pressing herself against him. “I want you. And this has nothing to do with work. You can have me and fire me afterward. I don’t care.”

“You know I’m married?”

“I don’t care if I burn in hell. I want you and as sure as I know anything, I know you want me too.”

She tried to kiss him, but he turned his face away, so she kissed his face again and again, reaching for his lips.

“Tell me you don’t want me,” she murmured. “Tell me you never once thought about this and I’ll stop and I’ll never come near you again, I swear.”

Her lips found his and they kissed long and hard. She bit his lower lip, tasting blood, and he pushed her away.

“Bitch!” he said, hand to his lip to wipe off the blood.

“I am. What are you going to do about it?” She leaped at him and kissed him hard, putting his hand on her breast. He was so much bigger that she had to stretch to reach, and she loved that about him. Pressing against him, she could feel his erection hard against her. “Tell me you haven’t wanted this,” she murmured.

“I admit it. I thought about it,” he whispered. She reached behind her to unzip her dress. She pulled the zipper down from the top, then reversed and pulled the zipper down the rest of the way and pulled off her dress. She stood before him in just her bra and bikini panties. She touched herself.

“My God, I’m wet. Do something,” she whispered, pulling him toward the bed. Through the window, they could see the museum lit up at night, white as an iceberg.

“This is a bad idea,” he said, starting to undress.

“Terrible,” she said in agreement.

“I’m going to regret this. We both are,” he said, his tie and shirt half-off.

“I know.”

“I won’t do it. I can’t,” he said, stopping, standing there, staring at the window.

“If you don’t want me, say the word and we’ll stop now,” she said, unhooking her bra and freeing her breasts. She lay on top of the bed, raised her hips, and pulled down her panties. “But I’m sick of being only half-alive,” she whispered. “Aren’t you? Or is the view so perfect from the good seats?”

“You’re a devil,” he said, pulling off his pants and jockey shorts and getting on top of her.

“Last chance to say no,” she whispered, reaching down for his penis to put it inside her. Heavy as he was, she wrapped her legs around his hips and pressed herself up against him. “Oh God,” she gasped as he pushed inside. “It’s been forever.”