Liberty (26 page)

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Authors: Stephen Coonts

BOOK: Liberty
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Tonight the president and first lady were flanked by senior congressional leadership as they shook hands and schmoozed about the issues of the day with the leaders of America's major corporations. Money was not mentioned. There were pledge cards on the little table by the door, but that was about it. Anyone curious about how the donated funds were going to be spent could note on the card that he or she would like a call from the foundation staff during business hours.
The folks who were “in,” though, got a personal briefing from the first lady, who liked to discuss color schemes and furniture. While Lauren Corrigan hovered with three other women near the first lady, T.M. mixed and mingled with the movers and shakers.
The important thing at these functions, he thought, was to be seen as belonging. Say little, listen, be pleasant, and be accepted as “one of us.” He circulated, he spoke to the right people, he greeted people he hadn't seen in a while, he introduced himself to people he didn't know,
all in a way subtly designed to welcome them to the group to which he belonged
. That was the art of it, which he had worked for years to acquire.
The commodity being bought and sold was not antique
furniture, carpets, or wall treatments. Oh no. The commodity was access to power. Everyone in the room knew it, and everyone got a little tingle from the thought that he or she was standing dead center on the hub of the universe.
Thayer Michael Corrigan got more than a tingle—he ate it with a spoon. His whole life had been spent on a journey to this place. Standing here now sipping a very dry chardonnay, chatting with two senators and the chairman of one of the largest corporations on earth, he was pleasantly surprised when the president appeared at his elbow, squeezed it as he spoke to the group, and pulled him gently away for a private conversation.
“I've been hearing good things,” the president said softly, so softly that Corrigan had to bend down slightly to hear. “But we need more of the latest radiation detectors, and we need them as soon as you can get them built.”
“I'll do what I can, Mr. President.”
“I wouldn't even mention it on a social occasion, but the matter is urgent. The need is great. This is our country we're talking about, T.M.”
“I understand, sir.”
“Knew you would.” The president patted his arm twice, then moved on.
A waiter walked by with whiskey, so Thayer Michael helped himself. He sampled the amber liquid. Oh, my, yes! Tasted great, and warmed you all the way down. When T.M. finished the first glass, he stepped six feet to the nearest waiter with a tray and helped himself to another.
Yeaaaah, this is the place, the summit of Mount Olympus. From here you can see the little people digging and scratching for a living, see the stupidities and follies, see yesterday and tomorrow, watch the galaxies spin. Zeus on his mountaintop and God in his heaven never had it any better, and that's a goddamn fact!
How happy can one man be?
Tommy Carmellini could smell the shit. His bowels had moved, and he hadn't even known it. The sun was up and light was again leaking into the hangar where he lay. Not a sunbeam, just light.
His feet felt hot, painfully hot, but there was nothing he could do about it. The lime in the concrete must be burning his skin.
He worked hard at focusing his eyes. Could he see better?
He told himself he could, that his vision was coming back. If his visual acuity returned, the drug was wearing off. Soon he would be able to move. He would kill those two greasy sons of bitches, strangle them with his own hands. He would be waiting when they returned, snap their necks like twigs.
The anger ran through him like hot lava. Oh, what he would do to Arch Foster and Norv Lalouette. Just plain murder would be too easy for them. Oh, yes. He would strangle the life from them as he looked into their eyes.
Thinking of strangling, he tried to flex his fingers, make them move. That was the project, and he worked on it. Worked, worked, worked.
Of course, his fingers didn't move, the ceiling of the hangar was still slightly blurred, he couldn't even move his lips or close his mouth. But he had to. He had until tonight.
If he failed he would simply disappear, vanish like Richard Doyle … and God only knows how many others.
Jesus, his mom couldn't even collect his government life insurance for seven years. Wasn't that the time a missing person had to be gone before the government declared him dead? Funny he should think of that now. Pathetic, really.
Foster and Lalouette are even fucking over my mother, for Christ's sake!
As he tried to bend his fingers, he listened to the airplane noises, the noises of cars and people going about the business of life. While he lay here dying.
Without food and water he was gradually getting weaker. If Foster and Lalouette gave him another injection when this one began to wear off, he would lie here paralyzed until he died of thirst. His heart would eventually stop when his blood got too thick.
But he didn't have that kind of time. They were coming back tonight to load him on a plane and take him somewhere—probably over the ocean—and dump him out. Concrete shoes. Foster was right—the impact with the water would probably kill him. The concrete would take his corpse to the bottom, where it would never be found.
He kept trying to flex his fingers and move his tongue. Futilely. The drug held him firmly in its death grip.
On Sunday morning Toad asked Jake, “How'd it go last night, Admiral?” Jake hadn't mentioned last night's summons, but naturally Toad knew.
“I still have a job.”
“So what was the flap all about?”
Jake sketched it for Tarkington.
“People in your meetings are going back to the office and spilling their guts to DeGarmo and Emerick?”
“Of course. They work for them.”
“They work for you now. Can the bastards and let's get other people.”
“Who will do the same thing,” Jake muttered. “Let me tell you about life, Toad. You can function just as long as your superiors have faith and confidence in you. When they lose it—your fault, other people's fault, whatever—then you have to leave and make room for the next guy. Your time at the plate is over.”
“You're right,” Toad admitted. “Marriage is the same way, I guess.”
“I suppose.”
“These guys who carried tales—you still have confidence in them?”
“They did what I thought they would do. Nothing more.”
“You realize, I suppose,” Toad said thoughtfully, “that if there is a nuclear explosion in America, low-order, high-order, whatever, you are going to get crucified.”
“I figured that out while the president was explaining the job, Toad.”
“Admiral, excuse me for asking, but why in hell did you take it?”
“Somebody has to do it.”
“You really think Lanham or DeGarmo or Emerick wants to sit on the hot seat?”
“They want me to do it their way so if things work out they get the credit. Yet if things go to hell, they don't want to get splattered. They're bureaucrats, still playing the goddamn game.”
After a moment, Jake asked, “What did Bennett find out last night?”
“He spent the night in the van, Admiral. Said he can't find a thing wrong with that gadget.”
Jake explained his request to Alt last night for a nuclear weapon with which to calibrate the Corrigan unit. “Follow up, will you, Toad? Call his E.A. If there's anything wrong with the Corrigan unit, we've got to get it fixed. And if the design is bad, I want to know ASAP.”
That would be a hell of a disaster, Toad thought. He kept his thought to himself, however. “Aye aye, sir,” he told his boss, and went to his office to use his encrypted telephone.
The telephone rang on Sunday as Callie was cleaning away the lunch dishes.
“Hello.”
“Mrs. Grafton, this is the security guard in the lobby. You have a visitor. She said her name is Anna Modin.”
Callie searched her memory. Modin?
“She said a mutual friend sent her, a Mr. Janos Ilin.”
It took Callie several seconds to process it. Then she made her decision. “Send her up.”
Callie replaced the instrument in its cradle. She was home alone. Jake was at Langley, naturally, and Amy was having lunch somewhere with friends.
When the doorbell rang, Callie opened it. The woman standing there was perhaps thirty, with long black hair. She was wearing a dress that hung well below her knees and sturdy shoes with modest heels. A large purse hung from her shoulder. She had no luggage. Her stockings were torn in several places, her hands were scraped, and she had a large bruise on one arm.
“Mrs. Grafton, my name is Anna Modin. Your friend Janos Ilin sent me to see your husband.” Callie Grafton, linguist, recognized the Russian accent instantly, although it was subdued.
“Please come in,” Callie replied in Russian.
Modin smiled. “He said you speak Russian.”
“A very little,” Callie said as she closed the door behind Modin. “Tell me, please, if Mr. Ilin is Russian, why is his first name Hungarian?”
Modin turned to face her. “His mother was Hungarian,” she said simply, meeting Callie's eyes.
Callie nodded. That was what Ilin had told her last year when she met him. “Do you live in the Washington area?”
“No. I just arrived at Dulles Airport and gave the taxi driver this address.”
“Oh, my! Are you hungry, thirsty?”
“I slept a little on the plane, but I'm tired and filthy. Something to drink would be nice.”
“Come into the kitchen.” As she led the way she said, “My husband is not here right now.”
“Ilin asked me to talk to him as soon as possible.”
Callie poured Anna Modin a soft drink over ice and offered it to her. Then she went to the bedroom to call her husband.
When he answered, she said, “Jake, there is a woman here who says that Janos Ilin sent her. She just flew into Dulles and wants to talk to you as soon as possible.”
“Hmm,” Grafton said.
“Did you know she was coming?”
“No.”
“So what should I tell her?”
“Make her comfortable and I'll be home in about an hour.”
Although Anna Modin spoke with a detectable accent, her command of English seemed to be excellent.
“Is this your first visit to America?” Callie asked.
“No. I made trips for business to New York several times when I was working for a bank in Switzerland.”
“Do you work for Ilin?”
“He is a friend,” she said, which Callie thought evasive.
Callie pressed: “Are you in Russian intelligence?”
“No,” the Russian woman said positively, and added, “Janos Ilin is a friend.”
Callie pursed her lips thoughtfully. The truth of that statement was an issue for Jake and the intelligence professionals to decide. “Tell me about yourself,” Callie said, changing the subject. “Where were you born, where did you go to school?”
When Jake came home he joined the women in the living room. They were nursing soft drinks.
“Janos Ilin asked me to give you this,” she said, and handed the admiral the CD that Ilin had given her.
“What is on it?”
“Accounting records from Walney's Bank in Cairo.” She removed a second CD from her purse and flicked it with a fingernail. “Perhaps it would be better if I started at the beginning.”
“Please do,” Jake prompted, and laid the CD she had handed him on the coffee table.
Anna Modin talked for almost an hour. She told how Ilin recruited her years ago, working in Swiss banks, the move to Cairo, Ilin's message about the bombs, Abdul Abn Saad, Nooreem Habib, the killer in the park—she told all of it, including Ilin's message about the bombs. “They were aboard a Greek freighter,
Olympic Voyager
, which departed Karachi sixteen days ago.”
Jake's horror showed in his face. “Sixteen days? You tell me now?”
“When Ilin learned of it, he told me to deliver the message to you. I came as quickly as I could.”
Jake Grafton couldn't sit still. He rose and went to the window and looked out. Sixteen days! Well, there was no more time to waste. He turned from the window and went back to the coffee table. He picked up the CD she had given him. Anna handed him the second CD.
“This is the one Nooreem Habib lost her life to get?”
“Yes. She said it contained the names of people who gave money to the terrorists, including dates and amounts.”

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