Ops Files II--Terror Alert (28 page)

“Looks like a beautiful day for it,” he allowed, and then bit back any further talk. It wouldn’t do to be driving along, talking to himself. He needed to get his mind back on the job at hand, not free-associating with whatever caught his eye.

After all, today was the big one, the culmination of his efforts.

And for several thousand pampered, smug infidels, it would be the last day of their miserable, privileged lives.

The thought gave him great joy, and his spirits soared as he picked up speed. A tractor shimmied toward him on the lane and he offered a wave to the driver, who returned the gesture with a smile.

No point in being unfriendly.

Dover, England

Maya shot bolt upright in bed, her respiration fast and her heart racing, instantly wide awake. She eyed the glow of sun around the blackout curtain and stared at her watch, and then pushed the covers off and moved to her bag. Her brain had continued processing even as she’d dozed, and had solved the puzzle that had been worrying at her subconscious in her sleep.

“The disk,” she muttered as she retrieved her laptop and plugged it in, and then connected it to the printer hard drive. The screen flickered as it booted up, and then she was staring at the map of Dover – the last item that had been printed.

She clicked on the prior file. An invoice. The next a list of accounts, all automotive related. She continued through the printer queue and stopped at a stylized rendering of medieval monks holding their hands over their mouths, laughing, as a modern-dressed man with five o’clock shadow, a pint of beer in one hand and a cigarette in the other, spoke into a microphone on a raised stage. The lettering at the top announced the Hastings Comedy Festival, and at the bottom was a who’s who of British comedians.

And the festival’s first day was today. She checked the time again, blinking away any residual punchiness. It would begin in…less than an hour.

Her knowledge of English geography was limited. She opened another window and looked up Hastings on the Internet. When she found a map, she zoomed out and then sat back with narrowed eyes.

Hastings was sixty kilometers down the coast.

She fumbled the cell phone to life and dialed the Mossad number. After yet another annoying wait on hold, the station chief’s tired voice came on the line.

“Yes?”

“I know where he’s headed. There’s a comedy festival in Hastings. If it’s well attended, it’ll be packed, but security will be nothing like at a stadium. It’s in a field somewhere on the outskirts of town.”

“Whoa. Slow down. How do you know this?”

She told him about the flyer on the hard drive. “It has to be his alternative target. We know he’s methodical and fearless. And he’s in country with a bomb. Tell me that if you were in the same situation you wouldn’t have researched an alternate target.”

“That’s speculation.”

“It’s under an hour’s drive from here. He was headed southwest. Down the coast. Toward Hastings. It all fits.”

“Maybe,” he acceded grudgingly. “Or it could be unrelated.”

“Dammit, the man’s a killer, and he’s out for blood. He’s going to try to slaughter as many people as he can, make the biggest splash possible. He has to know that any big public gathering in a major metro area is going to be suspect. London, Liverpool, Birmingham, Leeds…all too risky. But Hastings? Tell me that the security there is going to be top notch.”

“I’m not saying you’re wrong. I’ll contact MI5 and alert them to your concerns.”

“I want to head down there.”

The station chief sighed. “I suspected you might.”

“If I’m wrong, where’s the harm?”

“I suppose there isn’t any.”

“Then I’m on my way.” She paused. “Anything more on the mystery couple?”

“Yes. We have an ID. Bertrand Felix and Caroline Aliers. Parisians. On holiday, per their entry docs.”

“What were they driving?”

“We’re still trying to access that database. It was listed as a caravan on their entry form, but they store the license information elsewhere.”

“Damn.”

“I want you to report in every hour, do you understand? If you see anything suspicious, call. I’ll see about getting a team to Hastings as soon as possible.”

“How long will that take?”

“A few hours.”

“It could be all over by then.”

“Assuming you’re right.”

“I am.”

Maya was showered and out the door in five minutes. Thankfully the Rover started, albeit with a reluctant stutter that didn’t bode well for its longevity. She mashed the accelerator to the floor at the highway on-ramp, and the heavy old car lumbered up the grade like a drunk on its last legs before steadying into a rough shimmy as she pushed it as hard as she dared.

Abreeq had to be planning to bomb the festival. It made sense. A target with laughable precautions, unlike a higher visibility target like a subway station or a stadium or government building. Plenty of celebrity darlings in attendance, guaranteeing added horror at the result.

And best of all, the apathy of the authorities after an exhausting series of false alarms and near misses.

It was perfect.

Diabolically so.

And as far as she could tell, unless she got luckier than a lotto winner, nobody would be able to stop him, because the British were slower than turtles, and the Mossad not much better.

She was halfway to Hastings when the temperature warning light on the Rover’s dashboard illuminated.

“No. Do not do this to me,” she warned. “No, no, no.”

Stalling out in broad daylight thirty kilometers short of her destination would be the final insulting blow to her notions of competence, so she pulled off the highway and found a filling station. The attendant joined her as she opened the hood, and they both stared at the steaming motor.

“Probably out of coolant or oil, I’d wager,” the man said.

“How can I tell which?”

“Shut it off and I’ll check the oil. If you’ve got plenty, then it’s the radiator.”

A minute later she knew that the engine had a full oil level, and that in the attendant’s opinion it could do with a change.

“Then let’s fill the radiator up,” she said, and stared at the attendant as though he was mad when he slowly shook his head.

“Needs to cool down.”

“I don’t have time. I have to be in Hastings…now.”

“Well, start it back up. I can spray the radiator and see if we can get it cool enough to pop the cap. But it would be better to give it time.”

“I told you – I don’t have time.”

She glared at the man and went back, crossed the ignition wires, and then wrapped them together. He stood with a hose, running a stream back and forth across the radiator. After several minutes of this the warning light dimmed and went out, and he tried the cap with a rag.

Steam shot skyward as the cap blew off from the pressure, and the attendant jumped back.

“Gore. That was a near one,” he said, and directed the water into the radiator. “Newer ones have a reservoir bottle. Damn near took my hand off, that did.”

When the radiator was filled, he retrieved the cap and screwed it back into place, and then pointed to the underside of the car. “There’s your problem. Leak.”

She inspected it. “Doesn’t look fast, though.”

“Right. You should be able to make it. Your luck that it isn’t blazing hot.”

She threw him a dark look as she handed him a five-pound tip. “Is it ever that hot around here?”

Maya could hear him laughing as she pulled away. She urged the car forward, aware that she’d lost almost ten minutes she didn’t have to spare. Her stomach knotted with tension, she kept to the speed limit in town and then floored the throttle once on the highway. The azure of the English Channel glistened to her left, and the hills rose into the heavens to her right. The vista was breathtaking – one she would have enjoyed considerably more if she hadn’t been racing to stop the senseless murder of God knew how many innocents.

Hastings, England

Maya found her way to the comedy festival grounds, which were festooned with colorful flags mounted along the perimeter of the parking area, red, blue, and yellow, flapping in the wind. A parking attendant directed her to a slot near the entrance and smiled as he took her money.

“Filling up fast. Another hour and you’d be out of luck,” he said, his accent the more laconic country English that spoke to an easier pace than that of city folk. “Right over there, next to the red Renault.” He looked the Rover over. “They don’t make ’em like this anymore, do they? Don’t see many on the road.”

“It got me this far,” Maya agreed, one eye on the dark temperature light. “Are there many French cars here? Caravans?”

“Oh, I wouldn’t know. I just arrived, but I wouldn’t think so.”

“Have you seen any?”

“Honestly, I don’t look at the plates. Not my job.”

“Thanks,” Maya replied, disappointed.

She pulled onto the grass and parked between a Renault and a vintage Jaguar E-type, and after chambering a round, slipped the sound-suppressed Beretta she’d filched from the dying man into her purse, praying that she’d get a chance to use it sooner rather than later this morning. Maya emerged from the Rover, the sun a welcome relief from the previous day’s chill, its rays warming her face as she pulled on the baseball cap and sunglasses and did a slow turn, scanning the expanse.

There were easily hundreds of vehicles of all shapes and sizes, and myriad campers and caravans like the one Abreeq had stolen. The scale of what she was hoping to achieve – spotting a needle in a haystack – dawned on her as she took in the magnitude of the challenge, and her heart sank. What did she think she could accomplish? One woman, a junior agent, no less, in a crowd of thousands?

Clusters of attendees roamed through the parking area, stopping to chat with one another, everyone smiling and laughing, in good humor on a fine day. Maya saw a little girl of five holding her mother’s hand, her hair in pigtails, a smudge of red candy on her cheek from the sucker in her mouth, and was reminded of the stakes. She had to succeed. The alternative was too awful to contemplate.

Maya paused at the edge of the field and decided that the best way to approach her search was to divide the area into a grid, and work each section as she looked for the dead French couple’s camper. She’d originally thought it would be relatively straightforward, but the number of recreational vehicles staggered the imagination – apparently weekend outings like the festival were a perfect excuse to dust off the caravan and hit the road.

She was partway through the first quadrant when her phone rang. She answered it without looking.

“Hello?”

There was nothing but a hiss on the line. She glanced at the screen – the number was blocked.

“Hello?” she repeated again, and the caller disconnected.

Maybe a wrong number? She stopped in her tracks. Or possibly an accomplice of the dying man calling to see how the exchange had gone?

Maya was more than aware that the phone could be easily tracked by anyone with the right equipment. Which meant that she could be in the crosshairs even as she believed she was the hunter.

She moved erratically, speeding up and then slowing, hoping to flush out any follower as she surveyed the campers for French plates. A peek at her watch confirmed that she was on borrowed time – a motivated terrorist could detonate a device at any time now that the festival had officially started. She picked up her pace and began on the second quadrant, moving between rows of vehicles, concentrating on the gleaming tops of motor homes and campers as she wended her way along.

Maya rounded a van and almost ran headlong into a mountain of a man with square shoulders and a flat face pocked with acne scars. He looked her up and down with cold eyes, and she was reminded of a shark or a wolf. Her finger slid along the trigger guard of her weapon, and then he laughed loudly, a harsh bray, startling her.

“Pretty lady. Pretty, pretty lady,” he said loudly, his consonants soft.

Maya smiled back at him. He was obviously developmentally disabled. “Thank you.”

“Roger, come on, boy. Don’t bother that lady,” a matronly woman, easily three hundred pounds, called out from his right as she trundled toward them. “I’m sorry. He don’t mean no harm. Isn’t right in the head, he isn’t.” She neared and grabbed the man by the arm. “Let’s go, Rog. I’ll get you an ice lolly if you behave yourself.”

Maya watched the unlikely pair move toward the area where vendors had set up tents and awnings, selling every variety of junk food and knick-knack. Her nerves were too close to the surface, the lack of sufficient sleep and the tension of the situation skewing her judgment. She’d almost terminated two innocents and was seeing danger behind every tree. While some operational paranoia was appropriate, it was getting in the way, causing surges of adrenaline that were interfering with her objective. Her memory returned to the obstacle course in Israel, and the nun she’d shot, and a chill ran through her.

She shook off the feeling of being watched and concentrated on the vehicles. She knew Abreeq was there somewhere. She could feel it.

Maya spotted an aluminum camper near the vendor area, a few steps from a row of blue portable toilet enclosures. There was something about it…the styling or the markings looked…different. Foreign.

French.

As she approached it, she saw the license plate on the rear bumper. France.

Gotcha.

Maya moved swiftly to the door on the side of the unusual-looking vehicle and, abandoning any pretense of caution, pulled it open as she whipped the pistol from her purse.

And found herself staring at an empty interior.

She stepped into the camper, gun at the ready, her pulse as loud as kettle drums in her ears, and crept to the small toilet enclosure. When she opened it, the interior was empty – except for a bloody sweatshirt stuffed into a corner.

“You were here,” she whispered, sniffing the air in the camper for a clue as to how long ago her quarry had been there. Not long, she thought. His presence, his aura, was immediate, oppressive and evil as any she’d encountered.