The American (37 page)

“No, not really. It might have a ladder rack. Apart from that, it's just a plain-old white panel van, maybe a little dinged up. Walter isn't a very good driver.”

Naomi got to her feet, sweeping a lock of dirty black hair behind her ear and trying hard not to show her excitement. “That's great, Mrs. Hargrove. You've been very helpful. Do you think I could use your phone?”

“Sure, hon. Anything you need.” She hesitated. “Um, Walter's not in trouble, is he?”

Naomi looked up and said, with complete sincerity, “Trouble? No, not at all. In fact, his information could be vital to national security.”

“National security? Walter?” Lindsay Hargrove thought about that, appraising the disheveled state of her visitor once again. She lifted an eyebrow. “Huh.”

 

When the call came in to the TTIC, Jonathan Harper had to stop her twice before she slowed down enough to give him a coherent account of the conversation.

When Kharmai was finished, he said, “But you don't know if the van was actually sold or not?”

“No, but the story he told her doesn't sound right to me, sir. Maybe he was just trying to keep her out of the loop, you know? One less witness he'd have to worry about.”

Harper heard the excitement in her voice, and had to admit that it sounded promising. He looked at his watch. “Jesus, Naomi, they're wrapping up the speeches right now.”

She was almost frantic. “Sir, you
have
to stall them, or at least have them take a different route. He kept coming the whole time, despite every effort on our part to stop him. He knows something, or he would have backed off. He
has
to know something.”

“You might be right about that.” He was thinking back to Kealey's warning about the missing laptops at the State and Justice departments, a warning that they had both quickly dismissed at the time. If Vanderveen had managed to get his hands on something like that, he would have certainly known how to put it to good use. And the Secret Service still hadn't released their report on the matter. “I'm sending this all the way up, Naomi. I hope to God this isn't a false alarm.”

She had never been more sure of anything in her life, but knew that he wasn't questioning her judgment. It was just that he had to ask it. “He's there,” she said emphatically. “He's pushed it too far to stop now. He's there and he's waiting.”

A brief hesitation. “Okay. I gotta run. See if you can pin down Hargrove's brother, find out for sure what he did with the van. And listen…good work.”

“Thank you, sir.”

 

“…And so, I am pleased to join President Chirac and Prime Minister Berlusconi in announcing a gradual downsizing of European oil interests in the Republic of Iran over the next three years, beginning with an immediate decrease in production by 200,000 barrels per day in the South Pars gas fields, and culminating with the complete withdrawal of survey and exploration teams in the region by 2008. Production will also be reduced in the Dorood, Salman, and Abuzar oil fields which, combined, account for more than 70 percent of Iran's offshore output.

“The United States has made no secret of the fact that it has maintained sanctions against Iran since 1979. These measures have been strengthened over the years, most notably with the Iran-Libya Sanctions Act of 1996. While it is our wholehearted desire to see these sanctions lifted and the full restoration of diplomatic relations between the U.S. and the Republic of Iran, there should be no doubt that we are willing to stay the course if the Iranian government persists in its attempts to acquire tools of mass destruction.”

President Brenneman paused, then held up his hand to quell the sudden surge of voices from the crowd of reporters standing before him. “I'd like to take this opportunity to personally thank President Chirac and Prime Minister Berlusconi for accepting my invitation, and for working as hard as they have to make this goal a reality. The agreement that has been brokered here today is the direct result of their commitment to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and its intended purpose: to render the threat of nuclear war a thing of the past, and to make the world a safer place for future generations. Now I'd like to step aside and let them tell you more about the specific implementations that are scheduled to occur…”

As she surveyed the scene, Jodie Rivers shook her head and thought,
This is insane
. Despite the fact that the guest list had been kept to a minimum and carefully screened, the area bordering the waterfront was packed by more than 200 people, each and every one of whom, in her eyes, was a potential threat.

The three heads of state were standing on an elevated podium perhaps 50 feet wide and 20 feet deep. President Brenneman was moving aside to give the French ambassador room as he stepped up to introduce President Chirac. Although there were large numbers of Diplomatic Security and Secret Service agents both on and around the podium, Rivers was well aware that this was a huge security risk. As a result, her eyes never left the stage, even when she flipped open her ringing cell phone and lifted it to her ear. She definitely didn't appreciate the interruption.

“Agent Rivers? This is Director Landrieu.”

She recognized the urgency in his voice immediately, and felt suddenly cold. “Yes, sir.”

“Let me start by saying this is a four-way line. You're talking to Deputy Directors McCabe and Susskind as well. Listen carefully. We have some information that puts Vanderveen in the city with an Improvised Explosive Device. I can't give you better than 90 percent on that, but it was enough to put the wheels in motion, and I don't need to tell you who the target is.”

Dear God,
she thought. Her worst nightmare was coming true, and she had to force herself to pay attention.

“…Rivers? Are you still with me?”

“Yes, sir. Go ahead.”

“You're looking for a white Ford van, commercial type, probably an Econoline. We don't have a plate number or a name for you yet, but we're only a couple of minutes away, so keep your line open.”

“What about the—”

“Jodie.” It was a new voice, and one she recognized immediately. “AIC Storey has already been alerted. We're gonna keep the question-and-answer session with the press pool going as long as we can without arousing any suspicion, okay? We finally got through to the people in Norfolk…Under the name of Timothy Nichols, Vanderveen took possession of forty crates at a total weight of just over 3,000 pounds less than two weeks ago.”

Her eyes went wide at the numbers. “Jesus, the city is packed—”

When he cut back in, McCabe's voice had the clear ring of authority. “Listen to me, Jodie: Your only concern is for the president, okay? You have that waterfront locked down, I've seen it myself. There's nothing Vanderveen can do to you there unless he's suicidal, and the general consensus, the
hope
, is that he isn't. Normally we'd move the president as fast and far as possible, but that's not going to work in this case. So we'll keep him at the marina for now; Storey knows what to do, just follow his lead. As soon as I get off here, I'm headed to your location.”

Yet another voice, coming fast before she could respond: “Agent Rivers, this is Emily Susskind. HRT is already up and running. They're fanning out around the area, and some are in plainclothes, okay? You need to get that to your observers as soon as possible. I don't want my people getting shot by mistake.”

She was nodding to herself as the instructions came fast over the phone. “Got it.”

Then, from Deputy Director Susskind: “Hold on.” Over the sounds of the crowd around her, Rivers heard static and voices raised in excitement. It seemed like minutes later when McCabe came on and said, “Got a name, Jodie. Claude Bidault, French national. The vehicle was registered in Virginia less than a month ago. Plate number is…RND-1911. Ready for a description?”

“Go.”

“Black hair and brown eyes. He might have a beard, but that's not 100 percent. A little heavier than Vanderveen, at about 200 pounds. We're not sure how he's doing that; padding, maybe. Same height, of course. There's nothing he could do there.”

“I'll get it out to my observers.” Rivers was a little bit frantic now. “Sir, I have to move.”

“I know.” McCabe's voice was tense over the line. “Get to it, Jodie.”

 

Ryan had been on the street for two-and-a-half hours. Nothing so far had grabbed his attention, although he had to remind himself that Vanderveen wasn't exactly going out of his way to appear conspicuous.

There had been nothing planned out or expedient in his route; he had headed north from 7th and Maine, scanning faces and checking vehicles along the way. There wasn't much he could do other than to look through the windows and drop down to visually inspect the undercarriages, and his strange behavior had earned him some curious glances, as well as a few fearful ones.

He recognized the futility of his search, but there was one over-riding fact that bothered him more than anything else: there was no feasible way to detonate a bomb by command wire on a crowded city street, and a timer wasn't practical, either, even if Vanderveen had somehow managed to get hold of the Secret Service's list of scheduled movements.

In other words, the only realistic way for Vanderveen to succeed was by remote detonation, which meant that he would be close by in an overwatch position. Kealey knew the man well enough to know that he would detonate the device regardless of whether the president was in target range; the public would believe it because of what they had seen him do to the Kennedy-Warren on national television, but proof enough for Ryan was the raised scar that resided an inch to the right of his own sternum.

He stayed on 7th until the National Air and Space Museum appeared on his right, then crossed the street onto the wide open space of the Mall. Heading northwest over the grass, with the dome of the Capitol Building framed high at his back, he smiled at the excited noises coming from a group of schoolchildren who were lined up at the glass doors to the Smithsonian. The smile soon faded, though, as he was too tightly wound to share in their enthusiasm. For all he knew, their bus might be passing Vanderveen's position on its way back to their school…

He pushed the thought from his mind as he came up on 12th Street. It was better not to think about it. When he heard his cell phone ringing, he was grateful for the distraction, but not for long. “Ryan, it's Harper.”

“John, listen—”

“No time, Ryan.”

He caught the urgency just as Rivers had done less than a minute earlier, and fell silent immediately.

Harper continued: “Naomi turned out to be lucky, after all. Our man has a driver's license and a French passport in the name of Claude Bidault. The passport is real, but the actual owner reported it lost six months earlier while on vacation in Crete. Got that?”

“Yeah. Keep going.”

“Susskind finally hooked up with this guy Thompson in Norfolk. Using the Nichols ID, Vanderveen picked up 3,000 pounds' worth of material at NIT exactly eight days ago. The arrogant bastard walked right under our noses
twice
at the same port…Anyway, he has a vehicle that we can't account for. It's a Ford Econoline van, white, maybe with a ladder rack on top.”

Ryan was already running. Standing on 12th when the phone rang, he had taken two long looks either way down the street, then decided to go north, for no particular reason he could think of. Harper's voice seemed to bounce at his ear as he dodged the heavy crowds of pedestrians, most of whom were people leaving work for a quick lunch. Some of them shot him angry looks or curses as he pushed through the throngs, and the whole time the deputy director's words were hitting him with the force of a sledgehammer: “…and Virginia tags, Ryan, RND-1911. HRT is moving out in plain-clothes, but they—”

“Tell them to stay north of the Mall.” His mind was moving in a blur, trying to recall a white Ford van, but…No, he hadn't seen one. He was sure of it. He said again, “North of the Mall, John. That's where he's gotta be. What's happening at the marina?”

“That whole area is locked down tight. They doubled up on the barriers, and the CAT team is moving into place,” Harper said, referring to the Secret Service's Counter Assault Team, a highly secretive group that managed to keep a low profile, despite the fact that they accompanied the president wherever he went. “They've been able to keep it pretty quiet so far.”

“That won't last,” Ryan said, already breathing hard from the exertion of a full-blown sprint. He was passing cars in a flash, and there was a white van
right there
…But no, it was a Chevy. He didn't break stride, racing past the parked vehicle as a number of pedestrians turned to gawk in his wake. He was scanning faces, too, looking for anyone who might resemble the description that Harper had just given him.

He made a quick decision. “Can't walk and talk, John. Gotta go.”

“No, Ryan, WAIT—”

He cut the connection and jammed the phone into his pocket, slowing down for a second to feel for the Beretta and get a long look both left and right down Constitution Avenue.