The Rule of Nine (27 page)

“I can't tell you. You'll have to trust me. But I know he can
reach all the way to the highest levels of the Justice Department.”

“You got that kind of juice, do it,” says Herman. “You have any problem with that?” Herman looks at me.

“One question. Will we be able to get information back from your contact?” I ask her.

“What do you mean?” she says.

“I mean, if they pick up Thorn in D.C. and he lawyers up, we may lose any hope of identifying or locating Liquida. Will you be able to get information from your man regarding Liquida?”

“That's a good point. Let me find out,” she says.

“Go ahead and call him,” I tell her.

Joselyn takes her phone and heads into the bathroom. She closes the door to make her call.

“Secretive,” says Herman.

“I suspect that's her big source on weapons systems,” I tell him. “That's how she got all the details after the attack in Coronado. Leaks from friends in high places.”

I reach the last page of the little book, not a single mark, only the communications code on the first three pages. I'm about to flip it onto the table when I notice that the last page has been ripped out. The front and back cover of the moleskin pocket book is stiffened with cardboard.

“Herman, do me a favor. In my briefcase you'll find a pencil in the pocket up top. Get it for me, will you?”

Herman gets the pencil as I examine the inside of the back cover, holding it up at an angle to the light.

“Whatya find?” Herman hands me the pencil.

“I don't know. Have you got that knife?”

Herman fishes it out of his pocket. “I want it back,” he says.

“I found it,” I tell him.

“I'll arm-wrestle you for it.”

“I value my elbow joint too much. You can keep it.” I open the knife and shave the pencil point on one side to expose more of the
lead. Then I take the flat edge of the pencil and rub it gently back and forth over the impression carved in the white paper covering the inside of the back cover of the little book. Slowly the writing from the missing page emerges in the form of white letters from the growing panel of slate gray graphite. It is in the same neat hand as the coded numbers: “Waters of Death, Second Road, Pattaya, Thailand.” A group of numbers follow, nine digits in all, separated in sets of three with a space between each set, and the name “J. Snyder, 214 S. Pitt St., Alexandria, VA.”

L
iquida found himself bundled onto the last evening flight out of Columbus, Ohio, the seven o'clock headed for Dulles, in D.C. He'd received the e-mail that afternoon that his services were needed on another job and he wasn't happy about it.

He had spent the last three days and a chunk of his own change watching the small farm outside Groveport where Madriani's daughter and his law partner were holed up. The little GPS tracker that Liquida had mailed to the girl had done its job. The device was so sensitive that at times he was able to follow it in transit, even in the package. The second she opened the box, the tiny tracker gave Liquida a readout including latitude, longitude, and street address, and then plotted it all on a map. And if she had swallowed the thing, Liquida was sure that it would have performed an upper GI series.

He believed firmly that technology was a wonderful thing, as long as he didn't have to use it. It was why he didn't carry a cell phone, and why he changed his e-mail address more often than his underwear. Anything science could make, government could abuse.

He had staked out the farmhouse and identified the girl's daily schedule. She never left the place. And the old man who owned the
farm had friends. Half the time the driveway out in front of the house looked like a police convention. If Liquida had a dime for every car with a set of light bars on top that visited the house, he could have retired.

If that wasn't enough, there were dogs, and not just any kind. The farmer raised Doberman pinschers. Liquida wasn't a “dog kind of guy,” and he hated any breed that was German. You could poison most junkyard hounds. But a forty-dollar hunk of Chateaubriand salted with enough Ambien to put an elephant down wouldn't raise an eyebrow on a good Doberman. And if you were stupid enough to cross the line and try to hand-feed him, you'd better be wearing a Kevlar body stocking.

The last time Liquida had tangled with a pinscher he'd ended up with his head in the dog's jaws, being humped and thrashed like a stuffed bunny. Until the dog finally let go of his head, Liquida thought he was engaged, well on his way to becoming Muerte Liquida-Doberman. And he wasn't anxious for a rematch.

But these dogs were confined by an invisible fence. A wire circled the property and was buried just inches under the ground. It emitted a signal that was picked up by a diode on the dog's collar whenever it got within a few feet of the wire. If the dog tried to cross the wire, the animal would get a severe jolt of low-amperage electricity. The dogs had been trained and conditioned to stay inside the fence.

By now Liquida knew the precise boundaries of the invisible fence. He watched the property from a tree in an empty field across the road.

For the last two days, Madriani's daughter had slipped into a pattern. Each morning around eight she would come out of the house carrying a colander to pick berries from some wild bushes that ran along the front of the property.

Madriani's law partner would come out with her carrying a shotgun. But he usually sat on a chair on the front porch and kept an eye on her from a distance. And each day, as the berries became
sparser, the girl wandered farther. She was already within the warning zone of the invisible fence. The dogs no longer followed her. By tomorrow she would be outside the fence and fair game for a needle-sharp stiletto hiding in the brush.

Liquida had been called away, but at least he knew where she was, and from all appearances, she wasn't going to leave. He could only hope and pray that the berries would hold out until he got back.

 

Thorn approached the U.S. Capitol Building from the north, walking toward what many tourists called the back of the immense, sprawling structure, the steps on the east side.

He had spent Saturday finishing up the logos on the 727 and arranging for the delivery of a truckload of Jet A fuel from the airport on the east side of Vieques Island. After pumping the tanks full and paying for the fuel, Thorn hitched a ride with the driver of the tanker back to the airport, where he caught a flight to San Juan, and from there to Washington.

It was now late Sunday night. The area around the Capitol was quiet, but well lit. Thorn was carrying an attaché case. He had lied to the two Saudi pilots on board the plane back in Vieques about many things, including their ultimate objective. As far as he was concerned, they didn't need to know. And as long as he was packing the item in the briefcase, Thorn was in control.

At Capitol Street he turned left, away from the domed monolith, and headed instead toward the intersection of First Street. He ended up kitty-corner from the Library of Congress and stopped at the traffic light. Standing at the curb waiting for the light to change he had to keep himself from looking up.

Thorn knew that he was being watched and, no doubt, recorded by at least three or four, and maybe as many as half a dozen, surveillance cameras.

He was standing in the middle of Government Square. Except for the area around the White House and parts of North Korea, it was probably the most heavily watched patch of ground on earth.

The feds had installed cameras, night-vision equipment, and God knows what else under the cornice of every building. Rumor had it that there were antimissile missiles deployed around the Capitol as well as the White House. During the daytime, tourists could stand on the steps of the Supreme Court and look across to see snipers in their black garb as they milled around with their rifles on the roof of the Capitol Building.

On his last visit Thorn had seen metal domes on the roof of the Capitol that looked suspiciously like the housing for the MK-15 Phalanx installed on naval war ships. The Phalanx was a twenty-millimeter chain gun, radar directed and capable of rapid fire to take down incoming missiles or planes if they penetrated the outer defenses around Washington. None of this particularly bothered him.

When the light changed he crossed at the intersection and continued straight on, along the south side of the Supreme Court Building. Across the street was the Library of Congress with its Beaux-Arts architecture and shallow dome topped by an ornate windowed cupola and capped by the Torch of Learning. This and the light from the windows in the cupola lit up the night sky with the old-fashioned feel of the nineteenth century.

The dome and the cupola were clad in copper that had long since acquired the brown patina of a dirty penny. Half a block down he stepped off the sidewalk and through the gate of a low, iron picket fence bordering the front yard of one of the old Victorian houses that lined the block. Most of the stately old homes along the street now housed lobbying groups and other organizations with regular business before Congress.

It was Sunday and late enough at night that the lights in the old Victorian were out. Only the streetlamps provided illumination, and Thorn avoided these by huddling in the shadows under a tree
in the front yard. Quickly he went down on one knee, opened the attaché case, and removed the little brown bat.

His hands were trembling. Thorn knew that this was perhaps the riskiest part of the entire venture. He would either succeed or fail within the next three or four minutes, and he would be likely to get only one shot. Damage or loss of the bat and his only backup was virtual suicide. He would have to take the large laser designator and find a way to get up into the building. Given the tight security, this was virtually impossible; chances were he would be either caught or killed. If Thorn had to make a choice, it would be the latter.

He pulled out the laptop and turned it on. A few seconds later there was a slight vibration and a gentle whirring sound from the little bat as Thorn tossed it into the air. A second later the sound disappeared. Thorn watched the computer screen as he piloted the little brown bat with the small joystick using the mounted camera as his eyes.

Quickly he climbed above the streetlights and over the trees. In the distance he could see the bright lights on the Capitol dome as the bat gained altitude. It crossed over the intersection at Second Street just as a Capitol police car cruised by beneath it.

Thorn maneuvered the plane with the joystick, varying the speed of the motor with a small wheel that he rolled back and forth with his other thumb. Banking to the left, he saw the brown copper dome of the Library of Congress illuminated by the torch on top of the cupola. He aimed the bat directly at it. He wondered if he should circle around one time just to get the lay of the land and then decided against it. The brightness from the cupola was too much. Thorn needed to get it down and out of the light as quickly as possible.

As he approached the dome, he lined it up with one of the crosshatched ornamental iron pieces. These ran from the balustrade at the base of the cupola down to the lower edge of the dome. There were eight of them. Thorn had studied the photographs for
weeks. As he approached within a foot of the ironwork, he abruptly pulled the joystick and rolled the power wheel back. The nose of the little plane, along with the camera, suddenly pointed straight up. A flash of blinding light filled the camera's lens from the Torch of Learning, followed by the blackness of the night sky.

The plane stalled. Then it fell tail first. The image on the screen shook and pixilated as the bat hit the domed roof. Thorn sucked in air and held his breath as he winced. The plane teetered on its tail. If it flipped onto its back, it would be over. The little brown bat would slide down the dome until it either fell onto the walkway below or became wedged behind one of the ornamental pediments at the edge of the roof. Either way, it would lose its signal and Thorn would no longer be able to control or retrieve it.

A second later the plane flopped forward, and the image shook and broke up a little as the camera's tiny transceiver absorbed the shock. A few seconds later the picture stabilized. The four powerful magnets on the feet of the little bat clung to the ornamental iron like glue.

Thorn smiled. They would have to pry the little beast off if they wanted to get their hands on it. He let out a palpable sigh of relief, then laughed. He had to catch himself before he made too much noise or wandered out into the glare of the streetlights. He felt absolutely giddy. The rest would be a piece of cake. Unless the Arabs flew the jet into a ditch, the mission was a lead-pipe cinch. All they had to do was deliver the package.

Thorn had been training for the maneuver with the bat for almost a month. But until he actually put the little plane at risk, there was no way to be sure if he could pull it off.

Peering into the computer's screen, Thorn was looking up into the lights of the cupola over the main reading room of the Library of Congress. The balustrade around the base of the cupola was no more than ten feet away. Hunting and pecking he hit a few keys on the computer.

He could throw the joystick away now. Instead he ran his fin
ger over the laptop's touch pad. The tiny servomotor kicked in and the small camera began to pan. The camera and the laser diode were mounted on a gimbal, like a compass on a ship. They could turn in any direction, right or left, up or down. He aimed the camera at the target, lifted his finger off the pad, and looked at the screen. It was perfect. He couldn't believe it. A few adjustments in the morning and he would be set.

He held his breath. One final test. He clicked a few more keys on the computer and suddenly he heard the signal, a periodic beep. He had to turn down the volume on the computer, otherwise somebody on the street might hear it. It was like a human pulse. The only thing pounding harder at the moment was Thorn's heart.

Quickly he turned off the diode to save the battery, shutting down all the power to the little bat. It was settled into its nest for the night. Now if only the wind stayed calm and the weather clear, Thorn had it made. He had already checked Weather Underground, one of the major weather prediction sites on the Internet. The forecast for tomorrow was bright and clear, with a high of seventy degrees. All they had to do was deliver the bomb, and Thorn would take care of the rest.

 

By the time we reach the Hotel George in downtown Washington, it's already late. Joselyn and I are exhausted. Herman slept on the plane while Joselyn and I talked, so by the time we land, Herman has gotten a second wind. He wants to go and at least take a gander at the Washington Court Hotel, where Thorn is checked in.

“Listen, leave it alone,” says Joselyn. “Everything is under control. The FBI has already confirmed that he's checked in, and they have him under surveillance.”

Joselyn has assured us both that her contact in the Capitol has everything in hand, and that Thorpe is on board. According to Joselyn, Zeb Thorpe has received firm instructions from the director
of the FBI as well as the attorney general. They have Thorn under round-the-clock surveillance. They would pick him up, but they want to know if he is working with anyone else. So for the time being, they are watching and waiting.

Joselyn's source has warned us to be careful, not to take any chances. He has assured her that the Hotel George, where we are staying, only half a block from the Washington Court Hotel where Thorn is booked in, is now under full protection. Both city PD and federal authorities are now watching it.