The plastic containers of clothing and personal effects were taken to a waste site and dumped into a tub of hydrofluoric acid. The residue was mixed with plastic and ball bearings and allowed to harden. The hardened blocks were dumped from fishing boats out at sea.
All of this took place within a few hours of the three murders at Imperial Condominiums. It is possible, even likely, that more than half of these procedures were unnecessary, even wildly so. They were done anyway. Nothing was left to chance.
No trace was left.
Boy drove her new car to New Orleans. The trip took nine hours.
Mason and Jacob drove a more leisurely route along I-10 west to Alamogordo, where they checked in to the Holiday Inn Express. And waited.
They had no idea how long they would have to wait. Nor did it matter.
Instructions would come.
Instructions always came.
They spent the time swimming in the hotel pool, watching pay-per-view movies, playing video games, and making love to each other.
In New Orleans, Boy checked in to the Hotel Monteleone, ate room service food, and read three novels. When she wasn’t actively working, Boy read all day and into the evening. She was currently working her way through the entire works of Elmore Leonard, having just finished all the Travis McGee novels by John D. MacDonald. Reading calmed her. It allowed her energies to idle in neutral.
She did not make any calls. She did not feel the urge to check e-mails. She had no Facebook or Twitter pages. She was patient and in her patience was content to wait. Doctor Pharos would call her.
He always called.
There was still so much left to do.
The world was still on its hinges.
For now.
Chapter Eleven
The Resort
208 Nautical Miles West of Chile
October 13, 1:38 A.M.
“Cowboy,” came Bug’s urgent call, “be advised we have incoming.”
“Incoming what?”
“Looks like a UAV coming in low and fast.” UAV was shorthand for unmanned aerial vehicle. A drone.
He read off the coordinates and vector, indicating that it was coming from the west. From the seaward side of the island. I hurried outside. Top and Bunny were already there, each of them fitting on their night vision.
“What’s this shit?” asked Top.
“This some Agency thing?” growled Bunny. “They have a second location out here? Another island we don’t know about?”
“Nothing on the satellite maps,” I said. “Bug, give me something. Who’s toy is this?”
“Unknown, Cowboy,” said Bug. “Definitely not one of ours. The only drones we have are running surveillance between here and the mainland. This one just appeared on the radar. Probably launched from a boat.”
“Boat,” echoed Bunny nervously. “Chilean navy? They could have launched one from a submarine out of Talcahuano. They got a couple of those Type 209 German-made boats.”
“Got Exocets on ’em, too,” said Top. “Don’t want to overstay our welcome and get a missile shoved up our asses, Cap’n. We ain’t supposed to be here.”
“I don’t think so,” said Bug. “This is a small signature. Don’t think it’s military. Not big enough to carry heavy weapons. Coming right at you, though. Seven miles and closing. We have two helos heading to intercept, but the UAV will get to you first.”
“Frigging drones are a pain in my ass,” said Top.
I had to agree. These days they were everywhere. The military had a lot of them, but they were also being used not only to map streets and, by law enforcement, to conduct aerial surveillance and patrol the border but also to film sports events, take real-estate photos, and even deliver goods. Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Domino’s, Taco Bell, and hundreds of other companies had applied for licenses. The FAA kept trying to fight it, and for very good reasons. UAVs could be used to deliver a lot more than chalupas or the latest Janet Evanovich novel, but the agency was losing most of their cases.
“Still not seeing it, Bug,” said Bunny. He held a muscular AA-12 shotgun with a drum magazine. It was a monster. Fully automatic and drum-fed, it fired five 12-gauge shotgun shells per second. Very reliable, very little recoil. I’ve seen Bunny fire it one-handed. And for times when a hail of hot buckshot isn’t enough of a crowd-pleaser, he could swap in another drum loaded with Frag-12 high-explosive or fragmentation grenades. He calls it Honey Boom-Boom. Bunny has issues.
We listened.
Drones are very quiet. Maybe if there weren’t a million crickets and cicadas filling the night air with their steady whistling pulse, maybe—just maybe—we’d have heard it. Maybe not.
“Infrared,” I said, and we cycled through the Scout’s lenses until the world was painted scarlet.
“There it is,” said Top as he raised his M4. “Two o’clock. Fifty feet above the trees.”
“C’mon, Bug,” I said, raising my own rifle. This wasn’t the time for horse tranquilizers. “Tell me something useful or we’re going to blow this thing out of the air. Not in the mood for surprises.”
“I got nothing on it, Cowboy. Satellites are not picking up an active weapons system.”
“Doesn’t mean it ain’t a bomb,” observed Top.
We all saw it then. A pale blotch of heat painted against the fifty thousand shades of red and gray that made up the forest. It was a four-rotor quadcopter and it was bigger than I thought. Maybe six feet across. It wobbled slightly as it flew, pushed out of true by a freshening easterly breeze. It flew just above the tree line until it hit the clearing between trees and fence.
“I don’t see a payload,” said Bunny.
“No rocket pods,” agreed Top.
“I got it,” said Sam Imura’s voice over the radio. “Call it, Cowboy, and I’ll switch off the lights.”
“Everyone hold fire,” I said. We kept our guns on it as it flew closer.
“It’s slowing,” Bunny said.
It was. The machine crossed the fence line very slowly indeed and drifted over twenty feet of lawn, coming straight for us. Then it stopped; hovering there as if painted on the night sky.
“Cowboy,” said Bug urgently, “be advised, we’re picking up a strong, active video feed. It’s going up to half a dozen satellites.”
“Who’s satellites?”
“It’s crazy—it’s hacking into every communication satellite in range and bouncing them all over. This thing is broadcasting this live. It’s showing up on TV and the net.”
And there, lying on the ground at our feet, was the corpse of Osama bin Laden.
Dead and in color.
“Jam the signal!” I shouted.
“Can’t do it, Cowboy—it’s already out there.”
The drone hovered there. Mocking us with what it could do. Mocking us with what it was already doing.
“Take it out,” ordered Church. “Right now.”
Sam fired first, but I think we all hit it. We blasted the drone out of the sky and into a thousand fragments of metal and plastic. The motor core exploded and shot firework sparks into the dewy grass as the parts rained down.
I could hear the beat of helicopter rotors far off to the north, as our evac bird came hustling through the shadows to take us home. We stood and waited, watching the last of burning sparks drift down to the lawn. None of us said a word. What was there to say?
The video feed was out.
“Well, fuck me,” breathed Top.
It was damage done. We pulled off the Scout goggles, but I didn’t want to meet anyone’s eyes.
Very quietly Bunny said, “Without the beard and hair … maybe no one will know who it was.”
Top gave him a withering look. “You’re out of your damn mind, Farm Boy. Hope you had all your shots ’cause we are about to be well and truly fucked.”
Our Black Hawk swept over the trees accompanied by a big Chinook transport helicopter. They descended like monstrous birds from the night sky. But even their combined and
powerful rotor wash couldn’t sweep away the weeds of doubt that were trying to take root in the soil of my soul.
Interlude Four
Joint CIA-MOSSAD Safe House
Ha-Avoda Street
Ashdod, Israel
Three Years Ago
The sign outside said it was a hardware store. The store was open, fully stocked and staffed, and did good business.
The three floors above the store were not used for stock, offices, or employee break rooms. They were nicely furnished apartments. The doors were of the best quality, the security systems state-of-the-art, the staff fully trained. Two of the agents on each shift were Israelis on the payroll of the CIA. The other two were MOSSAD agents. Three men, one woman. They spent a lot of time together. They talked shop, they played cards, they surfed the net, they watched a lot of TV. Mostly, though, they read reports. This station was one of several joint operations that formed small but valuable links in the intelligence chain that was looped through every town and country in the Middle East.
The lead agent was named Dor Ben-Shahar. His mother was a Tel Aviv Israeli; his father was from Brooklyn. Both of them were experienced agents, both second generation Agency operatives, which made Dor a third-generation spy. He treasured his agency legacy as much as his ethnic and religious heritage. His grandfather had fought in the Six Day War. One of his uncles was at Entebbe. His great-aunt had been part of Operation Wrath of God following the Munich Massacre. There was no one in his family, on either the American or Israeli side, who hadn’t seen active combat. Not one.
Dor Ben-Shahar was different only in that he never wore a uniform, but he’d seen his full share of dirty little actions. He had blood on his hands, and most of it was guilty blood. Bad guys who needed to die. A few drops of blood were from civilians caught in the cross fire. Collateral damage. Unfortunate but unavoidable.
Lately, though, Dor hadn’t had to use his gun or any of the skills he’d learned from the Agency trainers or from his friends here in Israel. He hadn’t touched his gun at all except to clean and oil it. Lately he’d put on three pounds from eating too much falafel and doing too few crunches.
Lately, he had become a babysitter.
Part, in fact, of a team of babysitters.
All for one man.
A little pip-squeak of a guy from New Jersey. An egghead. A scientist.
Doctor Aaron Davidovich.
Dor thought the guy looked like a tailor. Or maybe a bookie in a 1960s New York gangster movie. Beard, big nose, thick glasses, delicate hands, bad breath. Not the kind of guy you’d want your sister to marry, unless you didn’t care much for your sister. Dor’s sister, Esther, was in Army Intelligence. He did like her, and her taste in men tended toward Navy SEALs or Delta gunslingers.
Not creepy little guys like Davidovich.
Dor’s job was to protect the scientist and guarantee that he would be fit, healthy, and whole so he could make his presentation to a joint panel of military strategists from the United States and Israel. All very hush-hush. All tied to a new phase of the drone project. All part of a new level of warfare that would—if Davidovich was as good as his promises—significantly increase the tactical effectiveness of UAVs used in surgical strikes while decreasing collateral damage among civilians. Bystanders were martyrs waiting to happen, children doubly so. Nobody wanted them killed. Not even the kind of people who didn’t give a cold, wet shit about Muslim children as long as the target was secured. Those ultrahawks weren’t motivated by compassion. Not even a little. Any concessions they made to reducing civilian casualties were measured against negative political pressure because political pressure was often tied to defense-budget purse strings.
Dor, though a warrior and son of warriors, was a family man. He considered himself to be a good man. Not really as devout as he might be—his wife had to all but threaten him at gunpoint to get him to synagogue except on the High Holy Days—but he believed that warriors were defined by their skill, not their body count. If it took a little more work and time to reduce unwanted nonmilitary casualties, then so be it. Otherwise, a warrior became a barbarian. A Philistine. Dor took pride in what he did.
If Davidovich could accomplish both goals—increasing the likelihood of killing high-level targets while decreasing unwanted casualties—then Dor was more than happy to do his part to keep him safe.
Shame the guy was such a drip.
“You want to play cards?” asked Dor.
Davidovich didn’t look up from his laptop. “I’m busy.”
He wasn’t working. Dor could see that easy enough, even without the laptop beeping and booping as the guy battled his way through some old retro arcade game. Ms. Pacman for god’s sake. Guy writes artificial intelligence software for drones and he can’t play anything more challenging than Ms.-fucking-Pacman? Seriously?
“You want coffee?”
Davidovich ignored the question. He paused his game play, put earbuds into his ears, turned up the volume on his iPod and resumed chasing energy dots and fleeing from ghosts.
Dor sighed. He shared a look with the other agent working this shift, an Israeli national named Tovah. She made a face and shook her head. She understood.
Dor went to the kitchen to make coffee for himself. Tovah was drinking Coke.
The coffeemaker began beeping, and at the same moment there was a knock on the door. Dor and Tovah exchanged another look, and this was of an entirely different frequency. Without saying a word they both stopped what they were doing, drew their guns, and took their positions. Tovah hooked Davidovich under the arm and pulled him gently but firmly up from the couch and away from his game, then guided him quickly down a short hall to the bedroom that had the reinforced door.
Meanwhile, Dor went to the door, standing to its left side, which was the wall with the steel sheeting hidden beneath the drywall and wallpaper. Without opening the door, he said, “Who is it?”
“Delivery for Yev,” said a voice.
Dor relaxed. That was the correct day code.
He replied, “Mr. Yev is not here.”
“This is for his mother.”
All correct, and the voice sounded familiar.
Even so, he kept his gun down at his side as he disengaged the lock and, with the chain still on, opened the door one inch so he could peer outside. As he did so, he asked the final verification question.
“Is it still cloudy?”
“No, the sun is shining. It’s a nice day.”
Dor exhaled and grinned. “Simon,” he said, “you’re early.”
Simon Meir was his relief man.
“Let me in,” said Simon. “I have to use the john.”
Dor closed the door, slipped off the chain, opened it, and died.
Just like that.
Simon’s gun was fitted with a sound suppressor. The bullet entered under Dor’s chin and punched a hole at an angle that blew off the crown of his head. Dor stood straight and still for a moment, his head raised as if listening, though he was already past hearing. His body was caught in a moment when it was balanced only by skeletal alignment, the muscles not yet responding to a lack of signal.
Then Dor’s knees buckled and he puddled down.
By then Simon Meir and his companion were already inside the apartment. Simon closed the door while the second killer—smaller, slimmer, female—hurried down the hallway toward the secure room.
From the mouth of the hallway, Simon called, “Tovah. I brought some falafel. You hungry?”
From inside the room, Tovah laughed. “I’m always hungry,” she said as she opened the door. “Hope you brought enough for—”
And she died.
Boy put three rounds into her: one in the heart, two in the head. Boy used a .22 with a Trinity sound suppressor. The shots made only small, flat noises. There were no exit wounds. Almost no mess. Tovah staggered, tried to catch the wall, failed, and fell.
Then Boy and Simon entered the secure room, guns up and out. Doctor Davidovich began bac
king away from them, his eyes wide and filled with the sure and certain knowledge that his world—everything in his world—was going to change. That everything had already changed.
He held up his hands. Tears sprang into his eyes. He sank to his knees.
He said, “No … please, no…”
Boy smiled as she holstered her pistol and removed a syringe.
“Please…,” whimpered the scientist.
Boy liked it when they begged.
Chapter Twelve
The White House
Washington, D.C.
October 13, 2:45 A.M.
The president sat slumped on a sofa in his apartment in the White House. The room was filled with people. Secret Service agents, senior staff, his body man, a military doctor and nurse, and Linden Brierly, who had four stitches in his lower lip. The first lady was in Detroit on a speaking tour.
Brierly, despite the pain and discomfort of his injury, was doing most of the talking.
“We’re tearing the car apart,” he explained. “So far, we’ve eliminated simple mechanical problems. The senior mechanic thinks that the onboard computer system is the culprit.”
“The car was turned off,” said the president. “Isn’t that what you told me? James had the key in his hand.”
“He did, and I’m not trying to protect one of my own when I say that I don’t think he is in any way to blame for—”
The president flapped a hand. “Oh hell, of course not. And I don’t want to hear about James being transferred to the dark side of the moon. I can’t see how this is his fault. He’s a good kid.”
“We think the problem is in the autonomous vehicle software.”
“The what?”
“Autonomous—”
“I heard you. I mean … since when do we have that installed in the Beast?”
Alice Houston answered that. “Eighteen months ago, Mr. President. You, um, were briefed on it when you took office.”
“Oh,” said the president. “Right.”
Brierly said, “The systems were installed to allow the car to operate in a defensive and protective manner, sir. Even if the driver were incapacitated, the car would use its GPS and other software to get you out of there. It’s tied to all of the internal security systems and countermeasures and is in constant contact with the White House Communications Agency. The idea is to make sure you’re never sitting in a dead or driverless car.”