First Strike (35 page)

O’Brien sat in a dark corner of the bar and sipped his Bushmills, pretending to get drunk like the others. He felt like finding an S&M club to work off his rage but his mind kept returning to the girl. Finding her should be easy. She’d be staying in one of those smart hotels in downtown DC, feeding her pretty face on a fat expense account. With all that had happened it was unlikely anyone had even thought of protecting the press corps. All the FBI’s resources would be fully committed elsewhere, looking for him. O’Brien fingered the Bowie knife strapped to his left forearm. Perhaps he wouldn’t kill her. Maybe he’d just maim her, disfigure her for life. So she’d always remember Declan O’Brien. He wanted badly to be remembered. But he’d have to fuck her first.

O’Brien walked back to his hotel and started to make phone calls. The Four Seasons was the third hotel he tried. Miss Drake was booked in for the remainder of the week.

***

Bowman and Moreno watched the President’s broadcast from the comfort of Bowman’s double bed. Bowman sipped neat single malt from a shot glass and Cal had found enough fruit in the kitchen to make a salad. They listened to the President in exhausted silence. When it was over Cal said,

“That journalist? The redhead? Ambrose says she’s your girlfriend.”

“She’s a girl and she’s a friend. It’s not the same thing.”

“You ever fuck her?”

“No.”

“I don’t believe you.”

“That’s OK.”

“She has a great body. Nice tits.”

“I saw what you saw.”

“Alex? When I talk dirty to you, how come you never respond? Say the words I like to hear?”

“I was brought up that way, I guess.”

“I’d like to meet her.”

“Who?”

“Big red.”

“Why?”

“Compare notes. See if you ever talk dirty with her,” Cal laughed. “Only kidding. But seriously, Alex, I’d like to talk with her, she seems like a very smart woman. Hey, maybe I could get my name in the papers. Be good for my fucking career.”

She felt his dick begin to harden.
My God, is this guy insatiable?

“Be my guest, Cal. She’s staying at the Four Seasons. Just around the corner.”

Cal sat up with a start.

“And how d’you know that?”

“She sent me an email. Been too busy to respond.”

***

All Washington’s airports and train stations remained closed so O’Brien stole a car and drove through the night. Southbound traffic was heavy as Washington returned to normal. He encountered a couple of roadblocks where liquor was being passed around, the whole country was on a high. Nobody paid much attention to another beat-up Chevy. He reached DC early the next morning. The security cordon around the capital was still intact but the mood among the National Guardsmen was euphoric and he was waved through the barrier with a cheer. He had no trouble getting a room at the Four Seasons. He could have had a whole floor to himself if he wanted, the hotel was practically deserted. He went up to his room and slept for several hours.

Cal Moreno had no real idea why she wanted to meet Melanie Drake, she just did. Cal wasn’t in love with Bowman and Alex knew her secret, which precluded him taking her seriously, and besides, Cal always put her career first. Good lays were two a penny but she’d only ever have one career. What Cal hoped for was to meet Ms Drake casually, like in the hotel bar, chat about this and that, nothing serious, just one capable professional woman to another, see what developed from there. Cal could feed the journalist some off-the-record stuff about the operation. Maybe Melanie would mention Cal in the articles the journalist was bound to write. Cal could milk the situation some. Even get a promotion.

Late in the afternoon O’Brien got up, ordered a bottle of Bushmills from room service and made himself ready. He showered, shaved and washed his hair, splashing his body liberally with the perfume sample he found in the bathroom. Next he opened his case and dressed in black trousers, black shirt and black shoes. He checked his appearance in the long mirror, tightened his belt one notch and put on the blunt-studded knuckle-duster he always carried with him. He examined his reflection for a full minute, turning this way and that to make sure everything was perfect. Then he went along the corridor and tapped on Melanie’s door. He raised his voice to a falsetto and said, “Maid service.”

Agent Moreno drove up to the front door of the hotel in her battered Cherokee and handed her keys to the valet. She was dressed in her usual sweatshirt and chinos, plus a lightweight tweed jacket to add a little style. The Colt Anaconda was in her leather purse. She went and sat in the bar, knowing it was pointless. She ordered a single malt with water but no ice, the way Bowman had shown her. Bowman was nice. She was going to miss him. Was Bowman why she was here? Cal didn’t think so but maybe that was it.

Melanie had just stepped out of the shower when she heard the knock. It was too early to have the bed turned down, but she put on a robe anyway and opened the door to let the maid in. Melanie pulled the robe tight to her throat as O’Brien hit her hard across the neck, choking off her air supply. Melanie went limp. O’Brien sealed her mouth with packing tape, thrust her face-down on the bed and taped her arms behind her back, leaving her legs free. When Melanie came to she was terrified. She tried to scream but couldn’t. She had no idea who he was but knew why he was there. She kicked out wildly till the effort exhausted her and lay still. She thought of Bowman but Alex was nowhere near. O’Brien showed her the eight inch blade of the Bowie.

“See? It’s sharp on both edges at the tip.”

He made a small incision in her cheek to show how keen the blade was. A trickle of warm blood flowed into her mouth. O’Brien licked it with his tongue. Her skin was silk. Cautiously, he peeled the tape away from those lovely lips.

“Make one small sound and I’ll slit that gorgeous Sassenach throat. But we mustn’t let those lovely lips go to waste, now must we?”

O’Brien undid his belt and took her head in his hands.

“Now just do exactly what I say, my darlin’, and you won’t come to any harm. But I promise you a night you’ll always remember.”

Cal ordered another single malt, sipping it slowly the way Bowman had taught her. She was beginning to think she was wasting her time sitting in the bar. Three different men had tried to pick her up. The chances of Melanie just showing up were remote, Ms Drake had become an overnight celebrity. She was probably at the White House at this very moment, sipping cocktails with Jennings and the President. Cal returned to the lobby and smiled at the reception clerk.

“Could I leave a message for Miss Drake?”

The clerk looked along the rack of room keys.

“Miss Drake should be in her room, if you’d like to speak to her.”

He picked up the house phone and dialled Melanie’s room number. He let it ring for a full minute.

“Sorry, she doesn’t answer. Must have gone out and forgotten to hand in her key.”

“What’s her room number?”

Cal was heading for the lift.

“401. But you can’t go up there.”

“The fuck I can’t.”

Cal flashed her badge and headed for the stairs instead. She reached the fourth floor out of breath, put her ear to the door of 401 and listened. She heard faint whimpering noises and something that sounded like a suppressed moan. Was Bowman in there?

Cal pressed the Star of David to her lips, readied the Colt, shot off the lock and charged into the room.

Melanie was kneeling on the bed stark naked. A mixture of lipstick and semen was smeared across her face. O’Brien held her by the hair, the Bowie at her throat. He wore the knuckle-duster but nothing else. Thank Christ he hadn’t used it yet. Moreno assessed the situation in a second, fired a single shot into his chest, blowing him sideways onto the bed, taking Melanie down with him. She writhed about beneath him, gradually wriggling free. She came up smothered in warm sticky blood and fragments of O’Brien’s shattered sternum. She began to hyperventilate. She just stood there mindlessly wiping the blood from her face and breasts, only spreading it wider.

“Oh Jesus!” she yelled. “Oh shit! Oh fuck!”

“Don’t use that kinda language!” Cal was shocked. “I hate that.”

She grabbed O’Brien by the shoulders and bounced him face-up on the floor.

“You know this creep?”

“Of course I don’t fucking know him!”

Melanie was trembling still.

“What the fuck is he doing here? Why me?”

“Serial rapist by the look of all the toys. Forensics will soon find out.”

Cal bent down to take a closer look at the face.

“Wait a minute. Oh Christ! Oh shit! This is really bad!”

“What’s the problem?”

Melanie was shaking uncontrollably, trying hard to focus.

“Declan O’Brien. He was supposed to lead us to an Al Qaeda cell. Now they’ll get clean away. Director Jennings is surely going to kick my ass.”

Call slumped into an armchair.

Mel said,

“And who the fuck are you?”

“Special Agent Moreno. FBI.” Cal flashed her badge. “Can I buy you a drink? I’m running a tab at the bar.”

***

Secretary of Defence Karl Herzfeld came to the White House two days later and tendered his resignation. The President readily accepted. Mike Santos’s approval rating had soared to ninety nine point eight per cent, the highest ever recorded, and not even the resignation of a senior cabinet member could dent it. There were now no limits to the President’s powers. He could make war if he wanted. Make peace if he wanted. His second term was assured either way. But by now the preparations Herzfeld had put in place had a momentum of their own and the headlong rush to conflict proved unstoppable as men and material continued to pour into the Gulf.

The President’s first act was to nominate Bob Jennings for the post of Secretary of Defence. In normal times such an appointment would have been unthinkable, Jennings was untested and untried. But these were far from normal times and besides, there was speculation in the press about the pivotal role Jennings had played in averting the failed attack. His stock had soared in step with the President’s own. Arthur Preston was found hanging from the balcony of his apartment. The diary of Dinah May Jefferson was discovered among the Colonel’s personal effects. Jamal Habib’s car was traced and he was shot, reportedly resisting arrest. Pat Hoolahan died six weeks later, heavily sedated. He experienced very little pain. He was posthumously awarded the Distinguished Service Cross for bravery under fire in Vietnam. Imam Siddiqui refused any kind of honour. Ben Ambrose remained in the States to break up the remnants of the Medellin drugs cartel with the aid of Paco Trujillo who was granted a Presidential pardon. Pablo Ortega disappeared from Colombia and is thought to be living somewhere in the High Atlas Mountains in Morocco. Frank Willowby is serving time at Club Fed outside of Scottsdale, Arizona. His golf handicap is now in single figures. Cal Moreno was promoted to head the Research and Development department at the FBI Academy at Quantico. She still suffers from Tourette’s syndrome and Coprolalia. These medical conditions are not recorded on her confidential file but Secretary Jennings has apparently become aware of them and understands how they can be triggered. The turmoil on Wall Street took less than a week to settle. The price of gold stabilised at $450 an ounce, at the time an all-time high, leaving Herzfeld with a handsome profit. His investments in Bechtel and Halliburton came good.

In London there was a Parliamentary inquiry into the failures of the Secret Intelligence Service; the unsubstantiated forty-five minute claim, the forged yellowcake documents, the missing mobile laboratories, the non-existent WMDs. Merlyn Stanbridge took the fall. She bought a pair of Boxer puppies called Jake and Elwood and retired to the country where she met a nice man who writes for the local parish magazine and is busy working on her memoirs. The Prime Minister’s reputation briefly hit rock bottom but recovered in good time for him to be re-elected for a third successive term with a reduced but still substantial majority. Alex Bowman went back to the cottage in Surrey, enrolled in a gym and spent the remainder of the summer nurturing his shoulder wound. But when the days began to shorten he found he was missing Spain and so returned to the converted farmhouse in San Roque overlooking the bay of Algeciras and tried to get his security business up and running again. Funds were running low and he needed the work but he’d been away from base for months now and the new assignments just weren’t coming in. He spent his days building up his strength and his evenings playing backgammon with the Anglican Dean of Gibraltar who shared Bowman’s taste for single malt and his passion for the music of Lester Young and Coleman Hawkins.

Melanie Drake returned to England but her career took off in such a way she had no time for cosy romantic weekends in the country. The following September she published incontrovertible evidence that the threat to Washington had indeed been nuclear. From the contents of the article it was clear she had a source close to the action but she never revealed who it was. President Santos continued to deny the nuclear assertion and such was his reputation that the American people accepted what he said without question.

Contact between renegade elements of the IRA and the FARC ceased for a time then resumed at an intensified level. The trade in training and expertise now represents a substantial portion of the IRA’s overseas income. Clandestine Al Qaeda sleeper cells remain dormant throughout the United States and around the globe, awaiting fresh instructions from Osama bin Laden. Recruitment across the Middle East has risen to record levels.

Meanwhile the coalition-sponsored Iraq Survey Group had deployed fifteen hundred experienced weapons inspectors with unfettered access to sites throughout the country. The entire resources of the CIA and MI6 had been placed at the ISG’s disposal. Huge sums had been spent to purchase information leading to the discovery of the missing chemical, nuclear and biological arsenals. High-value Iraqi detainees from scientists and technicians to senior army officers up to the rank of General, the entire deck of cards, including the joker in the pack himself, Saddam Hussein, collaborated in these endeavours in the desperate hope of securing some small reward. Those unwilling to co-operate are subjected to the traceless techniques of torture-lite that leave no scars: disorientation, isolation, sleep and sensory deprivation, protracted thirst and hunger, the dehumanising lack of rudimentary sanitation. Yet to date no weapons of mass destructions had been found. After many months of unimpeded searching, and just like the United Nations before them, the coalition-sponsored Iraq Survey Group is pleading for more time. The disillusioned chief inspector finally resigned, stating before Congress he no longer believed Saddam’s weapons of mass destruction had survived the first Gulf War and twelve years of crippling sanctions.