Resurrection Day (22 page)

Mohamed Rashid stepped into the mosque. The Muslim place of worship was one of the District's oldest mosques, built almost forty years earlier, its gardens and buildings set within a railed enclosure. Small but elegant, with tiny windows, its facade was painted duck-egg blue, and a pair of solid double oak doors led inside.

Removing his shoes, he left them in one of the pigeonholes in the lobby and stepped inside. Like that of all mosques, the interior was completely open, devoid of chairs or benches, and bare of any icons. Rich carpets covered the floor, pillars soared to a gallery that ran around the interior, and quotations from the Koran were inscribed in wooden panels on the walls. It was one of over a dozen mosques that served the spiritual needs of Washington's Muslim community and was usually packed each Friday with devotees from the Arab countries and the far-flung outposts of the former Soviet Union. But it was Sunday, so there were few worshippers, barely twenty men, mostly elderly and white bearded, wearing frayed but spotlessly clean suits or kaftans: Chechens, Tartars, Turkmenis, Azerbaijanis. Gorev was late. Rashid despised the Russian, as much as he despised Karla Sharif. He had told them only what they needed to know. They knew nothing about the Americans kidnapped in Azerbaijan, or even his own true intentions if the US President failed to meet al-Qaeda's demands. The less they knew, the better.

Rashid moved into the mosque, sat cross-legged just inside the door, his back to the wall, holding a set of prayer beads. When he had prostrated himself and said his prayers to Allah and for his brother's soul, he sat up, perfectly still. Looking at the Muslim faces scattered around, and at the familiar quotations from the Koran inscribed on the walls, he felt at home here.

His real name was Saleem Rasham. He was born in Cairo, the eldest son of wealthy, professional parents, his father an eminent archaeologist, his mother a doctor. More fortunate than most, he attended Cairo's elite schools; by the time he was twelve he spoke fluent English and French. When his parents died that same year in a car crash in Luxor, he and his younger brother were raised by a brutal uncle in a squalid home near the Nile's west banks. To escape their uncle's brutality, he would take little Mahmoud and flee to the mosque, and it was there that both their politics were forged. Saleem joined the Islamic Brotherhood at seventeen, Mahmoud three years later. They fought together in Lebanon against the Israelis, and later joined the throngs of young Arab men who flocked to Afghanistan to fight the jihad against the Soviets, where Saleem earned himself a reputation for bravery, strategy and savagery in equal measure.

He was wounded many times, his right shoulder shattered by a Russian bullet. The doctors said he would never be able to use it again. Saleem learned to shoot with his left hand. He learned, too, that the only way to defeat the infidel was by following the path of al-Qaeda. The American missiles that rained down on the camps had killed Mahmoud and a dozen of their comrades. He had wept that day, the first time ever since his parents had died, and the night he buried Mahmoud's shattered body he had sworn his revenge.

He heard a movement behind him, and his hand reached instinctively for the pearl-handled knife in his pocket. He turned, saw Gorev standing there in his stockinged feet, his shoes tucked under one arm. 'You're late,' Rashid said. 'What kept you?'

'The traffic was bad. It took me a while to find my way.' Rashid grimaced, put away his prayer beads. 'Come, we have work to do.'

Less than a mile from the limits of DC, at the window of a luxury penthouse apartment near tree-lined Wisconsin Avenue, Charles Rivermount took a deep slug from a crystal glass of thirty-year-old bourbon, savoured it, and swallowed. His tie loosened, the bourbon like honey in his throat, he took a pull on his hundred-dollar Panama cigar, blew out a lungful of smoke, and stared out at the darkening capital as if in a trance.

'Honey? Are you OK?'

Rivermount turned, his trance broken. A woman stood at the bedroom door, wearing a short, flimsy nightgown. She was almost half his age, thirty-two, slim and attractive, with short blonde hair. Sue-Beth Allen had been his mistress for two years. He kept the apartment for their use whenever they visited Washington, and they'd flown in on his private Learjet the day before Rivermount got the call to attend the crisis meeting at the White House that morning. He'd already had an important economics policy discussion to attend in the capital the next day, but the President had put it on hold until the crisis was resolved.

'Aren't you coming to bed, Charlie? You need some rest.'

'Sure, Sue-Beth. Just give me a few more minutes. I've got something on my mind.'

Sue-Beth Allen was the best thing that had happened to Rivermount's private life in recent years. They'd met at an oil-stock investment conference in Dallas. She was a secretary for an oil-company executive, bright as hell once you cut through her playful Southern charm — she was from Mississippi like himself — and they'd hit it off straight away. She'd kept him from going crazy in a bitter, joyless marriage, and for the first time in his life he'd experienced unbridled love and affection, and given it freely in return, all of which was why their affair had endured. She came over to join him, ran her fingernails across his back. 'What's the matter, Charlie? What is it that's got you so preoccupied?'

'Business, honey.'

'At the White House?'

Rivermount nodded. 'I've just got to think something through. A problem I can't tell you about. You mind?'

Sue-Beth shook her head. After two years of being the mistress of a vastly rich, dynamic man like Charles Rivermount, she'd learned to live with his frequent need for privacy to sort out his thoughts. 'I'll be waiting for you, you hear?' She kissed his neck, ran her nails down his back, moved back into the bedroom.

Rivermount watched her figure retreat with a pleasure that never seemed to diminish, then turned back to the panoramic window and let out a sigh. Half an hour ago his chauffeured Mercedes S600 had deposited him outside the luxury apartment block. He'd been escorted up to the penthouse by his Secret Service detail; two of them were still in the hall outside, two more in the lobby, another couple in the cars outside. No matter where he went, Rivermount, and Sue-Beth, could no longer count on their privacy.

Standing there, puffing on his fat Panama cigar, he was aware that everything about him suggested power and wealth — from his expensive Morton Brothers suit and tailored silk shirt, the hand-made English leather shoes and the solid gold Rolex watch, to the fleet of four private Learjets at his call twenty-four hours a day. To those who knew him in business — the wise ones at least — his good-old-boy Southern exterior was an act that hid a hard-nosed, crafty streak. At sixty-one, and despite the strain of overseeing branch offices in five American cities and six European capitals, he was still the chairman and sole owner of Rivermount Arc Investments, one of America's largest and most successful private investment banking corporations.

It was no secret how Charles Rivermount had become wealthy: he did with other people's money what any other investment bank did — he invested in government securities, gilt-edged companies and public stocks and shares, only he did it much more successfully and with a canny eye on the trends and market shifts that can make or break any investment banker. His other success had been his interests in mining and oil and gas exploration, through a separate company, Rivermount Arc Exploration. His business achievements had led to his prestigious appointment as adviser to the President on economic affairs, and for a dirt-poor boy from Greenwood, Mississippi, who'd had to claw his way into business school, he'd done pretty damned well for himself.

He'd paid along the way, of course. A sham marriage, two mild heart attacks, a daughter who'd married a piss-poor trucker, and a thirty-year-old son who was hooked on cocaine. Despite Rivermount spending a small fortune on the best of Betty Ford Clinic treatments, and his tireless efforts to rescue him, the boy was a hopeless case.

Rivermount could admit to himself that he was partly to blame. He'd always been too involved in his business and too determined to succeed to spend much time with his family in the early years. For love, affection and parental effort, he'd substituted material things — cars, money, holidays, the best schools — to make up for his absence, and paid the price. He'd lost his son and daughter a long time ago; they were rebels who despised their father, and at times that deeply pained him. But he was as much a hostage to life as his children were.

Ever since his childhood, when he'd endured the grinding poverty of being one of a family of nine children on his father's hundred-acre dirt farm, he'd swore to himself he'd one day do better for himself. A passion for wealth and power over his own destiny had always driven him — as they still drove him at sixty-one, and he couldn't get away from that. We are what we are. You either accepted that, and did your best with it, or agonised about your role in life and drove yourself nuts.

Rivermount had long ago accepted himself for what he was: power hungry, driven by wealth and success. He still had scruples and values, issues that were important to him personally, but he could honestly admit that, more than anything, he wanted to be the richest, most powerful man in America. The deal he had going right now — if it panned out — would help him attain that goal, and so long as the nerve-gas crisis didn't take a wrong turn.

He looked at his watch. He could be recalled to the White House at any moment, and knew he ought to get some sleep while he could. He crushed out his cigar, flicked off the lights and went into the bedroom. Sue-Beth lay under the sheets in the darkness. He undressed, slid in beside her, and felt her warm, young body turn into his. 'I want you to do something for me, honey.'

'Sure, Charlie,' she said sleepily.

'This morning, before noon, I want you to pack your bags and fly down to Grand Cayman and wait for me there.' Rivermount kept a palatial fifteen-bedroom villa on the island, and his forty-million-dollar yacht, Spirit of Mississippi, was berthed there. He had two more, one in Cannes, another in Florida, all three yachts hardly ever used, except to entertain friends and business associates, including the Arab ones. Having Sue-Beth fly down to Cayman was as good an excuse as any to get her out of the capital. But he also had very important business for her to attend to on his behalf.

'You don't want me to stay here with you?'

'I'm going to be tied up day and night, honey. No point in you hanging around in the cold in Washington when you can be sunning yourself. I'll join you as soon as I can. Besides, Sheikh al-Khalid will be arriving in a couple of days and I want you to look after him. Soon as you get to the villa, call him in Riyadh and tell him I've been held up by urgent business in Washington. He'll understand, so you don't need to go into any details. When he arrives on Cayman, be sure he's got all the papers I'll need for the Saudi deal. And this is important — when you call him, use the secure line. The one with the scrambler.'

'Why don't you call him yourself, Charlie?'

'I'd prefer you did it. Another thing. You'll find al-Khalid being very discreet during his visit — he'll be wearing Western clothes and will have only a small, private entourage with him, not like his usual fifty hangers-on. He wants his arrival kept very quiet this time, and so do I. He won't be staying at the villa, so when he flies in, you have the helicopter ferry him out to the yacht right away.'

'What's the matter, Charlie? Why all the secrecy?'

Rivermount never held much back from Sue-Beth. She'd become his confidante, his touchstone. But he'd drawn the line at top-secret NSC business, and especially this business, which could mean the biggest deal of his life. He and al-Khalid, and their Arab friends were sworn to the utmost secrecy. They had big plans, and no one could know what their intentions were. 'Just do what I ask, honey, and trust me on this one.'

Alexandria, Virginia

11 November 4.15 p.m.

Rashid drove his Explorer into the rear lot of a small disused warehouse, a five-minute drive from the Wentworth apartment block. The warehouse was near the old docks, a derelict area that had seen better days, and as Rashid climbed out of the jeep and went to unlock the double steel doors, Nikolai Gorev got out of the passenger's side and joined him.

'This way.' Rashid led the Russian inside the warehouse, shut the doors securely behind them, and flicked the light switch. Harsh neon light flooded the building, and Gorev saw a white Ryder van parked in the middle of the floor.

'Another of our boltholes. We may use this place if we have to store our cargo nearer the capital, but we'll see,' Rashid explained, and went to unlock the back of the Ryder. Two powerful Japanese l,OOOcc motorcycles, a black Yamaha and a dark blue Honda, were propped up against the sides, along with three helmets with dark-tinted visors and three pairs of black motorcycle leathers. Two small black nylon backpacks sat near them, and a couple of wooden planks lay on the Ryder's floor, to manoeuvre the machines off the back of the van. 'Why the motorcycles?' Gorev asked.

'When it's time to leave Washington, or we have to make a quick escape, we may have need of them. I assume you've driven a motorcycle before?'

Gorev nodded. 'Often enough. It seems you've thought of everything.'

Rashid picked up one of the backpacks, threw it over. 'I like to be prepared. Here, one each.'

Gorev caught the backpack, opened it, and found three US army grenades, two incendiary devices, a compact Czech-made Skorpion machine-pistol, the 9mm version, and half a dozen loaded magazines. The Skorpion wasn't much bigger than his Beretta automatic, but Gorev knew the tiny Czech machinegun had a deadly reputation. 'What's the idea?'

'Extra protection, in case of trouble. The Skorpion's ideal in a difficult situation at close range. The grenades are added insurance. So keep them close to you at all times.'

'And the incendiaries?'

'In case you have to escape your apartment. Make sure you set them off, Gorev. The less evidence you leave behind for the police, the better. You understand me?' Rashid took the second backpack for himself, checked the incendiaries, Skorpion machine-pistol, magazines and grenades inside, closed it again, and slung the pack over his shoulder. He tossed Gorev an extra set of keys to the warehouse. 'Now you know where everything is, you'd better have these.'

'What about the safe house at Chesapeake? Shouldn't I take a look?'

'Karla will take you in the morning. It's at a place called Winston Bay. Just make sure you know how to find it again should anything go wrong. If your back's to the wall, it may be the saving of you. What about your Chechen friends and the rest of the equipment we need?'

'I have an appointment in Atlantic City this evening.'

'Good.' Rashid shut and locked the Ryder's doors. 'Any more questions, Gorev?'

'None that I can think of.' ,

Rashid nodded towards the door, all business. 'We'd better get on our way, I don't want you late for your appointment.'

Washington, DC

11 November 11.55 p.m.