Resurrection Day (69 page)

'Where's Nikolai?' Kursk repeated.

Karla was slumped in the chair, too dazed to reply. Her heart pounded wildly, and she was overwhelmed by her hopelessness. Kursk stood over her, still holding the pistol, and when she didn't answer Ishim Razan came over, put a hand on her shoulder. 'It's over for you, surely you know that? Why don't you tell us where he is?'

'I ... I don't know.'

'I don't believe that, Karla Sharif.' Razan shook his head. 'No more than I believe you could willingly play a role in something so deranged. But I keep asking myself why?'

Karla fought back bitter tears, buried her face in her hands. 'You'd never understand.'

'Tell me,' Alexei Kursk said quietly, and put down his pistol. 'Tell me why you and Nikolai helped Rashid.'

She told him. It came in a gush of words, and when she had finished her eyes were wet. 'Where's Nikolai now?' Kursk asked.

'Gone.'

'Gone where?'

Karla shook her head, felt as if she was going to break down completely. For a moment it seemed that Kursk was about to lose his patience with her, but then he said gently, 'Is it because you feel you can't betray him?'

Karla wrung her hands in torment. 'How could I?'

'If you think I want to kill him, you're mistaken,' Kursk said. 'But Nikolai has to see reason. We both know he's not a man like Mohamed Rashid. He's not the kind who'd kill and maim half a million people just to make a point, or satisfy a blind hatred. He was driven to this, just as you were. But now it's time to end it. I think you know that, just as I think you know it's within your power to help me, to tell me everything. But you're torn between your conscience and your unwillingness to betray Nikolai. Isn't that so?'

Karla still didn't reply; Kursk's words had cut into her heart.

'Do Nikolai and your son mean more to you than an event that may cause such awesome tragedy?'

'I ... I can't betray Nikolai. Don't ask me ... '

'Then think of the faces of the people you've passed in the streets these last months. You're a mother, Karla Sharif. Think of the tens of thousands of women like you in Washington. Think of those who have sons or daughters and who are sitting down to breakfast with them this morning, or taking their children to school, or kissing them goodbye, unknowingly for the last time, because they may never see them again if the chemical is despersed. And with men like Mohamed Rashid and Abu Hasim, given their hatred for this country, you know that's a distinct possibility. Think of those women, Karla Sharif, and then think of the grief you've gone through and imagine what their grief will be like. Do you want to inflict such immense suffering on so many people?' Kursk leaned in closer, stared into her face. 'I know what Nikolai means to you. I know you don't want to betray him. But I have only one question. Could you live with your conscience if you don't?'

The White House 8.50 a.m.

The room was eerily quiet. The President, astonished by Rapp's silence, said angrily, 'I'm still waiting for an answer.'

'I can't help you.'

Booth was stupefied by his reply. 'Why?'

'Because it's outside of my control. Nothing I could do or say would change anything. It's gone too far for that.'

'Why for God's sake?' Booth's anger erupted. 'Why put your country in jeopardy? Why help a bunch of terrorists hold this city hostage? What did you hope to achieve? Or were you forced into it in some way? Were you blackmailed or threatened?'

For the first time since he had entered the room, Rapp looked directly at Booth. 'No,' he replied quietly. 'Everything I did, I did knowingly.'

'Is that all you have to say?'

'You couldn't even begin to understand.'

'Couldn't I?' Booth, his expression livid, picked up the manila folder from the table nearby, thrust it at Rapp. 'I know about Yelena Mazawi. I know about the terrible personal grief you suffered. I know about your crack-up afterwards. I've learned more about you in this last hour from my intelligence sources than in all the years I've known you. Look if you want, it's all in there.'

Rapp took the folder, examined the pages. He turned paler, then let the folder fall on the table. 'Then you must have figured out why I did it?'

'Because you shared the same kind of goals as your radical Arab friends? Is that the reason? Because you thought you could somehow be a midwife to change? Or are you just insane?'

Rapp moved over to the window, looked out, his eyes misted. 'What I set out to do was inspired by a higher good.'

'You definitely must be crazy.' Booth was flabbergasted.

'Have you any idea what it's like to wade through a sea of corpses?' Rapp turned back and his voice suddenly trembled. 'Have you any idea what it's like to see eighteen hundred people lying dead in a river of their own blood, some of them people you knew, people you'd befriended? What it's like to find your pregnant wife dead among them? You weep and you shriek at the injustice of it, but you know it does no good, that it can never change anything. That day at Sabra, after the massacre, when I walked through the camp, when I found Yelena lying butchered in a gutter with her throat ripped open, I was overwhelmed. With despair, with anger, with a profound sense of injustice for the slaughter I saw around me, and I could do nothing about it. But from then on, it was easy to make up my mind where my allegiance lay. Easy to resolve to myself that if ever a time came when I could be an agent for change, to help Yelena's people, I'd willingly play my part for a cause I believed in.'

'Why not argue that cause with words instead of terror? Why, for God's sake?'

'Since when have words ever changed our foreign policy? I tried words in the past. They achieved nothing.'

'But why make innocent Americans pay for something they're not guilty of?' Booth said hoarsely. 'Americans didn't kill your wife and unborn child. Your country didn't commit that evil crime.'

'But American arms and missiles did.' Rapp had a tortured look, his voice thick with agony. 'And when eighteen hundred Arabs perished that day, we didn't give a damn. What if it had been eighteen hundred Americans, or Jews, Mr President? Do you think this country would have stood up and taken notice? When it suits us, we can be so self-righteous. If Saddam Hussein invades Kuwait and puts our oil supplies in jeopardy, or some drug-dealing South American tin-pot dictator gets out of line, sure, we'll do something about it. But if a bunch of worthless Arabs get massacred? Where's our righteousness when that happens?'

'I can't answer for the past. I can't answer for something I'm not responsible for.'

'I'm not asking you to. But you have an opportunity to do something no US President has ever done before. To do the honourable thing. To correct the wrongs of the past.'

'By giving in to threat and blackmail? You're insane, Rapp. Totally insane if you can justify in your mind what you've done. What do you hope to achieve? Some kind of warped personal justice? Is that it? What the hell do you want out of this?'

'The same things Yelena would have wanted, no more, no less. Everything you heard on the tape.'

'Even if it costs hundreds of thousands of American lives? Even if it turns this city into a graveyard?'

'It doesn't have to go that far. It never did,' Rapp said with conviction. 'Not if you fulfil the terms of the letter. And that decision was never mine, but yours. You could have fulfilled them from the very start. But no, you put at risk a half million people against someone whom you have no leverage against, and who's prepared to die tomorrow.'

'That's your last word?'

'I don't have the last word, Mr President. You do. Me, I'm just a bit player, a messenger. It's outside of my control, and always was. And with or without me, nothing would be any different. The part I played is insignificant to all of this, or don't you see that?'

The President put a hand to his head, massaged it in a gesture of utter futility. He was acutely aware of the hopelessness of the situation, of Rapp's steadfastness, of the minutes fast ticking by as he looked at the clock on his desk. 'I can see this argument is going nowhere. That I'm talking to a wall.' Booth sighed with bitter frustration. 'Nevertheless, I'm going to ask you one last time. Will you help me?'

'I told you. I can't.'

In the South-East district, Gorev turned the Yamaha into the front driveway of the house in Futon Chase. As he dismounted, Rashid drove up behind him in the Plymouth and parked on the street, keeping the garage entrance free. He climbed out, locked the car, went up the steps with Gorev, and knocked on the front door. This time it was Abdullah who answered, and when they stepped into the hallway Rashid said, 'Where's Moses?'

'Sleeping. He was on guard all night.'

'Wake him, we've got work to do,' Rashid said gruffly, and pushed past him towards the garage.

8.14 a.m.

The GM Savana swung on to Route 4 and the driver put his foot down, the engine snarling as it touched ninety. Kursk was seated in the middle row next to Karla Sharif, Razan on the other side. The early morning traffic was thick in the direction of DC, but the driver kept in the fast lane, flashing his headlights and sounding his horn at the cars in front. Kursk grimly checked the time. 'This is no longer something you and your men can handle, Razan. And if you want my advice, you're best staying out of it. I'll need to call for help, urgently. And I'll need a map, if your men have one.'

Razan considered, shot a nervous glance at Karla, and nodded. 'Just remember, if it's possible I don't want Nikolai harmed.'

Kursk held out his hand. 'My cellphone.'

Washington, DC South-East District 8.30 a.m.

Rashid stepped over to the muddied Nissan. He took a set of keys from his pocket and pressed the button on the alarm keypad. The Nissan's lights flashed and the central locking disengaged. He swung open the rear doors, revealing the two sealed oil drums inside. On the floor next to the drums was the laptop computer, hooked up to the satellite dish receiver, placed near the front of the van, the laptop connected to the drums by slim electric cables.

Rashid climbed into the van. Gorev was anxious as he joined him in the back. 'What are you going to do?'

'Set the computer to trigger the detonator.' Rashid removed the hard plastic wallet containing the disk from his pocket. 'Time it to go off automatically two hours from now, at ten-thirty. Abu Hasim will give the Americans half an hour's grace, but no more.'

Gorev put a hand firmly on Rashid's arm. 'Do you have to do that right now?'

'Those were my orders, Gorev.' Rashid pulled his arm away. Sweat glinted on his temples as he opened the laptop and switched on. The screen flickered to life and the boot program loaded. When it had finished, Rashid opened the plastic wallet, slid out the disk, inserted it into the slit at the side of the laptop, and hit the enter key. When the disk had loaded, the prompt appeared on the top left-hand side of the screen: 'ACTIVE. TO PROCEED, ENTER PASSWORD'.

Rashid tapped in the password, al-Wakia, the screen cleared, and another command appeared: 'ENTER COUNTDOWN PERIOD'.

Rashid checked his watch, waited until the minute hand swept round to the half hour, typed the figures 02.00.00, then hit enter again.

Another line appeared on screen: 'COMMENCING COUNTDOWN. TWO HOURS BEFORE DETONATION.'

The figure 02.00.00 he had entered was highlighted on the screen, and started to count down in seconds.

01.59.59

01.59.58

01.59.57

Rashid's face lit with triumph. 'It's done.' He looked back at Gorev. 'We'll get on our way once Karla arrives.'

'And then?'

'We leave the van near the centre of Washington. In a delivery yard on 15th Street belonging to a friend of Abdullah's. Then we make our way to Baltimore in the car. The computer will do the rest, detonate the drums when the time has elapsed, unless Abu Hasim decides otherwise.'

Gorev was uneasy. 'And what if the police or FBI stop us on the way into Washington? For all we know, they might decide to check every vehicle entering the city.'

'They'd be fools if they interfered with us. I'll trigger the nerve gas myself if I have to. All I'd have to do is re-enter the password, and make the computer fire the detonators immediately.' Rashid wiped the perspiration from his face with the back of his hand and climbed out of the van. When Gorev joined him, Rashid locked the rear doors, flicked on the alarm again, and the central locking engaged with a clunk.

Gorev was still troubled. 'It doesn't feel right, Rashid. This is not the way it was planned.'

'What's the matter, Gorev? Have you lost your nerve? Can't you face the reality?'

'I never thought it would go this far.'

'Well, it has.'

'Listen Rashid, you were supposed to give the Americans until noon.' Cold sweat broke out on Gorev's brow. 'What if you've made it impossible for them to make the deadline?'

'Then they've condemned their city to death.'

Washington, DC 8.16 a.m.

Five miles away, at FBI Headquarters, Tom Murphy was seated behind his desk, seething with hopeless frustration. The helicopters searching Chesapeake from the air, and the teams on the ground, scouring the coast and inland, had so far thrown up no sign of the terrorists' box-shaped white van. Twice in the last ten minutes the Assistant Director had called, urging Murphy to hurry his men, and reminding him — as if he needed reminding of the fast-approaching deadline, just over ninety minutes away. Murphy, dabbing sweat from his face, had just picked up his phone to get another update on the Chesapeake search when the door burst open and Larry Soames came in, looking so flushed and agitated that Murphy at once jumped up, fearing the building was on fire. 'Tom, I've got Kursk on my line — '

'I thought he was on a plane for Montreal. What the hell's he — '

Soames cut across him, his voice bursting with strain and excitement. 'You're not going to believe this. He's found them ... Kursk's found the sons of bitches.'

Four minutes later, after a brief but charged conversation with Alexei Kursk, a stunned Murphy told him to stay on the line and handed the phone to Soames.

A half-dozen more agents had crowded into Murphy's office to hear the news from a jubilant Soames, and Murphy pushed through them with fevered excitement and bounded over to the wall map, his pulse racing. Pandemonium was breaking out in the open-plan offices outside, people getting up excitedly from their terminals to come over to the office as word spread, but Murphy was oblivious to it all as he concentrated on the map, sweat breaking out on his face. He knew Fulton Chase on the edges of the South-East. It was a gritty, high-crime neighbourhood, five miles from the District.

'Dan, get on to the Haz-Mat guys,' Murphy yelled back at one of the agents. 'The same with the Army Technical Support Unit. Tell them I want back-up. I need them waiting on Virginia Avenue beside the Capitol Power plant in the South-East, standing by and ready to move. And tell those guys I want them in unmarked vehicles and in civvies. I don't want any indicators that will give them away, you hear? Do it now, Danny.'

'Right away!' The agent darted out of the office, which was getting crowded as more agents packed in and stood by the door, anxiously waiting to find out whether they were needed, or whether there was something — anything — they could do.

Murphy's mind was racing as he tried to think on his feet, without panic, without hysteria, but it wasn't easy. He had ninety minutes, maybe even less, and a hundred and one things to do, and each of them screamed for his attention. Kursk had said that Karla Sharif had told him Rashid intended moving the chemical closer to the District that morning, but she didn't know at what time — Jesus, how did Kursk manage that coup? — but Murphy didn't even dwell on the thought. He could find out later when he hooked up with Kursk. Now he was just so thankful for the breakthrough he felt like crying. Instead, he tried to focus on the problems he faced. So many things could go wrong, and if he made one false step it would all collapse.

Getting a team of his agents close to and even inside the safe house was going to take tremendous skill and cunning, but what frightened Murphy was it had to be done fast. Going in gungho was out of the question — it risked blowing the whole thing sky high. Any one of the terrorists might panic and set off the device prematurely. Above all, he had to be careful not to alert their suspicions. That was going to be a major problem. In certain parts of the South-East neighbourhoods, rife with crack and crime, the locals could smell any kind of intrusion from the law just by sniffing the air. And what if Rashid had people near the safe house keeping lookout, ready to warn them of any trouble? Even if he didn't, and Murphy flooded the area with agents, sure as hell they'd soon enough get spotted. Federal agents — especially droves of them — had a habit of sticking out like a sore thumb.

He knew he needed a rendezvous point, backed off from the safe house, where he could have his men standing by. Somewhere not too far away, but not too close, with good road access to the street the safe house was on, and as he frantically searched the map Murphy thought he found it, less than a quarter-mile from Fulton Chase. He made a quick decision, jabbed the map and roared, 'Does anyone know this area?'

Agents crowded around him. One of them spoke up. 'Yes, sir.'

'Then get over there as quick as you damned well can. Take a half-dozen men with you in unmarked cars — and I don't want lights flashing or sirens blaring. I need you to find someplace we can use as a temporary command post, somewhere we can park a lot of our vehicles so we don't attract too much attention, and I need you to find it fast. A service depot maybe, or a warehouse complex that's got a big and busy lot. You know anywhere like that around there?'

'Sure. There's a whole bunch of vacant industrial premises in the area. You'd have your choice, sir.'

'Find one that's right — pronto — then call me, and I'll have the Haz-Mat and tech support people hook up with us there. But nobody, and I mean nobody, goes anywhere near Fulton Chase or the damned house, and they wait until I get there. Is that understood? Now get going!' As the agent barrelled out the door, followed by a handful of his colleagues, Murphy spun round, shouted over at Soames. 'Is Kursk still hanging on?'

'Yeah, he's still on the line.' Soames had the receiver pressed to his ear.

'Tell him not to hang up, I'll be with him in two minutes.' Murphy clicked his fingers at another agent. 'Chuck, I want a half-dozen of our best undercover people — all of them black. I'll want them to recon the street, and one of them to take a walk by the house and give it a look-over, so make sure they're the type who'd melt into the background in the South-East neighbourhoods, otherwise, if Rashid and his friends smell the slightest hint of trouble, we're in the shit.' Murphy mopped his sweating face with the back of his hand. 'And get two more dozen agents over to the South-East. Have them waiting near Garfleld Park until they hear from me. And remember, I want everyone in unmarked vans and cars, you hear?'

'Got you.'

Murphy spun to address Soames again. 'Larry, have someone else hang on the line, and get in touch with Collins and Morgan. Tell them what's happening. Tell them Kursk wants us to meet up with him somewhere along Route Four, near Forestville, on the way in from Maryland. See if they can do it in the next fifteen minutes, and if they can, then they're to get their asses back to the South-East, pronto! Just as soon as we've got a rendezvous point, I'll tell them where we'll hook up.'

Breathless with excitement, Murphy reached across his desk, grabbed his cellphone with a trembling hand, and ferociously punched in the Assistant Director's number. It was answered after one ring. 'Cage.'

'Matt, we found them!' Murphy yelled. 'You can tell the President we found the bastards! They're in a house over in Fulton Park on the South-East. That's where they've got the chemical stored.'

Eight miles from Chesapeake, Collins' cellphone buzzed. He flicked it on, heard Larry Soames's voice, and what sounded like a mayhem of other voices in the background.

'Jack?'

'Go ahead, Larry.'

'Jack, I want you to listen to me ... '

Washington, DC, South-East 8.48 a.m.