The Heaven Trilogy (143 page)

Tanya backed to the bed in shock. She sat heavily, hardly able to form coherent thoughts now. When one did string through her head, it said that this was madness. That the world had gone berserk and she along with it.

She lay back, acutely aware of the afternoon silence. Outside, horns honked and pedestrians yelled muted words. She was alone. Maybe even God had deserted her.

Father, what's happening to me? I'm losing my mind
.

Then Tanya began to cry softly on the bed. She felt as abandoned and destitute as she had those first weeks after her parents had been killed.

Will you die for him, Tanya?

For him? Shannon.

She curled up in a ball and let the grief swallow her.

CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

“YES, THAT'S
right, Bill; we don't have a clue what's going on down there. But
whatever it is, it's changing the world.”

“I'm preparing for my Wednesday evening teaching at the church, my son is at
soccer practice, and Tanya is down in the jungle changing the world.”

“Yes. She's loving and she's dying and she's changing the world.”

“And who's she loving?”

“The boy.”

“Shannon. So he is alive?”

“I think so. I think that she was called down there to love him.”

“How does that change the world?”

“I don't know. But it's all I get now. To pray for her to love the boy. In fact, I
really think that's what this is all about. Tanya loving Shannon. I really do think
maybe Tanya's parents were called down there twenty years ago so that Tanya could
fall in love with the boy.”

The line was silent.

“And I think Father Petrus was brought to the jungle years ago for this day.”

“Important day,” he said.

SIX HOURS after Shannon and Tanya fell through the tube into the Orinoco River, three large Yevaro logs followed them. The mountain spit them out like torpedoes and they rushed through muddy waters toward the coast. They reached the Orinoco Delta and bobbed out to sea.

A clipper bearing the name
Angel of the Sea
plucked the first log from the ocean at eight that evening. The log sat snug, among twenty other similar exotic logs bound for the coastal port of Annapolis, twenty miles from Washington, D.C.
,
thirty miles from the CIA headquarters in Langley.
Angel
of the Sea
cut north at a steady forty-knot clip. Barring any unforeseen storms, she would arrive at her destination within thirty hours.

Marlin Watch,
bound for Miami, hauled the second log from the waters an hour later. This log contained a silver sphere that consisted of nothing more than a small ball of plutonium. Enough to set off a Geiger counter if one were run along the log's surface, but otherwise it was harmless.

Two miles behind her, the
Lumber Lord
stowed the third log in its forward hold and steamed north behind the other two ships. Captain Moses Catura leaned over his map in the pilothouse and spoke to Andrew, who stood beside him.

“Two degrees to port, Andrew. That should compensate for the winds.” He looked up into the darkness ahead and swore under his breath. It was the first time he had taken the freighter north on such short notice, but Ramón had insisted. And for a single log! They must have a million dollars of cocaine packed into the tree.

“All set, Captain,” Andrew said. “We should make good time if the weather holds.”

Moses nodded. “Let's hope so. I don't like the feel of this one. The sooner we get these logs off-loaded the better.”

“They're paying well. More than we make in a year. It's one log—what could go wrong with a single log?” Andrew referred to the $100,000 they were being paid for the run. In Senegal where his family waited, his share would make him a wealthy man.

“Maybe, Andrew. Did you know that the Coast Guard is larger than South Africa's entire navy? They're not friendly to drug runners.”

Andrew chuckled. “We're not drug runners. We have no idea how that log got on board. We're stupid sailors.” He turned to face the darkness ahead with the captain. “Besides, this will be our last run. It's fitting that we make so much on our last run.”

Moses nodded at the thought.

Below him the Yevaro log they had plucked from the water slowly dried. In its belly a silver sphere sat dormant, housing a black ball cradling enough force to vaporize the seven-thousand-ton ship with a single cough.

JAMAL TURNED his back on the busy street and spoke into the phone. “Hello, Abdullah.”

Silence.

“Do you have anything to report, my dear jungle bunny?”

“I have followed your directions.”

“Good. They are on their way, then?”

He could almost hear Abdullah's mind spinning on the other end. “I was told to prepare them,” Abdullah said. “Not to send them.”

“Unless there was a problem. Isn't that what I told you? Hmm?”

“What problem—”

“Don't be an imbecile!” Jamal spit into the phone. “You don't think I know when you eat and when you sleep and when you pass gas?”

His hand was shaking and he took a breath to still himself. He had two men in the compound who reported to him regularly. Not that he needed them often—he knew Abdullah's moves before the fool did.

“I am on my way, my friend. If you have not done precisely as I have said—”

“The bombs are on the way,” Abdullah said tightly.

Jamal blinked. “They are.” The words stopped him cold.

“Good.”

He slammed the phone down and walked from the phone booth.

SWEAT GLISTENED on Abdullah's face under the fluorescent lights. He set the phone down, poured another splash of tequila into his shot glass, dipped a quivering tongue into the burning liquid, and then tilted his head slowly back until it drained empty into his mouth. Although he'd never been a drinking man, the last twenty-four hours had changed that. He and Ramón had done little except sit at his desk and wait. And drink.

The alcohol made him perspire, he thought. Like a pig. “Where are the ships now?” he asked again.

“Coming to Cuba maybe,” Ramón answered.

So, Jamal was coming. And when he did arrive, he would die. Abdullah felt a chill tickle his shoulders. He honestly wasn't sure which thought gave him more pleasure, killing Jamal, or detonating a thermonuclear weapon on American soil.

He ran a finger along the edge of the transmitter lying on the bar beside him. It was a simple 2.4 gigahertz transmitting device, impossible to isolate quickly. But it tied into a far more sophisticated transmitter hidden one mile away, secured in the jungle canopy in a protective housing. From there a tiny burst masquerading as a television signal would be simultaneously relayed through commercial communication satellites. Not all would fail. Not all could be stopped.

And by the time the authorities detected the burst, which they would, it would be too late. The detonation of the first bomb would automatically send a signal to set the second bomb on a twenty-four-hour countdown to detonation. Two green buttons rose from the black plastic like two peas. He circled first one button and then the other. Below the buttons, nine numbers made up a small keypad. Only he and Jamal had the codes to stop the inevitable.

Abdullah spoke without lifting his head. “You are sure the logs arrived at the boats intact?” He waved the question off with a nod of his head. “Yes, of course, you have said so.”

“Do you think they will give us the agent?” Ramón asked.

Abdullah thought about Casius and blinked. A widening thought in his mind suggested it might be best if they did not deliver the agent. Then his hand would be forced—it would be Allah's doing.

Abdullah glanced at the clock ticking on the wall opposite them. It had been twenty-four hours and not even a breath from the fools. A chill suddenly spiked at the base of his skull. What if they had ignored the message entirely, thinking him a madman? What if they hadn't even received the message? It had been relayed through the same relays he would use for the bombs. Five million dollars of technology—all from Jamal, of course.

Abdullah grunted and shoved himself back from the bar. “Something isn't right. We'll send another message.”

He walked for the door with Ramón on his heels. His fingers were shaking badly. Power was its own drug, he thought, and it was coursing through his veins. At the moment he might very well be the most powerful man in the world.

FRIBERG JERKED in his seat when the knock came on his door. He lifted his head, but the door opened before he could say anything. Mark stepped in.

Ingersol's greased hair flopped to the right side. He threw it back with a hurried hand and rushed forward. “We received another message!”

Friberg stood and snatched the message from the man. “Settle down, Ingersol.” But he was already reading the typed communiqué in his fingers.

Ingersol sat in one of the chairs facing his desk. “This guy's dead serious. He's adamant that he has a bomb. I thought you said—”

“Shut up!”

Friberg slowly sat. “Forty-eight hours,” he read. “He's cutting the time from seventy-two hours to forty-eight hours because we have been
insufficiently
responsive?”
He lowered the paper. “That's absurd! This guy can't be serious.”

Ingersol's greasy black hair had fallen to his cheek again. “This isn't the kind of communiqué a man who's bluffing sends, sir. He's either a total imbecile or he
does
have a bomb. And the fact that he's survived Casius this long does not bode well for the imbecile theory.” Ingersol stopped and took a long pull through his nostrils.

The director felt a ball of heat spread over his skull. And what if Ingersol were correct? What if . . . ?

The note was signed Abdullah Amir. Disconnected fragments of information fell together in his mind and he blinked. Jamal. Casius was after Jamal.

What if Casius had actually stumbled onto more than the cocaine plant?

“What's going on?” Ingersol repeated. “It seems to me that I've stuck my neck out with you. I deserve to know what I've gotten into, don't you think?”

Friberg eyed the man. Ingersol was a wreck. If he didn't pull him in, he would destroy them both.

“You and me, Mark. It goes no further than this room, you understand?”

Ingersol didn't respond.

“All right. You want to know? Ten years ago Abdullah Amir approached us with a plan to infiltrate the Colombian cartels in exchange for his own piece of the operation. We agreed. He disappeared into their networks. Two years later he reappeared, this time with enough information to wipe out two drug cartels. In exchange, he wanted our cooperation, allowing him to establish and operate a small cocaine plant next-door in Venezuela. We agreed. We pointed him to a coffee plantation and gave him some assistance in taking it over. Nothing major—minor casualties. He's been operating there ever since. Small stuff. We got the DEA to sign off on the deal, but I was the agent who put it together. It was highly successful, all told. We shut down nearly a hundred thousand acres of production in exchange for a hundred.”

Ingersol blinked. “That's it?”

Friberg nodded.

“And what does that have to do with this bomb?”

“Nothing. Unless Casius was right and Jamal is connected with Abdullah Amir. Or unless Abdullah isn't who we think he is. South America would make a good base for a strike against America.” The sense of it occurred to Friberg even as he spoke it.

“And none of Abdullah's money has found its way into your retirement account, right?”

Friberg didn't respond.

Ingersol shook his head and stared off to the window. He had no choice, Friberg realized. He had already committed himself in front of the president. The money was only dressing.

“I've been suckered into this,” Ingersol said and Friberg did not object. “I wasn't looking for this. It's not what I do.”

“Maybe, Mark. But we all face the choice at some time. You've already made yours.”

Ingersol's eyes fell to the note and Friberg lifted it up. Yes, there was the matter of the bomb, wasn't there? That could be a real spoiler. “So you think we're dealing with a madman who actually has a bomb?” Friberg asked.

“I don't know anymore,” Ingersol returned.

“I don't either. But if we are, we now have twenty-four hours to deliver Casius and defuse the situation. Or find this bomb.” The idea of it sounded absurd. A suicide mission or even a biological attack was one thing—they had all seen it. But a nuclear bomb? In Hollywood movies, maybe.

“Who else knows about this?” Friberg asked, lifting the transcript.

“No one. It just came over the wire less than ten minutes ago.”

“And what's the current status of the search?”

“The Office of Homeland Security is working through its protocol. Law enforcement's on full alert. They're looking—the import documents in question have been identified, and traces are being done now. But it's only been twenty-four hours. We're nowhere near the discovery phase in this thing. In twelve hours we may have traces complete, but very few searches, if any.” Ingersol bit his lower lip.

“No one hears about this last message, you understand?”

Ingersol nodded and flipped his hair back again.

“Good. Give the Rangers the clearance to sweep the valley. We go for anything that lives in that compound. If Abdullah does have a bomb, we're risking him detonating it the minute we attack, but I don't see our choice at this point. Anything from the satellites yet?”

“Nothing except cocaine fields. If they have anything else down there, it's hidden.”

“And no word of Casius?”