Collateral Damage (20 page)

Holly took a deep draft of her drink. “It’s the worst working day of my life,” she said. “I knew a couple of them, though not well. Tomorrow I have to write letters to their families, and I’m not looking forward to that.”

“It’s Jasmine?”

Holly nodded. “I damn near had her in my sights this afternoon, but she got away.”

“That’s rough. I hope you get her next time.”

Holly tossed off her drink and set down the empty glass. “I missed lunch. Can we sit down?”

“Sure.” Stone put money on the bar and led her to the back room, where a table was waiting. They ordered steaks immediately.

“Stone, a couple of other things happened today,” she said.

“I heard on the news about the president’s executive order.”

“And as a result, the office here has been made a full-fledged station, and I’m the new station chief.”

“So you’ll be staying on in New York?”

“For the time being, until we’re back on our feet and Jasmine has been dealt with. I think I should move to my apartment. I mean, it’s just sitting there, I might as well get some use out of it.”

“Have you taken a vow of celibacy?”

She squeezed his thigh. “Not yet!”

“Listen to me carefully: I suspect you’re talking this way because you’re afraid you’re imposing on my good nature.”

“Well . . .”

“Nothing could be further from the truth. I haven’t felt so comfortable in my own house since Arrington died, and having you there has made me feel that way. Please stay with me for as long as you can stand it.”

Holly smiled. “Standing it is not the problem. I’ll stay.”

“Good.”

“I’ll need to go up to my apartment and get some clothes, though.”

“Plenty of room in your dressing room in Turtle Bay.”

“Thank you, Stone.”

“It’ll save the Agency money on security, too. They’ll have only one residence to guard.”

“I suppose that’s true. Do you mind if I admit to Kate Rule that I’m living with you? She assumes it anyway.”

“Go right ahead. We can take out an ad in the paper, if you like.”

“I don’t think it’s a good idea to advertise,” Holly said, laughing.

“Right. Jasmine might see the ad, and we don’t want that. May I make a suggestion?”

“Sure.”

“Why don’t you get an Agency driver and use my car to go to and from work every day?”

“Oh, thank you, but we have armored vehicles and drivers available at the station. I guess I’d better start using them, instead of taking cabs.”

“Please do,” Stone said. “I’d feel better.”

Their food came and they dug in. When they were on their last glass of wine, Holly cleared her throat. “I need your advice,” she said.

“Of course. Legal?”

“In a way. I’m trying to figure out a way not to commit murder.”

“I hope I can help. Who’s the putative victim?”

“Kelli Keane.”

“Oh?”

“She’s told Jim Rutledge about the device at The Arrington.”

Stone put down his glass. “How do you know that?”

“Because I had Rutledge’s apartment wired for audio and video.”

“And you’ve been listening in and watching?”

“From time to time. Last night I caught them coming back from our dinner and he was pumping her a little bit.”

“Literally or figuratively?”

“Well, both, now that you mention it. They seem to do almost as much of that as you and I.”

“Lucky them.”

“But this time he was pumping her about an earlier conversation. She had told him she knew something that she couldn’t tell him.”

“And last night she told him everything?”

“She told him something, whispered in his ear, and from his reaction, I think she may have told him everything.”

“And you’re thinking about having her . . . What’s the phrase they use in spy novels? Terminated with extreme prejudice?”

“That’s the term. I’m not really going to do that, of course. My problem is, what do I do?”

“I believe you’ve already had a serious conversation with her about this, haven’t you?”

“I have, and I thought I had scared her into silence. But . . .”

“But, she whispered into Jim’s ear last night.”

“Exactly. How can I shut her up?”

“Well, you could have them slapped around a little, I guess.”

“Stop it! You’re no help at all.”

“All right, all right. Being an attorney, I tend to look for legal solutions to problems. I seem to recall reading about there being some federal judge that can secretly issue wiretap warrants for the FBI. Is that true?”

“I’ve heard that, too.”

“Well, since the president has unleashed the Agency on an unsuspecting population with his executive order, wouldn’t that give you access to the judge?”

“Very possibly,” she said. “Go on.”

“Well, you could formally request a gag order from the judge, barring Jim and Kelli from discussing the, ah, event with others. If they violated the order, they could be held in contempt of court and jailed indefinitely.”

“What an attractive idea,” Holly said, grinning. “I knew you’d come up with something.”

Stone sighed. “There’s another way to deal with the problem of leaks, though—a more honest way.”

“What’s that?”

“Get the president to reveal to the public what happened in L.A.”

“Holy shit!” Holly exclaimed. “The media would go absolutely nuts!”

“Not as nuts as if they found out about it from Kelli or someone else who was there. It just may not be possible to keep a lid on this forever, and I think it would be better for the president, and for the country, if he were the one to tell them about it, instead of
The New York Times
or
Vanity Fair
. And you have the ear of the president, through Kate.”

“I knew you’d tell me what to do,” Holly said. “And I knew I wouldn’t like doing it.”

Stone shrugged. “An attorney gives advice—hopefully good advice. It’s not always fun to follow it.”

They were back at Stone’s house, having a nightcap in his study when Holly’s cell phone went off. She looked at it. “It’s the director,” she said, “and at eleven o’clock at night. This can’t be good.” She pressed the button. “Good evening, Director.”

“Holly, I have Felicity Devonshire on the line, and I want to conference you in, so that you can hear what she has to say directly from her. And I don’t mind if Stone listens, too.”

“Thank you, Director.”

There was a click. “Holly?” Felicity asked. “Are you there?”

“Yes, Felicity.” She thought about adding, “Stone, too,” just to rub it in, but didn’t.

“I’m sorry to call you so late.”

“It’s not as late as it is there,” Holly said.

“Yes, well, we’ve been up all night. We’ve had a big break in the hunt for Jasmine.”

“Go ahead.”

“Early yesterday morning we got a tip from a milkman about a house on the Thames, west of London, quite a spiffy neighborhood. He said that he’s seen Jasmine there twice in the past two weeks, and after a thorough interview with him we decided that the lead was good enough for a raid. And that’s how we captured Habib Assam.”

“I know that name—he’s al Qaeda, isn’t he?”

“He is—very important. We’ve had his brother in custody in the UK for nearly a year, and we made a lot of progress in turning him, but he wouldn’t give up Habib. Now that he’s in custody, the brother is talking.”

“Wonderful. Has he given you anything on Jasmine?”

“Jasmine is part of his cell, as is Habib. He’s telling us that there’s a New York cell, too.”

“How big a cell?”

“Half a dozen people, now plus Jasmine, working from an apartment somewhere on the West Side.”

“Do you have an address?”

“I don’t think he knows that, but there’s more,” Felicity said.

Holly didn’t like the sound of that.

“There are cells in Boston, Chicago, Los Angeles, and Atlanta, too, each with something on the order of four to six people. The brother says they are all well supplied with weapons and explosives and ready to move when they get the order.”

“From whom?” Holly asked.

“Ayman al-Zawahiri, since bin Laden’s death, the head of al Qaeda.”

“Go on.”

“The cell leaders in each city were sent there while bin Laden was still running things, each with a lot of money, and told to do their own recruiting and training of the recruits. Al-Zawahiri has been waiting for all the cells to reach full strength and training and to select targets, then report in. Full readiness is expected sometime soon, perhaps within a month.”

“Good God,” Holly said.

“Quite. The head of the New York cell is also named Habib. We don’t have a last name. We’ve no doubt that the arrival in New York of Jasmine was the catalyst that set things off there.”

“Were you able to get any names of the people in the other cities?”

“We’re working on that now. Something else we’ve learned: the setting off of the device in Los Angeles was meant to be the start of a new American and European jihad, but the failure of that effort has slowed things, and the killing of Dr. Kharl has, at least for the moment, stopped any large-scale attacks, the next of which was to be London. It is our conclusion that, without Kharl to make the devices, that effort is dead, because there is just no one else available to these people who has the requisite skills and access to materials.”

“Well, that’s a relief.”

Kate broke in. “That’s the story in a nutshell,” she said. “I’m in the situation room now with the president discussing what is to be done, and Felicity is traveling to Washington almost immediately as the prime minister’s representative. I am going to want your recommendations on how we should proceed.”

“I can give you my recommendations now, Director,” Holly said.

“I’ll put you on speakerphone. Go ahead.”

“After a discussion with Stone Barrington, our consultant, whose opinion I respect, I’ve come to the conclusion that the president should address the nation and tell them what happened in Los Angeles. If he doesn’t and the story leaks, it would be much more damaging than if he tells all now. In light of what Felicity has just told us, I believe he should also reveal the existence of the al Qaeda cells in American cities and put the entire Homeland Security network on high alert. As we receive more information, the White House should release names and photographs as they come in, and we’ll have the whole country looking for them. This will inevitably lead to a great many false sightings, but even that will tend to keep the country on alert.”

“Thank you for that, Holly, and please thank Stone for his help. You are to transmit this information to the New York City police commissioner tomorrow morning. By that time, the FBI will have already alerted their people in New York. You have the authority to activate the situation room under the New York station for whatever use you wish. When it’s up and running, you’ll be able to see simultaneously whatever we’re receiving in the White House situation room. We’ll speak again at ten o’clock tomorrow morning. Good night.”

“Good night, Director.” Holly ended the connection.

“I didn’t know there was a situation room under your New York building,” Stone said.

“Neither did I,” Holly replied. She picked up the phone. “I’m calling the commissioner.”

“He’ll be sound asleep.”

“Not for long,” she replied.

Holly had just reached her desk the following morning when there was a knock on her door. She looked up to see a slim, blond woman in her forties standing at the door.

“Good morning, Chief,” the woman said. “I’m Phyllis Schackelford. I’m section head of Analysis, and I have an additional duty of running our situation room downstairs. Would you like to see it?”

“Yes, I would,” Holly said.

“Please come with me.” She led the way to the elevators, and while they waited for the car she handed Holly an odd-looking key. “You should keep this. It will get you all the way downstairs, and it will work in any lock in the building.”

The elevator arrived, and Phyllis indicated four buttons, marked S1 through S4. “Sub-basement four is the situation room,” she said. “Please insert your key in the lock next to the button, turn it ninety degrees to the right, then press the S4 button.”

Holly turned the key, and the S4 button light came on. She pressed the button, and the elevator started down.