Collateral Damage (25 page)

Holly got up, walked back to the front door, retrieved her coat, and left them standing in their living room, closing the door sharply behind her.

—

When they were alone, Jim wheeled on Kelli. “What the hell—”

Kelli held up a hand. “Be quiet,” she said. “We’re being listened to, and this time it’s not that tabloid rag.”

“You mean the CIA has wired our apartment?”

Kelli nodded. “It just hit me, when I was showing her the bedroom. She was looking up at the corners of the room. That guy who came and took out the old bugs? He wasn’t sent by Herb Fisher’s girlfriend—he was sent by Holly Barker.”

“How do you know that?”

“I just do. I figured it out. I’m not stupid, although it was stupid of me to tell you anything.”

“I haven’t mentioned it to anybody,” he protested.

“No, and that’s how I know we’re wired, because neither of us has ever discussed it with anybody but each other, and in our bedroom. And yet Holly knows we did that.”

Jim went and poured two stiff drinks, then returned and gave Kelli one. “Then let’s stop talking about it right now and never bring it up again, just like the court order says.” He took a swig of his whiskey. “This never happened, any of it, do you understand? Not L.A., not our conversation, not Holly’s visit. None of it. Agreed?”

Kelli took a gulp of her own drink. “Agreed. It never happened.”

—

Holly got home and found Stone in his study. He poured them a drink. “How was your day?”

“Satisfying,” Holly replied.

“How so?”

“I took care of the Kelli Keane problem.”

“Did you get the court order?”

“No, that turned out to be too complicated, before Congress changes our charter.”

“Then how did you handle it?”

“It probably won’t surprise you to learn that the Agency has people at work who can create all sorts of documents.”

“Wait a minute: Are you telling me that you produced a fake court order?”

“All I’m telling you is that the Agency is capable of doing so, and we may have an acquaintance with a friendly judge who will give the correct answers if he receives an inquiry about such a thing.”

“God, I wish I had a judge like that—and a forger, too. It would be so much easier to get court orders!”

They were on their second drink when Holly said, “Turn on the TV.”

Stone reached for the remote. “What channel?”

“Any channel with an evening news.”

Stone picked CBS. As the set came to light, the anchorman gazed into the camera. “In just about a minute, the president of the United States will address the nation. We don’t know the subject of the address, but we have assembled a panel that includes our White House correspondent, our military adviser, and a former member of the administration to discuss what he has to say.” He pressed a finger to his earpiece. “Are we ready? Ladies and gentlemen, the president of the United States.”

Will Lee appeared on-screen from the Oval Office, not sitting behind his desk as in the usual presidential address, but standing and leaning on it, facing the camera. “Good evening,” he said. “I want to take a brief moment to pass along some information to the nation. What I’m about to tell you will be all I will have to say on the subject. I ask for your understanding on that, because we must preserve our posture on national security without telling our enemies too much.

“Recently, an attempt was made by al Qaeda to place and detonate a nuclear device in our country. The location will remain classified, but I’m glad to tell you that, because of cooperation among our intelligence services, agents of the Secret Service and others were able to learn of the plot, find the device, and disable it. The plot was attempted by a small cell of al Qaeda operatives, which included a foreign expert in the design of bombs. You should know that al Qaeda no longer has the capability of carrying out such an attack, because all the people who were a part of the plot, including the designer and builder of the device, were killed while resisting arrest—all but one.”

A passport photo appeared on-screen. “This woman is Jasmine Shazaz. She is of Middle Eastern origin and was educated in Britain, and she is the chief suspect in a series of recent bombing attacks in London and New York. She has no capability of building a nuclear device, but she does have access to powerful explosives, and she is being sought by the CIA, the FBI, and the New York City Police Department as we speak. A five-million-dollar reward has been offered for information leading to her capture, and anyone with information concerning her whereabouts may telephone the toll-free number displayed on the screen and offer that information with the assurance of anonymity.

“Besides New York, she may have contacts in the following cities: Boston, Chicago, Los Angeles, and Atlanta, so citizens in those cities should be watchful. She is certain to be carrying false identification papers, and it is possible that she has taken steps to change her appearance.

“I wanted you all to know that your security forces are working hard and effectively to protect the nation from such plots, and that, once again, we have foiled and weakened al Qaeda. Thank you for your attention and good night.”

The anchorman came back to the screen. “Well, that was a breathtaking announcement,” he said. “Anybody have any thoughts about why the president went public with this?”

“Scott,” the White House correspondent said, “I’m inclined to think that he made the announcement because he thought the story might break anyway, and he wanted to get out in front of it. And that’s just what he has done. I think it’s reassuring that the president seemed so relaxed in saying what he did—not even sitting behind the Oval Office desk. He seemed perfectly comfortable and confident. And I have to say that I can’t remember any time, ever, that a president has promoted a manhunt—or, in this case, a womanhunt—for a fugitive terrorist. I expect they must want her very badly.”

The anchorman nodded. “And I expect that the president’s participation will make it much harder for this terrorist to elude the authorities. Her photograph has already been widely circulated in New York, and the president has just made it impossible for her to feel safe anywhere in the United States. Every law enforcement officer, airline ticket agent, and gas station attendant in the country is going to be checking every face that appears before him, not to mention ordinary citizens who are interested in collecting a five-million-dollar reward.”

Stone switched off the TV. “Well, he was right, it was a breathtaking announcement. I expect Kelli Keane is already on the phone to her editor, dictating her story.”

“No, she isn’t,” Holly said. “The court order permanently enjoined her from ever speaking or writing about the events in L.A., and right this minute, I can assure you, she is wringing her hands and bemoaning her fate.”

“How about Jim Rutledge?”

“He was enjoined as well, and they both took it seriously. I have it on good authority that, after I left their apartment, they swore never to discuss the events with anybody, even with each other.”

“And how could you know that?”

“Let’s just say that there was a witness to their conversation.” She set down her glass. “I’m hungry,” she said. “Let’s go out for some dinner.”

“We’ll celebrate,” Stone said, joining her.

Habib watched from across the street as a man and a woman left the Turtle Bay house and hailed a cab. He sat in a parked black Lincoln Town Car, hundreds of which infested the streets of Manhattan and the suburbs, and many of which could be hailed and taken anywhere. The owner of this particular car rested uneasily in the trunk, bound and gagged, as Habib started the car and fell in behind the taxicab.

The journey led past the black SUV, with government plates, parked in front of the house, around the block to Third Avenue, then uptown, past Bloomingdale’s a block or two, where it stopped and disgorged its passengers into an Italian restaurant called Isle of Capri.

—

Holly looked around as they were seated. “Somehow it feels like an earlier decade,” she said. “Late twentieth century.”

“It’s one of the last family-owned Italian restaurants alive in this city. There are two, maybe three generations at work here.”

The owner came and greeted them and, with their drinks, a waiter brought chunks of Parmigiano-Reggiano, olives, and a jug of extra virgin olive oil and balsamic vinegar.

“There’s enough here for dinner,” Holly said.

“Think of it as your first course.”

“Is the veal good?” she asked.

“
Everything
is good,” Stone replied. “Order whatever you feel like.”

“I feel like veal, maybe the piccata.”

“Good choice. I’m having the osso buco, in memory of Elaine.”

“That’s where we would be now, isn’t it? If she were still alive?”

“Certainly. It used to be that we didn’t have to think of a place to dine, we just went to Elaine’s. I went to her memorial service at a concert hall on the West Side last November, and Bill Bratton told a wonderful story about her.”

“Bratton, the former police commissioner under Giuliani?”

“Right—the one Giuliani forced out because he was getting the credit for his own work, which was making New York the safest big city in the world. Giuliani hated that he went to Elaine’s, because Bill’s picture would turn up on Page Six along with a description of what a great job he was doing, and that drove Giuliani crazy.

“Anyway, on Bill’s last day at work, Giuliani stopped by his office and gave him the key to the city. Bill and his wife, Rikki, were headed to Elaine’s for dinner with friends, and Elaine sat down with them and asked what was in the box on the table.

“Bill told her that Giuliani had given him the key to the city. She opened the box, looked at the key, and said, ‘I’ll bet the son of a bitch has already changed the locks!’”

“Oh, that sounds just like her!” Holly said, laughing.

—

Habib, looking through the restaurant window, saw the couple perusing the menu, and he got back into the Lincoln and drove back to Turtle Bay. The black SUV was still parked in front of the house, and its two occupants were reading newspapers.

He double-parked the Lincoln two blocks away and got a cab back to the West Side. Not wanting to get shot, he phoned Jasmine as he got out of the cab. “I’m home, honey,” he said. “Don’t blow my head off.” He inserted his key and let himself into the apartment.

Jasmine looked up from her
Wall Street Journal
. “Hey, you look great without the beard. How’d it go this evening?”

“Problematical,” Habib replied. “Do you know this Turtle Bay?”

“No.”

“I Googled it. It’s a neighborhood on the East Side that includes the United Nations, which is built on land created when the old Turtle Bay was filled in. Turtle Bay Gardens, which is where this Barrington lives, is a fashionable enclave of town houses built around a common garden. The actress Katharine Hepburn used to live in one of them. And this CIA woman, Holly Barker, is living there. We can’t get at her in the CIA building, but we can get at her at this house.”

“So, what kind of target is it?”

“The security on the place is holding. There are two men in a black SUV apparently permanently stationed out front, and our one successful foray into the garden turned up a man stationed at the rear door.”

“What are its vulnerabilities?” Jasmine asked.

“There is an office on the ground floor. If we could get past the security and the house’s security system and pack it with explosives, it would bring the house down, along with the one next door, as well, but we can’t breach the outside door while those two agents are guarding the front of the house.”

“I have an idea,” Jasmine said, and she told him what it was.

“That could work,” Habib said. “But it would have to be in the middle of the night, and we’d have to block traffic at the corner for a short time, in order to accomplish what you want.”

“Where would the Barker woman and Barrington be in the middle of the night?”

“In bed at the upper rear of the house, I reckon. But if we brought down the building, they’d come down with it.”