Power Down (55 page)

Looking down, he studied the two passports. Both showed the same photo, Buck, slightly younger, slightly more hair. One was Canadian,
with the name John Smith. The other was a U.S. passport, same name. For the head of the CIA national clandestine service, a man who could order up a virtually unlimited supply of fake passports, these were unusual. They were off the main CIA and Interpol databases. There was no way for the CIA to track him.

He placed the U.S. passport in the duffel bag and stuffed the Canadian one in the pocket of his coat. From his sock drawer, he removed a silenced handgun, a SIG M26. He checked the clip. Then he went back downstairs.

The Land Cruiser moved rapidly up Tennessee, winding its way through the chilly afternoon air, now filled with light snow.

When they saw Old Dominion, Spinale took a left, then slowed the vehicle to a crawl. He pulled across the street, then down to the end of the block. Marks and Savoy climbed out.

“Keep your eyes open,” said Savoy to Spinale. “We’ll be right out.”

Buck walked to the kitchen and grabbed a bottle of water from the refrigerator, then walked to the front door. As he reached to open the door, he noticed something, the kind of thing perhaps only a career CIA operative would notice. At the end of the stone walkway, his eye cast right. Snow was falling heavily, but he still noticed it. Across the street, down several houses, the dark steel outline of a black SUV, steam quietly rising from the tailpipe into the cold air.

Buck grabbed the SIG M26 semiautomatic handgun from the bag, then stepped through the kitchen, opened the back door, and sprinted across the lawn to the back fence, then along the back of the fence to the neighbor’s yard, ducking behind a boxwood hedge.

From behind the hedge, Buck marked two men, moving quickly between his neighbor’s house and the house two doors down from him. Their dark outlines were shrouded in snow as they moved.

He raised his weapon, cocked to fire, but held.

He remained silent, still, waiting and watching as the men passed behind his neighbor’s house. He had a clear shot at the men. But he didn’t shoot. He knew that killing them would not help him, not right now anyway. He needed time, not the possibility of a screaming neighbor. He watched as the two large men moved stealthily along the back wall of his home.

Savoy moved to the corner of the house, where he looked into the window. Signaling to Marks, they got down on their knees and crawled beneath the window, to a door that led to a dimly lit room, which they saw was the kitchen.

The door was unlocked and Savoy slipped quickly inside the kitchen, followed by Marks. Weapons out, they moved quietly through the room. At the stairs, Marks signaled that he would go upstairs, while Savoy moved to the television room.

Upstairs, Marks moved rapidly, room by room, searching for Buck. In the master bedroom, he looked quickly at the photographs of Buck and his wife, sitting on the shelf of a bureau. On the desk, Marks noticed that the light was on, but the lamp shade was askew. He walked to the desk and opened the top drawer. It was empty. To the side of the desk, a silver frame lay on its side. He picked it up, but the photo had been removed.

In the master closet, the shelves were neatly stacked with clothing, except for one, which looked as if someone had ransacked through it.

Marks walked back downstairs. When he saw Savoy, he shook his head, indicating Buck wasn’t there.

After watching the men enter his house through the kitchen door, Buck moved in the opposite direction, through yard after yard, running to Halcyon. He emerged at the side of a brown ranch and came to the sidewalk.

Buck thought of the millions in his bank account and smiled to
himself in anticipation. Sure, it would have been easier to just slip away, but far less memorable.

At the sidewalk, he took a left, stooping slightly and stepping at a casual pace down past the turnoff of Old Dominion, across the street. He crossed in front of darkened homes toward the back of the black Land Cruiser, now less than five houses away. He moved casually, just a man out for a late afternoon stroll. If he was lucky, there would be nobody in the vehicle. If there was someone in the vehicle, he hoped they wouldn’t be looking out the back window. Worst-case scenario, there would be someone, and he would look out the back window. In that case, he hoped they would believe it was just an older gentleman out for a stroll.

He came upon the Land Cruiser, steam billowing from the tailpipe. He made out an outline of a person, seated in the front seat, looking toward his house, waiting.

Moving alongside the car, Buck removed his SIG M26. Dropping the leather bag on the ground, he placed his hand on the driver’s-side door. He waited a moment, then quickly pulled the door latch. He yanked the door open, thrust the silenced weapon into the SUV, and in a precise, trained move sent a bullet into the head of the young driver before he had any idea what was happening.

Marks descended the stairs and nodded to Savoy. They moved to the kitchen.

“He’s not here,” whispered Marks.

“Basement?”

Marks nodded.

Suddenly, both men looked up, noticing something down the street. The lights of the Land Cruiser had turned on. The car suddenly lurched forward.

They moved quickly through the kitchen, out into the backyard, where they retraced their steps. Emerging through the side yard next to the brick house, they came upon Spinale’s body, contorted on the ground, a large
chunk of his skull missing. A wet pool of dark blood was gathering on the snow-covered tar.

“My God,” said Marks.

Less than an hour later, Reagan National Airport and BWI Airport in Baltimore were swarming. All flights out of both airports had been temporarily grounded while authorities searched for the fugitive.

But forty miles to the east, on the small tarmac of a private airstrip in Dunkirk, Maryland, Buck flipped the switch on the King Air C90. The twin propellers came to life. He moved the plane down to the end of the snow-dusted runway, then turned, pushing the throttles all the way forward as he steered the plane down the runway. Just fifty feet from the trees, the plane bumped lightly up, its wings lofting the craft into the darkening sky.

Buck allowed a smile to cross his lips as he felt the plane settle into flight. “Wastin’ away again in Margaritaville,” he hummed aloud as the twinkling lights of the coastal towns disappeared beneath him and the plane soared out over the dark waters of Chesapeake Bay.

NEWARK INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT

The FBI Black Hawk VH-60N made it as far north as Newark, before being forced to land on the tarmac at Newark International Airport, the blinding white of the blizzard making it impossible to fly any farther. After landing, Jessica moved into the cockpit and placed a set of earphones on her head.

“I need a live patch to CENCOM,” she instructed. “Secure channel.”

Frustrated, Jessica stared out the front window of the chopper as snow blanketed the skies outside. A pair of clicks on the headset.

“Hold for CENCOM Commander Fowler,” came the female voice. Another click.

“Jess, it’s Bo.”

“What do we have on Fortuna?”

“We have a hard location,” said Fowler. “Upper East Side, 1040 Fifth Avenue. What do you want to do?”

“Patch in Maguire.”

A few seconds later, another voice.

“Maguire.”

“Mel, tell me you’re good to go,” said Jessica.

“I have four teams ready to move,” said Melvin Maguire, FBI’s
commanding agent at Teterboro. “I can have them running right now.”

“I want a hard cordon,” said Jessica. “One block out. Don’t let anything in or out. And get NYPD backup.”

“Already done,” said Maguire. “They’ve got at least fifty men holding on my command.”

“Good,” said Jessica.

“How many you want on the assault team?”

Jessica paused, glanced at the Black Hawk’s pilot, thinking.

“There’s a detonator and we need to hit quietly,” said Jessica. “I want a tight team; your two best men. Tell him the target, Bo.”

“1040 Fifth Avenue.”

“They go in fast, quiet, and they shoot to kill,” said Jessica.

“Got it,” said Maguire. “I’ll get them moving. I assume you want the hard cordon in place before you send in the team.”

“No,” said Jessica. “This is real time. Get them going, let the cordon follow. Fortuna has a detonator and there are forty-one more targets. I want the team moving right now. And one other thing.”

“What?” asked Maguire.

“I want one other person on the assault.”

“You can’t be serious—”

“Dead serious,” said Jessica, cutting him off. “Get him whatever weapons he wants. I want Dewey Andreas on the kill team.”

Fortuna stared at the computer screen, watching the oil futures market as it spiraled wildly out of control. The U.S. government accusing the Saudis of the attack on Capitana had been an unexpected bonus. Most analysts assumed the Saudis and their greed would drive them to a deal. Fortuna agreed, knowing from personal experience that there existed no more powerful emotion on the Arabian Peninsula, in the Fahd house, than avarice. It would win out in the end. But for the moment, another Saudi trait, pride, had widened a rift between the two allies that had caused more damage—and made him more money—than he’d ever dreamed of.

Numbers, money, had long ago lost its power to impress or excite Fortuna, so used to it he’d grown, to having it, to making it. But even he could not help but shake his head in momentary awe at the wealth he’d created.

A day ago, his $10 billion gambit was worth more than $27 billion. Now, it was nearing $32 billion. But the ride was over, at least for now. After several hours of work, Fortuna had completed moving the funds out of the positions he had established through Kallivar, PBX, and Passwood-Regent. Those entities were now shut down, the money placed in an entirely new set of foreign legal entities unrelated to the energy industry and to America.

Finally, he stood up and tried to reach Karim yet again. No answer. He felt tightness in his chest, but pushed it away.
Karim is dead.
He knew that now.

Setting off the detonator would be the final act. But he would need to do it only after he was airborne. The country would descend into utter chaos the moment he began setting off the remaining bombs. Every airport in the United States would immediately shut down. Yes, he would need to be airborne before he struck.

He called Jean.

“Jean—”

“Yes, Alex.”

“Bring the car around. I’ll be down in two minutes. Then call Pacific Aviation. We’ll need to charter a jet; Karim is still not back. Get the biggest Gulfstream they have available at La Guardia, capable of going to Europe.”

“La Guardia is closed. The storm—”

“Tell them we want to fly out as soon as they reopen the airport.”

“Where should I tell them we’re going?”

“Tell them Paris. But we’re going to Beirut. They don’t need to know that until we’re over the Atlantic.”

Fortuna hung up. He walked to his bedroom. From beneath his bed, he pulled out a large duffel bag, prepacked. In it, some clothing, a laptop with any information he would need, passports. Everything else—photographs, diplomas, anything that might remind him of his
life in America—he left behind. Once again, the cord would be cut, only this time it would be he who did the cutting.

He glanced around his room for the last time.

Ten minutes after leaving Teterboro, the black Suburban pulled up in front of Fortuna’s apartment building. In silver block letters above a pair of large French doors that marked the entrance to an elegant granite prewar apartment building: 1040.

Snow was falling heavily. The scene looked eerily peaceful. The doorman was a small man, young, and he watched the thick snowflakes as they dropped downward from the sky. He stood just outside the door. The lobby behind him was deep red, lit by a crystal chandelier that hung down.

Dewey and two SWAT-clad FBI agents jumped out, ran toward the building entrance, weapons out. The FBI agents both held HK MP7 automatic machine guns out in front of them, handguns holstered at the waist. Dewey held his Colt M1911 .45 caliber semiautomatic handgun. Dewey also brought a Colt M203 carbine combat assault rifle, grenade launcher attached to it. He kept the powerful rifle slung over his shoulder, a full magazine of 5.56mm cartridges as well as two grenades ready to go, if necessary.

“Can I help you?” asked the doorman.

One of the agents held up an ID.

“FBI. Step out of the way. We’re securing the building.”

“What—”

“What floor is Alexander Fortuna on?” asked Dewey.

The doorman struggled to speak.

“What floor?” Dewey barked.

“Penthouse,” the doorman croaked.

“Key,” said Dewey. “And you might want to leave.”

The doorman, nearly paralyzed by fear, handed Dewey a small gray card. He and the two agents walked quickly back to the middle of the floor where the elevators were.

Dewey could feel it now, the proximity to the mission’s target.
Whatever fatigue, whatever worry he had in Cuba, it was all gone now, replaced by a warmth suffusing his entire body and a salty taste in his mouth, the flavor of adrenaline. His heart raced as he waved the card before the small black sensor next to the elevator then stepped inside. He swept the card across the red light and pressed the PH button.