Was it possible that this man’s soul dwelt in a similar tower? Was that why she felt the flash at the moment when she and her team had first trained their laser sights on him?
If so, then it would genuinely hurt her to have to kill him.
Chapter Eight
Starbox Coffee
Tehran, Iran
June 15, 8:03 a.m.
I stared at Rasouli. “Saving the world from—what?”
He pursed his lips thoughtfully. “Consider this. If scientists discovered than an asteroid was hurtling toward the earth and was likely to strike in one year, would it not be possible that the best and the brightest from all countries would drop their hostilities and work together to prevent a shared disaster?”
The comment was so weird that it jerked my head into an entirely different place. At the same time my heart started doing another jazz riff. “Christ! Is
that
what this is about?”
“What? Oh, no … no,” he said, looking genuinely surprised. “I speak hypothetically about the nature of our response to a shared threat too large for any one country to handle alone.”
“Next time say so. You almost gave me a frigging heart attack.”
He smiled at that. Jackass.
“Okay,” I said, “Given the right kind of potential catastrophe, then that kind of cooperation is possible. Even so, red tape would be a bitch.”
“And yet the red tape could be cut if the threat was more imminent, yes? Say that this hypothetical asteroid was due to strike in a month? The need for immediate and uninhibited action would necessitate a quicker exchange of information so that the situation could be handled. After all, global extermination trumps individual ideologies.”
“In a rational world, yes,” I agreed. “Where are you going with this?”
“There is a matter that will require very great and very careful cooperation.”
He removed a cell phone from his jacket pocket and played with the touch screen to bring up a photo, then handed the phone to me. “Do you know what that is?”
I stared at the picture and my mouth went as dry as dust.
“
Good God
…”
“Indeed,” agreed Rasouli.
I knew all about them, of course. I had to. I knew the history, studied them for my job, read the field reports. I had seen them in museums and textbooks and on the Discovery Channel. Knowledge may be power but at that moment I felt as weak as a child. Even as a picture on a phone—small and frozen in a snapshot moment of time—it was terrifying to behold.
A nuclear bomb.
“It is a Teller-Ulam design hydrogen bomb,” said Rasouli quietly. “It has a yield of fifty megatons, which is equivalent to fourteen hundred times the combined power of the bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Or, if you look at it another way, it has ten times the combined power of all the explosives used in WWII.”
“Where is it?” I snarled, causing Rasouli to recoil from me.
“Please,” he said soothingly, “this device is not on U.S. soil.”
“Then why the hell are you showing me this?”
“Because I need you to know that this is something larger than the political struggles between our countries.”
“Your country has been trying to build this for years, asshole—” I began, but he cut me off, and again had to wave back his guard.
“You don’t understand,” said Rasouli in an urgent whisper, “this is not
ours
.”
I stared at him. “Then
whose is it
?”
“I … do not know,” he said. “That is one of the reasons I wanted your help. It’s likely the device is one of many that have gone ‘missing’ since the end of the Cold War and the collapse of the Russian economy.”
“Just so we’re clear,” I said, “you—Iran—you’re afraid of terrorists with a bomb?”
“Yes.” His mouth was a tight line, “and I’ll thank you not to smirk. This is a very real threat that could cause untold damage.”
“You have any suspects?”
Rasouli shrugged. “We are not a popular country, Captain Ledger. It is the price of being powerful, as you Americans well know,”
“Yeah. Seems like every five minutes there’s a fundamentalist nut job coming at us with a vest of C-4 and the name of God on his lips. Ain’t that a bitch?”
All that earned me was a contemptuous sneer. “This is hardly on the level of car bombings, Captain. Whoever is behind this is organized, extraordinarily well-financed, and subtle. I have reliable sources within Hezbollah, al Qaeda, and the Taliban and I am convinced they are not involved.”
“They aren’t the only players.”
“No, but they are the ones most likely to consider such a radical plan; and the smaller cells and splinter groups could never make one of these.”
“They could buy one,” I said.
“Of course, but it would be very expensive. Prohibitively so. Most organizations do not have that much money.”
“Hugo Vox could buy one of those with his beer money.”
“Why would he? His day is over.”
“Why? Because the Seven Kings are off the board?”
“No,” said Rasouli. “My sources tell me that Vox is ill.”
“What do you mean?”
Rasouli’s green eyes glittered. “He has cancer, didn’t you know?”
“Shit.”
It was good and bad news at the same time. Good news because it was nice to think about Vox rotting away. Bad because that was a much easier exit strategy than he deserved.
“Could be his last blast,” I said, meaning it the way it sounded.
I thought about what I said but then dismissed it. Vox is many things, but he has never struck me as vindictive. Murderous, to be sure, and merciless, but not petty. To detonate a bomb in frustration for dying of cancer…? No, that would be cheap, no matter what the death toll.
I tried to build a case for it in my mind, but gave it up. It didn’t fit Vox’s pattern at all. For him, killing was only ever a pathway to profit. Even so, I’d want to run this past Mr. Church, Rudy Sanchez, and Circe O’Tree. They built the profile on him that was being used by every law enforcement agency in the world.
“If it’s not Vox,” I said, “then we’re looking at someone who has as big a bank account.”
“Would you like me to recite a list of nations who would love to see Iran reduced to scorched earth?”
“Not really, because you’d start your list with the U.S., Israel, and Great Britain, and they don’t need to buy black-market bombs.”
He shrugged. “That is not entirely true. A case can be made for why such countries would want to have bombs that could in no way be traced back to them. Bombs from former Soviet countries, perhaps.”
“Fair enough. But is that your pitch? Are you saying that it’s America or one of its allies?”
“No,” he said tiredly. “If I thought that, then this discussion would be held in the world press, backed by all of the considerable outrage which it is possible for our propaganda department to muster. The Ayatollahs would probably enjoy that.”
“Bottom line,” I said, “can you tell me where this thing can be found?”
“Much worse,” he said. “I know where
four
of these things can be found.”
The whole world froze around me.
“Jesus Christ,” I said.
“Worse still,” Rasouli said in a voice that sucked the last shreds of peace from the morning, “there are at least three more that we have not been able to locate. And one of the others might even be on U.S. soil.”
Chapter Nine
The Kingdom of Shadows
One Year Ago
He was the King of Thorns.
The King of Blood and Shadows.
He lived in a world of darkness, and that darkness was so beautiful. So subtle. It hid so many things from those who lacked the power to see. It was his mother, his ally, his weapon. It was the ocean in which he swam, the sky through which he flew, the dream in which he walked.
Darkness did not blind him. Even down here in the endless shadows. Buried beneath a billion tons of rock and sand.
Darkness held no surprises for him; he knew its secrets. They had been handed down to him, generation upon generation, and he had shared those secrets with the other pale bodies that moved and writhed and burrowed beneath the earth.
A single candle burned, its flame hidden behind a pillar of rock so that only the faintest of yellow light painted the edges of walls and glimmered on the golden thread of ancient tapestries. A single candle was all the light he needed. More than he needed.
He rose from a bed of fur and silk and broken bones. Ribs cracked beneath his feet. Cobwebs licked at his face as he moved from chamber to chamber. Water dripped in the distance, and the sound of wretched weeping echoed to him from down one of the many corridors his people had carved from the living rock. He paused to listen to the sobs. A female voice, of course. A babble of nonsense words and bits of prayers which combined to make sense only to the mad. There was so much pain there, so much hurt and loss.
It made him smile. It made his loins throb with a deep and ancient ache.
He closed his eyes and leaned against the closest wall. The limestone was cool and damp as he pressed his cheek against it, savoring the rough texture. A tongue tip the color of a worm wriggled out from between his teeth and curled along the thin contours of his lips.
It was as if he could taste the pain, and he craved it, wanting more of it, wanting the freshest and choicest bits.
He was there for a long time, lost in memory and expectation.
“Grigor,” murmured a voice, and with regret he opened his eyes and pushed himself away from the wall. He turned to see Thaddeus, his eighth son, standing a few yards away. The boy had made no sound at all. Excellent. He was learning, he would be ready soon.
“What is it?” asked Grigor.
“
He
is here.”
Grigor smiled again. “Good.”
And it was good. In the distance the weeping continued unabated, and that was good too. Soon, Grigor knew, there would be more weeping. So much more.
How delicious that would be.
And how soon.
It was almost time to make the whole world scream.
Chapter Ten
Starbox Coffee
Tehran, Iran
June 15, 8:05 a.m.
I almost came out of my chair and went for Rasouli.
“Where?” I snarled. Feyd was halfway across the room before Rasouli held up his hand to freeze the moment.
“I don’t know,” he fired back, cold and hard. “Listen to me, Captain, I am here as a friend—”
“Bullshit.”
“As an ally then. In this matter, we are both in danger. Now please, listen for a moment.”
I stayed in my chair. Feyd gave me a hard look and slouched back to his post. Rasouli let out a weary breath.
“You said that there was a device in the States,” I said very quietly. “
Where?
”
“I don’t know where. I’m not even positive there
is
one in America. Please, let me tell you what I do know.” He gestured to the phone that I still held. “We believe that this device is somewhere inside the Aghajari oil refinery.”
“That’s yours,” I said. “That’s in Iran.”
He nodded. “We don’t know exactly where they’ve placed it. However, I have managed to get some degree of verification through an operative with a radiation detector. I have not risked a full-blown investigation yet for fear that if we started looking it would alert whoever planted the devices that we know about them. That might be a fatal misstep.”
“You think there’s a mole inside your government?”
“There are many moles inside my government, and not all of them are yours, Captain. It is in the nature of what we do that there are spies, and I have very good reason to believe that some of those spies work for whoever has these bombs.” Before I could interrupt him he held up a finger. “What little information I have came to me in a way that has effectively shut the door to investigation. My agent was found dead, the victim of a savage beating. Many of his bones were broken and his internal organs ruptured. My pathologist says that the injuries were apparently delivered with hands and feet. Whoever did it made it last and that suggests either someone with a taste for it or someone who wanted information that my agent was unwilling or unable to provide. However, during the autopsy the surgeon found this.” Rasouli reached into his pocket and produced a flash drive. “He had apparently swallowed it.”
“And didn’t give it up during the beating?” I remarked. “Tough man.”
“Very. One of my best agents. You … would have admired him, I’m sure, but disliked him.” He paused. “The beating is not what killed him, however.”
“What did? A bullet in the back of the head?”
“His throat was torn out,” Rasouli said.
I paused. “When you say ‘torn out’—”
“My people did a thorough post mortem, including all of the appropriate tests for trace particles. Blades leave microscopic metallic residue, and even with plastic knives there are signature markings. There was nothing like that. The pathologist did a reconstruction of the man’s throat and determined that the flesh was torn out by teeth.”
“What kind? Dog?”
Rasouli studied me for a moment. “I don’t know. There were traces of saliva in the wounds that my physician could not immediately identify. I would like to have had DNA testing done on it, but that would raise too many flags.” He fished in his pocket and produced a small metal container the size of a Zippo lighter. “This contains a skin sample packed in CO
2
. Your employer has access to more sophisticated equipment than I do. The body has since been cremated, so that is the only remaining sample. I’m trusting you, Captain, and I ask only that you share your findings with me.”
“How?”
He produced his notebook again and wrote a second number; however, he did not give me that sheet of paper. Instead he held it up for me to look at. “That is my private cell. Memorize the number. If you have to call, let it ring once and then hang up. I’ll return your call when I can do so safely.”
I nodded and he produced a pack of matches and burned the page in an ashtray. I glanced at Feyd, but either he didn’t notice or didn’t care.