Brothers In Arms (40 page)

He stopped, and leaned on the metal railing and looked down into the murky waters of the canal. His reflection was muddled by swirls of oil and scum. The discipline he’d learned in the classrooms in Sudan asserted itself and he used it to clear his mind of the conflicting thoughts and let the needs of his mission rise up. He had to put her out of his mind and make himself ready to move. He had everything necessary now: his computer, the viral agent, papers, and a plane ticket. Clothing, toiletries, and other incidentals he could buy along the way. He would need to, so he could check a bag. To do otherwise would draw too much attention to him when he traveled by air. He needed nothing else.

Except a clear mind.

It would be easy if he could only stay angry at her, rage at her naiveté and inexperience, hate her for her childish view of the world. But a part of him wondered if she wasn’t right, and questioned the drive that had kept him going all these long months. Hatred and anger had fueled him, but his time with her had washed much of that from him.

And he hated being alone. With her in his life it had been so easy. He had justified it as living his cover, but it was so much more than that.

His wanderings had taken him past the Dam and toward the Central Station. He saw the gabled gilt façade of the station through
the narrow streets lined with tall row houses. There was no need to hurry for a train; one left every ten minutes for the airport. He stopped outside a small café, where a single empty table seemed particularly forlorn in the busy stream of pedestrians walking briskly past. Inside, he paid for a coffee, then took it outside and sat down at the table. The sun was bright overhead, and fought to filter down through the tall narrow houses to the canal’s side street. But Youssef sat in shadow.

He would drink his coffee. And then he would decide.

Across the canal, in front of a dress store with a large plate glass window that provided a mirror image of the coffee shop on the far side, Isabelle Andouille studied the reflection of Youssef bin Hassan. She had followed him since his stormy departure from Britta’s tiny apartment, and tracked him through the streets to the Golden Tulip travel agency. It was the work of a moment and a mild subterfuge to find his destination.

“My friend Joseph?” she said breathlessly to the heavy Dutchman at his desk. “He just left? Did he buy a ticket for America?”

“Your friend?” the Dutchman said, smiling at the beautiful woman. “No, he’s going to Toronto. Maybe he’ll drive to America. Are you going with him? Would you like a ticket?”

“Oh, no,” she said. “If I go, he’ll pay! Thank you!”

Then she was out on the street and behind Youssef, so preoccupied that he practiced no countersurveillance or tradecraft. He just ambled aimlessly along, oblivious to everything but his own thoughts. Twice she thought of closing with him, bumping him with her shoulder and going for his neck with the razor-edged knife she kept palmed in one hand, but something cautioned her—she needed to know more.

Toronto. He would be going the soft route into the United States, crossing into New York. From there he could disappear into the teeming masses and end up anywhere. She remembered the books she’d seen him buy. Washington, DC. That would be easy
enough from New York. There was a train as well as regular short flights.

She touched the tip of her tongue to her lips.

Kill him now, or kill him later? Serve him up to the Americans or simply make him disappear?

She had things to decide.

The open cargo bay of a C-141 is a noisy, vibrating place while in flight. Charley Payne sat in a netted seat hung from one bulkhead, where he rocked in time to the bumps and jolts of the jet aircraft as it climbed to its cruising altitude. Across from him, a full medical team was clustered around the raised table where Dale Miller was firmly strapped. The IV bags on the tree beside him bent in the direction of the aircraft’s climb. The tubes that ran from his nose and mouth shook with the noise of the jet turbines. They had done the best they could, but the best was only enough to stabilize him till they could get him to a fully equipped surgical theater adequate for delicate neurosurgery. The bullet lodged in his brain had done enough damage on its entry, but the bleeding and swelling of the delicate brain tissue around it promised to do more. Dale stayed in his coma, a serene look on his face beneath the tubes and surgical tape, and the lead doctor on the team had told Charley that Dale might remain in that coma forever.

In the center of the aircraft cargo bay were several wooden pallets that supported large wooden crates with US diplomatic seals on them. Those boxes contained stainless-steel coffins, one for each of the fallen US operators from Athens. Even through the sealed coffins
and wooden crates, there was a faint odor of decay and blood. Or so Charley thought.

He stretched out his feet and braced them on the metal floor. The seat’s constant swaying annoyed him. After a minute of fumbling for purchase, he gave up and got out of the seat. He went down the length of the aircraft to the small window beside the rear ramp and looked out. The blue of ocean was small beneath him. They were over the Mediterranean and would soon be out over the Atlantic, bound for Andrews Air Force Base in Maryland. He’d leave Dale to the doctors, and the bodies to the cargo handlers, and go to a safe house in Fairfax, Virginia for his debriefing, where he would meet Callan’s boss, Ray Dalton.

“Ray’s the man behind all this,” Callan had said. “He runs the shooters, he writes the checks.”

“Outfit?” Charley said.

“Yep. Stand-alone special project, that’s him.”

“Dale used to work for him.”

“ ‘Used to’ is the operative phrase. Dale wouldn’t have had anything to do with this if he’d known Dalton was behind it.”

“I don’t have that same history.”

“That’s why I’m telling you this. If you want to play, and get some payback, you’re going to have to make nice with the big boss.”

“You all need me.”

“That’s true,” Callan said. “But that doesn’t necessarily add up to a ringside seat when it’s killing time.”

“I want that.”

“I know you do. So make nice when necessary. It probably won’t be . . . he knows he needs you, and you’re well equipped to see this through. Just don’t let your well-known temper fuck things up for you.”

Charley laughed and shook his head at the memory of that conversation. He craned his head to look up through the porthole at the sky and the scattered clouds they flew through. He wondered what Dale would have made of all this. Dale. Charley thought of the younger man kicked back in a chair in Sebastian Joe’s outdoor courtyard, sipping
a latte and watching the women go by. It was strange how the two of them had been in the same neighborhood, traveling in the same tiny circle of mutual acquaintances and neighbors, and yet had never bumped into each other before the shooting at the art store. Fate was strange.

He worked his way back to his hanging seat, and situated himself. He stared at Dale and the medical team that labored over him, and wondered if Dale would ever again sit in his favorite spot in Sebastian Joe’s courtyard.

Ray Dalton hunched over his desk like a predatory bird and studied Charley Payne with interest. He’d read Payne’s file thoroughly; the two-inch-thick folder still sat on his desk. After reading it and before Payne had arrived, he’d called Payne’s last supervisor in the Special Activities Staff.

“Charging Charley?” said the supervisor, a weary veteran of years on the sharp edge of clandestine operations. “One of the very best guys I ever had. And one of the worst. Top-shelf out on the street or in the field—hard-working, never complained, immaculate tradecraft, top-notch skills, a vital member of the team. But he’s stubborn as all hell, hard to handle when things don’t go his way, a bit of a prima donna. He’s emotional, he’s an artist. I was glad he had his photography to give vent for that. But he just took things too personally. You know how it goes . . . orders come down, ours not to question why, ours just to do or die. Charley never saw it that way. He chafes under supervision, and he hates managers, especially upper managers. He’s got no patience with the way things have to be done in an organization. So he went his way. That’s all I’ve got on Charley Payne. He’s not in any trouble, is he?”

“No trouble,” Ray said. “We’re looking at him for something.”

“He won’t come back,” the supervisor said. “Not enough money in the bank to bring him back. And if you try to leverage him, he’ll find a way to screw you, believe me.”

“I’ll keep that in mind,” Ray said. “Thanks for your insights. They’re useful.”

“No problem. Call again if you need to.”

The memory of that phone call was fresh in his mind. Payne looked tired and drawn, the lines in his face especially deep. But he didn’t seem impatient. He slouched in one of the easy chairs, his long legs kicked out in front of him and crossed at the ankles, relaxed as a cat lazing in the sun. No, Payne looked as though he’d been thinking through what might come from this meeting, and he’d made up his mind to be patient.

That was a good sign.

And since he was best in the field, Ray had every intention of leaving him there.

“We have his picture and his name on the border with Customs and Immigration,” Ray said. “He’s flagged as a known terrorist, and there are special instructions to seize and handle all his baggage and personal belongings as suspect. But we’ve been directed not to bring up the smallpox angle.”

Payne shifted forward in his seat, and Ray lifted one hand to ward off the protest he saw coming.

“That comes from the president, Payne. The position is that spreading that information would cause a nationwide panic and a run on medical resources we’re not prepared to handle—at least not yet. The Center for Disease Control and select regional public health officials have been told to heighten their surveillance for any suspicious outbreaks, but smallpox is just one of the list they watch for. The official position is that there’s a heightened threat of biological warfare—but that’s been there for a while.”

Ray leaned back in his chair and interlaced his fingers across the belly of his starched oxford shirt. “So my specific tasking is to find Youssef bin Hassan and stop him before he launches his agent in the United States. I want you to lead the operation.”

Payne was doing a good job of hiding the eagerness in his face. Ray knew about that eagerness; it was the desire of a hunter to be in on the kill, to run his prey to ground and finish him. And Payne would feel that he had a score to settle.

“How does that sound to you, Charley?” Ray said.

Payne was deliberate in his answer. “What do you want me to do?”

“You’ve seen all of the major players in this: Rhaman Uday, Ahmad bin Faisal, and Youssef bin Hassan. You can eyeball-ID the One. I want you to run this down, follow up aggressively on the leads we get. And you get to take him down. I’ll give you a team.”

“I’d rather work alone.”

“Not going to happen. You’ll need support and backup.”

“With good communications, you can get all that to me. I’m not ready or willing to be running an unknown team right now. Your best use of me will come from letting me run after the One when we have something fresh, and to field-coordinate with whatever team you put out.”