Brothers In Arms (43 page)

That was the entire message. The product was flawed? It was possible. He’d taken no special measures to safeguard it, as he’d been told that wasn’t necessary. The virus had been engineered as though it were to be launched in a missile, and was supposed to be easily sustained for the period of time he needed. He stared at the message. He didn’t need to check the Web site for further instructions; going to the pornographic Web site that was the operational communications channel would attract too much attention here. He’d have to do that later, with his laptop. But he’d memorized the instructions and contact procedures for replacement of the product if necessary. That, too, had been planned for. Today was Wednesday, and the designated days
for communicating with his contact at the Egyptian embassy were Tuesday or Thursday. But perhaps he’d be able to do a reconnaissance today.

He deleted the message and logged off the computer, then went back upstairs to his room. From the outside pocket of his courier bag he took out a street map of Washington, DC and studied the area around the Air and Space Museum, and then the streets around the Egyptian embassy. He traced the distance between the two sites with his forefinger, thought for a moment, then folded his map and tucked it back in his courier bag. Then he put the dispersion devices into his toilet kit, and he tucked that and the Pelican case beneath his bed, out of sight from a casual looker.

Now he was ready to go out.

Downstairs in the lobby, there was a crowd of hostel tenants around the front desk. They were all in their twenties, like Youssef, wearing backpacks festooned with odd bits of gear, dressed in a variety of baggy and bright-colored clothing, their bodies decorated with tattoos and piercings and dyed hair. Youssef felt quite plain in his baggy jeans and beige T-shirt. He felt as though there was a wall between him and their bright chatter with the accents of many countries; even though he walked out the door with them he was apart. A girl he recognized from the hallway outside the computer room smiled brightly at him, the smile of someone hoping to make a connection, but he didn’t smile back; he kept his eyes down and only glanced up to make sure he was headed in the right direction. A white shuttle bus, a whirring air-conditioner mounted above its rear window dripping condensation, was parked at the curb, its door open. There was a group of bicyclists geared up on mountain bikes beside the bus. One of the bicyclists, a muscular woman with long straight black hair beneath her helmet and her eyes hidden behind mirrored sunglasses, looked at Youssef and then away. He paid her no mind, pausing for a moment to consider. It was hot, and a long walk from the hostel to the Smithsonian. He decided to take the shuttle bus. He followed the herd of young tourists aboard the bus, then took a seat in the rear, away from everyone else, and stared out the window as the
bus pulled away from the curb and made its way through the slow traffic toward the National Mall. A couple of the bicyclists paced alongside the bus; in the busy traffic they made better time than the shuttle.

The bus’s first stop was outside the National Archives Building, where a long line of people waited patiently for entrance. Youssef stood on the corner and looked up at the granite expanse of the building with its ornate lettering beneath the cornice. The sun cast sharp-edged shadows from the building. He turned his back on the Archives and crossed the street to a tree-shaded enclosure that was labeled the National Sculpture Garden. He continued up Seventh Street, the weight of the sun heavy on his head and shoulders. The oppressive humidity brought out a thick sweat beneath his thin T-shirt. After months of temperate weather in Amsterdam, the heat and humidity was sweltering. A fat black man, his shirt hanging like a flag on him, sat on a stool beside a pushcart with bottles of water, hats, T-shirts, and postcards.

Youssef stopped and reached into his pocket for his roll of bills. “Two bottles of water, please.”

“Two bottles of water, yes, sir,” the black man said, galvanized into sudden movement. He reached into the tub of ice and water and plucked out two cold one-liter bottles. “Big ones? Better buy.”

“Yes, big ones,” Youssef said. He handed the man several bills and took the bottles, placing one in his courier bag for later, and cracking open the other one and taking a long, satisfying drink from it.

“Too hot out here to play around, no, sir,” the vendor said. “You’ll want to cover your head. You got a hat? I got hats cheap, you need one to cover your head, this heat.”

He picked up a baseball hat with the letters FBI on the front. “Try this one.”

Youssef shook his head no, and wiped the sweat from his forehead with the back of his hand.

“All right then, how about this one?” the vendor said. He replaced the baseball cap and took out a plain straw panama-style.
“Give you a good price since you already a customer. Five dollars take it away. Man needs a hat on a day like this.”

“All right,” Youssef said. He handed a bill to the man and took the hat, placed it on his head.

“Where you from?” the vendor asked.

“I’m from Amsterdam.”

“You don’t look Dutch.”

“There are many different kinds of Dutch.”

“I guess that be so. How do you like America?”

Youssef settled the hat on his head and took another pull on the water bottle he had nearly emptied.

“It is very busy,” he said. “Very crowded. And it seems very rich.”

The black man laughed. “Oh, it’s busy all right, and crowded, too. But don’t let the look of things fool you, there ain’t a lot of rich out here. Oh, you gots some that are, but most of us are just struggling to get by.”

Youssef nodded. He finished the bottle of water and handed the empty back to the vendor.

“You were thirsty, weren’t you?” the vendor said. “Want to watch that, easy to get dehydrated on days like this. Don’t want our Dutch visitor to faint on the street, no we don’t. You sure you don’t want another bottle?”

“No, thank you,” Youssef said. “Where is the Air and Space Museum?”

“You’re looking at it,” the vendor said, pointing across the block-wide lawn at a glass-fronted building on the other side. “That over there, on this side, that’s the National Gallery of Art.”

“Thank you,” Youssef said.

He walked away slowly, letting himself be carried by the crowds of tourists in shorts and with cameras hung around their necks. A tour bus disgorged a horde of Japanese tourists, and the guide began her spiel, punctuated with waves of the flag she carried.

“And this is the National Gallery of Art . . .”

Youssef followed the crowd up the bank of stairs, then paused
and sat down on the stairs. There were a few others on the stairs, sun worshipers mostly, soaking up the heat. From his vantage point he had an excellent view of the benches in front of the Air and Space Museum, though he was over a hundred yards away. He watched the steady stream of people back and forth across the Mall and from the steps of the Air and Space Museum. The uniformed security people who stood outside the Air and Space Museum seemed to pay no particular attention to the benches; instead they spoke to each other and to the occasional tourist. They rotated back into the building at fifteen-minute intervals. He could see the cameras mounted on the side of the museum, but they all seemed oriented to cover the approaches to the building and there were none that were directed outward toward the benches. No signs of surveillance, though there were some panel trucks and vans parked in the delivery zone in front of the museum.

Everything seemed clear.

There was a group of bicyclists riding on the gravel path that bordered the grassy expanse of the Mall; he recognized them as the group from the youth hostel. One rider split off from the others and rode over to the benches in front of the museum and stopped, resting one foot on a bench, a neighbor to Youssef’s target for tomorrow. The rider took off her helmet and shook out long black tresses, then took a bandana from the pocket of her shorts and wiped her face and neck, then took her water bottle from the bike frame and tilted it up for a long drink. Even from where he sat, Youssef could tell that she was beautiful. It made him think of Britta.

He got up then, and brushed the seat of his pants, damp with perspiration. He walked down to the street level where a yellow taxicab let out a group of four tourists.

“Wait!” Youssef called to the driver, who nodded to him. Youssef ducked his head and climbed into the air-conditioned comfort of the cab, slammed the door, and said, “Would you take me by the Egyptian embassy, please?”

The driver nodded, and pulled away from the curb.

Isabelle had watched Youssef for some time. It had been easy to follow the bus; the bicycles made better time than any car in the traffic, and the trip was a short one. The heat made it onerous, but she was an athlete and inured to hardship. While the bike–tour guide had made an attempt to keep her with the group, Isabelle had ignored him and gone ahead to where she could stop and watch the young Arab on the Mall. There had to be a reason, other than simple sight-seeing, that he chose to sit in the blazing heat on the steps of the Gallery of Art. He seemed interested in the Air and Space Museum, and had paid no attention to any of the goings-on around him. It would be hard to spot surveillance here, she thought, with the crowds and vehicles constantly coming and going. But then that would make a surveillance team work all the harder, which would make this a good spot for a clandestine meeting. He had come directly here, instead of working a route, as if he’d been going to a meeting, or wandering the way a true tourist would.

She cursed under her breath when she saw him get into the cab. She didn’t even try to hurry to get herself back together and ride after them; the cab bolted to the busy traffic of Seventh Street and disappeared around the corner. She’d have to reacquire him at the hostel, a risky business as she didn’t want to get too close to him. The black wig she wore seemed to magnify the heat on her head. She took off her sunglasses and wiped the sweat from them on her bandana, then arched her back to relieve a kink while she looked around and studied the entrance to the Air and Space Museum. The crowds went in and out, and she wondered what attracted Youssef to this place. It was possible that she wouldn’t be able to determine what he was looking for through surveillance.

She might have to take him and force the information from him.

In the back of the panel van parked across the street from Isabelle, where two surveillance men sweated, a laptop chimed and a video frame captured from the hidden lens appeared beside another picture,
one of her face from the shooting in Minneapolis. The pop-up alert said,
POSITIVE MATCH
.

The cab driver worked his way through the slow traffic tangling the streets around the Egyptian embassy. Youssef had plenty of time to study the streets and the surrounding neighborhood; it was a pleasant area, with many old row homes lovingly restored, and the old Colonial mansions turned into office space or embassies. The driver slowed as he approached the embassy.

“I just want to see it,” Youssef said. “You don’t have to stop.”

“Where are you going?” the cab driver asked, a thin black man with a goatee, sweating even in the air-conditioning of the cab.