Brothers In Arms (51 page)

He walked north and slightly east, toward the multi-storied and sprawling Museum of National History, across the Mall. Despite the heat and the sun beating down, there were people out playing a pickup game of soccer, bicycling, walking, and jogging. There was one group of joggers, military men by the look of them, who ran in a loose formation past Youssef and continued on along Madison Drive toward the Capitol. He came to Madison Drive and continued to the right, staying on the grass, looking down at his feet, carrying his burden as though he were weighted down with a massive pack. The sun beat down on him mercilessly, and he remembered his hat in his bag. He stopped and fished out the straw hat and placed it on his head. He squinted against the glare as he did so. Across the street in front of the Museum of Natural History were several cart vendors. Youssef crossed the street and stopped at the first one with sunglasses. He plucked a pair at random, not caring how they looked, and put them on, then fished out his wad
of bills and extended it at the Asian man tending the cart. The vendor looked surprised, then took a five and a one and said, “You want your change?”

“No,” Youssef said.

“You have a nice day.”

The cheap glasses cut the glare and, more important to Youssef, hid his eyes. He felt as though everyone who walked by him could read his gaze, see through his eyes to his soul, see all the secrets he held bottled up inside. He thought of returning to the hotel, climbing into the bed and pulling the covers over himself until the world came to knock on his door.

But he still kept walking toward his rendezvous.

At the corner of Madison and Ninth Street, he crossed back over to the lawn of the Mall. Despite the heat, there were many people out: federal employees on their lunch break, tourists and students and a smattering of the homeless. Youssef slowed as he passed a tree, where on a blanket spread in the thin shade a young man and woman were entwined in each other, deep in a kiss. He looked at them avidly; for a moment he imagined the girl looked like Britta. But no, this girl, while blond, was thin and brown, while Britta was as pale as milk under moonlight.

He came to the crossing at Madison and Seventh Street, and waited for the light to change. A tourist family waited there, an overweight father burdened with a day-pack and a camera bag, and a mother holding the hands of the eager children straining to go ahead.

“These lights take a long time to change,” the father said, looking at Youssef, who ignored him. The father looked at his wife and shrugged. The light changed and Youssef crossed the street, looking straight ahead, as though he were marching to a tune only he could hear. He lengthened his stride and left the tourist family behind him, the children’s voices fading in his ear. There would be no children for him, and a wave of sadness welled up in him again.

It was time to put that away, too.

The National Gallery of Art loomed on his left; to his right, across the expanse of lawn, was the gleaming, glassy structure of the
Air and Space Museum. People streamed in and out of both buildings, but for now he walked slowly across the street, toward the steps of the National Gallery, already thronged with tourists disgorged from the waiting tour buses. He made no pretense of countersurveillance; it was as though part of him knew he was invisible in the crowd—or just didn’t care anymore. He thought back to what the surveillance lecturer in the Sudanese camp had taught them. You were to look for the people who paid too much attention to what was going on around them; most people paid little attention to anything other than what was right in front of them. Out here, with so many people lingering and people-watching, it was impossible for him to pick anyone as standing out.

He slipped between two big tour buses, their engines idling, the air conditioners going full bore, and stepped onto the sidewalk. The first bus had let out a load of Japanese tourists, all of them huddled in one great mass, each one waving a camera, and following like obedient ducks after the tiny tour leader, who held onto a stick above her head—a yellow pennant with the words
YOSHITUNO TOURS
. Youssef went along with them, and followed them up the stairs to the entrance doors of the National Gallery. There he stopped, and let the Japanese tour group flow past him through the open doors. Then he turned and looked out across the Mall at the bench where he was to meet his Egyptian contact.

The bench was empty. The benches on either side, separated by a good distance, were occupied. There was a group of young people playing Frisbee near the bench, and a scattering of people under the trees that provided the only shade. Below him, on the steps of the National Gallery, were dozens of tourists sweating in the sun. A couple of dedicated sun worshippers were laid out full-length along the bottom steps.

Youssef stepped forward, out of the shaded doorway, into the bitter light of the sun.

Targets, all of them.

He hefted his courier bag and felt the weight of the Pelican case within, then glanced at his wristwatch. Eleven forty-five.

He was ready.

Charley Payne and Isabelle Andouille sat side by side on the hot cement steps on the Mall side of the Air and Space Museum. They looked like a long-married couple, at ease with the silence between them, sweating in the beating sun. Charley held his long-lensed camera loose in his hands, and Isabelle had her hands folded in her lap, pressing the denim fabric of her dress together for modesty’s sake.

Isabelle looked around, her eyes hidden by round oversized sunglasses, and said, “Is he here yet?”

Charley tilted his head, listening carefully to the occasional message that came through the tiny earpiece he wore, then shook his head no.

“I think he is here,” Isabelle said. “I feel him.”

Charley regarded her for a moment, then lowered his head and whispered into the microphone concealed in his vest. “All stations, stand by. Check again.”

The earpiece buzzed with acknowledgments.

“Shall we walk?” Isabelle said.

“No,” Charley said. “No need. We’ve got the best seats in the house right here.”

“As you wish. I would have them check the steps of the National Gallery again. He stood off there before to survey the area.”

Charley’s earpiece crackled. “Zero, this is Big-Gun-Actual.”

Big-Gun-Actual was the sniper team leader atop the National Air and Space Museum, hidden behind the raised wall on the roof, with a powerful spotting scope to augment the telescopic sight on his .308 rifle. Charley whispered into his microphone, “Big-Gun, Zero, go ahead.”

“We have a possible subject on the top steps of the National Gallery, just before the entry doors, dark-skinned male wearing a straw hat, white T-shirt, blue jeans, and carrying a black shoulder bag.”

Charley’s face grew taut. As his face changed, Isabelle responded by looking more intently across the killing zone.

“Roger, Big-Gun,” Charley said. “Break, Eye-One and Two, do you have a make?”

The surveillance vans, one of them with a boom camera mounted beneath an elevated cherry picker, were running the computer face-matching program on any and all suspect faces in the vicinity of the bench. They were silent for a long moment, and then Charley’s earpiece filled with their response.

“Zero, this is Eye-One. We have a make, say again, we have a make. Suspect is positively identified as the same individual we spotted yesterday.”

“All stations stand by,” Charley said. “Subject has been identified.”

Isabelle stood and brushed at her dress, then plucked at the sweat-darkened fabric. “It’s time,” she said.

Like a dangerous animal drowsing in the sun, the apprehension teams stirred.

Youssef bin Hassan, the specially chosen operative of the Al-Bashir network, the One, stood in the shade cast by the ornamental stonework outside the doors of the National Gallery of Art and let his random thoughts rise. What if he were to miss this meeting? What if he were to forego the meeting completely? Would they even look for him? How would they find him? They couldn’t. That was the whole point of Sad Holiday. The One was unstoppable because he couldn’t be found. What if he just disappeared, made his way back to Amsterdam, found a job, and lived with Britta? Let all this death go?

He wondered why he couldn’t let these thoughts go.

The only thing that emptied his mind was action. He looked at his wristwatch. Almost noon. Time to move. He adjusted his courier bag, then dipped into the outside pocket and took out the
Washington Post
opened to the style section, and held it in his left hand. Then he began his slow descent of the stairs, and a sense of déjà vu swept over him. He remembered the nightmare he’d had in Britta’s bed, of his descent from a great height onto streets filled with the dead and dying, and he looked at the tourists and innocents that surrounded him and knew that they could all be dead in weeks. The words of the clerics and the instructors in the camps, and those of his controllers in Al-Bashir seemed so far away now. This family, the suntanned children laughing and grabbing at their parents’ legs, what did they do to deserve to die? What did this couple lying together in the sun, enjoying their love, what did they do to deserve the horrible death that would soon come to them?

He would be the instrument of their death.

He would spread a horrible and lingering death to innocents, doing exactly what the Americans had done but on a larger scale than anything they had accomplished with their planes and their bombs. And then he allowed himself to acknowledge what he had known for some time: what he was doing was wrong, horribly wrong. He hesitated, stumbling on the bottom steps as the broken rhythm of his thoughts distracted him. What he needed to do was to concentrate on one thing at a time. To stay focused. First he needed to cross the lawn and go to the bench. Then he needed to make contact. Then he needed to exchange the product. Then he could make up his mind.

That would work.

Charley leaned forward, his weight on the balls of his feet, and watched his ambush come together. The lone figure of Youssef bin Hassan hesitated at the bottom of the stairs in front of the National Gallery, then disappeared for a moment behind a tour bus, then reemerged as he crossed Madison Drive to the Mall. The terrorist walked with his head down, as though deep in thought, not scanning his surroundings as you’d expect an operator making a clandestine contact would.

That bothered Charley. What did the One know that he didn’t?

“He’s not doing any countersurveillance,” Charley said. “Why do you think that is?”

Isabelle licked at her upper lip. “Because he is a boy, and he is afraid.”

“Afraid of what? Us?”

“He is afraid of what he is supposed to do. He is not suitable for what Al-Bashir wants him to do.”

Charley raised his camera to his face and looked through the viewfinder, zooming the 28mm-300mm lens in on the head of bin Hassan. The tension in the young man’s shoulders and head all told a story. Charley twisted the ring on the lens and opened it up to wide-angle, and stood as though framing a shot. One by one, his operators were delicately and discreetly positioning themselves around the terrorist operator. Two of his people, stationed on the National Gallery steps, fell in behind bin Hassan; as he continued across the lawn several others got casually to their feet and began to pace him.