Between Two Scorpions Page 3

  CHAPTER 9

  A year earlier, Raquel had secured an office suite and access to certain classified files at the Liberty Campus complex, which housed the Director of National Intelligence’s office.

  If Ward Rutledge was taller, his colleagues would describe him as a mountain of a man, but he was only a foothill: stocky and stout, built like an undersized middle linebacker, clad in ball caps and casual clothes, face and neck hidden by an unruly red beard. If he were born farther north, he would have been nicknamed Yukon Cornelius, for resembling the character from the Christmas special. His knuckles had small scars from tattoos removed long ago. The Army needed him to blend in and keep a low profile, and tattoos were rare, often illegal, and easy to remember in places like Mesopotamia, the Maghreb, and the graveyard of empires.

  Like a flash-fried steak, Ward looked tough and a little seared on the outside but was tender inside, and upon seeing Alec in the office for the first time since he returned from Berlin, Ward nearly knocked him over with an embrace and inspected him head to toe.

  “Thank God you’re not a crispy critter!” Ward said, slapping him on the back shoulder, sending a reverberating impact through Alec’s body. “The hell were you thinking? Is this what happens when I’m not around to watch your back?”

  “I’m fine,” Alec grimaced, trying to not show that Ward had left his shoulder sore. “You know me, when it hits the fan, I’m a regular mad dog.”

  “Yeah, all the menace of an Irish setter,” Ward scoffed. “No, really, buddy, new rule: everywhere you go, I go. Anything ever happened to you, I’d be crippled by guilt, knowing I let you go into harm’s way with the combat skills of a puppy.”

  Alec grunted appreciation, but Ward continued, undeterred. “Katrina’s nearly barbecued by a bomb, then you head right into a burning building. What next, fire-walking? Gonna do some Tony Robbins stroll-across-hot-coals-while-unleashing-the-giant-within routine?” He stepped closer and lowered his voice. “How’s she doing?”

  Alec took his time with his answer. “You know her, tough as nails. But … she’s wondering if she could have saved more people.”

  ***

  The combination coffee and espresso maker in Raquel’s office came equipped with two ceramic burr grinders and two heating systems and was capable of brewing two coffee drinks at the same time, with no need to move the cups from start to finish. It was huge, sleek, black and silver, and had enough complicated controls to easily blend in with the bridge of the starship Enterprise. If the machine were any more advanced, it would become SkyNet.

  The coffeemaker cost the ungodly retail price of $7,500, the exact sum of the difference between a pile of cash stolen from a terrorist hideout by Alec and Ward two years ago and the amount that was actually turned in and still sitting in a vast and secure government warehouse of evidence. The pair considered the coffeemaker an investment for the unusual hours they sometimes needed to keep.

  In her office, Raquel raised her mug.

  “To my team members coming back in one piece,” she toasted casually. “I should have sent Ward to watch your backs.”

  Katrina shook her head. “This was supposed to be a quiet, low-profile meeting with an old source. Ward’s as subtle as the Kool-Aid Man.”

  Raquel chuckled at the not-altogether-impossible thought of Ward bursting through a wall and greeting everyone with a raucous, “Oh, yeahhh!” She studied Katrina’s face. “Please tell me you’re not blaming yourself for Rat’s death.”

  “No, I’m just mad at myself for being so certain he was lying,” Katrina said softly. “That’s cynicism interfering with judgment. That’s assumption.”

  “That’s a judgment shaped by experience,” Raquel corrected.

  “No, that’s bad analysis,” Katrina corrected. “We don’t know the sheep are sheared on both sides,” she said, referring to an old joke from their mutual mentor, Harold Hare. Raquel laughed.

  Hare was a brilliant, unorthodox deputy director of the CIA who had given Raquel the authority to set up the team with Alec and Katrina. Hare was everything they thought a director should be, an agency lifer with a theatrical personality, thoroughly uncharacteristic for a spy, complete with elfin grin and winks. Hare was forever quoting aphorisms, fascinated with other cultures’ myths and legends, and enjoyed a magic tricks as a hobby. He was like the ultimate cool grandpa, cracking corny jokes one moment and telling a maybe-that-ought-to-be-classified tale from the Agency’s Cold War days the next. Alas, Hare was passed over for promotion and shuffled out the door after the last director retired.

  “We do this to save lives, not end them,” Katrina said quietly. “Didn’t save enough people in Berlin.”

  “There wasn’t any more we could do,” Raquel answered firmly. “Rat ran with a dangerous crowd for a lot of years. He knew the risks.”

  “His girlfriend probably didn’t,” Katrina answered. So far, nothing had turned up on the identity of the young woman who was found, bound and burned to death, in the hostel fire. Katrina feared the woman had little knowledge of Rafiq’s dirty business, and had simply fallen for the wrong man, traveled with him to a strange country because he said he was taking her someplace safe, someplace better.

  Katrina’s eyes drifted to the world map of the wall of Raquel’s office, and her gaze settled on Uzbekistan. She had been born there, one of the last generations of Bukhari Jews, immigrating with her parents to New York City. Not that different from the burned girl, Katrina thought. Taking a leap into the unknown, leaving all family, friends, neighbors, and lives behind in the hope that someplace far away could bring a new life and new hope.

  Growing up hated by the Soviet authorities and their Muslim neighbors, Katrina’s father, Abraham, said he felt as if they were growing up in between two scorpions. That was life, he and his wife, Ziva, sometimes lamented after a bit too much vodka: no true good or evil, just natural forces battling for dominance. Katrina’s CIA career had brought her in contact with plenty of scorpions, and when push came to shove, she walked away in one piece and they didn’t. But winning those fights came at a cost. More nights in the past year, she found herself staring at the ceiling late at night as Alec snored beside her, wondering whether she had become just another scorpion.

  CHAPTER 10

  The ten o’clock meeting began a few minutes late when the team’s favorite FBI special agent, Elaine Kopek, was held up by the usual delays from the building’s security checkpoints. Once the team’s connection to the FBI’s Joint Terrorism Task Force, Elaine had been transferred to a much cushier, less stressful managerial job in the Office of Public Affairs. Raquel had sent along everything Alec and Katrina had found in Berlin to her counterparts at the Bureau and the National Security Agency.

  “Okay, first problem,” began Elaine. “The airliner blueprint and operating manual you recovered from Rat are practically antiques. There are no more Hawker Siddeley Tridents flying anymore. Stopped making them back in the late seventies, stopped flying in the nineties. Five are on display in aviation museums around the world, none in any condition to fly, and none in the Western hemisphere. One was Mao’s personal plane and is on display in the Military Museum of the Chinese People’s Revolution in Beijing. If this guy Akoman wants to try to steal it …” She pantomimed waving. “Good luck, pal.”

  “So much for the planned hijacking theory,” Raquel muttered.

  “The page of notes looks like research into the chemical formula of 3-quinuclidinyl benzilate. NATO calls it BZ, also known as Agent 15,” Elaine continued. “Our government tested it at Edgewood Arsenal in the sixties, one of the more ignoble chapters of the Pentagon’s medical research history. BZ is an incapacitating agent that causes hallucinations, heart palpitations, and panic attacks. Scary as this sounds, this information is easily obtained on the Internet, and as far as chemical weapons go, this is … meh. Not even lethal, really.”

  She turned to her third folder. “The BZ formula is a little interesting in light of the name Francis Neus
e …” Elaine continued, opening and displaying a file. “Francis Gordon Neuse, age 71. Psychologist, pharmacologist, follower of and successor to Timothy Leary and John C. Lilly. Bit of a celebrity a while back, turned into a bit of a psychedelic drug new-age guru. No known links to Iran or terrorism, though I found it interesting that he traveled to Afghanistan in the late seventies to sample the opium. Criminal record is a long string of minor busts for possession of controlled substances, never did serious time. Ex-wife filed a missing person report on him about two months ago. Whereabouts unknown, but passport and FAA records have him boarding a flight to São Paulo, Brazil, eleven weeks ago.”

  Alec leaned forward, in a mix of intrigue and confusion. “Huh.”

  Elaine nodded to Dominica “Dee” Alves, the team’s liaison to the NSA.

  “The name ‘Akoman’ does not match any known name or alias of anyone of interest to our intelligence community or any of our allies,” Dee reported, not hiding her disappointment. “It is the name of a demon in Zoroastrianism, basically their Satan figure: ‘the evil mind,’ ’embodiment of vile thoughts and discord,’ head-spinning-in-The-Exorcist stuff. It is also the name of a Ukrainian heavy metal band.”

  She turned a page, and seeming to sense a coming objection, she declared, “Yes, Alec, I looked hard. There’s the usual Hezbollah presence in Mexico, but there’s nothing in NSA’s extensive collection of data about an Iranian trying to sneak across the border.”

  Elaine and Dee looked at each other, each silently communicating that they thought the other would have found something to confirm Rat’s claims.

  Raquel looked around the room in disappointment. “So … nothing Rat told us checks out?”

  “Hello? The hostel fire?” Alec piped up. “Somebody blew up Rat and then kills his girl right after he tells us all about this Akoman guy? Come on, that can’t be a coincidence.”

  “For what it’s worth, the Germans don’t think they’re connected,” Raquel said.

  “When it comes to terrorism, the Germans are the mayor of Amity!” Alec exclaimed. “‘There’s no shark in the water! Stop scaring the tourists! Everything is fine! Nothing to see here!’ If you tell the Germans that all their outreach to Iran is for nothing, and that Tehran might be sponsoring terror attacks that killed Germans on their own soil, of course they’re going to insist this is all a bunch of coincidences!”

  “No part of this is coincidence.” When Katrina spoke in that tone, it wasn’t merely an assertion.

  Raquel nodded. “I’m getting one of you and Dee cleared for the NSA’s Follow the Money servers. Tomorrow, you’ll be spending quality time with Rat’s bank records. Maybe there’s something in there that leads to this Akoman.”

  CHAPTER 11

  March

  To: Raquel Holtz,

  From: Merlin

  It is very very good to hear from you, old friend. I have five responses to the recent events you describe.

  1.Keep everything you’re working on close to the vest. You heard correctly; that classified report from last year concluded that there are at least two moles at the highest levels in Langley. This is why a group like yours is needed. No one pays attention to you and your team by design. The perception of your unimportance is your camouflage.

  2.Trust your gut, and trust Katrina’s. If it feels like a storm is brewing … they say before an earthquake, all the animals disappear. Scientists at the US Geological Survey speculate this is because they can somehow detect precursor vibrations from the building pressures in the fault lines between tectonic plates; a spiritualist like myself would say this is because all living things are connected, and the animals can listen to the earth in ways we have forgotten. Listen to the sounds.

  3.

  4.The day before you reached out to me, I heard from an old friend on the Iran desk that five agents under surveillance left the United States in the past two weeks. Then I started asking around. We have thousands of suspected foreign terrorists and suspected spies under surveillance. In any given month, the number entering and leaving the United States is about the same. But last month fifteen more departed than entered—way outside normal parameters.

  5.The owls that lived in my barn disappeared last week. It’s the wrong time of year for migration. I don’t think their departure is what it seems.

  The animals are disappearing.

  —Merlin

  CHAPTER 12

  WEDNESDAY, MARCH 10

  The highlight of Katrina and Alec’s night featured both of them stripping off their clothes, brief difficulty getting off Katrina’s boots because the zipper was stuck, tooth-brushing and a quick mouthwash, a mutual shower, mood music, knocking over a scented candle and getting hot melted wax all over the bedside table, a brief interlude as Alec put another pair of boots back on Katrina, rolling around the bed, falling off the bed, a burst of aggressive hip gyrations on both their parts, her lipstick in no less than seven distinct parts of his body, one distinct red handprint on her left butt cheek, one sore right hand, mild bruising on all four wrists, serious scratches on his chest and back, and a desperate need for a towel afterward. Both Alec and Katrina felt like eons of stress and tension and anxiety had been beaten, bitten, thrust, and squeezed out of them, and for once, every trouble in the world felt light-years away.

  “Good to be back home,” she said quietly. He got up, groaned slightly and thought about how he could be sore in places that would be difficult to explain, and started putting the pillows and blankets back on the bed. Both of their phones rang simultaneously.

  They shared a look. Anytime both phones rang at the same time, it was work, and it was never good news.

  “Tell them we’re still in afterglow,” Alec grumbled. Katrina saw it was Raquel and answered.

  “Did you see what’s happening? Are you watching television?” Raquel asked tensely. “Turn to any news channel.”

  Katrina mumbled a curse and clicked on the television in the bedroom.

  “Why are you doing that?” Alec groaned. “Anytime someone calls up and asks, ‘are you watching this?’ it’s never good news!” He saw his phone was Ward. He hit ignore and texted he could call back in a few minutes. “Just once I’d like it to be, ‘hey, are you watching television? The game just went into overtime!’”

  Katrina clicked through the channels until she found one of the cable news networks. She stopped upon the sight of a beautiful veiled woman, sitting in shadow, with ornate symbols painted behind her. She sat, cross-legged, in a dark room with a backdrop of bloody handprints. Her English was strongly accented.

  “You brought this on yourselves. You are not safe. This is a response to your arrogance and oppression.”

  The chyron on the screen clarified: this is a live signal from wpix and wwor in new york city. During the woman’s long pause, the anchor’s voice interjected. “Again, this is some sort of pirate signal that is overriding two of the television stations in the New York area. We don’t know-” He stopped when the woman began speaking again.

  “Your helpless leaders will call us liars, but we are giving you a gift, the greatest and rarest gift in our decadent age of adamant denial. We are giving you the truth. You cannot be saved.”

  Katrina changed from CNN to Fox and to MSNBC and found all three cable channels were carrying the message live. The CNN chyron changed to woman calls self “angra druj.”

  Alec smirked. “Who’s this ‘Angry Drudge’ chick, and why is she on every news channel?”

  “Persian accent,” Katrina said with certainty. “Iranian.”

  The message from Angra Druj continued.

  “Your fear is rational. You are fated for much pain and suffering. You have failed; your struggle now is coming to accept that. You are doomed and your fate is sealed by our hands. In the days and weeks to come, we will teach you that you are an insignificant plaything. The Voices reveal and prove this. The power of random chance and the frequency of tragedy in life proves that we are right. No one watches over yo
u, no one protects you; you sense, in your sleepless nights, that a terrible fate awaits you, getting closer each day. Everyone can hear the doubt in your voice as you deny this.”

  She paused, looking down. During her silence Alec made a variety of vulgar gestures at the screen, inviting Angra Druj to commit undignified acts with his anatomy. Katrina shushed him as Druj started speaking again.

  “You have denied this truth, and now we open your eyes. We searched your country and picked five of you at random. There was nothing unique about them—they are not in the ranks of your armies, or high of power or stature. We found their names in the phone book.”

  Katrina wondered how many people still used phone books. Sharp-eyed viewers noticed Angra Druj glancing down at a piece of paper in front of her.

  “Hector Ramirez, Columbus, Ohio. Worked in construction … Helen Rai, Grosse Pointe, Michigan. Florist … David Glass, lawyer, Brooklyn … Mai Ng, manicurist, Los Angeles, California … John Brown, cab driver, Chattanooga, Tennessee …”

  Angra Druj stopped glancing down at the paper and stared into the camera.

  “Today, we sliced their throats open.”

  Across the country, viewers gasped and swore at their screens.

  “We will continue this ritual,” Druj promised. “There is nothing you can do to stop us. The next to die will be Smith, Johnson, Williams, Brown, and Jones. You are not safe. You will know us. You will know Atarsa.”

  The message ended. Confused anchors returned to the screen, attempting to explain again how the evening news on two local New York City stations had been interrupted by some pirate signal, and debating whether the boast of five murders could be true.

  Over the phone, Raquel piped up. “Think this is what Rat was warning about?”

  Katrina grunted affirmatively. “Akoman’s supposedly Iranian, and an Iranian woman voices this message. But it’s weird, this doesn’t fit the Islamists. They wouldn’t use a woman as the messenger.”