“My house.”
“Why?”
McDonald drew a ragged breath as he slowed behind the line of barely moving cars. When Brent glanced over he could see a line of sweat along McDonald’s hairline. The man smelled as if he’d just run several miles. McDonald seemed to sense the examination. “I’ve had a very bad day,” he said tersely.
“So have I,” Brent shot back.
“Look, if this case involves the war on terrorism, I don’t trust the walls of my office.”
“Come on,” Brent scoffed. “You can’t believe the government’s bugging us!”
McDonald shrugged, his eyes on the traffic ahead. “Better safe than sorry.”
Out the other end of the tunnel, they drove south on the New Jersey Turnpike then west on Route 280 to the Oranges. The real estate became fancier and the properties larger as they headed into West Orange, and McDonald finally turned between two brick gateposts into the long driveway of a multi-acre estate. They parked on a graveled circle in front of a large house with white columns.
McDonald led the way through the front door then down a long hall to a paneled library. He sat behind an antique desk and pointed Brent to an overstuffed chair. In spite of the grandness of the house, Brent found its atmosphere oddly sterile. The desk held a scattering of papers but no mementos or family photographs, nothing of an idiosyncratic or personal nature.
Also, the room had a stuffy odor, as though it had been closed up too long. The bookshelves held expensive leather bound volumes, the kind people liked to show off but never seemed to read. The paintings on the walls were bland as hotel art, suggesting nothing of what Spencer McDonald loved or did in his spare hours. Brent envisioned a guy who’d spent too many years working the brutal hours of a Manhattan attorney, who’d created enough wealth to buy this impressive house but never had the time to build a life.
Brent waited while McDonald studied the FBI’s seizure documents. His hands shook noticeably as he read, as though he suffered from Parkinson’s disease. Finally, he looked up and scowled. “Well, it’s tight. They did their homework.”
“What’s it based on?”
“Secret testimony.”
“Come off it! Not in America!”
“Welcome to the war on terrorism.”
“We have to fight it!”
McDonald said nothing.
“We have to fight it,” Brent repeated.
“Not if Prescott Biddle says we don’t,” McDonald said at last.
“Did you talk to him? Is that what he said?”
“If it became public that one of your largest international accounts has been seized by the government, other international accounts might consider pulling out.” McDonald looked at him and blinked slowly. “The loss could be significant.”
“Let me tell you what would be a whole lot worse,” Brent shot back. “That people find out we didn’t lift a finger to stop it!”
McDonald rubbed a finger across his chin then folded his hands together in a gesture of finality. “That won’t happen, assuming we can trust the discretion of everyone involved.”
“So you and Biddle want to walk away from my client?” Brent said in a stinging tone.
“Well… I don’t know if I’d call it walking away.”
Brent turned and looked through the window. He didn’t know if McDonald was still talking because there was a noise in his head like a hive of angry bees. “I need to get back to my office.”
“One last thing, Mr. Lucas.”
Brent turned slowly and saw that McDonald had fixed him with a harsh stare. “What?” he snapped.
“You’re making it very clear that you don’t agree with Mr. Biddle’s decision on this matter. Regardless of your personal feelings, there is the government’s gag order to consider.” McDonald paused, pursing his lips.
“What about it?”
“You need to obey it.”
Brent shrugged. “I’ll try.”
McDonald’s voice took on a warning note. “You need to do better than try.”
TWENTY-FOUR
PROJECT SEAHAWK, NEWARK, NJ, JUNE 29
AGENT JENKINS PACED THE FLOOR of her tiny office, her heels catching on the frayed polyester carpet each time she turned. She’d been arguing with herself for the past twenty minutes, dying to pick up the phone and call her boss, but resisting because it had only been six days since the poor bastard’s open-heart surgery.
Finally, deciding to spare him, she called FBI headquarters in Washington. She waited to get through to the Executive Assistant Director in charge of Counterterrorism and Counterintelligence, and then told the man in no uncertain terms that she needed her people off the POTUS assignment and back on port security. She cited the CIA memo, saying she had to assume it was serious and accurate.
The EAD sidestepped and said it was out of his control because she and her staff now reported through the chain of command at Homeland Security and Department of Justice. Jenkins swallowed her desire to tell the EAD where to stick it. Instead, she thanked him and called the Undersecretary for Border and Transportation Security at Homeland Security, someone she’d wanted to avoid because she knew from previous dealings that he was a political hack with neither law enforcement expertise nor guts.
She made the same request, but the Undersecretary coughed and cleared his throat then reminded her that the Threat Advisory System was at yellow. The President’s staff wanted it to remain there, he said, and her request was not consistent with a yellow threat level. With the President’s trip imminent, it was vital that her staff help with routine security checks.
Jenkins suggested that rather than worrying about the nicety of keeping the threat level unchanged, they should worry about keeping the President safe. At that point the Undersecretary’s voice became icy. Did Jenkins feel prepared to stake her career on her recommendation? The Undersecretary suggested that Agent Jenkins should think long and hard. It could be a lonely position, he said.
Jenkins hung up and resumed pacing.
TWENTY-FIVE
OYSTER BAY, LONG ISLAND, JUNE 29
ABU SAYEED SAT ALONE IN the silent cottage, perched atop the missile crate where he’d spent much of the day. The weapons fixated him, drew him in with a kind of magical intensity. He felt seduced by their power, the psychological devastation they would wreak.
He yearned to lift the cover off the crate, remove one of the weapons, and embrace its deadly symmetry, as if that might distract him somehow from his error in judgment. Naif! He should never have permitted him to go off with the Christian minister. Too many things could go wrong, and Naif was far too important to the mission.
He sat a while longer, struggling with his anxiety, until finally the stillness became more than he could bear and he took out his cell phone and dialed.
In only seconds he heard the welcome sound of Naif’s voice. “The objective is in sight.”
Abu Sayeed turned his eyes to heaven. Thanks be to Allah. “Take great care, my brother,” Abu Sayeed ordered. “Allah blesses you.” He clicked off.
He stood, felt the stiffness in his legs and went to the window where he moved the blackout shade to peek out at the rain-splattered courtyard, wondering at the whereabouts of his hidden sentry. This endless waiting ate at all of them but wore hardest on Mohammed, whose troubled emotions had always been too close to the surface. Unfortunately, his time in the shipping crate had only made things worse.