Castilla stood suddenly and began pacing back and forth across the Oval Office.
“Sam, are you all right?”
“Hell no, I’m not all right. If anyone but you came to me with this, I’d fire them and then have them committed. But you’re not just anyone and that means I actually have to take this seriously — I have to start worrying about the loyalty of the man running our intelligence network.”
“If it makes any difference, I doubt Larry’s a radical — at least not a Muslim one. And in his own way, I think he believes he’s still serving the country.”
“What in God’s name are you talking about, Fred? By letting what killed those soldiers loose in the streets?”
“He could be trying to force your hand on Iran.”
“I don’t understand.”
“What would you do if this did get out and he could prove the Iranian government was behind it?”
“I’d knock down everything in their country taller than a fire hydrant,” Castilla replied, slowing and finally coming to a stop. “You’re saying Drake is trying to manipulate me? Trying to get me to authorize a military strike?”
“Based on his feelings about the threat Iran poses, I think it’s worth considering.”
Still unable to bring himself to sit, Castilla went back to pacing, muttering unintelligibly.
“Sam?”
“Okay,” the president said. “Let’s say this is true — and I’m not convinced it is by a long shot — what do you propose we do about it? Drake has a lot of allies — hell, I’m one of them. And taking down a man who’s familiar with every skeleton America has in its closet isn’t exactly trivial.”
Klein nodded and reached for the steaming cup of tea on the table in front of him. “Not trivial at all. But we have someone I trust on the inside—”
“Randi Russell took you up on your offer.”
“Honestly, I’m not entirely sure. But I can tell you that she isn’t buying into Gazenga’s food poisoning and she’s never going to turn her back on Jon Smith.”
“Any word from him?”
Klein shook his head. “And I’m not hopeful there will be. The farm he visited has been burned to the ground and the Ugandan government seems to be bombing the area around his last known position. Reports are that they found Caleb Bahame’s camp.”
“If Bahame’s gone…”
“The threat from the parasite could be too,” Klein said. “But I wouldn’t count on it. It’s a little suspicious that after decades of searching, the Ugandans finally manage to find him this week. More likely the Iranians got what they were after and betrayed him.”
The strength seemed to drain from Castilla and he collapsed into a chair. “I assume you have a recommendation?”
“If Randi will agree to help, I think we have a chance of controlling Drake.”
“If you think he’s guilty, why not just take him down?”
“Because, frankly, I’m not sure I’m right. And because our problems with Drake — if they exist at all — are secondary.”
“The Iranians,” Castilla said, and Klein nodded.
“I’m in the process of inserting a backup team into Uganda, and I’m working through our contacts in Iran to see what we can find out there.”
Castilla leaned his head back and stared at the ceiling. “So to sum up: you’re sending a second-string team to deal with something that most likely killed your top operative and you’re trying to learn about a beyond top secret bioweapons program in a country where we can barely figure out what day they pick up the garbage.”
The image of Smith and Howell flashed across Klein’s mind, but he pushed it away. There would be time to mourn later. “And that’s what we need to talk about, Sam. Covert-One’s resources are limited, but yours aren’t. I need your authorization to bring more personnel in on this — CDC, USAMRIID, and some university people. Also, I think it’s time you start considering what we’re going to do in the very likely event that my people fail.”
“You’re talking about a military option.”
Again, Klein nodded. “We have to start preparing for that eventuality, and you need to decide what threshold of intel you need in order to head down that road.”
54
Jon Smith’s foot hovered over the brake for a moment and then slammed back down on the accelerator as he approached a washed-out section in the dirt road. It was a good ten feet wide, but the Land Cruiser lofted obediently into the air and landed on its reinforced suspension without so much as a creak.
It was impossible to know for certain which way Omidi had gone, but a good bet was toward Kampala, where he would find the modern airstrips necessary to bring in a jet. Another benefit of chasing in the direction of the city was that the wind was with him, carrying enough smoke to make the Land Cruiser invisible from the air for the first twenty miles. By the time Smith had broken out of the haze, he’d been well away from the area Sembutu’s forces were concentrating on.
He came around a bend, the halogen-loaded light bar making it possible to creep up to ninety on the straightaway that followed. Where was that Iranian bastard? Had he guessed wrong? Was there an airstrip to the north? Was Omidi planning on escaping by another means?
Thoughts of Sarie encroached on his mind, and he tried to limit them to the ramifications of letting her fall into Omidi’s hands. Soon, though, he found himself sinking into vague fantasies of a teaching job at the University of Cape Town. About Saturdays working on her old farmhouse followed by grilled kudu and beer with the neighbors. But most of all, about never again picking up the phone and hearing Fred Klein’s voice on the other end.
He shook his head violently. Where the hell had that come from? Concentrate!
He drifted the vehicle around another corner and leaned forward over the steering wheel, squinting at two pinpricks of red light barely visible ahead. When he made it to within two hundred yards of the beat-up military truck, its gentle sway turned violent and confirmed that it was the vehicle he was looking for. Omidi had spotted him and was making a run for it.
The road was far too narrow to pass, leaving few options. Ramming the back of the heavy vehicle seemed pointless — most likely it would just destroy the front of the Land Cruiser. Hanging a gun out the window and trying to aim with one hand seemed equally low percentage. And that left him with one last possibility that was only marginally better.
He selected the best maintained of the AK-47s he’d found on his way out of the jungle, set the cruise control, and stood up through the open sunroof.
Before he could line up on the left rear tire, though, the flap on the back of the truck was thrown open. His position wedged into the sunroof was surprisingly stable, and he swung the barrel in the direction of the movement, filling his sights with the battered, dirty form of Sarie van Keuren. She was on her knees and Dahab was behind her, a bandaged arm around her throat and a machine gun resting on a crate next to her.
The motion of the vehicles made it pointless to try anything more ambitious than going for Sarie’s center of mass and hoping the bullet passed through into the man holding her.
Smith hesitated for only a fraction of a second before tightening his finger on the trigger, but it was all the jihadist needed. He opened up on full automatic, punching through the Land Cruiser’s grille and then moving up to shatter the windshield.
Smith dropped back inside, letting the AK skitter across the roof and land in the road behind him. Rounds continued to hiss past as he grabbed the wheel, trying to get control. The tires on the passenger side dropped into a ditch, and he felt himself being thrown around the interior as the vehicle rolled.