“How long have you been watching him?”
“Was it that obvious?”
“Only once.”
Hunter smiled and shook his head. “And one day you’ll tell me when, right?”
Dave said, “Maybe you can talk Sean into joining the Agency.”
O’Brien said, “Right now we’ve got to find Borshnik. For all I know, Gates is outside, smoking a cigarette and calling Borshnik-” O’Brien felt his words tighten in his throat. From across the room, under the flat light of the fluorescents, he could see directly into the service room. The man in a white windbreaker turned and looked up at the ceiling, his body facing east. O’Brien saw the man talking to himself. Or was he praying? Praying to Allah.
“NO! DOWN!” O’Brien yelled.
“What-” Dave uttered.
“There!” Hunter pointed.
Lauren came across the threshold, a plate of food in her hands, a smile on her face. O’Brien felt the world stop. Time measured in disjointed increments of human movement. The numbers on the digital clock-frozen.
The click of Lauren’s heels-silent.
The drone of the command center-gone.
The man in the white jacket opened his eyes. Prayer finished. His right hand slipping inside the jacket in a faltering movement, like film caught in the gate.
Lauren’s smile dropped. Her mouth made an O. She turned her head to look behind her as the jacket disintegrated into a ball of white heat. The explosion turned the wall separating the rooms into dust. The force of the bomb knocked O’Brien to the ground, heat radiating through the command center like a blast furnace.
O’Brien was flat on his back, ceiling tiles raining around him. Electricity arching through shattered wires, fire sprinklers gushing water. The smoke billowed forcefully as if it were an angry cloud in extreme weather. Visibility zero. Pain seared from his left shoulder, the heat of his blood trapped between skin and clothes.
O’Brien could hear nothing. Then a ringing swelled in his ears. It faded and he heard the sounds of agony, pain and imminent death rise up from the smoke and charred furniture, walls and floor. A woman made inhuman grunts and shrieks. A man whimpered and begged for his mother. Sobbing meshed into wailing. O’Brien crawled on his hand and knees. He found Dave Collins knocked out cold. A pulse, but faint, blood oozing from his forehead.
A cough. Eric Hunter held his shoulder with one bleeding hand. His hair was covered in a white powder, pieces of dry-wall sticking to it.
“You okay?” O’Brien asked.
“Think so,” Hunter said.
“Dave’s out. He’s breathing, but his pulse is weak.” O’Brien kept low, face near the floor, crawling in the direction he’d last seen Lauren. His hands slipped in blood and wet brain matter scattered like red oatmeal on the floor. He could smell coppery odors mixed with the scent of C-4, gun powder, and burning electrical fires.
A woman moaned. “Lauren! I’m here!” O’Brien crawled fifty feet though rubble and the sticky heat of blood and body parts. Lauren was on her back, one leg bent at an awkward right angle. Her white blouse ripped, the remaining fabric soaked red.
O’Brien knelt over her. His hands trembled as he wiped the blood from her face, gently pushing hair from her eyes. Her breathing raspy. She looked up at O’Brien, her eyes filling with tears. “Hold me, Sean. I can’t feel my legs … hold me.”
O’Brien lowered his body to hers, his cheek touching her face, his hands holding her shoulders. He could feel the warmth of tears run from her eyes and down to his lips. He could hear the labored breathing, the erratic muscle spasms of her body.
Sirens screamed in the distance. “Hold on … help’s coming. You’ll be in the hospital in a few minutes.”
“Sean, it’s okay-”
“Just breathe … easy … you’ll be fine-”
“I can’t see you. Sean ….”
“I’m here. Just breathe easy. They’re coming. Stay with me, Lauren!”
She coughed. O’Brien leaned up and wiped blood from her lips. “Don’t let Gates get away with it. He’s hurt too many people ….”
“Don’t talk … rest.”
She reached up with one hand. O’Brien held it, squeezed gently, hoping to somehow squeeze full life back into her body. “Find Jason ….” Her smile quivered. “You’re a good and decent man, Sean. You care about people … and I’ve always cared deeply for you and ….” Lauren’s chest heaved, gasping for air.
“No! Help’s coming! Lauren! Just breathe easy. Fight it!”
She stopped breathing, her blue eyes open, the light fading in the dust and smoke.
O’Brien held her hand. He leaned down to kiss her forehead, a single tear falling from his eye and mixing with her blood.
CHAPTER EIGHTY-TWO
Mike Gates drove the speed limit, stopping for the convoy of police and emergency vehicles streaming toward the federal building. The only visible anxiety was the size of the sweat stain, which had grown into large, dark patches on his blue dress shirt. The odor of garlic from last night’s meal mixed with adrenaline and rose in an acrid blend from his pores. The taste in his mouth was like metal, hard water and rust. He used his cell phone.
“Yes,” Boris Borshnik said.
“I’ve been exposed!”
“How?”
“O’Brien! The fucking ex-cop! I don’t know how. I have to leave the country within the hour. I need asylum in Russia, with a guarantee I’ll be left alone.”
“No problem. You can be on an Aeroflot jet and routed from Miami to Moscow.”
“I’ll need papers, passport and money.”
“I understand. Meet me at the warehouse. You can obtain the money there. I’ll have the papers ready for you at Miami International.”
“Outside only.”
“Pardon.”
“Outside, meet me outside with the money, money still owed to me.”
“Certainly.” Borshnik disconnected. He turned to Zakhar Sorokin and said, “Gates will be arriving momentarily. Ambush him.”
“Shall I kill him?”
“No, bring him to me.”
Robert Miller sat in an opulent bar in the Ritz Carlton overlooking the ocean. He nursed a glass of Jameson and watched a news bulletin that appeared on the wide screen above the bar.
A female reporter stood in front of the federal building and began talking. Her brow wrinkled, face animated. Behind her were dozens of fire and rescue vehicles, smoke filtering ghostlike from three blown-out windows on the top floor.
“Turn it up, please,” Miller said to the bartender.
The news reporter pulled a strand of hair behind one ear and said, “The questions investigators now are asking is how did a suicide bomber get access into the federal building and who was he? It’s believed that the bomber is connected to a radical Islamic Jihad sect that may have the highly enriched uranium missing from the German submarine and the cache found on Rattlesnake Island. The body count is reported at nine now with at least a dozen people injured, many critically ….”
Miller sipped his drink and stared at the screen. His cell rang. Mike Gates was furious. “What’d you tell Sean O’Brien?”
“Nothing he didn’t already know.” Miller’s voice was filtered through Irish whiskey.
“You old fool! You didn’t have to say anything. There is no proof.”
“Don’t blame me for your mistakes. The only reason O’Brien found out was due to your carelessness-”
“I leave no trail!”
“Borshnik found you.”
“And O’Brien found you! You’ve cost me everything. I can’t even tell my wife goodbye. I no longer exist.”
“I’m sitting here watching your fuck ups. Half a dozen agents blown to hell and back. Your mistakes are massive, resulting in loss of life and property.”
“That was no mistake.”
“Then you’re sub-human. You belong in-”
“You fucking old hypocrite! You sold this country’s ass to Russia as Hitler was going down. You may be personally responsible for the deaths of thousands, from Korea to Vietnam, and you have the sanctimonious balls to lecture me. Go to hell!”