SEVENTY-TWO
“An escort is being rounded up for you now, sir,” the air policeman at the main gate told Haaris. “If you’ll just go back to the parking area and wait there, shouldn’t be but a couple of minutes.”
“Okay,” Haaris said. He made a U-turn and went to the parking lot.
In the distance he could just make out the hangars, the Super Galaxy and the Carson Center, where his two coffins were waiting to be picked up. Something was wrong; he could feel it in his bones.
He glanced over at a Toyota SUV and it was vaguely familiar to him. He’d seen the boxy vehicle somewhere before, but he couldn’t place the where or the when. But there had to be hundreds of SUVs just like it between here and DC.
He stared at it for a long time, the uneasy feeling growing.
Taking out his cell phone, he slid the battery cover off, removed the battery and got the SIM card from the jacket pocket of the dark blue suit he’d dressed in at the warehouse.
McGarvey’s cell phone rang. “May I answer it?”
The general nodded.
It was Otto. McGarvey put it on speaker. “The Bureau has agreed to drag its feet for now. But they’re not giving us much time before they want you to talk to them.”
“What about the Secret Service?”
“They turned it over to the Bureau first thing.”
“Haaris is already here, they’re holding him at the main gate. In the meantime the general has placed me under arrest.”
“Hold on, I’ll have Altman call him.… Shit, shit. Mac, Haaris’s phone just went active.”
“Can you block his outgoing calls?”
“I can try to shut him down, but he’s using one of our phones — one of the phones I modified for field officers — and he’d know the moment I tried something like that. You have to get to him and right now.”
“Admiral Altman?” Taff asked. He was impressed.
“Yes. But it’s your call now, General. The hearse driver has just activated his cell phone. All he has to do is pull up a number and hit speed dial. We might have just an instant to see the flash when both nuclear devices ignite, but it’ll be over with.”
“He won’t commit suicide.”
“They’ve been doing it in the Middle East for years, and the guys who took over the planes on nine-eleven were willing to die for their cause. Are you?”
The general was deflated. “Can you stop him?”
His secretary buzzed him. “Admiral Altman is calling for you, sir.”
“I’d like to try.”
“What do you need?”
“A ride over to wherever he’s supposed to pick up the two coffins. No sirens. And in two minutes let him through the gate.”
Taff hesitated only an instant longer, but then he nodded. “Do it,” he told the two air policemen, and then picked up the telephone.
Haaris pulled up the number that would detonate the two bombs here and the one in England. For the longest time, what seemed almost like an eternity to him, he stared at the SUV. From Lahore to here had been a terribly long journey. Along the way there had been some good times, he’d never denied that to himself. Even with Deborah there had been the odd moment, when glancing at her he could see the obvious love for him in her eyes, and it gave him a little thrill of pleasure that somebody actually gave a damn. Unconditionally.
He would have liked to finish his work. Deliver one bomb to his people at the mosque in New Jersey, who would in two days take it to the new World Trade Center. The second to his people in Alexandria, who would at the same moment as the New Jersey driver take it to the fence in front of the White House. The two days would give him the time to reach the funeral home in Farnborough, where he would pick up the coffin and deliver it to Ten Downing Street.
Then he would press the button.
Revenge would finally be his. But sitting here at the wheel of the hearse, the cell phone in his right hand, his thumb over the speed dial button, he tried to visualize exactly what it was that he was taking revenge for.
At that moment a blue sedan with air force markings came through the main gate, and he shut the phone off and put it in his pocket as he powered down the window.
The two air policemen drove McGarvey directly across to the Carson Center’s incoming and processing facility, where bodies were brought in and made ready either for transportation to Arlington National Cemetery or for pickup by families.
The cops parked their pickup truck around the corner of the building, out of sight of anyone coming from the main gate, and hurried back with McGarvey to the loading bay area, where the coffins would be brought out on trolleys
A technical sergeant named Oakley came out. He looked a little green. No one else was around.
“The captain called, said we’ve got some kind of trouble coming our way?”
“Someone from a funeral home in Wilmington is coming to pick up a couple of coffins,” McGarvey said. “Where are they?”
“Just inside. Said this guy was armed; what the hell is going on?”
“The coffins might be wired with Semtex, set to blow up at any moment. So get your ass out of here now.”
“No shit,” the sergeant said. “That’d spread radioactive crap everywhere.”
“What are you talking about?”
“The bodies were from the nuclear explosion in Pakistan. They’re hot.” He gave McGarvey and the cops one last look and left.
“I want you out of here too,” McGarvey told the cops. “Right now.”
“Good luck, sir,” one of them said, and they headed back to their truck.
In the distance McGarvey spotted a blue air force sedan followed by a white hearse heading his way.
The coffins were waiting on two trolleys just inside the small processing center, which wasn’t much larger than a five- or six-car garage. Double doors at the back presumably led to the morgue itself, where coffins were in storage for pickup. The concrete floor was coated with a gray epoxy and the entire space was spotlessly clean and empty. There was no place to hide.
Pulling out his pistol, McGarvey stepped inside just to the left of the open door and flattened against the wall.
The coffins were marked with the three-bladed-propeller symboclass="underline" CAUTION RADIOACTIVE MATERIALS. McGarvey had to give Haaris credit for coming up with the way to make certain that no one would try to open the coffins, and at the same time offer a good explanation in case the bombs were leaking and someone detected the radiation.
Haaris backed the hearse to the open bay door and got out. No one was around, which he thought was strange. He could see the two coffins on trolleys just inside the pickup area.
“Will someone be out to help me load?” Haaris asked the escort driver.
“Should be, sir,” the driver said through his open window. He swung the car around and headed away.
Haaris didn’t know the entire procedure for picking up bodies, but he was reasonably certain that he would have been required to show his papers and sign something.
The hairs at the nape of his neck stood on end.
He took out his cell phone again and brought up the detonation number. He was armed, but getting into a gunfight here would guarantee that he would never get off the base. If this was a trap, he would push the button.
No one else was heading his way, and the escort car had disappeared somewhere behind one of the hangars.
Everything was wrong. Everything screamed at him to make a one-eighty and get the hell out. Survive to fight another day. Push the speed dial button once he made it to Wilmington. Or perhaps when he was in the air, flying away. The mushroom cloud would be interesting to watch.