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“That’s just it. You can’t. Not directly.”
It was then that MacD realized Overholt’s problem dovetailed with the Corporation’s. It hit him like a ton of bricks and almost made him gasp aloud. “Jee-zus. Gunawan Bahar.”
“Who?”
“The guy behind my daughter’s kidnapping. He was the one who orchestrated my actin’ as his spy aboard the Oregon. He’s afraid of the Corporation for some reason, and Ah think this is it. Damn, Mr. Overholt, you’re the link he never saw comin’.”
A look of confusion crossed the spymaster’s face.
MacD said, “This Bahar guy is behind the quantum computer. It all makes sense now! The computers on the oil rig. That must have been his first attempt to crack all our codes. That must not have worked, so his people built him a better machine.” He wondered if the crystals they recovered played a roll in that development, but didn’t bother mentioning it because it didn’t really matter at this point. “He knew that once he had his computer, there wasn’t anything our government, or any government, could do about it, but he was aware that the Corporation existed and knew we could be a threat if we somehow found out about it. He’d also know if and when we were ever alerted. He could block the ship from ever receivin’ orders from you. Can that computer do that?”
“I imagine it could.”
“But you outfoxed him by reachin’ out to me. We know who and what we’re lookin’ for, and Bahar has no idea we’re comin’. He thought he could keep tabs on us by usin’ me, and he thought he could isolate us too, but that ain’t gonna happen.” An idea suddenly hit him, and his sense of optimism faded. “He’s goin’ to know.”
“What? How?”
“When the kidnappers don’t report in, he’s goin’ to know that Ah rescued Pauline and that Ah’m no longer his stool.”
Langston hadn’t survived for more than fifty years in the CIA without being quick on his feet. “I’ll fly back to New Orleans and have a chat with the chief of police. His investigation is about to lead him to the arrest and confession of a drug dealer who hit the wrong house and killed three men by mistake. I’ll get him to parade an officer in mufti for the cameras. Oh, and the arson investigators are about to discover the body of a little girl in the ashes of their house.”
“Perfect,” MacD said, more than impressed with the octoge
narian.
Overholt had a binder, sitting on the bench seat next to him. He handed it over to Lawless. “I’ve been working on this since the secretary of state made me aware of the situation and suggested you guys could help. It’s a list of things you might need from us, with corresponding code numbers. The phone you’re going to call if you need anything on that list is a securities firm on Wall Street so that anyone calling in with long lists of numbers, like quantities of stocks to buy, won’t sound suspicious.”
MacD opened the book and leafed to a random page. If they needed all transatlantic telephone cables to go off-line, that was a number 3282. If they needed a fake media story run, that was a number 6529, with a subset of numbers listing two dozen types of news pieces. If they needed a nuclear strike anywhere on the planet, that was number 7432, with the GPS coordinates tacked on after.
MacD pointed that last one out to the man from Langley. “Yes,” Overholt said to the unasked question, “the situation is that dire. If need be, I can make it happen. I don’t know how much we can do from our end. Big Brother is watching, and if Bahar catches wind of our interest, he’s going to know something’s up. We’ll try to make some discreet, one-on-one inquiries, but I can’t promise much.”
“I understand.”
They talked for the remainder of the flight, but it seemed too soon that the big Sikorsky was flaring over the apron at the sprawling air station. They’d been directed to land next to a row of parked F-18s.
The chopper’s onboard crewman opened the side roller door, and MacD jumped to the tarmac. The rotor’s downdraft was like standing at the eye wall of a hurricane.
“It was a pleasure meeting you, young man,” Overholt said from his seat. He had to shout over the spinning blades and still-lit turbines. “I was the one who gave Juan his superstition about being wished good luck. I will simply say happy hunting, and, not to put too fine of a point on this, but you are our best and only hope.”
“We won’t let you down, Mr. Overholt.” MacD threw him a wave and backed away as the turbine pitch increased and the chopper took to the air once again.
23
ABDUL MOHAMMAD, AKA JOHN SMITH, HAD NEVER SEEN his employer in such a towering rage. The American president hadn’t made any speeches about his giving in to Bahar’s demands, as he’d expected. He didn’t think that the president would admit to being blackmailed, but surely he would have appeared on television and contritely explained the shift in U.S. foreign policy.
Bahar had spent the previous day watching repeated coverage of the train crash he’d caused outside Philadelphia, staring raptly at the giant plasma television set, as news choppers shot hours of film of the carnage and reporters on the ground interviewed dazed and bloody survivors.
Mohammad hadn’t known his boss had a capacity to kill. Sure, he’d ordered killings, but on this occasion he had pushed the proverbial button that had snuffed out two hundred and thirteen lives. Bahar had taken a taste of the ultimate power, the power of life and death, and he’d enjoyed it. Abdul saw it on his face and in his glassy eyes.
Now, though, he ranted like a child denied his favorite toy.
“He saw what I could do and still he defies me!” Abdul knew his superior was speaking of the American president. “And sending the Guantánamo prisoners to the World Court? He knew I meant they were to be released back to their home countries. If they wanted to prosecute, that would have been their business.”
The two men were in Bahar’s office at the quantum computer facility. The windows looked out over a bleak and abandoned industrial area, with oil-stained ground and buildings losing their battles with rust. A tall derrick presided over the scene. Unlike the other equipment, it had been refurbished so that it was in working order. Below it was a cement bunker that could withstand any weapon in the Air Force’s arsenal except for a nuke.
What was invisible were all the motion detectors, thermalimaging and standard cameras, and a not-so-small army of guards ready to lay down their lives for the cause. Unlike hired mercenaries, these men were fanatically devoted and had already proven themselves in either Iraq or Afghanistan. They’d been smuggled into the country, once the bunker was in place. It had been built off-site over the past few months by an outside contractor, who thought they were pouring concrete bridge piers, and assembled once the facility had been procured. The computer had been installed at the same time.
As the computer network on the oil rig had calculated, the crystals, once cut to size, were the final pieces to bring the quantum device to life. The machine itself was the size of a suburban living room and was packed with exotic electronics, and, when viewed through a polarizing lens, gave off a red, pulsing aura as though it had a beating heart.
