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Jeremy’s face twists in anger and despair. “One who’s been quietly in the background, financing at arm’s length, one who’s smarter and more capable than anyone we’ve ever seen before. He’s got something big and deadly planned for May 29—the anniversary of the fall of Constantinople to the forces of Islam nearly six centuries ago.”
“And he’s here, in these mountains?”
“For a brief moment, that’s all. This chap…he makes Osama bin Laden look like a kindergarten teacher, and he’s going to hit us hard in seven days, and we don’t know how or where. But we have a guess.”
“What’s the guess?” I ask.
“Paris,” he says. “Or New York.”
My beloveds, I think, oh, my Tom and Denise.
Tom Cornwall starts across the plaza leading to his place of work, still thinking how fortunate he is to be in Manhattan, to have a well-paying yet demanding job, and to have his daughter at his side, who has done so well in moving to the Big Apple.
But those little questions Denise asked back there still gnaw at him.
Why doesn’t Mom call? Or email?
Because, he thinks, she’s going up against very bad men who want to do very bad things to young girls and boys like you.
He looks up at the grand and tall building, here because other bad men had gone about their work without being bothered too much by intelligence agencies that acted like independent fiefdoms instead of departments focused on their citizens’ safety; that thought cooperating with one another was a bureaucratic betrayal of sorts; that lost sight of what their job was.
One World Trade Center, just a brisk walk from the open-pool tombs of its predecessor.
And he has a thought:Denise has yet to see where her father works, but Take Your Daughter to Work Day is soon, and that’d be a perfect time.
On May 29.
Chapter14
“MAY 29is a week away,” I tell Jeremy. “Let’s focus on today. Tell me you have a Plan C.”
“Of sorts,” he says, taking out a topo map, wincing from his cuts and bruises. The wind is starting to come up harder and I don’t like being out in the open like this. There are ridges, mountain peaks, and fissures all around us, and I have a thought of armed and angry men looking up at us with their own binoculars.
“Here,” he says, pointing to the map. I read the lines and squiggles, and he points to a tiny spot on the map and says, “Small village called Srar. About a four-hour trek if we start now. We should get there before sunset.”
“What, you have a cottage there?”
“No,” he says, folding up the map and putting it in his coat. “An old man with a taxi cab. Who can take us where we need to go.”
“Which is where?”
He looks around at the desolate rock-filled plateau.
“Anyplace but here.”
“Agreed,” I say.
Ernest Hollister is walking quickly down one of the numbered hallways in the depths of Langley when he stops in front of a small desk that has an armed Marine sitting at it, dressed in blue striped trousers and khaki shirt and necktie. Behind him is a thick, locked metal door with a variety of warning signs posted on it and a long metal handle.
The desk has a telephone, a fingerprint scanner about the size of a tissue box, and an old-fashioned, leather-bound journal with lined pages.
“Sir,” the Marine says.
Ernest presents his CIA identification, the Marine carefully writes down his name and service number—there’s a piece of cardboard blocking the previous names so even in-house CIA personnel can’t read upside down and see who has preceded them—and then the Marine hands back the identification.
“If you will, sir,” the Marine says, gesturing to the fingerprint scanner.
Ernest is in a hurry. He doesn’t want to put up with this triple-top-secret nonsense, but he also knows he needs to get into that room as soon as possible. Earlier he had read a transcript provided by the Agency’s Beirut station of recent communications with Amy Cornwall, before she went dark. The message was short and unsatisfying:Yes, she knew she had missed the rendezvous. Yes, she knew she was disobeying orders. Yes, but she had done it for a good reason.
