never been so glad to see the truck. He stepped out of the minivan. To his surprise, Tarik followed. “May Allah smile upon you, Jalal,” Tarik said in Arabic. He tapped his heart. Wells responded in kind.
“On you as well, Tarik.”
“And may he make us victorious.”
Wells offered Tarik his hand. Instead the smaller man gave him an awkward hug. Wells pulled the blue bag out of the Windstar and set it in his pickup. He waved once to Tarik, then leaned against his truck and watched the minivan disappear.
When the Windstar was gone Wells slid behind the wheel of the pickup, but he didn’t bother to start the Ranger for a while. If this was a sting, he’d give the cops plenty of time to arrest him without a fight. But the garage stayed empty, and finally Wells turned the key and rolled out of Quebec City and into the night.
IT WAS 1:04 A.M. by the Ranger’s clock when Wells rolled up to the deserted border crossing. He felt as if he’d been driving forever, but in truth he’d just begun the journey home.
The guard took a long look at his license. “You have a passport?”
“No sir.”
“When’d you cross into Canada?”
“Just yesterday morning.”
“You from Georgia?”
“Atlanta.”
“Long way for such a short trip.”
“I was visiting a girl in Quebec City,” Wells said. “Met her on the Internet. It didn’t work out so good. She was about twice as big as the picture she sent.”
“Too bad, man.” The guard laughed. “You can never trust those Canadians.” He looked down at the Ranger’s passenger seat. “What’s in your bags?”
“Just clothes. I was hoping to stay a while. Took the week off.”
“No drugs, guns, nothing like that.”
“No sir.”
“Well, better luck next time.” The guard handed Wells back his license. “Welcome home. Drive safe.” Just that easily he was back.
A HALF HOUR later Wells pulled over and pissed by the side of the highway, looking up at the night sky. This far north there wasn’t much pollution. The glow of the stars reminded Wells of Afghanistan. He wondered if he’d ever see those mountains again, or what he would think if he did. Maybe he and Exley would vacation there one day. Adventure tourism.
He found his phone and punched in a number Khadri had e-mailed the previous day. “Leave a message,” Khadri’s voice said.
“I’m through,” Wells said. “I’ll be back in Atlanta tonight. Late.” Click.
IN THE MOTEL room in Chestertown Wells sat on his bed and gingerly unzipped the blue bag. Inside he found a couple of T-shirts…a pair of jeans…some smelly socks and underwear. And a hard-shelled plastic briefcase clasped with a digital lock. Wells wondered how he would have explained it to the border guard. He picked up the case, feeling its heft, maybe twenty pounds. Not nearly big enough for a nuke. But inside there could be enough plutonium for a bomb. Enough anthrax to annihilate a city. Sarin. VX. Smallpox. Anything. Pandora’s briefcase.
Wells poked at it for a minute more, then gave up. He could probably force the lock, but why bother? If Khadri was using him as a decoy, the case would be empty or booby-trapped. On the other hand, if the case held something important, then Khadri would have to get it. And then…. The knife strapped to Wells’s leg throbbed asif it were alive. Khadri wouldn’t survive that meeting.
He lay back on the bed. He would sleep three hours and be on the road by dawn. But first he had a call to make.
EXLEY ANSWERED ON the second ring. “John?”
“Five o’clock this afternoon. Swimmingly.”
“I’ll be there.”
He hung up.
She had said yes without hesitation. He loved her for that.
16
“LEFT AT THE sign,” Ghazi said. “Third house down.”
Khadri stopped his Ford Expedition in front of a neatly kept house in Yonkers, just north of New York City. A black Lincoln Town Car sat in the driveway, in front of the garage.
“You like it?” Ghazi said. He had bought the place three years before, and he was as house-proud as any first-generation immigrant. Ghazi was the only al Qaeda sleeper who lived openly in the United States, a former Lebanese army explosives expert who had emigrated legally in 1999. He had spent the years since building an American life. He drove for a car service, paid his taxes on time, even showed up for jury duty. And he never forgot the day in 1983 when an Israeli artillery shell landed in his living room in Beirut and splattered his family across the walls. Never forgot and never forgave. He blamed the United States as much as Israel. The Jews were nothing without the Americans. Ghazi had waited a very long time for Khadri’s orders.
“VERY NICE,” KHADRI said. In truth, Khadri didn’t care for the house’s green paint or its aluminum siding. But he saw no reason to explain its shortcomings to Ghazi, who would be in paradise soon enough anyway.
Khadri popped the Expedition’s back latch, and the two men dragged a steel trunk out of the SUV. “Heavy,” Ghazi grunted in Arabic.
“It’s lined with lead,” Khadri said. They had picked up the trunk at a storage center outside Hartford. Inside the garage they lowered the trunk to the clean concrete floor. Ghazi clicked the garage door closed. They were alone with the trunk. And the vehicle that Khadri thought of as the Yellow. Khadri walked slowly around the Yellow, examining it. Just as Ghazi had promised. Its tires were worn and its paint faded, but it had a new inspection sticker and the right license plates. No one would look twice at it. Perfect.
“It’s ready?” Khadri said.
Ghazi slid a key into the ignition. The Yellow started without protest. Ghazi let the vehicle run for a minute before turning it off and handing the key to Khadri.
“Have the neighbors ever asked about it?”
Ghazi shook his head. “They know I drive a cab. They think maybe it’s for a new business.”
“So it is.”
FROM THE OUTSIDE the Yellow appeared completely ordinary. But beneath its seats were wooden crates that held thick gray blocks of C-4, twenty-one hundred pounds in all. Khadri had originally expected to use the vehicle for a conventional bombing like the ones in Los Angeles, but since Alaa’s arrest he had changed his plan.
Inside the Yellow, thick black wires led from detonators on the crates to a battery near the driver’s seat. To prevent any chance of an accidental explosion, the wires were not hooked to the battery. When they were connected the Yellow would become a rolling bomb, smaller but far more powerful than the ammonium nitrate bombs that Khadri had used in Los Angeles. A ton of C-4 could take out a thirty-story building.
Khadri knelt before the trunk and punched a stream of numbers into its digital lock. He knew exactly what was inside, but he wanted to see once more. The lock clicked open. Khadri pulled out a small steel box held shut by
