Running the Maze

gouge into the stairs, spraying out a thick circle of shrapnel and debris that would have killed anyone within fifteen feet. With that echo still vibrating and smoke boiling, Swanson loaded a second HEDP round, moved to the other side of the auxiliary corridor, and took aim through the leaf sight in the opposite direction down the main hallway. When he was sighted on the midpoint of the big doors of one of the elevators, he fired, then again dove to the floor against the near wall as the grenade penetrated the thin-skinned door. A long tongue of red and yellow flame jetted out of the elevator shaft, the aluminum doors blew off, and heavy shards of rock and shrapnel ripped and tore at the cables supporting the elevator. The high-pitched squeal of tortured metal pulling against metal rose above the din of the explosion, and the heavy elevator was twisted and pushed with ever-increasing force against the braided steel cables that had been chipped and sliced. It did not fall but was jammed so hard between the walls and the support girders that it could not move.

The concussion slammed through the corridor like a broadside from a battleship and bounced Swanson like a ball. Even after the wave passed beyond him, he remained curled up, disoriented, certain that he had been deafened and blinded by his own doing. I was too close! Acrid smoke made him cough, and that automatic physical response brought the rest of his senses back online. The eyes blinked, but his ears were popping like little firecrackers. Nature of the business; part of the game. Spitting out dirt, he shook himself free of layers of debris, and junk fell from his clothing and gear. Using the wall for support, Kyle pulled himself back to his feet, peeled away from his position, and moved out. It had taken three minutes.

* * *

IN THE EAST TOWER, Beth Ledford had made good progress, towing the young engineer along behind as she advanced through the levels. In fact, the prisoner—she no longer thought of him as an ally—had been the only real opposition since she had separated from Swanson. She was almost to the top now, in the first basement level, and the main entrance was less than fifty meters away, framing a bright square of light outside. She could smell the fresher air. With less than seven minutes remaining before extraction, she had never felt so totally alert and sharp. There was no sense of panic.

An unattended line of little golf carts was parked along one wall, with slack cables plugged into power sources to charge the batteries. The corridor seemed clear, and distant explosions told her that Swanson still was going strong over in the other tower; it sounded like a war. She felt she probably could have walked out of this corridor in a miniskirt and high heels and nobody would have paid any attention, because everyone was at the party next door.

A silhouette crossed at the entrance, and Beth ducked out of sight between the carts and the wall, pulling her prisoner to his knees. He grunted, and she held a finger to her lips to shush him. They were long past the time where he might have anything to say that would be of interest to her.

The figure at the entrance passed through the cone of light and vanished again. Beth assumed it was a guard who had been left behind to secure that tunnel mouth while the hard fighting raged elsewhere. She could easily shoot him from this angle, but the retort of a rifle would be amplified enough in the tight confines of the corridor and might be enough to draw unwanted attention. She could not expect to just walk the next two hundred feet unobserved while pulling a man along on a leash.

“Get in this cart. Left side,” she whispered. “Call out or try to escape and I’ll shoot you.” Mohammad al-Attas nodded that he understood, and she dropped the end of the leash but unholstered her pistol. There was a rag on the floor, and she tied it like a kerchief over her blond hair.

She yanked the cable on the cart from the power strip and climbed in. It was just an ordinary golf cart with a light blue fiberglass body, no more complicated to drive than a child’s wagon. When Beth pressed the accelerator, the vehicle moved forward on a battery-powered engine that was virtually silent. She steered with her left hand, with the pistol in her right, resting out of sight in her lap.

The guard might have been curious had he seen two people walking out, but he hardly noticed the approach of one of the buglike carts that constantly roamed the bridge and tunnels. Beth shot him with two point-blank taps to the head without even taking her foot from the accelerator.

NEW YORK

IT WAS NIGHT IN Manhattan. The neon signs around Times Square took on a bright life of their own, the tourists flocked to the theaters, the Royal Shakespeare Company was doing Julius Caesar at Lincoln Center, the Rockettes were stretching out prior to another high-kicking show at Radio City Music Hall, and Jimmy Buffett was jamming with Neil Young in a Village bar. After another workday in the canyons of office buildings, millions of people were on the move again, hungry for entertainment and personal contact, going to restaurants or to their apartments or to the saloons. In midtown, a few blocks from the United Nations tower, three men were seated around a table in a luxury hotel suite that was protected by bodyguards with small machine guns. They all wore serious game faces. “I think we’ve got a Fish,” said one. “Not just a Fish, but fuckin’ Moby Dick.”

Fred Ellison, chief of the State Department’s Diplomatic Security Service, sipped some sweet lemonade before continuing his pitch. Andy Moore of the Central Intelligence Agency and David Hunt of the Federal Bureau of Investigation listened with growing astonishment as Ellison spun his tale of how Undersecretary William Lloyd Curtis of the U.S. Bureau of American-Islamic Affairs had recently stepped far beyond his pay grade and used DSS assets to track an American citizen. “I put a stop to it as soon as I found out, then I read Curtis the riot act,” said Ellison. “At the time, I chalked it up to a mistake in judgment, although he was no glad-handing rookie diplomat. I underestimated him.”

“Is he a heavy hitter in the administration?” asked Hunt.

“Absolutely. Former ambassador to Kuwait and Egypt. Heavy campaign contributor to both parties as a civilian, with lots of experience, contacts, and knowledge about the Sandbox countries. He hosts swanky parties that cover as a backdoor channel for communication between Washington and the Islamic world.”

“Man, we could probably send him to prison just for that security breach, but it’s pretty thin. No real red flags that I see,” said Moore.

“It became a burr under my saddle,” admitted Ellison. “Not so much that he did it, but why would he do such a stupid thing? So I started showing a special interest in him.”

“So, since we all work in Washington, why are we here in New York?” Hunt leaned forward and rested his elbows on his knees.

Ellison drew out a photo of a middle-aged fat man with dark hair and passed it around. “This man is Mohammed Javid Bhatti, who works for the Pakistani Foreign Office right over at the UN, and he has been showing up frequently, either in person or by phone or e-mail, with Undersecretary Curtis. I ran him by our resident security officer in Islamabad, who got back to me this morning. We’re here because there are too many leaks in Washington. I’ve known and trusted you guys for years, and want to keep this on the down-low.”

“Javid Bhatti is your Fish?” Hunt looked curiously at the photograph. “Pardon my French, Freddy, but this guy ain’t no Moby Dick. More like a fat flounder.”

Ellison rapped the table with his knuckles. “No, Dave. Undersecretary Curtis is the Fish. My RSO in Pakistan reported that this flounder, Mr. Bhatti, really works for the New Muslim Order.”

Moore and Hunt exchanged frowns, and Hunt cleared his throat. “You think this Bhatti and the NMO are trying to manipulate or blackmail a ranking American diplomat?”

“Worse. I think Curtis is working for them of his own free will. My opinion, the son of a bitch is a closet jihadist.”

“Why? He had to have gone through a complete security clearance just to get his job”

There was silence in the room, and the noise of New York drifted up to the fifteenth floor, a muted burble of yells, taxi horns, and a siren from a traffic accident. “I want to do another one, deeper this time. All the way down to the bone because I missed something the first time around. I propose a full-court press on this, guys, but keep it quiet. All three of our agencies have to be involved and cooperate.”

“What about Homeland Security?” Hunt asked with a slight smirk.

“Who?” laughed Moore, removing a white legal pad from his briefcase to draft a game plan.

26

SECURITY CHIEF AYMAN AL-MASRI of the New Muslim Order remained confident of the outcome of the fight,