It was a hopeless battle for Jimmy. The torpedo was a Lockheed Martin MK 48 Mod 7, which had been equipped with an extraordinary amount of computing power. Once it had locked onto its target, there was no escaping it, short of outrunning it, which was not feasible. The torpedo carried a 650-pound high-explosive warhead, and had been fired by the USS Texas, an Ohio-class supersubmarine that had been lurking some 200 miles southwest of the Allegro Star. She had been dispatched by the US Seventh Fleet when the order, relayed from the president to the secretary of defense to the secretary of the Navy to the chief of Naval operations to the admiralty of the fleet stationed in Yokosuka, Japan, to the captain of the USS Texas. It had taken less than an hour for the command to domino its way through the American military org chart and six more hours for the USS Texas to come within range of the Allegro Star.
Jimmy had some electronic countermeasures available to him, and discharged aluminum chaff into the water, but the MK 48 was brainy enough to know the difference. It took the torpedo less than a minute to find its mark, and the Allegro Star and its happily stoned passenger were obliterated in a cloud of smoke, DNA, and metal shards. Such is the power of the US presidency.
43
It had been a wickedly unkind night. The hotel room was heavily populated by cockroaches. Zak made it his mission to stomp them to bug splats whenever he saw one. They took turns sleeping on the bed, although no one wanted to as the mattress was infested with bed bugs, and no one could sleep in any event because of the constant blare of sirens outside, the slamming of hotel-room doors, endless arguments, and the grating sounds of violence and cheap sex. The Four Seasons it was not.
Richard had managed to find a nearby McDonald’s and brought a load of egg McMuffins and black coffee back to the room, where he found Zak engrossed in a local television program.
“What’s the deal, Zak?” Richard asked.
“Turbee’s in town,” Zak replied. “I think George is, too.”
“How do you know?”
“I’ve found a local channel that’s covering the Lestage trial. They just announced that the defense put an American computer expert on the stand. I’m sure they mentioned Turbee’s name.”
“You sure, Zak?”
“No, but we should reconnoiter.”
“Zak, I’ll go check it out. After that incident in the alley yesterday, you need to stay here. You need to be cool.”
There was considerable argument over that, but Zak, in a moment of accurate introspection, grudgingly admitted that this was not something he would have done before his capture and torture in the dungeons of Inzar Ghar.
Richard headed to the courthouse alone. One somewhat scruffy, tall stranger, wandering through the courthouse foyer might attract some attention, but not as much as three. There was also the problem of video surveillance, which was a staple at any courthouse in the western hemisphere, especially with a trial as high-profile as Leon Lestage’s. Local law enforcement and the sheriff’s department—which was in charge of security at the courthouse—wouldn’t recognize him. But if any of the video feed were intercepted by CSIS, the Canadian intelligence agency, or even by the NSA or the NRO, the likelihood of detection increased dramatically. Richard had not forgotten the words of Michael Buckingham at the American embassy in Islamabad.
It was a rogue mission. Kumar was a dangerous commodity, in that he knew the inside details of the Colorado River attack. For whatever reason, elements within the American executive structure wanted him silenced, and the geopolitical consequences of this not happening were profound.
Richard had not shaved since their harrowing escape from Karachi and had found a set of sunglasses at a local kiosk, but he knew that with the sophistication of image recognition software, he probably wouldn’t get very far. The important factor was not to look up. He finished the disguise by buying a Vancouver Canucks hockey cap, headgear not out of place in the bustling Canadian city.
He didn’t take a cab, knowing that all cabs, for security reasons, were equipped with video recording equipment. Asking the odd passerby for directions, he covered the twenty blocks from skid row to the courthouse in under an hour.
Entering the enormous glass-covered public foyer, he noted a large cluster of people gathered around a video screen. It was an overflow crowd of several hundred people, a crowd that, over the many days of trial, was growing daily. Turbee was on the stand.
44
Turbee had been testifying for a few minutes and was beginning to settle down. He was over his initial jitters and was starting to sound more controlled and professional. Dana was still completely in the dark, randomly throwing out questions in the hope that one or two would stick. “Were you involved in trying to determine who was responsible for the attack on the dams of the Colorado River?”
“I played a bit of a role, yes,” Turbee said. “I examined the computers of the four members of the Los Angeles cell that had assisted in the execution of the attack.”
“What did you find?”
“Well, a lot of the evidence consisted of encrypted emails between these people. I used the power of TTIC’s computers to de-encrypt the messages. Those messages definitely showed that these four were involved. They also showed your client, Mr. Lestage, was involved.”
Judge Mordecai rolled his eyes and the two junior prosecutors sitting beside McSheffrey and Archambault laughed out loud. Dana turned crimson.
Turbee was oblivious to such things.
“No. That can’t be,” Dana exclaimed.
“Leading question,” said Sheff, jumping to his feet.
“Worse,” remarked the judge. “It wasn’t even a question.”
“Can you maybe explain that?” asked Dana, who, praying for miracles, landed one.
“Yes,” said Turbee. “All of the emails were falsely inserted by a very clever programmer. The computers had been sent
