material objects, except his clothing and his weapons.'
'Not a fun guy.'
'No. In fact, a rather boring man. But regarding a hated target… his biggest hate was simply America, and everything about America, so he has many targets.'
'Right.'
'He considers America corrupt, decadent, and weak.'
'What's he have against decadence?'
Again, Boris laughed and said, 'He considered me decadent. Can you imagine that?'
Well, yes, but I said, 'Maybe he needs a night in Svetlana.'
'It would be good for him,' he agreed. Then he said to me, 'Khalil had a favorite expression-'the Americans know too much of gold, and they have forgotten steel.''
Well, there could be some truth there. But rather than tell Boris that, I said, 'Let me ask you a more specific question about the CIA and Khalil, and you don't have to answer this, but if you don't, I might have to pull the plug on you.'
No reply, so I asked him, 'Did the CIA have any involvement with Asad Khalil?'
Again, no reply.
I waited.
Finally he said, 'This is not something you want to know.'
'Then why did I ask?'
Finally, he replied, 'You understand that my friends in Langley were not giving me too much information during my debriefing. They were asking me questions. But as a trained interrogator yourself, you know that one can learn much from the questions.'
'What did you learn?'
'I learned… the CIA and the KGB have much in common.'
I didn't reply and waited for more.
I pictured Boris lighting a cigarette and sipping vodka. Then he said, 'I have no idea if Khalil and the CIA had any sort of understanding then-or now. But I will tell you this-when a country is attacked, the people rally to the government. You saw this on 9/11. But when a country is not attacked-or has not been attacked in… let us say almost two years-then people forget. And perhaps they become critical of the government, and critical of the methods used by the government in fighting the enemy. In America especially, people resent any loss of their liberties. Correct? So what is the solution of the government? To hand back the power to the people? No. The solution is another attack.'
Again, I didn't respond, but I completely understood what he was saying. Boris, though, was… well, a Russian. A KGB guy. And these guys loved their conspiracies. And they loved to speculate about secret plots and all that. So when I asked him to speculate, I'd hit his X-Files button.
'Mr. Corey?'
'Sorry, I was making notes for a movie script.'
'Is there anything else I can help you with?'
'Not at this time,' I assured him.
'Thank you for your call. And for the week.'
'You're quite welcome, and don't forget to call me if you should happen to kill him in self-defense.'
'My attorney first, then you.'
'You're a real American, Boris.'
'Thank you.' He stayed silent awhile, then said to me, 'Whatever he has planned for you, Mr. Corey, is not going to be pleasant.'
'Right. You too. And probably you first.'
He didn't reply to that and we hung up. I got a beer and sat on the balcony.
Well, I might now know a little more about Khalil's head, but I wasn't any closer to finding him. And I wasn't any closer to figuring out what else he had planned here. But I was a little more certain that he had something planned-something chemical, biological, or, God forbid, nuclear. Something given to him by his backers.
As for Boris's CIA conspiracy theory… well, Boris wasn't the first person to think that there were people who would welcome another attack. But welcoming an attack and conspiracy to instigate one were very different things.
My other thought was that I shouldn't be conspiring with Boris Korsakov, former KGB assassin. But sometimes you have to partner up with a bad guy. As the Arabs say, the enemy of my enemy is my friend. Plus, I doubled the chances that Khalil would wind up dead before he could set off a weapon of mass destruction. Or kill me. And that was the goal. I'd worry later about explaining all this to Tom Walsh if I had to.
I finished my beer and looked out at the buildings across the street. If Khalil was there, then I was a tempting target. But I recalled my dream, which came to me as the sum total of everything I knew about this man, how he'd killed before, and who he was. So we'd meet-probably at a time and place of his choosing, not mine-but we'd definitely meet.
CHAPTER FORTY-THREE
At 5:30, I took a taxi to 26 Federal Plaza.
I spent a few hours at my desk, catching up on e-mails and memos and listening to voice mail. There was nothing pertaining to Asad Khalil, which reinforced my conclusion that this was a very tightly controlled case. As for all the other cases that I-and Kate-had been working on, it appeared that they'd been parceled out to other detectives and agents. So, was I still working here? I guess I was until the Khalil case was settled, one way or the other.
I didn't see Tom Walsh, which reinforced my suspicion that he was distancing himself from me and from the operation-but not so far that he couldn't be on the scene if I killed or captured the wanted Libyan terrorist. I wondered, though, if he'd show up if I got whacked and Khalil got away. No photo op there. In any case, if I'd seen him, I'm sure I would have told him about Boris. Unless it slipped my mind.
At 8 P.M., I met with Paresi and Stark, and we went over the operation in detail.
At 9 P.M. I left 26 Federal Plaza, pretty much as I'd been dressed the night before, except this time I had a Yankees cap on-so if I ran into Khalil, he could shout, 'Die, Yankee!'
I made the short walk down to the Trade Center site, and noticed that the observation platform had a locked gate at the entrance, and the surrounding area-which had been devastated when the Towers collapsed-was deserted at this hour.
I did a complete walk around the site, which was about a third of a mile on each side, and I stopped a few times to look down into the huge excavation, which was partially lit by stadium lights. At the bottom of the deep pit was construction equipment and piles of building material. Virtually all of the rubble was gone, but now and then human remains still turned up. Bastards.
On the Liberty Street side of the big hole was the long earthen ramp that went down into the construction site. The ramp was blocked by two high chain-link gates that were locked. On the other side of the gates I could see a house trailer that was a comfortable guard post for the Port Authority Police who manned this single entrance to the excavation. Parked near the gates was a Port Authority Police vehicle that was used by the two PA cops in the trailer.
Well, I didn't expect to see Asad Khalil here near the guard post, so I moved onto West Street, which runs between the World Trade Center site and the buildings of the World Financial Center site, which had been so heavily damaged by the collapse of the Twin Towers that the area was blocked off by security fences. This place was like a war zone-which it actually was.
On the opposite side of the excavation I could see the lighted observation platform, and it occurred to me that Asad Khalil would not have missed this tourist attraction while he was in New York. I pictured him standing there, looking down into this abyss, trying to hide his smile from the people around him.
Stark's voice in my earpiece said, 'You are alone.'
