for Western airlines. Ramil sat next to her, ramrod straight, face pale, hands vibrating.
“Hey, doc.” Dean squatted down in front of him. “You all right?”
Ramil turned his head toward him slowly.
“You okay?” repeated Dean.
Ramil shook his head slightly.
“He’s useless.” Lia scowled derisively.
“Lighten up,” Dean told her.
She got up. “I’m going to check in on Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum, see if the Saudis have done anything. I’ll talk to you later.”
“I can do that,” said Dean.
“You and Pinchon don’t get along too well, Charlie. Better that I go.”
Dean, still angry at the way she’d treated Ramil, shrugged and watched her walk away. The sway of her hips made him regret his anger.
“What happened back there, doc?” Dean asked, turning to Ramil. “You okay?”
“I’m — I don’t know if I’m having a breakdown or something. I. .”
His voice trailed off. Dean had seen guys fall apart under pressure before, younger, tougher men than Ramil. It was as if they’d taken some unknown poison that had gutted their intestines, left them hollow inside. Ramil had been a battlefield surgeon and manned aid stations in Vietnam, which you couldn’t do if you were a coward. But everyone had secret flaws, and age had a way of wearing down the things that kept them hidden. Wear was in Ramil’s face right now: haunted fatigue, not fear.
“You’re just tired,” Dean told him. “It happens.”
“I don’t know,” mumbled Ramil, so softly that Dean didn’t hear the words distinctly. Instead of repeating them, Ramil changed them. “I hope so.”
Dean saw a pair of American Airlines employees walking across the concourse toward the row of ticket booths. “Let’s go check you in. Get you an aisle seat.”
CHAPTER 61
Dabir watched the German helicopters training their spotlights on the docking area at the petroleum processing plant. Whoever had tipped the police off had obviously known the general target of his attack, though not the specifics of his plan. The German police were good — but not quite good enough to stop him. In ten minutes, the plant would be in flames.
Who was the traitor?
It couldn’t be the men he’d sent inside, who would have been able to identify their targets. It couldn’t be the chemist, either — if it had been, the man Dabir sent to get the oxygen tanks would have been arrested, or at least followed.
The only person Dabir could think of who knew the target but not the precise plan to strike it was Asad bin Taysr. As much as Dabir hated him, Asad was a steadfast supporter of the cause and it was inconceivable that he would do anything to betray it.
One of the helicopters passed nearby. Dabir got out of the car and popped the trunk. In his haste earlier he’d forgotten to put out the trunk light; the flood of yellow took him by surprise. He pulled the bicycle out, then slapped the trunk lid closed.
Asad had wanted to watch the refinery burn, but the helicopters had convinced him that was too much of a risk. With the success of his mission guaranteed despite the odds stacked against him, he began contemplating his next move. He got on the bike; one of the helicopters was swinging in the direction of the creek his men had used to infiltrate the facility.
The Germans were too late. But if it took the rest of his life, Dabir swore as he pedaled down the darkened road, he would find out who had betrayed him.
CHAPTER 62
Karr, following the chopper’s searchlight as it swept along the creekside, spotted a shadow near a complex of buildings used for distilling naphtha, the very volatile lighter components of petroleum used for solvents.
“There!” he yelled to the pilot. “There’s someone there. Get your light there!”
Ground units were already scrambling nearby, running toward the pipelines connecting the two portions of the plant. Light erupted near it, so intense that Karr threw his hand up to shield his eyes. The chopper pirouetted away as a ball of fire shot into the air, so high that it exploded over the helicopter, an umbrella of red and yellow.
“Explosions,” said Karr, telling the Art Room what was going on. He cursed, angry that he hadn’t figured out what was going on sooner. He leaned back toward the window, trying to assess what was going on. The two tall cooling stacks — made of concrete, they looked like smoke stacks but were used to condense gases in the desulphurization unit — stood over the complex, twin sentinels.
A fly was climbing on one.
“That tower there,” he told the helicopter pilot. “The smokestack. There’s somebody on it. Knock him off.”
“I don’t have a gun. Get him off of there. He wants to blow the stack.”
Karr reached for the helicopter’s controls, threatening to do it if the pilot didn’t. It was a bluff — Karr had no idea how to fly the aircraft. But the pilot didn’t know that. He pitched the chopper forward, veering as close as he dared to the man climbing up the side of the large stack. The man tottered for a second, then began fiddling with a small pack at his belt. As the helo turned away, the wash knocked the terrorist off balance and sent him tumbling toward the ground.
He exploded about twenty feet from the pavement, obliterating himself, but failing to ignite a fire or destroy the stack, either of which could have touched off a much larger explosion.
“Do not interfere with the controls,” said Hess, leaning forward from the back. “You are a very dangerous man, Herr Magnor-Karr.”
“Not dangerous enough,” said Karr, still mad at himself for being a step behind the terrorists.
CHAPTER 63
After she left the airport, Lia drove back toward Istanbul, circling around the roundabouts several times to make sure she wasn’t being followed. Even though her back was clear, she took a circuitous route toward the Ceylan Inter-Continental Hotel, where the Saudis who had met with Asad were staying. She tracked through the sleeping business district, once more making sure she wasn’t being followed before parking across from the side entrance to the hotel.
The Ceylan Inter-Continental Hotel was one of the fanciest hotels in the world, let alone the city. The Saudis were ensconced in one of its well-appointed executive suites, proof that dedicated jihadists need not take a vow of poverty.
The CIA team had posted two men on the street, watching the main and back entrances, with a third handling communications and coordinating other members. The coordinator was working out of a panel truck around the block from the hotel, using a short-wave radio to talk to the lookouts and a satphone to stay in touch with the Art Room. Desk Three had tapped into the hotel’s security system and was monitoring the Ceylan’s video cameras.
