street.”
“We can handle it,” snapped the man in the passenger seat, raising the window.
There was a deli nearby; Dean went in and got himself a coffee, then went back to his car. Flipping through the radio he heard an old Hank Williams song and settled back to listen.
Just then, a police cruiser came down the street. Dean sat up, watching as it pulled into the motel lot and stopped in front of Asad’s room.
“Damn,” yelled Dean, grabbing for the car door.
CHAPTER 91
Asad heard the call to prayers far in the distance, the eloquent reminder of his faith waking him. He shook off his slumber and started to push himself off the bed, determined to make his devotions to God. As he did, he realized that he wasn’t alone in the room, and that he hadn’t heard the call to prayers at all — that had come from a dream, or a snatch of memory. Three men were coming through the door. They had guns.
The room exploded with light. Asad thought of his trip to Medina two years before, the glory he experienced when he understood the full meaning of the words that had been spoken to the Prophet:
Then Asad thought of nothing and felt nothing, and experienced nothing more of this world.
CHAPTER 92
The shots sounded as Dean bolted across the highway. He jumped up the embankment from the road, sprinting between the parked cars as the two fake policemen came out of the room.
“Federal agent!” he yelled, dropping to his knee. He braced the Beretta in his hands.
One of the men spotted him and raised his arm to fire. Dean squeezed off two shots, striking the man in the jaw and temple. His companion threw himself back into the room.
“Get the backup people in — Red Lion is down!” Dean yelled to Rockman, as if the runner would only be able to hear him if he shouted. Dean scrambled to the front wall of the building, half crawling as he made his way toward the door. The man he had shot lay a few feet away, sprawled on the pavement, blackish red blood pooling around him.
There was a siren in the distance. The two FBI agents who’d been watching from the car had taken positions a short distance away, their faces ashen.
“Give yourself up!” Dean yelled to the man inside.
The answer was a muffled gunshot.
Dean rose slowly, knowing exactly what the sound meant.
CHAPTER 93
Rubens listened impassively as Telach told him what had happened. Asad’s death was bad enough, but in the confusion that had followed, the FBI agents who’d been trailing Kenan had lost the youth somewhere in northern Detroit after he had abandoned his car.
“Since he was coming back, we told them not to get too close,” said Telach. “It really wasn’t their fault. We’ve given the local police a description of him, saying a witness saw him at the motel right before the shooting. They’re scouring the city,” she added.
“No doubt,” said Rubens dryly. “We have an ID?”
“No.”
“Asad’s murderers?”
“So far, no IDs. The shooting only took place an hour ago. The police car was stolen from the police garage. It’s likely that whoever killed Asad had contacts on the force, or at least there. The uniforms weren’t legitimate, but they were close, about what you could get at a good costume shop.”
Rubens rose from his desk. Desk Three’s powers might be prodigious, but they were not omniscient, and until now they had proceeded carefully for fear of tipping off Asad or his accomplices. Rubens was confident that Kenan, or whatever his real name was, would eventually be IDed, but the delay was frustrating. The same went for the killers. A trail would be found, tracing the men back to whoever had ordered the murder. Inexorably, the murder plot would be revealed.
The problem was, that wouldn’t necessarily help them determine where Asad had been planning to attack.
“Dean’s taking it pretty hard,” said Telach.
“Understandable.”
“It wasn’t his fault.”
“I didn’t imply it was, Marie.” Rubens walked over to the middle of his small office, rubbing his temples with his fingers.
“The FBI people want to arrest the head of the mosque,” Telach told him. “What do you think?”
“I think that it is unlikely to yield any useful information.”
The Art Room supervisor frowned.
“I will raise the issue with the National Security Advisor,” Rubens said. “As well as Homeland Security. However, technically, the case will be under their jurisdiction.”
“Should I pull Dean and Tommy in? I don’t think they’ll be of much use in Detroit. Ambassador Jackson can work with the police. He and Dr. Ramil are going to retrieve the bug as soon as possible.”
“Have Mr. Dean stay in Detroit to see if he can help locate the young man. Send Tommy — have him take the flight the young man was interested in,” said Rubens. “Have him fly armed, as an air marshal.”
“You don’t think Asad was thinking of hijacking it, do you?”
“At this point, Marie, I’m afraid I have no theories at all.”
CHAPTER 94
The scent of the disinfectant stung Ramil’s nose and sinuses as he walked with Jackson and the pathologist down the hallway toward the morgue. His eyes felt as if they were being squeezed, and he could already taste the dry heave that waited at the pit of his stomach.
As a medical student, Ramil had worked on or seen literally hundreds of cadavers; he had also served a very short stint with a military morgue when the unit was understaffed. But plunging among the dead always unsettled him. Damage to a living body was one thing; even in the most desperate situation he could focus on the mechanics of the parts, know precisely what must be done, even if in realistic terms it could never succeed. Coming into a morgue was different. It was the enemy’s empire, and entering meant admitting impotence and worthlessness beyond measure.
In this case, the corpse he was to view would rebuke him even more strongly, for it was evidence not only of his limitations as a doctor, but of his failure as a man and as a Muslim. Asad lay dead, but not by his hand; Allah had found another more worthy to purge the sinner.
“I’ve only been in a morgue once,” Ambassador Jackson told their guide.
“I would say once is usually enough for most people,” replied the pathologist. He had the light, ironic chuckle common to his profession.
