36
What are we looking for?” Gaffan said.
“We’ll know when we see it. Wear gloves and leave everything how you found it.”
They went back into the house, looked into the closets, under the beds, inside the heavy wooden furniture. With its rocking chairs and patchwork quilts, the house looked more like a bed-and-breakfast than a terrorist camp. The closet in the master bedroom was filled with skirts, long and modest, and long-sleeve blouses. Four people had been here — the two terrorists, Bashir, and a woman. Three were gone, one dead. Wells didn’t understand. Had they fought over the woman? Had one lost his nerve? And why had they left? Had Bernard gotten an alarm to them? If this house had the answers, Wells couldn’t find them.
Sirens began to scream up the driveway. In minutes, cops and FBI agents would be overrunning the place. Maybe he should have gone back to Andrews after all.
Wells’s phone buzzed. Shafer. “They’re not here,” he said.
“I heard. You decided to stay, enjoy the scenery?”
“Give me some good news.”
“There isn’t any. If we haven’t found them by five, the president will announce that the State of the Union has been canceled and release their names and photographs publicly. It’s going to leak by then anyway. Already there’s stuff on the Internet, rumors. Nobody’s put it together yet, but they will.”
Wells looked at his watch: 2:15.
“We know what they’re driving?”
“The only car registered to Bashir is that Ford. If I had to guess, I’d say they bought something else and didn’t retag it. It’s got to be something big, though. A van or SUV.”
“There’s only about fifty million of those.”
“I told you no good news. What, they didn’t leave a map with a big
“You think they have another safe house?”
“Maybe not a true safe house, but these guys are too smart just to be driving around, especially if the car’s not registered. They’ve got someplace to crash.”
Wells thought of the coffee mug in Bernard Kygeli’s office. “How about Penn State? From there, it’s interstate to New York and D.C.”
“We’re looking, but we can’t find anybody connected to Kygeli.”
“All right. If anything happens, call me.”
“If anything happens, you may hear it all the way up there.”
“Who was that?” Gaffan said.
“My boss.”
“What now?”
The keys to Bashir’s Expedition were in a candy dish on the kitchen table. Wells picked them up. “We’re going to Happy Valley.”
Gaffan shook his head. “I don’t get it.”
“Happy Valley, Pennsylvania. Penn State.”
A New York State trooper escorted them in a Suburban, calling ahead so that the Pennsylvania troopers knew they were coming. They rolled down 15, and at the state border were handed off to a Pennsylvania trooper in an unmarked Mustang. The highway was narrow and the Expedition was wide, but somehow Gaffan kept the speedometer pinned at 105 most of the way down. They’d get to Penn State by four, give or take, Wells thought. Then what? He had no idea.
THE PLACE WAS sparsely furnished and small, two rooms and a galley kitchen. Cheap, simple college housing. Nasiji let them in with the key that Bernard had given him. They parked the Suburban in the parking lot directly outside, no need to be fancy. They’d taken out the two back rows of seats. The gadget was in the back, facing backward, the tamper close to the back gate. On the way down, Yusuf had driven, with Thalia next to him. Nasiji lay in the back, next to the Spear, hidden by the tinted windows, the uranium round between his legs.
No one could track them here, and all they needed to do was wait. The woman who lived here had no idea what they were planning, of course. Nasiji hoped she wouldn’t show up until they arrived. She would only complicate things.
In the apartment, Nasiji watched CNN with the sound off, waiting for the screen crawl that might tell him that they’d been found, that the State of the Union had been canceled or a farm in upstate New York had been raided. But the afternoon rolled by quietly and he began to think that they’d gotten away. They would leave just before sunset and head southeast to Harrisburg. There they would decide whether to turn south toward Washington — if the State of the Union was still happening — or east toward Philadelphia and New York. Once they were on the road, they ought to be unstoppable. He couldn’t imagine how anyone could connect them with the Suburban, and the police lights would help.
The mission hadn’t gone according to plan, he had to admit. They’d lost the second bomb. The Americans had found the
Even so, they were close. By the end of this night, the American government might no longer exist.
TEN MILES OUTSIDE STATE COLLEGE, a billboard for Penn State football towered over Route 220.
He called Shafer.
“Ellis. Have the FBI call Penn State, get the soccer team roster. That’s the connection.”
“You sure?”
“Do you have a better idea?”
“I’ll Google it. Penn State athletics. It’s all football. Soccer. No Arab or Turkish-sounding names, nobody from Turkey or Germany or anywhere in the Middle East.”
“Try the J.V.”
A few seconds later, Shafer came back. “No, John. You still want me to call the FBI? They’ve got a few other things to do.”
“What about women?” Gaffan said.
Wells clapped a hand to his forehead. “Of course.”
“Of course what?” Shafer said.
“Check the women’s roster.”
Shafer clicked away. “Wouldn’t you know? Aymet Helsi. From Blankenese, Germany. Says here she’s a goalie. You want to bet your buddy Bernard knows her family? Maybe he’s helping with her tuition?”
“You have an address?”
“As soon as I hang up, I’ll get the FBI to get a warrant, get her address from the registrar. Meantime let’s see if she’s got a, yes, she’s listed. The last twenty-year-old with a landline.”
“Address.”
“Ten Vairo Boulevard, unit 239-04. Looks like it’s part of a big apartment complex called Vairo Village. You want me to stay on the line, give you directions?”
“We’ve got a GPS.”
“I’ll call the army. But you’re going to get there first, no matter what. I don’t suppose I can convince you to wait.”
Wells was silent.
“John, do me a favor and don’t get killed. She’ll never forgive you. Or me.”
