Anonymous Sources (38 page)

Stop it, Alex
. Pull yourself together. He was saying something now.

“. . . need you to step back into the Situation Room with me. And
you will tell us exactly what happened this morning. We're ready now, please.”

I nodded. My mouth felt dry. He stepped aside to let me out of the little conference room into the hall.

“Edmund Tusk?” I whispered.

The general shook his head. “He's gone.”

    

    

O
ver the next two hours, one of the many remarkable things that happened was I got a phone call from Lucien Sly.

When the call came, I was sitting in the Situation Room, an arrangement that did not come about without controversy. Bruce, the FBI deputy, had thrown a full-blown tantrum. He pointed out that not only did I lack the appropriate security clearances to enter, but I had also been—as he put it—“broadcasting every goddamn move to the enemy.”

General Carspecken overruled him. “She's also the only one here who's actually met and talked to Siddiqui—or Malik rather. Can we get
some clarity on the name, please?” Carspecken turned impatiently to an aide. “What are we calling this guy?”

“Mike!” Bruce interjected. “Can I remind you it's actually a
crime
to have a reporter in here when we're talking classified information? As in, leaking sensitive national-security information to the press? I don't want to be the one hauled up to testify under oath at some Senate hearing, on why we leaked sources and methods—”

“And I don't want to be the one hauled up to testify on why we failed to stop a nuclear weapon detonating on US soil! You want to be the one to explain why we banished from the room someone who might be able to help us? While you're at it, you want to tell me why, when we've got a fifty-
billion
-dollar US intelligence budget, it took a girl reporter from Boston to find him and hand me this?” Carspecken brandished the Virginia driver's license. “Christ sake, what do you guys do all day?”

Bruce glowered but said nothing.

“I want her here,” the general went on more calmly. “And I'm pretty sure it's legal if the president says it is. Lowell”—he turned to Mr. Carlyle—“can you get your office to draft something granting temporary authority?”

With that the room returned to a general hum of frantic activity.

I wasn't clear on what exactly I was supposed to be doing, now that I'd won the right to sit there. I tucked myself into a corner chair, only a few seats away from where Tusk had sat. I was listening uneasily, trying to make myself invisible, when an aide approached and beckoned for me to follow him. After all the ruckus over my presence, no one paid attention when I stood up to leave. The door slid open. Captain McNamara, true to his word, was waiting outside along with several other guards. Silently the aide led me back to the tiny conference room where I'd sat before. This time the aide pointed toward a black phone on the center of the table.

“Line four,” he said, and left.

I could not imagine who would be calling. Elias? Hyde? Surely neither
of them had the clout to get a call patched into the Situation Room of the White House in the middle of a nuclear crisis.

“Hello?”

“Alex! Are you all right? Where are you? Where exactly, I mean?”

I nearly fell over when I heard his voice. “
Lucien?
How on earth—how did you know I was here?”

“Actually, anyone on the planet with access to an Internet connection can see that you're at the White House this morning. Cheeky little article, I must say.”

“No, but—I mean, how did you reach me here? They just pulled me out of a secure communications room to take this call.”

“A secure—you don't mean the Situation Room? How in God's name did you talk your way in there? Never mind, doesn't matter. Here's what you've got to—”

“How do you know what the Situation Room is? No, wait, back up. You didn't answer how you got through on this number. Not because of your dad, is it? Does he have that kind of pull?”

“Alex. Listen to me.” Lucien's voice sounded strained and urgent, nothing like the Lucien I knew. “There are some things I need to explain, and which I will explain. Later. Right now trust me when I say I am risking my job to get this call routed through Langley to you. You need to get out of there, right now. Will you do that for me?”

His call was routed through Langley? What was he talking about? Had he gone completely mad? My mind raced.

“No. I can't leave now,” I said haltingly. “Lucien, I don't understand.”

“I know. I'm sorry. I shouldn't have . . . Here's the thing. I know a bit more about Nadeem Siddiqui than I've let on. I searched his room too. The room he was renting in Cambridge, from the barmy old lady near the train station? I got there before you.”

“You . . . searched . . . Nadeem's room . . . ,” I trailed off. “But why? You mean, before I even told you about him? But what about that morning when we woke up—and I wanted you to call Pakistan—”

“Alex,” he cut in sharply. “This isn't a clean line. People may be listening on both ends.”

I snorted. He
was
crazy.

And then, all of a sudden, I understood. “You just said you were risking your job? What job? I thought you were a graduate student.”

“It doesn't matter. I need to tell you what—”

“What job, Lucien? Where do you work?”

Silence.

“You've got three seconds or I hang up.”

“I—I work for British intelligence,” he said finally. “That's all I can say. I'm sorry. And I can only tell you this next bit off the record—although I suppose it hardly matters now.” He sighed. “I can only tell you this next bit because it is being conveyed as we speak through official government channels. They searched his desk. Back in Pakistan. They found files, loads of them, stuffed with maps and diagrams. Not the kind of stuff that's publicly available. He had—oh, hell, he had the Eiffel Tower, and Buckingham Palace here in London. But mostly he had plans of the White House. Floor plans and detailed calculations of which walls are weight-bearing, where the ventilation shafts go, that type thing. Do you understand? Alex?”

It was too much. I was still trying to process the first half of what he'd said. “You're telling me that you're a
spy
?”

“Yes.”

“And you—does that mean—have you been spying on
me
?”

“No! Well, rather—yes. But only after we had already—”

“How dare you! You bastard!”

“Fine. I'm a bastard. But you knew that already.”

“You lying, miserable, wretched . . .” I was spitting with rage. “I am going to come and strangle you, you son of a bitch!”

“Right. I'll look forward to your strangling me at your earliest convenience. But can we focus, please? Alex? You were right about the banana shipments. You were right about Nadeem. You were right about
everything. And maybe you've already figured this out, too, but what I am trying to tell you is that it appears the target is the White House.”

I was silent.

“And just because you killed him—nice work, by the way—that doesn't mean the operation won't go ahead. There's a whole cell behind this. We believe Nadeem was working with someone inside the US intelligence apparatus, someone with quite senior clearances—”

“Edmund Tusk,” I said dully.

“What?”

“He's the number two—”

“I know who he is.” Now it was Lucien's turn to sound shocked.

A moment passed.

Then he said, “I need to go. I'm so sorry, about everything. We can talk later. Please get out of there. Just go, will you? I don't know how long before the bomb . . . how long you have.”

He hung up on the other end, and I sat very still. There is something soul-destroying about learning that a man who has made love to you has also been lying to you. I could feel tears rolling down my cheeks. I batted them away. It did not matter what his motivations had been, why he had wanted me in bed. And I had worse problems to grapple with today. The specter of nuclear annihilation does tend to focus the mind.

But salty tears kept running down my face. I ripped the bandage off my eye. It was bleeding again, swollen firmly shut, and now I was having trouble breathing through my left nostril. I wondered whether Nadeem had broken my nose as well. That horrible, evil little man.

And Lucien. It was hard to say which of them I hated more at that moment. Lucien did deserve to be strangled. I was looking forward to it. I forced myself to stand up, and blood and anger sluiced so forcefully through my veins I had to put my hands on the table to steady myself. I felt capable of anything.

WHEN I REAPPEARED IN THE
Situation Room, I stopped conversation for the second time that day.

I gathered from the horrified looks around the conference table that I must look ghastly.

I ignored them. I walked over to General Carspecken and leaned in close. “Forgive me if you already know this, but I just spoke to . . . to a well-placed source. They said an attack could be imminent. And that the target is the White House.”

The general raised his eyebrows. “We're already operating under the assumption that time is short. Who's your source? And where are they getting information on potential targets?”

I hesitated. “It's a source in British intelligence.”

“British intelligence?” he repeated skeptically.

“Well, you know they were monitoring him. Nadeem, I mean. Apparently he had drawings stashed in his desk. White House floor plans, and diagrams of ventilation shafts, that type thing. It makes sense, doesn't it? I told you what Tusk said—that he was headed to the target. And about how you wouldn't waste a bomb, if you had just one.”

“I'm not sure I buy this business about Tusk. He's been an outstanding CIA officer for thirty years. But you're telling me Nadeem Siddiqui had White House
floor plans
? And the Brits know about it? And they didn't think this was worth mentioning?” Carspecken looked outraged.

Several people started to speak at once, and then the door to the room opened and C.J. careened in.

“We just got off the horn with London,” he panted. “They're making a pretty compelling case that
this
is the target. The White House. The Paks went through his desk at Kahuta and turns out—”

“That he had White House floor plans in there?” Carspecken interrupted wryly. “Yeah, so I'm told. Alexandra here has just been briefing us.”

C.J. whipped around and glared at me.

I shrugged.

“You knew about the floor plans?” he asked accusingly.

“No. I just found out when you did. I got a call.”

“Who from?”

“Sounds like the same people who called you.”

“You know, I doubt that, seeing as I just got off a secure comm between Langley and Britain's Secret Intelligence Service.”

I said nothing.

C.J. raised his eyebrows challengingly. “Really not the time to be coy, Ms. James.”

“I told you. I talked to the same people you did.”

“Riiiight,” he dragged the word out sarcastically. “You're telling me MI6 is phoning in to the Situation Room with hot news tips for you?”

I picked at my hemline. “Something like that.”

He cracked his knuckles and regarded me with an expression somewhere between disbelief and wonder.

“Whatever,” he said finally. “Completely ludicrous and impossible, but whatever. It is true that it would have been nice for the bastard Brits to have shared what they knew a little earlier. At any rate—”

But the door swung open again and a tall man rushed in with a stapled stack of papers. He whispered to General Carspecken, flipped through the stack, then pointed momentously to something on one of the last pages.