Armageddon Conspiracy (28 page)

The Chief’s voice was rough with age, and Jenkins pictured a careful survivor, probably a man looking to retire in a year or so without major stains on his reputation. She ground her teeth, knowing she needed his cooperation. “Thank you for expressing you thoughts, Chief,” she managed.

The next thing surprised her. “I just had to say it,” he said. “SWAT’s been alerted. I’ll have twenty-five officers for you, armed and ready in less than an hour. Our helo’s already been given coordinates, but the weather’s turning to crap. I just hope to hell you know what you’re doing.”

That makes two of us, Jenkins thought. “I assume you have fire department maps of the property?”

“My SWAT team trains every damn week. They’ve got maps of every major building and every piece of ground in this county.”

“What about the town police?”

“Oyster Bay Cove?” the Chief scoffed. “They won’t get near this. Anything happens that makes us look bad, they’re gonna be in the newspapers and on TV saying they fought this tooth and nail. They’re
gonna say we’re the dumbest bunch of bastards ever born. You better expect it.”

“I hear you,” Jenkins said. If she were wrong on this, the Director would personally flay her with a rusty knife, so she couldn’t sweat the small stuff.

Fortunately, the night traffic was light in the Lincoln Tunnel, and the navy blue van was parked outside Federal Plaza as promised, the five agents standing on the sidewalk. They obviously knew the purpose of the raid because they wore combat gear and unhappy expressions. Jenkins parked, locked her car, and introduced herself to the four men and one woman.

“I hope you know what you’re doing,” one of the men said.

Jenkins walked up to him and pulled herself up as tall as possible so she could look him straight in the eyes. “That makes two of us.”

PRESCOTT BIDDLE HAD JUST BEGUN
to tease Anneliës’s left nipple with his tongue when his cell phone began to ring. He ignored it. It stopped but then went off again almost immediately. This time he rolled across the hotel’s king-sized bed, checked the caller ID, and saw that it was an “unknown number.”

“Don’t answer,” Anneliës whispered, putting her arms around him as she tried to take the phone from his hand.

The ringing stopped, and then started a third time. Only now the readout showed the call coming from his cottage, and he hit the answer button.

“Mr. Biddle.” Abu Sayeed’s voice was calm, almost languorous.

“You shouldn’t be using this phone!” Biddle snapped.

“You didn’t answer when I used my cell,” Abu Sayeed said. “And I need something.”

Biddle felt his pulse begin to hammer. “You have everything you need already.”

“Not quite.”

Biddle knew Anneliës could overhear because he felt her body stiffen. “What are you talking about?”

“We need you.”

“That’s ridiculous.”

“I’m not going to argue with you, Mr. Biddle. Suffice it to say that we have something that belongs to you.”

Biddle heard the sound of a door opening in the background, then a scream of pain followed by a woman’s voice calling his name. The door slammed. “That was your wife, Mr. Biddle,” Abu Sayeed said as he came back on the line. “I think she is quite anxious that you return quickly.”

Biddle’s heart bucked helplessly, caught in a vice grip of guilt. He began to hyperventilate. Weeks earlier he’d considered sending Faith to another of the alcohol treatment clinics that always failed to help, but he’d put it off. Why? Biddle now wondered. In some shameful recess had he harbored a secret hope that the terrorists would remove the problem of his marriage? “You have no right!” he sputtered.

“Hurry back, Mr. Biddle,” Abu Sayeed said, and then hung up.

Biddle sat on the side of the bed and looked back at Anneliës. She lay with the sheet bunched at her hips, her perfect breasts rising and falling with her respirations. She reached out for him, but he moved further away, hit with a sudden flash of intuition. “This is why you insisted we come here,” he said. “How long have you known?”

Anneliës held his stare, but he could see caution and anxiety flickering in her eyes. “There is no way I could have prevented it,” she said.

“You could have warned me!”

She said nothing.

“I have to go,” he said after a moment, and then turned away from her and began to pull on his clothes.

“No!” Anneliës cried.

Biddle ignored her. This was the last thing he wanted, but he had no choice.

Neither one spoke as they dressed. Biddle found it odd when she followed him from the room and into the elevator, but his thoughts and emotions were too jumbled. He was about to say something when she climbed into the driver’s seat of the Land Rover, but his attention was diverted by the weather. A wall of low black clouds eclipsed the moon. Distant thunder rumbled in the heavens, and the wind cut and swirled in savage gusts.

It was only a summer storm, he told himself as Anneliës began to drive, but he sensed an approaching maelstrom that was anything but normal. Was this God speaking? A band of rain lashed the windshield then stopped. Wind buffeted the heavy car, rocking it on its axles. Biddle closed his eyes and tried to picture himself as a Christian warrior striding across a vanquished earth, but he saw only the image of a normal man.

They were a half mile from his estate when Anneliës braked savagely to a halt. The headlights glistened on the wet pavement, and leaves skittered past in the wind. The sight reminded him more of autumn and death than summer. Anneliës hammered the steering wheel with her fist. “You
can’t
do this!”

“You don’t have to come.”

She gave him a bloodless smile. “You don’t understand any of it!”

Biddle looked at her with dawning awareness. “What’s to understand?”

“I know what Abu Sayeed is capable of!”

He kept staring at her in stunned silence. Finally, she continued. “Sayeed hired me. He paid me to gain your confidence, and I was willing to do it. I just had no idea that I would fall in love with you!”

Biddle felt numb. One part of him wanted to believe what she was telling him, but the analytical part cried out that she was lying, that she’d been lying from the very start. “The Lord wants me to confront the infidels.”

Anneliës sat with her head bowed, hands locked on the wheel, appearing to wrestle with some decision. Finally she turned to him, her eyes filled with tiny points of red light. “Abu Sayeed is not going to follow your plan!”

“He has to!” Biddle cried.

“He’s going to fire his missiles into Manhattan and then use you as a hostage to escape!”

Biddle put his palms over his ears, as if by shutting out her words he could make them false.

“You’re his enemy!” Anneliës shouted.

“God will
make
Abu Sayeed fulfill His purpose!” he roared. His mind could not—would not—contemplate another possibility.

“Well,
Abu Sayeed’s
God may have a different plan!”

His wild rush of anger took him by surprise. He slapped her hard enough to draw blood at the edge of her lip. She made no sound but turned her eyes away, and he felt something draw back into her, almost like heat leaving a room.

“
Never
take the name of the Lord in vain or talk about other gods as His equal,” he said in a tight voice. He paused and waited for a response.

She kept her eyes on the road. “Idiot!” she snapped.

Biddle watched her and tried to analyze the enormity of what had just taken place. She had suddenly become a different person, someone hard and cold. Only it couldn’t be. God would not let him lose her, not now, not when he was so close to returning Jesus to earth!

BRENT PACED THE NARROW SPACE
between Maggie’s Toyota and Kosinsky’s truck and tried to wrestle his emotions under control. Impatience and anxiety raged against his guilt that others were taking so much risk.

“Hey,” Maggie said, sounding exasperated, “will you please pay attention. We only have time to review this once.”

They were parked behind a McDonald’s, beside the enclosure for the trash container. Maggie had her door open, her feet on the pavement. Fred Lucas and Kosinsky stood to either side, while DeLeyon sat in the passenger seat. Maggie held the aerial photograph spread across her lap and used a small flashlight as a pointer.

Brent relented and came over to watch as she traced Biddle’s driveway. “Remember, there are three private security guards on duty, one right inside the gate.” She indicated the small octagonal hut that Brent
had pointed out earlier. “Another up here beside the main house.” She pointed to an identical small building on one side of what looked like a six or eight car garage. She indicated a third structure down along the water, between the dock and the house. “And there’s number three,” she said. “I called the security company and verified that there are three guards on duty at all times, and that they’re long-time employees.”

“Which means they’re probably ignorant of what’s going on,” Kosinsky added.

Maggie nodded. “We have to hope that’s the case. It’s Biddle’s best bet for a tight alibi. If the guards are innocent, they won’t be expecting an attack, so we just have to keep them busy. Even if there’s shooting away from the house, they probably won’t try to be heroes. They’ll hunker down and call the police. That leaves the terrorists.” She turned toward DeLeyon. “Okay, what’s your job?”

“I’m lost,” DeLeyon answered. “I stop right here,” he said pointing to the driveway entrance. “I ring the bell on the front gate and yell that I be needing some help. I ask to use the phone.”

“Just keep him distracted,” Maggie said.

Brent felt another stab of guilt. “Be damn careful,” he snapped. “You’re an African American kid in a rich white neighborhood late at night. You don’t know how some rent-a-cop might react.”

DeLeyon raised his hand up in front of his face, and his eyes widened in mock horror. “Oh, Lawdy, look at me! I
am
African American! I never notice that before!”

“It’s not funny,” Brent growled.

Maggie reached out and gave Brent’s hand a quick squeeze. “He’s just trying to lighten things up,” she said gently.

Brent shrugged but said nothing.

“Okay, when DeLeyon distracts the guard, we go over the wall,” Maggie continued. She looked up at Fred. “When we do, you’re going to split off and get yourself into position near the house.”

Brent took a quick glance at his uncle and thought that for once in his life he looked serious. Fred nodded and cast a dour glance into the back of Kosinsky’s truck at the cardboard liquor carton. The two half gallon bottles in the carton had been full of Boodles Gin until a few minutes earlier but now held gasoline. Wet rags protruded from the top of each.

“You may not need to use them,” Maggie cautioned. “The three of us will head for the cottage in the back.”

“Who takes Biddle down?” Brent demanded, unable to get past the idea that Biddle might escape.

“There’ll be no place he can run,” Maggie said.

“I know how you feel about Biddle,” Kosinsky said. “But the missiles and terrorists have to be our first objective.”

Brent started to fire back a reply, but then he caught himself and nodded. Kosinsky was right.

“Give me the signal,” Fred said. “I’ll hit the garage.”

Brent pointed at the guard station that was right beside the garage. “It’s too risky. What if the guard starts shooting?”

“It’s there, or it’s no place. I need to make sure people can get out.”

Maggie indicated what looked like a porch or perhaps a sunroom extending off the opposite end of the house. “What about here?”

       Fred scowled, but he studied the picture for a few more seconds. Finally, he shrugged. “I guess that’s okay,” he mumbled.

“Good,” Maggie said. “Steve, Brent, and I go in along this side of the property.” She traced a line down the property’s border that would
keep them well clear of Biddle’s guards.

“We need to spread out before we go through those trees,” Kosinsky said, indicating the trees that screened the cottage. He reached for the infrared close-up taken earlier that day. It showed a sharp green glow in the trees and two duller glows beneath the cottage roof. “There are three of these guys, one posted outside.” He pointed to the brightest glow. “He’ll almost certainly have night vision.” He glanced up at Maggie and Brent. “Until we get the fires going, he’ll be able to see us like it’s daylight.”

Maggie nodded. “I’ll come in here.” She pointed to a spot that put her furthest toward the center of the property. She pointed to the middle of the stand of trees. “Steve comes in here.” She pointed to a spot along the property line. “Brent, you’re here.”

“No,” Brent said. He pointed to the spot she intended to take, the one that was most exposed and therefore most dangerous. “This is mine.”

“You haven’t had the training,” Kosinsky offered.

“Too bad,” Brent said. He pointed to the map, moving from the middle of the property outward. “I’m here,” he said. “Maggie here, and Steve, you’re right here on the property line.”

There was an uneasy silence, but Maggie finally nodded then glanced toward an oversized squirt gun that lay on the ground. It was nearly as big as a rifle, a brand that advertised its ability to squirt fifty feet. “Still working?” she asked Brent.

Brent picked it up, pumped up the pressure and shot a long stream into the darkness. He’d come up with the idea when they’d passed a Wal-Mart. Initially, it had seemed insane, but the more he’d thought about it, the more sense it made. By now, the gasoline had been inside the squirt gun for nearly thirty minutes and the plastic pieces were still holding up. It was only a matter of time before they started to
soften, but if they lasted this long, it was more than enough. They’d purchased five of the squirt guns along with a set of walkie-talkies and an extra long stepladder.

“One more thing we have to talk about,” Kosinsky said. “If the bad guys hole up in the cottage, we call in reinforcements and we call the security company and order them to stand their people down. But if they come out shooting—which they may—what are you gonna do?” He was looking directly at Brent, but then he swung his head toward Maggie. “A terrorist that’s worth half a shit will kill you in a heartbeat, so what are you gonna do?”