Armageddon Conspiracy (7 page)

They sipped wine and made small talk for a time. She explained that she lived in London and knew Biddle through her job at a British investment bank. When their conversation paused for a second she turned, glanced at the band, and her next question surprised him. “Would you care to dance?”

Brent shrugged. “I’m not much in the dancing department.”

“You’re being modest again,” she said with a delighted laugh as she took his hand and led him onto the floor. Her dress, cut high along one side, exposed a long sweep of thigh as she moved. She kept her eyes on him, seemingly unaware of the stares she drew from other men.

Finally, the band slowed the tempo. Brent started to thank her, expecting to leave the floor, but Simone put her hand on his shoulder and stepped close. They began to move again, and she folded her body against him, pressing her hips in a way that was more than casual and then responding when he pressed back. Maggie flashed through his mind, but only briefly. Why should he feel guilty when she wanted nothing to do with him?

They found a small table when the band eventually took a break. Simone said it was her turn to go for more wine. Brent found her far too fascinating to mention the slightly bitter taste of the glass she handed him. A few minutes later whatever was wrong with the wine no longer mattered because he’d started to feel more than a little light-headed, but so incredibly relaxed.

Simone was the only thing he could think about. He’d never connected to anyone so quickly. Her beauty seemed to expand as they
talked, and her desire for him was as tangible as heat. When she leaned back, the fabric of her gown lay against her skin like a coat of wet paint, highlighting the perfect outline of small nipples and areoles. He imagined them in his mouth.

“Do you want to drive me back to Manhattan?” she asked, as if she’d read his mind.

“Yes,” he said, his voice hoarse.

Simone took his hand and started to lead him toward the main house, but as they reached the veranda fireworks began to rise from a string of barges several hundred yards offshore. They turned, and Simone folded against him, the mound of her mons veneris pressing his thigh.

In the distance Brent saw a large yacht motoring smoothly toward Biddle’s dock, its graceful lines silhouetted in the bloom of an exploding rocket. He felt rooted in place. In addition to the heat and urgency of Simone’s body, the fireworks seemed overwhelming, their colors pulsing and vivid in an unearthly way, more beautiful that anything he’d ever experienced. At some point he realized she was tugging his arm, and he turned and followed her through the house.

“Can I drive?” Simone asked when the attendant brought his mint BMW 3.0Csi.

Brent waved her into the driver’s seat, even though he seldom let anyone drive his precious antique. Tonight was an exception. He felt so warm, so incredibly desired. As they left Biddle’s estate and wound along the darkened country lane, Brent realized that lights were dazzling his eyes so much that he couldn’t have driven if he’d wanted. They came to a stoplight and were suddenly back in traffic. Oncoming cars became twin lasers that swirled like roller coasters. Other
lights, those of businesses and strip malls, kaleidoscoped into stunning patterns.

He stared, transfixed. Rather than being shocked or frightened, he felt elated, as Simone drove with easy competence. He relaxed into a hammock of comfort, as though they’d been best friends forever.

As they neared the city, Simone’s hand slid onto his thigh. Lines of heat radiated from her fingertips, moving upward, igniting him. They reached Manhattan and stopped at a light, and he traced his fingers along the top of her dress then slipped them inside. She looked at him and smiled.

“Where should we go?” he whispered.

Simone’s look said the answer was obvious. “Your apartment.”

They parked and hurried the two blocks to his building, their hands already exploring. In the otherwise deserted elevator Simone wrapped her legs around his waist, grabbing fistfuls of his hair and pulling his lips toward her breasts. By the time they stumbled out and he unlocked his apartment door, the air in his nostrils burned, as though his lungs were full of fire.

He pushed open the door and mumbled an apology for his unpacked mess. She laughed and then disappeared in the kitchen to get them both glasses of ice water. When she emerged a moment later to hand him his glass, she was naked.

Brent’s breath froze at the sight. He picked her up and carried her to his bed, struggling out of his clothes as he went. She lay on her back, knees spread apart and watched him kick off his boxers. He stumbled slightly and felt his knees go a little wobbly but tried to shrug it off. He looked at her there on the bed, so eager for him, so extraordinarily beautiful.

“I hope we can make love all night,” she murmured.

Brent nodded in agreement. He moved to the bed and took her in his arms. He felt the most amazing desire but also an immense weight that swept in like a storm cloud and seemed to press in from behind his eyes. No matter how he tried to resist, it seemed to pull his head down, force his eyes closed. In another instant he tumbled like a man falling off a cliff, downward into a dark pool of sleep.

ABU SAYEED NOTED THE CHANGE
in pitch as the engines throttled back and the bow settled in the water. For several seconds the yacht seemed suspended in time, and he raised his eyes to the stars overhead. They were anemic in this part of the world, pale as sick children. In the desert he could lie on his back and almost touch their laser brightness. There the face of God was so much closer, he thought.

He had rolled back one of the sliding glass doors and was squatting in the opening where the yacht’s darkened salon led onto the aft deck. It was probably unwise to expose himself like this, but he detested the ship’s confinement and the sea’s constant smell of putrefaction. He craved the sensation of wide-open space. He believed Allah would not deny him this moment.

Suddenly, he heard a familiar thump and whoosh, the unmistakable
sound of a heavy mortar being fired. It came from someplace to his right. He reacted instantly, dropping to his belly, bracing for the explosion that would follow, while he heard Naif and Mohammed inside the salon do the same. Only, when the explosion came, there was no destruction, only a huge blossom of colored sparks in the sky overhead.

All three men crawled to the salon windows on the port side and squatted with their eyes pressed to small slits in the Venetian blinds as the line of fireworks barges sent rocket after rocket into the air. It was beautiful, Abu Sayeed thought, even though the sound of the explosions churned his stomach.

A moment later as they approached the dock, they could see the shoreline and Biddle’s mansion and a crowd of guests in a large tent. Servers dressed in dark pants and white shirts scurried like worker ants, carrying trays to and from a nearby preparation tent.

Abu Sayeed let out a tense breath. So far, the execution had been flawless. The container had been floating at almost the exact intended coordinates, the beacon had worked perfectly, and they’d picked up Mohammed and the missiles at around two that afternoon. Now, all three of them were dressed like the servers. It was a clever way to bring everything to shore.

The hundred-foot Hatteras reversed engines, the bow thrusters engaged, and they bumped gently against padded pilings. The mate and captain were the same two men who had delivered the cases of Coke in Penn Station and served as Biddle’s bodyguards in Paris. Abu Sayeed had taken pains to keep them separated from his men. When they were all in the same small space for even a short time, he could feel a fog of inchoate violence start to gather.

He heard one of Biddle’s men jump onto to the dock where he secured the lines and fixed the gangplank. The other one shut down the engines, and Abu Sayeed tensed as he awaited their signal.

Several minutes passed. Finally, footsteps came up the gangplank. It was the red-haired guard. “Follow me!” he snapped. As Abu Sayeed came off the yacht, he spotted Biddle’s other man far ahead on the shore, positioned where he would be able to turn back curious guests.

At Abu Sayeed’s soft whistle, Naif and Mohammed brought one of the two missile crates off the yacht. Abu Sayeed walked ahead of them with a tablecloth folded over his arm, his silenced Heckler & Koch MP5A3 sub-machine gun beneath. Anyone who noticed them would assume they were carrying party supplies.

The ground lights near the dock had been turned off, and when they entered the pool of shadow, Biddle’s men led them away from the party. They passed through a narrow opening in a tall hedge and came into a brick courtyard between a garage and a stone cottage with heavy slate roof.

Biddle’s man unlocked the cottage, handed Abu Sayeed the key, and the three Arabs hurried inside. They put the crate in the small living room. Abu Sayeed re-locked the door before they returned for the second crate and the heavy duffel that held their extra weapons and ammunition.

When they finished unloading, the larger of Biddle’s men loomed in the cottage doorway. “Keep the curtains closed and the noise down,” he ordered. “Stay inside until morning. Even then don’t go beyond the hedges. Mr. Biddle has private security, and they mustn’t know you’re here.” He pointed to a walkie-talkie on the dining table. “We’ll call before we come. Otherwise, don’t answer the door.”

Abu Sayeed felt a cold rage in his stomach at the man’s tone. He glanced around, saw calm in Naif’s eyes but blind hatred in Mohammed’s. He put his hand on Mohammed’s arm and squeezed until a level of self-control began to return.

The bodyguard observed the exchange. He gave a little smirk then closed the door.

ANNELIËS KUEPER LAY IN THE
dark and listened to Brent’s breathing. A hallway chandelier threw enough light into the bedroom for her to see his silhouette as he settled into deeper sleep. Biddle had assured her the drug would take an elephant down.

She spoke his name one time, and then again, louder. When he didn’t stir, she lifted his arm off her chest and sat up. She waited another minute on the side of the mattress, the air-conditioning raising goose bumps on her flesh.

Brent seemed nice enough, certainly a competent lover if he weren’t zonked on the Ecstasy she’d added to his third glass of wine and then the tranquilizer she’d added to his ice water. She almost regretted it, and she cracked a wry smile in the darkness, wondering if it meant she still had a heart someplace inside the scar tissue. Finally, she stood, went into the living room, found her purse, and
removed the small plastic case Biddle had given her and shown her how to install.

Movement helped her focus because it reminded her of the danger and the opportunity. If she played this right, it could mean a new life. If she played it wrong, she’d be dead. Either way, things had to change. She was finished letting people like Sayeed think they owned her—fucking her, making her fuck their friends or people they were trying to set up. She shuddered, refusing to think about what was going to happen to Brent. She thought about herself, instead.

Her life had been building toward this since last January when Abu Sayeed brought Biddle into the private London casino where she worked. It had been her third consecutive evening with a Kuwaiti sheik, who smelled like a pig and made love like a savage but paid fifteen hundred pounds a night for the privilege. Abu Sayeed had already told her what the proposal would be and given her Biddle’s picture, so she recognized him instantly.

She watched him for a time, noting that he didn’t gamble, drank only water, and when her Kuwaiti finally went to the bathroom, she approached him and started a conversation. Biddle was handsome, outwardly aloof, and sophisticated. He offered her two thousand pounds to discuss his business proposition, and they left the casino before the Kuwaiti returned from the restroom. In their initial meeting there was nothing in his manner to suggest that he found her attractive or even that he liked women. Only later, once she worked her way inside his defenses, did he start to change, becoming awkward, even diffident.

That first night, Biddle promised her a hundred thousand pounds if she would do a simple job for him and then swear herself
to secrecy. He was associated with the U.S. Government, he told her, and she would be killed if she ever disclosed a single word. She knew he was lying, of course, because she already knew he was working with Abu Sayeed. Either way, she didn’t give a damn.

After that, she met with Biddle several more times to discuss her assignment. Their encounters were always in London, in hotel rooms rented for that purpose. From the beginning Biddle’s evolution was obvious but steady. He started out cold and impersonal, barely making eye contact, but by their third meeting, as though some scab of rectitude had been scraped away, he stared at her with almost desperate hunger.

By their fourth meeting, Biddle’s distraction was almost painful. Finally, Anneliës stood and began to remove her blouse. With a cry that seemed part guilt and part release of his frantic desire, Biddle reached for her.

That first time, he trembled like an adolescent and ejaculated in seconds. Afterwards, he sat with his back to her on the edge of the bed, sobbing and begging her forgiveness. She ran her fingers through his hair and told him how good it had been. When he left, he gave her ten thousand pounds.

From then on, they met at least every two weeks. Each time, Biddle arrived with an aura of desperate need, but after they had sex he would kneel beside the bed and pray. He made her sit against the headboard, her hands folded, eyes closed, and head bowed until he said, “Amen.” In his prayers he called her names, like “filthy whore” and “diseased cunt,” but when he finished he would hold her and stroke her hair. It was incredibly strange, but she endured it because she also sensed opportunity.

Now, with Biddle’s plastic case in hand, she went back to the bedroom, removed the cordless phone from its base, took it into the kitchen, and turned on the overhead light. She pulled the back off the phone then used a pair of tweezers to remove a small chip from its foam bed. She attached it to the phone’s wiring as she had been instructed, then replaced the back. With the phone once again on its stand in the bedroom, she searched for Brent’s second phone, which she found in the living room on the floor between a packing box and the window.