Into the Crossfire (37 page)

She'd never have been able to break a code. Steganography was hiding. Hiding

one file inside another.

A message, from Simonet.

Mademoiselle Pearce--je vous envoie le manifeste d'un navire, destination

New York, je crois qu'il rappresente un nouveau attentat--un attentat nucleaire-contre les Etats Unis, parce que--Nicole translated the text, trying to keep her voice level. "This is a message

from a clerk in the Port Authority. The message reads: Ms. Pearce, I am sending

you the manifest of a ship sailing to New York, I think they intend to carry out

another attack against the United States." She looked up and met Sam's eyes. Her

voice wobbled. "He says...he says a nuclear attack. The message ends abruptly. As

if he was...interrupted."

"Or worse," Sam growled, already punching his cell phone.

A nuclear attack on the United States. Nicole clicked her way through the

pages, terror rising. "Here we are Sam, Mike. The ship flies a Liberian flag. The

Marie Claire. Next stop New York, slated to arrive day after tomorrow. The man

180

who sent me the message is very alive to terrorist threats. He lost his family in the

Madrid bombing." She met Sam's sober eyes again. "There's something on that

ship, Sam. It's got to be stopped."

Sam was already talking quietly and earnestly into his cell. He turned back

to her, holding the cell phone up. "Okay, sweet-heart, Harry's patched me through

to the FBI and they've got the Coast Guard listening too. Give us particulars about

this ship."

"Even better," Nicole said. "Give me an e-mail address and I'll send the file.

The hidden information is now readable."

"Great idea." Sam gave her three e-mail addresses, all ending with .gov.

As she tapped ENTER the SUV swerved, driving up the well-lit ramp of

the emergency entrance of a huge hospital complex.

She picked up her father's limp hand and held it tight. "We might have

saved the world. Now let's save my dad."

181

New York

Early morning

June 30

Muhammed stood looking out over Manhattan from his privileged perch,

holding the Thuraya satellite cell phone so tightly it was a miracle it didn't crush.

He'd been standing for four hours, watching as the sun rose in the sky.

Watching as the streets became busy, traffic heavy, gazing into the bustling

offices, looking like beehives. Everyone making money, losing money, obsessing

about money. Godless infidels, each and every one.

He and his brothers had failed.

Four hours ago the Coast Guard, carrying FBI and CIA agents and in all

likelihood a contingent of NEST agents--from the Nuclear Agency Support

Team--had boarded the Marie Claire. The captain had been unable to stop them.

The last image Muhammed had seen was taken by the captain's cell phone, just

before he tossed it into the ocean.

The scene was very clear--two Coast Guard cutters, with two gunners

apiece sitting in harness behind .50-caliber machine guns. Above, an AH-64D

Apache helicopter hovered, powerful rotors whipping the ocean waves. Its

cannons carried 1,200 rounds, and just one of the nineteen Hellfire or Sidewinder

missiles in its pods would blow the Marie Claire out of the water.

Muhammed had studied the enemy's resources well and for many years.

You do not defeat the Great Satan head on. It has resources his brothers could

never match. Asymmetrical warfare, the Americans called it. What that meant was

that the mujahideen pitted their brave hearts and steadfast souls against the huge

military and intelligence machine of the West.

Sometimes they lost. At times, courage and faith were not enough. The

captain of the Marie Claire was outgunned and made no attempt to resist.

They'd find what they were looking for. Not because of the radioactive

material. The canisters were well shielded and gave off a level of radioactivity that

matched that of the freshly cut granite that was in the official hold of the ship.

The American soldiers would go over the ship with Geiger counters, with

tests for bio agents which would come up negative. Then they'd use thermal

imagers.

That's what would give them away.

The thermal imagers would show the warm, living presence of the martyrs

behind the undetectable door. And the shaheed would be betrayed by their own

182

brave, strong, beating hearts.

Muhammed knew that there was nothing on the ship that would lead to his

involvement. Had there been anything, anything at all, traceable back to him, the

FBI would have knocked on his door long ago. He was free, while his brothers

would spend the rest of their lives in captivity, if they survived treatment at the

hands of the infidel at all.

The plan had been excellent. Brilliant, in fact. The weak spot had not been

gathering the radioactive material. That had proved relatively easy. They didn't

need the type of rare element or the technical expertise to build a nuclear bomb.

The material in the bomb only had to be radioactive. Radioactive material was

everywhere--in hospital waste, as a by-product of nuclear power. All you needed

was money and time.

Their weak spot had been bringing the men into the country.

But...what if this brilliant plan could be carried out in a country that was

already full of potential shaheeds, martyrs to the faith? A country like...Britain.

With its large and alienated Muslim population, recruitment could come from

within the country.

The martyrs would understand the culture, speak the language.

Britain was an island, nothing but coastline. Getting material into the

country by boat would be ridiculously easy. And if there were a group of martyrs

already in-country--say twenty or thirty--Muhammed could take down the City-London's financial district.

It would work. Muhammed felt the power of the idea course through him. It

would definitely work.

They'd have to wait a year, maybe two. Fine. His culture was the opposite

of the frantic hurry-up culture of the West. Jihad could take a lifetime, two. More,

even. The memory of the Crusades still burned in their hearts. It didn't matter.

Allah was eternal.

Muhammed knew lots of people in finance in London. Inside a year, he'd

have a map of the buildings to take down and letters of introduction to the CEOs

of the businesses. If the City were destroyed, it would have almost the same effect

as wiping out Wall Street.

It would work, imshallah.

Muhammed picked up the phone and called the travel agency his company

used, open 24-7. He wouldn't have any difficulty in persuading his company to

send him to London. In fact, his boss had said there was an opening in their

London office.

"Hello," he said to the voice that picked up. "This is Paul Preston. I'd like a

ticket on the last plane leaving for London today. If possible, I'd prefer to travel

British Airways."

He listened to the voice at the other end, blond brows snapping together in

annoyance.

"Of course first class," he snapped. "What am I? A peasant?"

183

San Diego

Early morning

July 3

Nicole opened her eyes, turned her head and smiled at him sleepily.

Sam considered it a major victory that he'd gotten her home, in his bed,

after she'd spent forty-eight hours sitting on a hard chair by her father's hospital

bed.

Ambassador Pearce would be released tomorrow and in the meantime was

lightly sedated. Sam had told her to go home, Harry and Mike had told her to go

home, the hospital staff had told her to go home, but it wasn't until her father

passed a shaking hand over her hair and told her to go rest that she even

considered it. Even then, Sam had had to pry her away.

She'd fallen straight asleep in the car and he'd carried her up to his

apartment, undressed her carefully, given her one of his tee shirts and put her

between the sheets.

She'd come half awake as he undressed her, looking at him, then at the

blue-steeler in his pants. But he kept it zipped. Nicole's beautiful eyes were

bruised with fatigue and she was paper white.

Though his body had been raring to go, he'd rather have slit his own throat

than expect sex when she was so exhausted. He'd fixed her a big cup of hot milk

with lots of honey and a jigger of whiskey and after he'd made sure she drank it

all, she'd turned on her side and gone out like a light.

He sat all night in a chair by the bed, holding her hand, simply watching her

in the quiet stillness. Toward morning, he stripped and slowly eased himself into

the bed.

Moving carefully, he spooned himself around her, one arm under her head,

the other curled around her belly. The more of her he touched, the happier he was.

Touching her--touching the warm, living flesh of her--was vital to his sanity.

He'd almost lost her, there in that abandoned warehouse.

Lost, as in dead. As in dead forever.

He could barely think about it without shuddering. To his dying day, he

would see her, trying to leap to intercept a bullet, yanked back by the hair by a

scumbag getting ready to blow a hole through her head.

If Sam closed his eyes, he could see the alternate reality, if he and Mike had

come even a second later. Nicole, crumpled on the filthy floor in a pool of her own

blood, all that beauty and grace and goodness--gone forever.

Jesus.

His hands tightened convulsively at the thought and that was when she

turned to smile sleepily at him.

184

Oh shit. He clenched his jaw. "I woke you up. Sorry."

She turned completely around, rustling the sheets, until they were front to

front. Her breasts against his chest, belly against his, long legs brushing his. He

jerked when she brushed against his super-sensitized cock.

Sweat broke out on his forehead. He was trying to be good, here. Trying to

be considerate. But how the fuck was he supposed to do that when he had Nicole

Pearce in his arms, looking up at him with a half smile, so beautiful it hurt the

eyes?

How the fuck was he supposed to respect her tiredness when he could smell

the perfume of her skin, when she was like a little furnace all along his front? And

how about when she breathed and her breasts brushed against him? How about

that?

"Mmm..." Nicole smiled, eyes closed, and rubbed herself against him, head

to toe. Her mound was rubbing right against his hard-on and he shuddered.

He went commando in bed, had never liked pajamas. And Nicole was only

wearing one of his tee shirts. It covered her down to her knees, but the material

was so soft, Sam could feel every inch of her as if she were naked.

Nicole slid a slender arm around his torso, hand clinging to his back, and

buried her face in his neck. When her tongue snaked out and licked him, he

thought the hell with this.

A minute later, his ripped tee shirt was fluttering to the floor and he was

rolling onto her, burying himself deep inside her, held tight in her soft, wet clasp.

He closed his eyes in despair. Did it again.

"Shit," he whispered. Sam levered himself up on his elbows and looked

down at her. "I forgot foreplay. Again."

Nicole lifted her head and kissed him. "I was having an erotic dream about

you." She lifted her hips and he slid even more deeply into her. She was slick, wet,

thank you, Aphrodite. "I think that might count as foreplay."

"Oh yeah?" Intrigued, Sam pulled slowly out, pressed back into her,

watching intently as her eyelids fluttered. "What were we doing? How sexy was

it?"

"Off the scale," she assured him softly. "We were in your bed and you took

off my nightgown...actually you ripped it off. And it wasn't my nightgown, it was

your tee shirt and..."

He stopped her mouth with a kiss, feeling her smile underneath it. He was

moving so slowly, like the waves of the sea. Cupping her shoulders, he slid back

into her, deep. As deep as he could go. Her smile had gone, her kisses now felt

urgent. Mouths connecting like their sexes.

Nicole's legs lifted, widened and she somehow impaled herself even more

on his cock.

An electric charge raced down his spine and his balls tightened. Not good.

He had to stop this, stop coming the instant he entered her. Of course, afterward he

just kept on fucking, but he had to learn a little bit of self-control around her and

185

try not to come in the first five strokes.

Still, the urge to torture himself was strong. Sam lifted himself on his

forearms, so he could watch them as he moved inside her, oh-so slowly.

"Nice dream." He had to work to keep from panting. "I had one too. In this

one, I'm fu--we're making love, and we're in my bed. And we're watching me enter

you."

In.

"It's sexy as hell," he breathed.

Out.

Nicole looked down too, at the picture they made together. It was almost

unbearably erotic, her slender white torso moving, stomach muscles clenching, the

puffy pink lips of her cunt visibly holding onto him while he pulled out, as if it

couldn't bear to let him go.