The Solomon Effect (6 page)

South Beach, Miami: Saturday 24 October
9:10
P.M.
local time

The night was hot, the air thick with the scent of salt and the
sea and a peculiar, pungent odor like old brass. Hurricane weather, the old-timers back home in Texas used to call it. General Gerald T. Boyd gazed at the twinkling lights of Miami spread out around the dark waters of the bay before them, and found himself wondering what would happen to this city of pastel-colored Italianate villas and glass-walled high-rises and extravagantly flaunted wealth the day a Cat Five plowed into it.

“Smells like a storm,” he said, leaning his outstretched arms against the ornate stone balustrade that separated the flagged terrace from the sweeping floodlit lawns, the Olympic-sized pool, the private dock of James Nelson Walker’s waterfront South Beach estate.

Walker shrugged. “I hear there’s something out in the Atlantic. But it’s too late in the year to worry about.”

Boyd gave a sharp laugh. “Too close to Halloween.”

Walker didn’t crack a smile. He was a serious son of a bitch, all New England prep-school starch and boardroom business. While Boyd filled his leisure hours with fishing and hunting and all the rough-and-tumble of a boisterous family of six ranging in age from a twelve-year-old Little League dynamo to a daughter in her second year at Harvard Law School, Walker had only one daughter, whom he seldom saw and, apparently, never missed. As far as Boyd could tell, the man spent his days playing racquetball, running, and making money.

The two had met the previous winter, when Boyd presented the keynote speech at a CPAC conference here in Miami. Walker had listened to Boyd’s thunderous address on the need to solve the never-ending economic and military bleed in the Middle East once and for all. A few days later, the business tycoon had approached Boyd with a very interesting proposal.

Theirs was a partnership of military and technical expertise joined with lots of good hard cash. The two men had little in common besides a profound hatred of Jews and Arabs, and a willingness to do whatever was necessary to make the world a safer and better place for Americans. That was enough.

Walker said, “I hope you’re here to tell me everything is back on track.”

“The shipment left Russian airspace an hour ago. It should arrive at your facility in St. Martin by nine o’clock.”

“This is good news. I’ll fly down to the island myself first thing in the morning.” The sound of footsteps brought the man’s head around. He waited while a slim, dark-skinned, dark-haired maid set a tray with glasses and a glistening pitcher of what looked like carrot juice on the heavy limestone top of a nearby table, then withdrew. “No more complications?” he said, going to splash juice into two glasses.

“Nothing to worry about.”

“Oh?” Walker looked up, an eyebrow quirked in question.

“The CIA is sending one of their men to Kaliningrad.”

Walker set down the pitcher hard enough to rattle the ice.
“Christ.
They know?”

“They don’t know jack shit.”

“They obviously know something.”

Boyd felt a muscle jump along his tightened jaw. One of his boys had gotten sloppy a couple of days ago, blabbing on an unsecured line about the U-boat and dropping tantalizing hints about what they had planned. Boyd had taken care of the guy, but the NSA intercept had stirred up a hornets’ nest at the FBI and with Homeland Security.

“They know someone salvaged the U-boat,” he said. “But they’re still convinced they’re dealing with a bunch of rag-heads. They’re too busy raiding mosques from here to Timbuktu to cause us any trouble.”

“Then why are they sending this guy to Kaliningrad?”

Boyd took the glass Walker held out, but made no move to taste it. Walker was always drinking this shit. When Boyd drank, it was either good Tennessee bourbon, or French cognac. “It doesn’t matter. There’s nothing there for him to find. It’s all been cleaned up.”

“You’re sure?”

Boyd tamped down a spurt of annoyance. In the last thirty years, he’d faced down everything from rabid Sudanese tribesmen to hostile Congressional hearings and interfering presidents; he wasn’t going to lose sleep over one lousy CIA agent. “Don’t worry. It’s under control.”

The warm breeze gusted up, bringing them a faint burst of laughter from somewhere out on the water. Walker took a sip of his juice. “You keep saying that. What if he does find something?”

“He won’t. He’s being taken care of.”

“Taken care of?”

“You have to expect casualties in any operation. The CIA is about to suffer one.” Boyd glanced at his watch. “I’ve got a plane waiting to take me to Washington. Let me know when your people have had a chance to assess the shipment.”

Walker frowned. “You’ve been called to Washington?”

“Not over this shit.” Boyd realized he was still holding the glass of juice in his hand and set it aside. “I’ve been asked to testify before some Congressional hearings next week, and I’m flying up early for this reception the White House is giving tomorrow.”

“You mean the one President Randolph is hoping will kick-start a new Middle East peace process?”

“Yeah. That one.”

Walker drained his own glass and set it aside with a rare suggestion of a smile. “If they only knew. We’re about to present them with the solution to that whole expensive can of worms, free of charge.”

Berlin, Germany: Sunday 25 October 1:00
P.M.
local time

“I’m sorry, Mr. Aldrich,” said the unsmiling young woman
behind the check-in desk at the Berlin Royal Hotel. “We have no record of your reservation.”

Jax slid the reservation number across the desk. “Yes, you do.” He’d called Langley from the airport and had them book the room as soon as he heard Aeroflot was canceling their only flight of the day to Kaliningrad. It was standard procedure, but Jax should have known better than to follow it. Langley was always screwing up this kind of thing.

The hotel clerk pecked at her computer terminal with Teutonic efficiency and frowned. “The name on this reservation is James Aiden Xavier Alexander.”

“That’s it,” said Jax. “The Company is always making that mistake.”

“I’m sorry, sir, but I can’t—”

He kept his smile in place. “Yes, you can. Call the number that made the reservation.”

“But—”

“Just call it.”

Ten minutes later, room key in hand, Jax crossed the lobby’s polished marble floor toward the elevators. Out of habit, he was aware of the people around him without in any way appearing to be watchful. Two teenaged American girls in low-slung jeans walked toward him, their heads together, laughing. A svelte blonde with pouty lips hung on the arm of an aging Greek with a tanned, lined face who was waiting for his car to be brought around. A bony man in a tweed jacket read a newspaper in one of the upholstered chairs near the bar. When Jax passed, the guy in the tweed jacket folded his newspaper and stood.

As Jax waited for the elevator, the man in the tweed jacket came to stand beside him. Jax studied the guy’s reflection in the elevator’s shiny doors. He appeared to be in his early thirties, with dark hair, a prominent nose, and sharp features that might have been Slavic. He carried his newspaper tucked under his left arm and he wasn’t looking at Jax.

The two teenaged girls, still giggling, pushed past Jax as soon as the elevator doors opened. Jax and the man in the tweed coat entered behind them. Jax pressed 6. The girls hit 10. The man in the tweed jacket maneuvered so that he was behind Jax and stood with his gaze fixed on the doors as they snapped shut.

It was one of the dictates they taught you in spy school:
always stay behind the man you’re tailing.
Simple, useful information.

With a polite
ding,
the elevator whirled up to the sixth floor. Jax stepped out. The bony man in the tweed coat followed.

Jax felt his pulse beating in his neck.

The man followed Jax down the hall, dropping back slightly.

Setting down his carry-on bag outside room 615, Jax in
serted his key card in the lock and heard it buzz open. Pushing down the handle with one hand, he was reaching for his bag when the man in the tweed coat closed on him, a suppressed Walther in his hand.

Jax felt the man’s left hand in the small of his back and understood how the next few seconds were meant to play out: the assassin would shove Jax into his room and then shoot him in the back.

But Jax was already bending for his carry-on bag. He closed his left hand around the handles of the bag and just kept bending, reaching between his ankles with his other hand to grab a fistful of the guy’s pant leg and jerk it up. The assassin had two choices: he could either let Jax dislocate his knee, or go down.

He went down. Jax heard the man’s breath leave his chest in a little huff as his back slammed into the carpet. Jax spun around, the guy’s ankle clamped between his two legs. The gunman swore, his body rolling involuntarily to one side, gun hand down.

He squeezed off two suppressed shots. The first went wild, shattering an overhead light and raining down broken glass. The second round thudded into the wall beside them.

“You sonofabitch,” swore Jax, slamming his carry-on bag into the guy’s right hand. The gun clattered away, spinning some two or three feet.

The killer rolled onto his stomach, scrambling after the gun. Jax dropped with a knee in the guy’s back and grabbed a fistful of dark hair. Yanking the guy’s head up with one hand, he closed his left hand on the guy’s chin, jerked his head back—

And heard his neck snap.

“Shit,” whispered Jax.

For a moment he stilled, his knee in the guy’s back, his breath coming in quick pants. If he’d kept the guy alive, he could have asked him some very important questions. Like,
Who sent you?
And,
How did you know I was here?
Instead, he had no answers to his questions and a dead body to deal with.

Looking up, he stared at the security camera at the far end of the hall and said, “Shit,” again.

Pushing to his feet, Jax opened the door to room 615. Propping open the door with his bag, he grabbed the body by the feet and dragged it into the room. He ducked back out into the hall for the Walther and the guy’s newspaper, then quickly shut the door.

Jerking out his phone, he went to sit on the edge of the bed and punched in the number for the American embassy.

“I’d like to speak to Peter Davidson, please,” he said. “Peter Davidson” was the code name for the CIA Operations Officer on duty at the embassy. The CIA loved to play these little cloak-and-dagger games.

There was a pause as the person at the other end of the phone drew in a quick breath. “Did you say, ‘Peter Davidson’?”

“Why? Did they change the code?”

There was a clucking noise. The voice said, “Just a moment, please.”

A minute ticked past. Two. A woman came on the line. “This is Petra Davidson. May I help you?”

Jax squeezed his eyes shut. “Jason Aldrich here. I’ve just flown in from Washington and I need a list of agricultural contacts in Bavaria.” You had to wonder who came up with this stuff. “I need a list of agricultural contacts in Bavaria” was code for
There’s a dead body I need you to make go away.

The other end of the phone went silent.

“Hello? Miss Davidson?”

“I’m here,” she said in a heavy Bronx twang. “I think I can come up with that. Where would you like it delivered?”

“The Royal Berlin. Room 615.”

“You should have it in a few hours.”

“Hours?
How many hours are we talking about here?”

“What you’re asking for is complicated,” she snapped.

“Complicated, but urgent,” he said patiently. “There’s a security camera that needs to be taken care of.”

“Where?”

“In the corridor.”

“At the Royal? Those suckers haven’t worked for months.”

“You’re sure?”

“It’s my job.”

“But complicated.”

There was a long pause. She said, “You want the list of agricultural contacts in Bavaria, or not?”

Jax looked at the guy in the tweed coat sprawled in an ungainly heap across the hotel-room floor. “Yes, please.”

“Then I’ll see you in a few hours,” she said and hung up.

“Great,” said Jax, his gaze still on the silent corpse. “Looks like you and I are going to be keeping company for a while.” He reached for the folded newspaper, curious to see which edition Tweed Coat had been reading. As he picked it up, a printout of a photograph of Jax fluttered to his feet.

Jax froze. This was no anonymous snapshot captured with a telephoto lens. This was an official photograph taken shortly after Jax’s incident in Colombia for inclusion in his file at Langley.

Jax’s gaze traveled from the photograph to the dead assassin’s impassive face. The implications were beyond ominous.

“How the
hell
did you get that?”

St. Martin, the Caribbean: Sunday 25 October
8:00
A.M.
local time

The massive doors of the airplane hangar rolled open, filling
the cavernous space with a suffocating blast of tropical heat and the deafening roar of the approaching jet.

From the air-conditioned comfort of his limousine, James Nelson Walker watched the Gulfstream roll inside. Ten months of careful research and planning—not to mention a substantial investment of funds—had brought him to this moment.

Up until now, Walker’s role had been largely financial, with Boyd drawing on his years of special operations, and his many contacts, to provide them with the paramilitary expertise they needed. But the next segment of the operation would be under Walker’s control.

The jet pivoted smartly, and a blessed silence fell over the hangar as the engines shut down. Absently kneading his lower lip with one thumb and forefinger, Walker waited while the pilot and copilot removed their headphones. They had no knowledge of their cargo, or the use to which it would be put.

He waited while the two men casually joked with each other, then left the hangar without a backward glance at either the limousine or the white van that waited at the other end of the hangar.

At a nod from Walker, his driver pressed the remote control, closing the big hangar doors and shutting out the bright tropical sunlight with an echoing bang.

“Now,” said Walker to the small, olive-skinned man with a hawklike nose and acne-pitted face who sat beside him.

Dr. Juan Garcia nodded. At his signal, the back doors of the waiting van opened. Two technicians in hazmat suits leaped out.

“How long will it take before we know if the shipment is still viable?” Walker asked while the two technicians opened the jet’s cargo hold.

Garcia shrugged. “We should have a preliminary report within twenty-four hours.”

Walker’s eyes narrowed as he watched the guys in hazmat gear carefully lift the first of the decades-old canisters between them. “We have three days to get this ready to go.”

“If it’s still viable, that won’t be a problem,” said Garcia, turning toward the van. “We’ll be ready.”

Washington, D.C.

Sunday morning dawned clear and sunny and wickedly cold, with a blustering wind that scuttled the small puffy white clouds across the deep blue sky over the nation’s capitol. General Gerald T. Boyd went for a three-mile run along the Potomac, then showered and changed into his dress blues in preparation for the reception being held that morning at the White House.

“Any word on the shipment yet?” he asked his aide, Phillips.

“Not yet, sir.”

Boyd reached for his hat and slipped it on. “The instant something comes through, I want to know about it.”

“Yes, sir.”

Half an hour later, the General was standing beneath the portico overlooking the White House Rose Garden watching the President of the United States try to coax a scowling New York senator in a skullcap into conversation with the Palestinian Archbishop of Jerusalem when the DCI, Gordon Chandler, walked up to him.

“Our commander in chief doesn’t appear to be having much success there,” said Chandler, dropping his voice so that only Boyd would hear.

“I don’t know about that. At least they’re not killing each other.”

“Not yet. Although rumor has it the reason we’re freezing our collective nuts off out here in the Rose Garden is because half of today’s honored guests have sworn never to be in the same room with each other.”

Boyd kept his gaze on the two men beside the President, and smiled.
One more week, you bastards,
he thought. Some men hated Jews; others hated the Arabs. Boyd had no use for either side. In the last fifty years, the sons of bitches had collectively cost the United States trillions of dollars and thousands of lives. Thanks to Boyd, all that was about to end.

But all he said was, “I don’t care if they can’t stand to be in the same room together. I just wish they’d learn to be in the same country together.” He let his gaze drift over the dozens of extra Secret Service personnel. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen security at the White House this tight.”

“You haven’t. And the closer we get to Halloween, the tighter it’s going to be.” Chandler cleared his throat. “I hear you advised the President against canceling either today’s reception, or the Children of the Book Conference in Miami next weekend.”

“That’s right.”

“Was that wise?”

Boyd huffed a rough laugh. “You know as well as I do how many terrorist threats we get every day. They’re always bullshit. The President leaks a few choice ones to the press, the people get nice and scared, and no one complains the next time Randolph wants to ram a special defense-spending bill through Congress. It’s a win-win situation all around.”

“I have a nasty feeling this one’s different.”

Boyd studied the long New England face of the man beside him. Gordon Chandler might be a ruthless son of a bitch, but like so many of the idiots down at Langley, he was still an effete Ivy League blueblood. “You got any new intelligence to back that up?”

Chandler dropped his voice again. “You’ve heard about U-114?”

Boyd shrugged. “Nazi subs are valuable commodities these days. I’ll be surprised if there are any left in shallow waters by the end of the decade.”

“I hope to God that’s all there is to it.”

Boyd was aware of his aide, Phillips, hovering a few feet away. Boyd gave the DCI a hearty clap on the shoulder. “I’ll tell you what, Chandler. Come next Sunday, if no crazy A-rabs have treated us to some nasty Halloween surprise, I’ll suspend my lifelong prohibition against imbibing on the Lord’s day, just so you can have the privilege of buying me a drink.”

“And if you’re wrong?”

“Then you can send a case of Jack Daniel’s to my funeral.”

Captain Phillips waited until the DCI had laughed and moved off. Then he took a step forward and said, “There’ve been some developments.”

Boyd drained his glass and set it aside. “It’s about time. Let’s go.”