Chapter 15
FIFTEEN
New York
Early morning
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 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?”
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.
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 dick.
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 dick.