The Resurrection File Page 23

“What did Ajadi say?”

  “Of course he had no idea who you were.”

  The other lawyer stopped in front of a hot dog wagon. “You want one?” he asked Will.

  “Are you kidding?” Will responded. “I don’t eat anything that’s served on the streets of New York City.”

  “I was the same way when I moved here,” the other man said, squeezing mustard on his hot dog. “But I figure after living here for the last five years without getting dysentery I must have developed the NYC superimmunity to all of the bugs that swim around here.”

  “So what is your theory as to why they brought up my name?”

  “It beats the heck out of me what they were after.”

  “Tell me about the State Department’s involvement in all this.”

  “Well,” the other lawyer continued, wiping mustard off his chin with his napkin, “these lawyers worked in the department headed up by Undersecretary Kenneth Sharptin.”

  “Isn’t he the one that all the TV talking heads think has the inside track for the vice-presidential slot at the convention?”

  “Same one.”

  “So why was Sharptin involved in your case?”

  “Because Sharptin is head of something called the Arms Control and International Security Affairs branch within State. I think it was created back in 2000. It has input into nuclear threats against the U.S. from an arms-control standpoint. At first, just after the truck was stopped, the State Department took the position that they were going to have joint control of the investigation, with Sharptin at the head. But after a power struggle, the Pentagon won out.”

  Something triggered Will’s thinking. “Maybe you can help me understand something,” he said. “I heard on the news that the warhead on that truck was empty—a blank. It was never an actual threat. So why all the talk about national security?”

  The other lawyer frowned, and stopped walking.

  “Look. Forget what you hear and see out there in the news. There is something very weird—maybe even very scary—going on here.”

  Will could see that the other lawyer was weighing how much he wanted to say.

  “Let me just spill it here,” the other man said, stopping in his tracks and looking Will in the eye. “I learned in this case that the guys in the Pentagon think that there is no way that this MIRV missile is at all connected to Abdul el Alibahd. Now I know that someone was leaking stuff to the press that Alibahd was behind all of this—even the White House had suggested that. But it’s not true.”

  “So who was behind the truck incident?”

  “I’m going to give you my best guess,” the lawyer explained, for emphasis jabbing into the air the rolled-up newspaper he was carrying.

  “And it’s partly based on what I got from some of the feds I met with,” he continued. “That Russian crime syndicate didn’t get the missile housing from someone in Iran who’s connected with Alibahd. They got it from someone within the U.S. who has either a lot of inside pull—or a lot of money to pay people off at one of the nuclear test labs—or both. The MIRV was loaded on the rental truck. My guy was hired to drive the truck because—as an Arab—he looked the part of a terrorist. The whole thing looks like a bizarre setup. The arrest was deliberately ordered to be made on the wrong side of the river—on the New York side—by a New Jersey state trooper so the thing could not be prosecuted. This Arab Muslim state trooper—by the way, what are the odds there, right?—the Arab cop gets a call from dispatch to stop this truck. Only one problem—the dispatch tapes don’t show that the call to him ever came from the State Patrol headquarters. Anyway, he gets this mystery call and ‘saves the day.’ The President of the United States ends up giving an Arab follower of Allah a medal for bravery for protecting us all from the ‘radical Arab terrorists.’ Only there was no Arab terrorist plot involving that truck. That was a fantasy. The whole thing looks like a Disney World put-on.”

  “Why?” Will asked. “What’s the point?”

  “That’s what I can’t figure out,” the lawyer said. “There’s a closed-door select Senate subcommittee investigating this whole thing. But because it involves national security—or so they claim—we couldn’t get any leads there. Besides, you know as well as I do that the politicians in Washington are never going to figure this one out.”

  By that time they had made their way back to the plaza in front of the massive library. Will still was mystified.

  “Why would the State Department care whether I was involved in your client’s case?” Will asked. And then he answered his own question. “Unless Sharptin’s department was concerned that I would somehow get insider information that the so-called nuclear threat by Arab terrorists was really a put-up job. But how could they think—”

  The public defender’s face suddenly lit up with something he had remembered, and he broke in. “Oh, and one more thing I found out. Don’t know how important it is. But the two assistant U.S. attorneys who were assigned to my client’s case were the same ones who were investigating the Wall Street bombing. They told me privately that—even though Alibahd was definitely the mastermind behind the bombing—the two guys who got executed in Saudi Arabia may not actually have been part of it. But suddenly the Saudis are the international buddies of America for getting the guys who blew up Wall Street. Only one problem—there is no actual proof that the guys who got their heads cut off were anything but small-time pickpockets who happened to get arrested at the wrong time.”

  Will was trying to process what he was hearing.

  “Look,” the other lawyer said slowly and painstakingly. “The executions were showpieces to make it look like the Arab nations are now policing their own borders for terrorists and offering full cooperation to the U.S. Saudi Arabia was merely looking for someone to execute.”

  The lawyer continued, “The point was to make the American public think we need the help of the Arab states to keep the terrorists from blowing up our country. Alibahd had already bombed Wall Street, so somebody figured that he would be a credible bad guy to take the blame for this ‘nuclear threat.’ I know I’m sounding like a conspiracy nut, but I’m giving it to you straight.”

  The public defender glanced at his watch and said, “Got to get back to the office. Just so you know, you and I didn’t talk. This didn’t happen.” And he started to turn to leave, but then spun back. “Hey Chambers, what did the State Department want with you, anyway? What have you gotten yourself into?”

  Will thought for a moment and replied, “The resurrection.”

  The man gave him a baffled look, and then turned and quickly disappeared into the crowds of New Yorkers rushing to get back to their desks by the end of lunch break.

  As Will looked for a cab he did not notice the two Middle Eastern–looking men strolling about fifty feet behind him. They had been following him and the public defender during their walk down Fortieth Street and back to the Public Library. And as Will ducked inside a taxi, the two men quickly hailed their own cab—and started in the same direction, directly behind Will’s cab.

  35

  JACK HORNBY WAS STILL TRYING TO CONTACT Will Chambers, but they were now playing phone-tag by voice mail. Hornby had gone home for the day and was standing at the front door of his condo unit in Bethesda, fishing for his keys.

  A nondescript car with government plates pulled up to the curb behind him. Colonel Brad Buchingham was at the wheel. He lowered his window and yelled,

  “You interested in a story?”

  Hornby turned and eyed the car, walking closer until he recognized the driver.

  “Buchingham, is that you?”

  “Get in,” the Colonel snapped back.

  “Oh, I don’t know. Is this safe? The last time I tried to talk to you I think you called me a Communist sympathizer.”

  “That’s not what I said.”

  “Oh?” the bemused Hornby replied.

  “What I really called you was a scum-sucking, gutless Communist sympathizer.”

  “Good memor
y.”

  “Are you getting in or not?”

  Hornby laughed a little then stepped back and looked at the car and at Buchingham. Then he slowly worked his way to the front passenger side. He gingerly opened the door and, with a dramatic flourish, peeked over into the backseat as if to make sure he was not going to be jumped from behind.

  “Hornby, you’re a real clown,” the Colonel said through a tight grin, and when the reporter was finally seated Buchingham started away from the curb.

  “Got your little notepad?”

  “Never leave home without it,” Hornby said.

  “Let’s start with the DIA.”

  Hornby had covered the Pentagon long enough to know that the colonel was talking about the Defense Intelligence Agency. Its duties included—among other things—assessing the military and national-security risk to America from its dealings with other nations. Dealings such as sales of technology and military hardware.

  Buchingham explained that he had never before gone to the press—never. And he reiterated his distaste for Hornby and what he perceived as his anti-American, antimilitary perspective. Yet this time, the Colonel continued, someone had to blow the whistle. He had seen an internal Pentagon memo that discussed upcoming sales of sophisticated arms and military technology to Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, and Egypt, with a timeline of similar sales six months later to the newly formed regime in Iraq and to Iran, and possible sales to Syria nine months after that. All of the sales were planned to take place after the upcoming presidential elections.

  This was unprecedented, of course, and Hornby was quick to understand that. Buchingham had to confess that the sales were not final, and were subject to “contravention.” Yet such military hardware transfers to Arab nations would be a major shift in the balance of power in the Middle East, and a major change in American foreign policy.

  But there was another red flag he had noticed in that internal memo.

  “The memo goes on to say,” Buchingham said, “that the DIA is not—I repeat, not—to exercise its usual oversight in assessing the risk to American national security if these military sales go through.”

  “Who’s the prime mover in this?” Hornby asked.

  “Well, the memo says that the decision to take the DIA out of the loop on this came from ‘upstairs.’”

  “How far upstairs?”

  “Way far upstairs,” Buchingham explained.

  “Names. I need names.”

  “Well,” Buchingham said, pausing a little, “let’s just say I was going to a horse race. And let’s say that Undersecretary Kenneth Sharptin over at the State Department was a horse. I bet he would be named something like, oh, ‘Crazy for Power.’”

  Hornby smiled as he jotted it down in his notepad.

  “So,” Hornby continued, “what happens to this horse—‘Crazy for Power’? Does he win, place, or show?”

  “That all depends.”

  “Depends on what?”

  “On whether somebody takes him out of the race first.”

  Buchingham pulled back in front of Hornby’s condo. Hornby got out of the car and walked over to the driver’s side.

  “Say, what do you know about oil?”

  Buchingham had to think for a second before he responded. It was clear to him that Hornby had been doing his homework.

  “It’s black.”

  “Yeah. And what else?”

  “The largest single share of it is controlled by OPEC.”

  “Yeah?”

  “They’re headquartered in Vienna, Austria.”

  “Okay. So far what you’ve given me I could have gotten off the Internet.”

  Buchingham eyed Hornby, and then growled, “You tie this to me and you’re finished.”

  “No problem. ‘Reliable sources at the Pentagon.’ That’s as far as I will go in my story,” Hornby assured him.

  “So I did hear, through a friend down at the Defense Threat Reduction Agency, that the United States is about to get dealt a seat at the OPEC meetings,” the Colonel said. “That would be the first time a major non-Islamic nation from the West would be sitting in on those meetings. A seat on OPEC would give us a major advantage in protecting our oil supplies.”

  “So what is the United States giving to OPEC in return?”

  “I bet that’s a question that has an interesting answer,” Buchingham said, and then put his car into gear.

  “You said ‘non-Islamic nation…’” Hornby shouted out to the departing car, as he stepped back to the curb. And then he repeated himself, speaking into the air as Buchingham’s car drove away.

  “You said, the United States as a ‘non-Islamic nation.’”

  36

  WILL CHAMBERS DECIDED TO SPEND the rest of the afternoon visiting some old haunts in New York, since he had not been there for several years. The last time was when he and Audra had attended a small art show featuring some of her work in acrylics. Later, they had caught a Broadway play, stayed at the Plaza, and then taken the train back to Monroeville. In those days they were up in New York City several times a year—either for Will’s cases or because of Audra’s connections with the art community there.

  That weekend had begun with her success at the art show. At first, it had seemed as if the old feelings of romance and friendship had been rekindled between them. But then, for reasons he couldn’t even remember now, it had all ended in bitter, explosive arguments as it had so many times before. Will never could understand how they could have been so deeply in love, yet have acted so cruelly toward each other. Shortly after that, Audra had moved out.

  Now, when Will revisited the art gallery, it was still there, but the proprietor was out for the day. The college-age girl at the desk did not remember the work of Audra Chambers or the art show Will asked about. That was before her time, she said.

  After going past the Plaza he decided to catch a cab down toward Greenwich Village. He had dinner at a café the two of them had often frequented. Yet, as he paid the waiter and walked out after his solitary meal at their favorite table, he was surprised how none of these places now held any emotional connection for him anymore. They had merely become recognizable places. Now he was simply a tourist, following memories as an out-of-towner might flip through a guidebook.

  On a lark he headed down to the harbor area and nosed around the shops. He had an idea in the back of his mind that he wanted to pick up a gift. He would send it to Fiona Cameron as a way of thanking her for the dinner at Luigi’s.

  Will picked out a crystal replica of the Statue of Liberty. He asked the shop owner to ship it to the office of Fiona’s business manager, which was the only address he had for her. Then he wrote a little note for them to include in the package. It read,

  Fiona—

  I don’t know why this small gift made me think of you and our dinner together. But please accept it as my thanks for the meal, for the conversation, and for being the delightful person you are.

  Will

  Will left the gift shop. As he was walking down the sidewalk, one of the two men following him quickly ducked into the same shop. Then Will decided he would make his way back to the train station, and he hailed another cab. As he did, the second man waved down a cab that was going in the same direction as Will’s.

  Once he was on the train, Will settled down for some more homework on the Reichstad lawsuit. He wanted to read some of the fundamentals of New Testament Greek. But as he tried to buckle down to his reading, a rush of thoughts bombarded him—static jamming his concentration. Thoughts of both Audra and Fiona kept interrupting his focus. This trip to New York had not been what he had expected. He wondered how Fiona would respond to his gift.

  But a voice jolted him back to the case—the voice of the public defender asking, “What have you gotten yourself into?” Someone had an obvious concern about Will’s activities. But why?

  At the Newark train stop, Will got up and stretched. He was feeling tired, so he made his way down to the dining car to grab a cup of co
ffee—only to find it was closed. He returned to his seat and decided it was time to buckle down and learn something about Greek.

  Will saw that MacCameron had started him off in the right direction. The New Testament was written in “Koine” Greek, the common, everyday form of the Greek language at the time of Christ. Koine Greek was the closest thing to the universal language of the known world then.

  Will quickly discovered that the Greek alphabet resembled the English alphabet with some exceptions. He glanced at the spelling of the names of the four Gospels in his interlinear Greek-English New Testament that he had bought. The Gospel of “MARK,” for instance, appeared as:

  MAPKON

  As he read further, he noted that words were arranged in sentence structure much like English, except that in Greek, word order was not critical—words could be moved around in a sentence without necessarily changing the meaning of the sentence, unlike in English.

  Will began to realize how hard it was going to be to understand even the rudiments of New Testament Greek by the time of trial.

  After an hour and a half of reading, Will’s eyes started getting heavy. He didn’t remember falling asleep, or his head sliding to the side against the train window. He would not wake up until the train shuddered to a halt at the little station in Monroeville.

  37

  IT WAS WELL AFTER MIDNIGHT WHEN WILL walked off the train. He trudged half-a-block down to the all-night cabstand. Still exhausted, he climbed into the back of a cab and gave the driver directions. Then he leaned his head back for a moment to collect his thoughts. In just a few minutes he was asleep again, his briefcase and coat still on his lap.

  In a deep sleep, and dreaming, Will heard a voice. It was yelling. There was danger, but Will could not make out where the voice was coming from. It was saying, Hey Mister. Hey Mister. Wake up.

  “Hey mister, wake up! Is that your house? It’s burning! Man, that house is on fire!”

  The cabbie was yelling to him in a panic and pointing out the front windshield of the car. “Your house is on fire! It’s burning down!”