Six Seconds Page 12

  Someone important had arrived.

  That evening, Samara was taken to a secret site, deeper and higher in the hills, where they were escorted by heavily armed guards to a small encampment.

  She was introduced to a handful of older men, sitting at a campfire drinking tea. As the flames lit their faces and embers swirled into the sky, they talked quietly for several moments until one stood and embraced Samara.

  “Welcome, sister.” His garments smelled of jas mine. Then he held her in his sad, tired eyes. “We know of your suffering. We know of the violations. You honor your family by fulfilling your destiny. Come, share our tea and we’ll tell you something of your purpose.”

  He explained how through religious groups and international relief agencies, Samara had been recom mended for a nursing job in a remote American com munity that faced chronic shortages of medical staff. Soon, she would be dispatched to the U.S. to be inter viewed for working and living there.

  The man encouraged Samara to blend in with Ameri cans, find an American boyfriend, he shrugged, even marry, while she awaited instructions for her mission.

  “Where am I going?”

  “Montana.”

  “Why there?”

  The man looked to a colleague who held several files. One contained a printout from the Web site of Father Stone’s newsletter. The one that had given Wash

  Six Seconds 169 ington concern because it had prematurely announced the pope’s upcoming visit to Lone Tree County.

  “It is with great joy that we can confirm the Holy Father will visit Cold Butte.”

  But the man didn’t offer Samara many details about what she was destined for in Montana.

  “It will become obvious to you when you arrive.”

  It would take several weeks, months in fact, before all was finalized. Until then, Samara would work with a relief group in Iraq, building credibility for her job in the United States.

  “So, we will work and we will wait,” he told her. “Your American operation, like many others we have designed, is being reviewed. The instrument you require will be delivered to you in the U.S. at the ap pointed time. Others will be there to help you. Still others will watch over and protect the operation, unseen at every stage unless it is compromised and must be aborted.

  “Your mission, above all else, will change history. It will mark the end to centuries of oppression and hu miliation inflicted by the nonbelievers.”

  His eyes bore into hers.

  “For you, this sacrifice will guarantee you and your family eternal happiness in paradise. Sister, now, with all that has been thrust upon you, do you accept that it has been preordained?”

  Samara fought her tears and nodded.

  Again, he embraced her.

  In darkness, guided by flashlights, she was taken through the hills, back to the camp and her room.

  Lying on her mat, by the pale light of her lantern, Samara stared at photographs of Ahmed, Muhammad, her mother and father.

  Tears rolled down her face.

  Soon they would be together again.

  27

  The frontier beyond Tal Afar, Iraq. Near the Syrian border

  Days later, at the convergence of the Syrian and Turkish borders, Samara’s small group stole into north western Iraq.

  Supplied with counterfeit documents, they joined members of their network’s relief agency.

  A week later, they’d learned that a battle had broken out with a U.S. convoy near Tal Afar. They were close. The carnage was still burning in the market when they arrived. Samara had learned that one wounded Amer ican truck driver had been captured, that the insurgents intended to hold him hostage and make demands.

  Ultimately, they would behead him.

  Samara’s group intervened and won his release in exchange for cash. They would return him to U.S. au thorities as a sign of goodwill.

  But after studying his ID, Samara had an ulterior plan.

  Jake was lost.

  Disoriented.

  On his back, in tranquil light, cool water was sponged on his skin and the smell of flowers perfumed the air. He woke to the dark eyes of the woman tending to him.

  His skull throbbed with flashes of Mitchell’s severed head.

  Someone was shouting.

  The woman calmed Jake, her touch comforting. Her soft voice carried a British accent and soothed him as she explained that he’d been wounded in an ambush but needed rest to survive.

  Her name was Samara.

  She was a nurse with the relief agency that had ne gotiated his release from the insurgents who’d attacked his convoy.

  He was safe now, she said.

  They were in an isolated remote reach, near the Syrian border. Messengers had been dispatched to get word through trusted channels to the nearest U.S. camp.

  So soldiers could get Jake home to America.

  In the days that followed, while Samara helped him, they’d learned something of each other.

  Samara was born in London. Her father was a British professor, her mother an Iraqi nurse. Samara had married an Iraqi medical student she’d met at univer sity in London. They moved to Iraq, where they had a son. Both her husband and son were killed in the insanity that had plagued the country, leaving Samara to devote herself to frontline aid agencies.

  Now, she was preparing to go to America to start a new life.

  Jake thanked her for saving his.

  “If you’re ever in California, contact me.” Jake gave her his e-mail address and phone numbers.

  He showed her pictures of Maggie and Logan, told her about America, about his love for the open road, football, hot dogs and country music.

  Samara never smiled.

  She just looked at the photo of Maggie and Logan.

  Then she looked at Jake.

  She never revealed her thoughts to him.

  Samara was amazed by Jake’s resemblance to her husband. He shared his good looks. He also had a young son.

  Reflecting on it, as she treated Jake, Samara cautioned herself not to become distracted. But as Jake recovered, as they talked, grew familiar with each other, something happened. Conflicting emotions overwhelmed her, something that had died inside her had stirred.

  One clear night when the sky was a sea of diamonds, after the others had gone to the nearest village for food, Samara and Jake found themselves alone.

  In his tent, Samara checked on Jake’s condition and vital signs. Her face was beautiful under the dim lamplight. Her touch was soft. Jake searched her face, her eyes flickered like falling stars. Her shirt had slipped, exposing a patch of her bare shoulder. He put his arm around her and she didn’t resist.

  He drew her near.

  Samara looked into his eyes.

  She didn’t resist when he kissed her.

  A long, deep kiss.

  Which she returned.

  She sighed as she grew aroused and began to unbutton his shirt, her hands exploring his hard chest, sending a shock wave burning through him, until he forced himself to break away.

  It was wrong.

  He thought of Maggie and Logan.

  This was wrong.

  No words were needed.

  Samara left the tent.

  They never spoke of it the next day, or the next when two Hummers arrived.

  “Sergeant Kyle Cash,” said the U.S. soldier whose grin preceded him out of the truck. “Mr. Conlin, sir, we done thought y’all was dead. Some folks back in Blue Rose Creek, California, are going to be mighty happy. Mighty happy, sir.”

  “Thank you for coming for me, Sergeant.”

  It was that sudden.

  Jake thanked Samara and the relief workers then climbed into the Hummer. She stood there watching him as they pulled away. Not smiling, not waving, just watching him pull out.

  Jake looked back at her.

  The woman who’d saved his life. He looked at her until she’d vanished in the dust, leaving him to doubt whether he would ever see her again.

  “Yo
u know, sir, it’s a miracle any way you cut it,” Cash shouted to Jake, who nodded. “When word got to us that a relief agency was ensconced up here and had saved an American, well, no one believed it.”

  “Why?”

  “Intelligence says this zone is rife with death squads.”

  28

  Cold Butte, Montana

  At that time, their kiss meant nothing, Samara remem bered now, as she got ready to leave the bungalow for the clinic.

  Samara had sworn to heaven it meant nothing. In the moment after it had happened, she’d begged her husband’s memory for forgiveness and her heart hardened toward Jake Conlin, the American, who’d beguiled and tempted her. Afterward they never spoke of the kiss.

  But Samara kept Jake’s contact information along with his offer to help her when she arrived in the U.S.

  He could become an asset.

  Unexpectedly, the U.S. military brass in Baghdad gave Samara’s group an official letter of appreciation from the U.S. government for helping a U.S. citizen to safety.

  That letter, along with Samara’s British passport, and other documents, helped her gain entry into the U.S. to work temporarily.

  In Montana, Father Stone, the local priest who’d chaired Lone Tree County’s hiring committee, was im pressed with Samara’s application, which was received in response to the county’s online employment notice.

  “You come highly recommended and highly quali fied,” he’d said. “You’re like an answered prayer. Cold Butte is always desperate for doctors and nurses.”

  Stone said Samara’s duties would include a backup role with the tricounty on-site medical response team that would support the papal visit to Lone Tree County.

  The pope was coming to Montana.

  Samara now knew her target.

  At the outset of their papal security checks, federal agents were guarded about Samara because she was a foreign national who’d spent time in Iraq. But her ref erences, doctors with aid agencies, confirmed that Samara was a British subject who’d helped injured American personnel and should not be deemed a security risk.

  Samara’s name, or fingerprints, did not appear in any classified databases, or indices searched by U.S. in telligence and security agencies. No red flags, black notices, no attention at all, when they checked her back ground. Just a letter of appreciation from the U.S. gov ernment for aiding a U.S. citizen in Iraq.

  In the beginning, Samara’s life in Montana was a solitary one. While she’d been instructed to blend in, she was not one to socialize by visiting the local bar.

  Many nights were spent alone with her laptop, watching for updates on her operation. At times she would risk a call routed through secured channels to an old friend from the camp.

  Samara missed Muhammad and Ahmed. Although she kept to herself, she started to yearn for company. For the sake of her operation, she needed to work harder at trusting people if she was going to blend in.

  When the county sent her to Los Angeles to take a three-week course on event planning and emergency response for the papal visit medical teams, she e-mailed Jake Conlin, using his secret Internet account.

  He’d been thinking of her.

  “Your timing is good,” he said.

  They met privately for dinner and by dessert he’d confided to her that he’d been deeply confused and hurt since his return from Iraq.

  “I am convinced my wife has been unfaithful.”

  Sitting across from him, Samara was again overcome by how much Jake reminded her of Muhammad, his eyes, his voice. His presence was strikingly similar.

  During her three weeks in California, she met Jake several times. They’d had long conversations about life, with Jake appreciative of how Samara had saved his.

  “Maybe it’s some kind of sign for us,” he said.

  On the last visit before she left, they hardly spoke.

  Samara left him a key to her room.

  Their night started with a long, deep kiss.

  In the morning, Samara studied Jake as he slept beside her in bed, enjoying his skin next to hers. When he woke, she invited him into the shower.

  “Come live with me in Montana,” she said. “Bring your son. We can start new lives there.”

  Jake searched her eyes for a long moment.

  “All right.”

  He needed time to make arrangements.

  That’s how it happened.

  That’s how Samara had succeeded in blending in.

  Samara shifted her thoughts, glanced out her window at the wide-open prairie and checked the time.

  She had to go.

  As she finished her tea, she moved to shut down her computer, when it beeped.

  Using an array of passwords, she clicked along a complex network of Web sites to check one of her Internet accounts.

  The e-mail she’d been expecting had arrived in Arabic.

  Grandmother sends her love. Her gift has arrived. Cousin will call with details about picking it up and the next stage of planning for the big day. All love and kisses — Uncle.

  Samara’s stomach lifted.

  She’d been activated.

  Her operation was now in motion.

  She looked at Ahmed and Muhammad, her mother and father.

  Nothing would stop her now.

  29

  Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, Africa

  At dawn a muezzin climbed to the minaret of a central mosque and issued the day’s first call to prayer.

  It echoed over the schools, the government buildings, the monuments and the high stone walls surrounding the luxury hotels.

  It mingled with the haze of the pungent cooking fires rising from the tin-roofed shanties, jammed into the slums that nearly engulfed the capital.

  His cry carried to Addis Ababa’s Mercato and its vast grid of streets overflowing with kiosks, stalls and shops, the largest market between Cairo and Johannes burg.

  As his call died over Mercato, roosters crowed at the rising sun while caged chickens awaited slaughter. The smells of goats and spices blended with coffee, tea and baked bread as merchants opened stalls and shops to sell products such as vegetables, fruit, furniture, clothing, handicrafts, jewelry, DVDs and coffins.

  The streets teemed with sellers, shoppers, pickpock ets, prostitutes and would-be guides hustling the faranji tourists in English, Italian, French, Arabic, Amharic and other languages as local folk, reggae and hip-hop music throbbed from radios.

  African fabrics were abundant in Mercato. Block after block of tables, stalls and shops brimmed with handwoven cloths in a spectrum of traditional and modern colors. They cascaded in sheets from stall walls, spilled from shelves or teetered in towers of bolts on tables where women in burkas, or men in long robes, beards trimmed, heads covered with small caps, beck oned to shoppers.

  Deep in the labyrinths of the fabric district, Amir, a soft-spoken middle-aged merchant, reflected on the market and the world.

  His heart broke a bit more each day at the common cruelties he’d seen. Ragged crippled beggars slept in the street amid animal feces. Alongside them were tiny children orphaned by AIDS, flies flecking their faces, death looming like a vulture.

  Yesterday, he had discovered a live newborn wrapped in bloodied newspaper. The infant girl had been abandoned in an alley next to a sewage trough crawling with rats. Two dogs stood over her, their ribs pressed against their mange, saliva dripping from their yawning jaws before Amir chased them off and urged the local women to take the child to a hospital.

  As he came to his shop, Amir shifted his thoughts, for he had much on his mind.

  His store was a lush jungle of colored tapestries and handmade fabrics, all of which were presided over by his sales manager, Meseret, a hardworking mother of three boys from Kechene.

  “Good morning, Mr. Amir.”

  His sad, tired eyes lifted into a rare smile for her. “Teferi has your tea, sir.”

  He patted her shoulder and moved toward the soft clacking at the back. In the next room, a man in
his thirties sat on a portion of the floor that had been recessed so he could put his legs under the pit treadle loom he was operating.

  Teferi was a Doko weaver from the highlands, one of the best in Africa, a master at making every type of cloth, from simple patterns to sophisticated inlays.

  The two men shared tea and quiet conversation about the new types of fabric Teferi had made according to specifications for Amir’s clients.

  After tea, Amir went to the back to his small office crowded by his desk, computer, phone, filing cabinet with invoices and boxes stuffed with fabric. He pushed back heavy curtains that hid a small door.

  He unlocked it and entered, locking the door behind him.

  A naked bulb lit the room which, like the previous room, was choking with stock. He moved some of the clutter to uncover a massive mahogany travel chest with ornate carving. He unlocked it and lifted its lid to reveal an electronic security mechanism.

  A small computer with a blinking yellow light indi cated readiness.

  Amir pressed his face against a small lens on the computerized box. It beeped as it scanned his iris. He then entered an alphanumeric code on the keypad. It caused a metal shelf inside the chest to slide open, re vealing the top of a narrow stairway. Turning his shoul ders, Amir descended to the bottom, where he flipped a switch, closing the door above his head as he entered another world.

  Soft green fluorescent light illuminated a clean, dry, low-ceilinged bunker, measuring three meters by four meters. Several computers, big-screen monitors and satellite phones sat on the worktable in the room’s center.

  The systems were powered through hookups ex pertly hived off the nearby luxury hotel, government buildings and foreign embassies.

  Addis Ababa’s elevation made it the world’s thirdhighest capital above sea level. Amir’s satellite and cellular links used microdishes and relays aligned through air vents. They had encrypters and scramblers. They were safe and strong.

  He turned on his computers.

  No intruder would ever see this room and live to tell about it.

  Meseret and Teferi had silent panic alarms to alert Amir. They also had Glock-17 pistols under their garments. The room had a series of propane tanks that Amir could detonate remotely after he’d fled through one of three escape tunnels that surfaced elsewhere in the market.