The Blue Widows - [Kamal & Barnea 06] Read online

  And now the man who had haunted her dreams and thoughts for so long was more than just a face on the other side of a door. He was Yakov Barnea, Israeli war legend.

  But Layla’s mother was American. What could her connection possibly be to Yakov Barnea? Why had he been the one who had come to aid her escape to the West?

  Questions Layla never had to consider before. And if there were answers in the life of Yakov Barnea, Layla couldn’t find them.

  So she turned her attention once more to the files of his daughter, Danielle. She studied her pictures. Something about her was familiar. Layla was struck by the certainty they had met before, but where and how?

  She turned the photos over so as not to be distracted by them and focused instead on the files detailing Barnea’s exploits. By all accounts she was an incredibly impressive and formidable woman. One who could have gone a long way, if she’d learned to keep her mouth shut. Judging by recent events, that was a lesson still lost on Danielle Barnea and that was what concerned Layla more than anything else.

  By this time tomorrow, her father’s plan would be in motion. The spread of smallpox would begin in the United States, just enough released to force the country to respond the only way it could. And it was that response that Layla Aziz Rahani was counting upon. It was that response that would assure the ultimate destruction of their society and people.

  But Danielle Barnea’s involvement continued to nag at her. Barnea had apparently left Israel without warning or notice. Disappeared, only to resurface at the Israeli embassy in Washington.

  Barnea knew about the end of all things, knew about Akram Khalil. About a woman who called herself Zanah Fahury and the assassin Hassan’s connection to both executions.

  But all of that didn’t matter. Even Danielle Barnea couldn’t stop Hollis Buchert from releasing smallpox at the Mall of America, leaving the Americans no choice but to play the card she had left them.

  “Ms. Rahani?”

  The voice startled her, and Layla swung fast around in her chair.

  “I knocked,” the small man before her said, “but there was no answer.”

  “You are satisfied with your reinstatement at Immutech, Dr. Keefe?”

  “I am most grateful, Ms. Rahani.”

  “I should expect so, given your less than glorious record.”

  Keefe swallowed hard. “I was hoping we could discuss my family.”

  “They’re doing quite well, Doctor, thriving in a much better climate, in fact. You’ve been receiving their letters?”

  “Yes. But I was wondering . . .”

  “When you’ll be able to see them?”

  Keefe nodded rapidly.

  “When I’m certain you’ve fulfilled your part of the bargain,” Layla Rahani told him.

  “I did everything you asked, to your exact specifications.”

  “A pity what happened in Kokobi, Ethiopia, Doctor.”

  Keefe swallowed hard once again. “I just want my family back.”

  “I’ve seen the production facility in England,” Layla Rahani said. “Most impressive.”

  “My work is complete. The end result is inevitable.”

  “You’re certain of that?”

  “Yes!”

  “Just as you were certain about the success of RU-18 in Kotobi?”

  “My family. I’m begging you. Please.”

  “When I’m sure, Doctor,” Layla told him. “When I’m sure.”

  * * * *

  * * * *

  Chapter 72

  B

  en drove slowly into the main parking lot of the Mall of America in Minneapolis. He and Danielle had driven through the night in his brother’s SUV, after dropping Sayeed, Irsi, and their children at a no-frills, budget hotel.

  “It’s the size of a small town,” Danielle said from the passenger seat.

  That wasn’t far from the truth, Ben realized, recalling what he knew about the 4.2-million-square-foot complex. The structure consisted of a rectangle of four interconnected buildings, separate, nearly mile-long concourses enclosing a central atrium complete with a fully functioning amusement park and featuring an offset roof of girders and glass. Two huge, seven-story concrete parking garages stretched across the entire width of the mall, connected to it by a series of asphalt and glass walkways running at multiple spots from every level.

  “When are the governors scheduled to arrive?” Danielle asked.

  “The morning paper says noontime,” Ben replied, trying to picture the leaders of every state in the country casually ambling through the mall. Breathing the air and taking much more than souvenirs back home with them. “How’s Buchert going to do it?”

  “His first option would be the air exchangers,” Danielle expounded. “Smallpox being an airborne virus, you spread it through the vents, you infect the largest possible number of people.”

  “But that’s not the only possibility.”

  “Far from it. A single infected person could do tremendous damage by simply walking the mall, coughing, sneezing, spreading his germs.”

  “The disease is that contagious?”

  “Incredibly so.”

  “I had the vaccine when I was a child.”

  “That provides immunity for ten years at most,” Danielle told him. “Boosters were suspended after the disease was eradicated. There hasn’t been a recorded case of smallpox in this country for thirty years.”

  “So no one’s immune.”

  She shook her head.

  “We should call in a bomb threat,” Ben said, groping for a strategy. “Get the place evacuated.”

  “That means we lose Buchert and he just shows up somewhere else. Disney World maybe, or how about the Capitol building in Washington? This is our best chance, Ben.”

  “Then let’s get going,” he said and threw open his door.

  * * * *

  Chapter 73

  T

  he walkie-talkies were good enough for their needs—tiny, palm-sized devices they’d found at Radio Shack, capable of transmitting across the mall and thereby allowing them to split up, if necessary.

  Inside, the Mall of America was like any other mall, multiplied three or four times. The shopper traffic was already beginning to clutter the escalators and pack the concourses. Ben and Danielle grabbed guide maps to better familiarize themselves with the mall. Each carried a single pistol salvaged from Buchert’s attacking force at the cabin and were relieved to find no metal detectors awaited them upon entering the mall.

  They started by memorizing all of the concourses names: West Market, East Broadway, North Garden, and South Avenue. Each ended at the entrance to a major retail anchor on all three levels, the fourth reserved for food, entertainment, restaurants, bars, and a multiplex cinema. There was an aquarium and a complete amusement park called Camp Snoopy on the ground floor. The latter featured a towering Ferris wheel, log-chute ride, and indoor roller coaster that swirled beneath them as Ben and Danielle watched it dip and dart across the atrium’s entire circumference from the second-floor landing.

  “How’s Buchert going to get the smallpox in here?” Ben said suddenly.

  Danielle started to turn toward him and watched a golf ball, straying from the Golf Mountain miniature golf course just behind them, roll toward the railing. “That depends on how he intends to release it. A gaseous state would make the most sense because that would maximize the infection. You bring a vial of the germ in its concentrated form, you could pour it on the floor and even someone who gets his shoe wet wouldn’t necessarily get infected. Unless...”

  “What?”

  “How many fountains are there in this place?”

  “I don’t know. Several, I think.”

  Danielle was scanning her guide map furiously. “Damnit, this doesn’t list them! We’ve got to check.”

  “Why?”

  “Because the virus could be treated to become active in water. Remember that spray coming off the fountain we saw on the way in? The mist particles w
ere too small to even notice, but they touched your skin and you’re certain to have breathed at least a few of them in. The governors walk by and they board planes bound for their home states infected with the smallpox virus.” Danielle shrugged and looked around her. “On a brighter note, security’s much better than I was expecting. The doors to all secure areas of the mall require key cards or access codes punched into a keypad. And there are security cameras everywhere, undoubtedly even more placed where I can’t see them.”

  “Meaning?”

  “Let’s say we can rule out Buchert infiltrating any unauthorized area. Assume he wouldn’t take the risk. What does that leave him?”

  Ben had no time to respond before Danielle grasped his arm.

  “Down there, in the center of the amusement park. Look.”

  “What?”

  “Those four men standing near each other.”

  Ben followed Danielle’s gaze to four casually dressed men standing board stiff. Their faces were sharply angular, their close-cropped haircuts virtually identical. One of them had a beard that hung so low it obscured most of his neck.

  “I recognize the one with the beard from Pine Valley,” she said finally. “They’re waiting for Buchert.”

  “To provide protection. Watch his back.”

  “They’ll probably stay in view of him the whole time, but from a distance.”

  “Which means he hasn’t arrived yet.”

  “Neither have the attendees of the governors conference.”

  Ben turned to look at the four People’s Brigade soldiers again. It looked as if they hadn’t moved an inch. “They’re sure to recognize us. We move on Buchert, they move on us.”

  The prospects didn’t seem to bother her. “Once they split up,” she said, “you start looking for Buchert. You see him, hit the transmit button on your walkie-talkie twice.”

  “Where will you be?”

  Danielle focused on the People’s Brigade soldiers in the amusement park below.

  “There are four of them, Danielle.”

  “Only for now.”

  Danielle waited with Ben until the four People’s Brigade soldiers moved off in separate directions. She used the time to memorize their faces, assuring herself she could recognize any of them from even a moderate distance.

  She followed one as he reached the second floor, figuring he was headed to a predetermined position to await the arrival of Hollis Buchert. Just after ten-thirty a.m. now. They probably had another hour or so before Buchert appeared.

  She gazed down the long stretch of the Mall of America’s West Market concourse, barely able to see the end, the stores stacked one after the other. Another floor below, two more above. Hollis Buchert could enter the complex anywhere, could release the smallpox anywhere. Danielle’s best chance of finding him lay in letting his four guards do it for her. Watch their mannerisms, where they placed themselves. Look for a sudden change of motion or behavior indicating Buchert was here.

  Danielle spent the next half hour moving about the concourses on the top three levels, charting the positions of the People’s Brigade soldiers. One seated on a bench on the second floor. Another leaning over a railing directly over the spraying fountain that doubled as a wishing well on the third. The third lounging at a table in the fourth-floor food court. A final man strolling amid kiosks clustered flea-market style on the North Garden concourse at ground level. Danielle divided her attention between them, on the move at all times, afraid she might lose track of one.

  Ben walked about the ground floor of the mall, concentrating on the center and focusing most of his efforts on the many entrances, hoping to spot Hollis Buchert. It was maddening work, so many faces to check, so many possibilities.

  He framed a picture of Buchert in his mind, recalled the pale man with straw-colored hair pasted to his scalp looming over him in the barn, smelling of sweat and hair oil, secure in the certainty he was invincible. Ben kept his eyes moving, trying to focus on men with Buchert’s stocky build. He could have dyed his hair but the deep canyons and valleys that pitted his face, giving it the look of old shoe leather, couldn’t be disguised.

  Feeling thirsty, Ben searched for the nearest beverage stand or shop. He settled on an Auntie Annie’s pushcart, featuring lemonade, and pretzels, ordered a large lemonade, and started sipping it through a straw. Stopped when he caught a glimpse from the rear of a man riding an escalator up to the second floor.

  Stocky, lugging a shopping bag in either hand. The hair gray, not wheat-colored, but the overall look was right, especially the neck, which looked as wide as his shoulders. Wearing corduroys and work boots.

  Two shopping bags, each of them looking heavy . . .

  Ben veered toward the escalator, slicing through the congestion of pedestrian traffic. Someone clipped him and his lemonade went flying, landing on the tile floor with a splat that scattered ice in all directions. He continued on, shouldering forward, reaching for the transmit button on the walkie-talkie wedged in his pocket.

  * * * *

  Chapter 74

  H

  overing about the center of the third floor, Danielle heard the quick beeps and spun round.

  Ben must have spotted Buchert!

  She looked down and saw the People’s Brigade soldier with the beard perched by the second-floor railing stiffen and slide sideways to better his view angle. He must have seen Buchert as well, and Danielle followed his line of sight downward to a man pushing his way through the crowd, hurrying to reach the escalator. Only it wasn’t Buchert the brigade soldier had seen at all.

  It was Ben.

  The man by the railing held his ground briefly, frozen in surprise, unsure of how to react, as he watched Ben trying to weave his way through shoppers packed in on the escalator before him. The bearded man looked around to get his bearings, plotting a course to the spot where the escalator spilled out onto the second floor near a rotunda that spiraled upward through all four levels of the mall.

  Danielle retrained her gaze on Ben and started moving, trying to keep pace with him from one floor above. The nearest escalator was too far away to do her any good. She made sure she had Ben in clear view, then focused on the milling crowd clustered to his rear.

  The bearded man was gone. She’d lost him.

  Still in motion, Danielle raised the walkie-talkie to her lips. “Ben, can you hear me?”

  “I’ve got Buchert,” his voice came back. “I’m following him right now.”

  “You’re sure?”

  “Yes. Almost.”

  “Listen to me. One of his guards, the bearded one, is on your tail.”

  “Shit! Where?”

  “I lost him. I’m directly above you. Just keep moving, stay with Buchert until I figure out what to do.”

  The bearded People’s Brigade soldier could be anywhere. Ben’s hand slid inside his jacket to the butt of the nine-millimeter pistol.

  Danielle’s warning had so rattled him he had lost sight briefly of Hollis Buchert. Twenty yards ahead, though, the crowd parted long enough for Ben to catch a glimpse of the corduroy-clad man with the pair of shopping bags, weighted heavily enough to be dragging near the floor.

  Ben picked up his pace slightly, chancing a glance behind him into a sea of faces that all looked the same.

  Danielle tucked the walkie-talkie back into her pocket and hurried along the third-floor concourse. She watched Ben sifting his way forward, but she could still find no sign of the bearded man on his tail. Nor could she see Buchert anywhere ahead of him.

  She had run operations like this before but with a dozen or more operatives to help her. Handling it with only two was as exasperating as it was foolish.

  There, maybe fifty or sixty feet back! A man jostled a pair of elderly women harshly from his path.

  “The bearded man’s on your tail, Ben,” she said softly into her walkie-talkie. “Fifty feet behind you.” She could see Ben’s shoulders start to twist so he could look behind him. “No! Don’t give yourself
away. Use the crowd to cover you.”

  “Just tell me when I can get a clear shot at him.”

  “No! No guns!”

  “Where is he? Is he any closer?”

  “Leave him to me.”

  Even as she said that, Danielle knew she could never reach the concourse below and catch the bearded man before he caught Ben. She was considering an alternate plan, when she saw a Minneapolis policeman heading straight for her.