Haven, page 39
Willis took the call in Nadia's office. He recognized Kessler's voice and accent at once. It said, "My Nadia, she is behaving, I hope?”
“Your...Nadia said she needed to be by herself. She's been told...I told her what's going to happen. Listen, Kessler, is there anything at all that we can do?”
“What you can do is go find her. Don't leave her alone.”
“She promised she'd stay on the grounds.”
“Go find her. Stay with her. You don't know this woman. I'll look out and I'll see her trying to get to this boat again and if she comes near they will shoot her.”
“I'll go right now. We'll all go.”
“Leave someone by that phone. And write down this number.”
Willis jotted it down.
“When you find her, you tell her this is not a big problem.”
“I'm afraid she already knows better than that.”
“Yes, but she also knows that I'm like a bad penny. You tell her that Reineke, the Fox isn't finished. You tell her I'll be walking up her driveway one day and she'd better have a nice ice cold drink ready for me.”
Tarrant looked at him curiously as he handed him his beer. They had moved from the bridge to the adjoining salon. It had the bar, plush upholstery and the windows were intact. It had doors that could be closed against the foam. Tarrant had heard what he told Willis.
“Ah...you're not cracking up on me, too, are you?”
“I'll be fine.”
“I can feel myself starting to glow in the dark and you're making plans for the future?”
Kessler shrugged.
“What, by the way, is that sea anchor for?”
“I'm keeping it handy. I'm a little bit nauseous.”
“What's the matter with puking over the side?”
“This way I don't have to get up.”
Tarrant had poured his own Jack Daniel's, drained half a tumbler, and was sorting through the rest off the duffel. At the bottom was a kit marked U.S. Marines. It contained the necessities for combat wound dressings. Bandages, sulfa drugs, morphine syrettes. There were two dozen extra syrettes on the side, more than enough to overdose both of them. There was also a pharmacy-size bottle of Nembutal tablets. Someone had written, "Take at least thirty each." And someone had added a bible.
“Your friend, Peter, likes to cover all the bases," he noted. "Will you use the morphine, the pills or a bullet?”
Kessler didn't answer. He was thinking of Elizabeth. After all this trouble, if she does something crazy, this time he is finished and he means it. A slight lurch of the yacht made him stiffen. It was only the boat trying to swing with the tide but a part of his mind saw Elizabeth arriving. She was riding on the back of a whale. Hallucinations. Not good. It meant that his brain was not getting enough blood.
Tarrant studied a syrette. He made a face at the needle. He blurted, "Listen, Kessler, you don't have to like me. But I'm all you've got. It won't kill you to talk.”
Kessler thought he heard a crack in Tarrant's voice. Perhaps to conceal it, Tarrant picked up the bible. He thumbed through it as he paced the salon. He might have been seeking comfort in scripture but Kessler somehow doubted that that was the case.
The TV, turned low, showed an aerial picture of this boat taken when it first arrived at the sand bar. The announcer was saying that this other ship was coming, the one that was equipped to contain radiation. Kessler heard him say one more hour, maybe sooner. Kessler needed to stay conscious at least until then, at least until they cover the boat with that tent.
Find her, Willis. Find her for me.
I would like to hear her voice one more time.
Tarrant had opened the book to Jeremiah. He was looking for the place his late banker friend referred to when he said that the justification for a war was all there. It never hurts, he supposed, to have God on your side although that crowd would have found all the justification they needed when they saw how much money they could make.
Jeremiah, however, did seem to say it. A great destruction, would come from the north. It would come because, down in the south, the lion has come up from the thicket and the destroyer of the Gentiles is on his way. The destroyer of Gentiles must be Islam rising up.
“Do you believe in an after-life, Kessler?”
“...Yes. I suppose. Yes, I do.”
“Do you really? A Marxist?”
“You know nothing of Marxism.”
“Shame on me then for misleading Bandari. Tell me what makes you believe.”
“I believe because I choose to believe. What is the point in not hoping?”
Tarrant sniffed. "Ozal hoped and look where that go us. Ozal and his soldiers come from a world where there's almost no hope for any kind of a life. It's the same in our own urban ghettos, for that matter. Except the people in the ghettos don't get to be martyrs. They don't get to blow themselves up on some school bus and go straight to a heaven where they get to screw virgins. Ozal and his soldiers had hope up the ass. If they get there, and we don't, there's something wrong with the system.”
“You can have my virgins if we get there.”
“I'm serious. Do you know what Napoleon said about religion?”
Kessler lit a Swisher Sweet. Tarrant poured another bourbon.
“He said religion has always had one very useful role. It keeps the poor from killing the rich.”
Kessler nodded slowly.
“You'd agree?”
“On the whole.”
“But I don't suppose Napoleon had the Muslims in mind. That's the one religion that's willing to kill.”
“I...think you should read some more of that bible. Everyone in it's killing everyone else and it's almost always for God. What were you going to do with those warheads, by the way?”
“That was different. It was business.”
“I see.”
Kessler wondered how Elizabeth would have answered. She would probably have defended the Muslims. She does not admit to hating them and maybe she doesn't. At least not a lot of the women.
He and Elizabeth, one year, had traveled through southern Spain. Anyone who visits Cordoba or Grenada, can't help but admire what the Muslims had built there in the three hundred years they ruled Spain. Cordoba, at its peak, was the world's greatest city. Cordoba, by the year 1000 AD had more books in just one of its libraries than were in all the rest of Europe combined. It had baths and lit streets, running water and toilets when the English, for example, only bathed when it rained. Everyone could read, everyone studied because the Muslims believed that in knowledge is greatness.
How it all fell apart is the same old story. Weak leaders, corruption, betrayal. For a thousand years, straight downhill. But now we have Muslims who want it all back. Their revolt - and Elizabeth would be the first to say it - is against not the West but their own humiliation. They want to revive the old vigor of Islam. To understand this, simply visit Cordoba. After that, take a look at today's Egypt.
Egypt and almost every other Arab country is ruled by a government that has no legitimacy in the eyes of the people it governs. No notion of a compact between ruler and ruled. It is like the communist system in that sense but at least the communists had a philosophy that included taking care of the people. There is not a single government that would not be overthrown in favor of an Islamic society. Why Islamic? Because everything else has been tried and only Islam ever brought them together. The trick is to get Islam to do it again if those people could stop fighting each other long enough. Tarrant thinks they're all like Ozal, wanting to kill Westerners for the sake of revenge. But when Muslims sit around talking wild jihad fantasies, most of these are against each other, not the West. They hate each other because they hate themselves. When you get so low you must find someone lower. With Muslims, what's handy is their women.
“We should have used anthrax," said Tarrant.
“What?”
“Anthrax. Not nukes. Pulmonary anthrax." Tarrant's voice was slurring from too much Jack Daniel's. "I read that the kill rate is 99%. And it would have been a hell of a lot easier to get.”
“This is...what you've concluded at the end of the day?”
“You remember that Japanese cult? They spread Sarin in the subways? That was their mistake.”
“Look, Tarrant, I don't wish to talk about this.”
“The problem with Sarin is it works right away. With anthrax, no one would have known where it came from because they wouldn't get sick until a day or two later. The Japs who placed it would have been long gone.”
“Excuse me. I need to make a phone call," said Kessler.
A woman's answered but it was Jasmine. With effort, Kessler forced a smile into his voice. He ignored her questions, asked with deference and respect, about his own condition and prospects. The main thing, he told her, was that Tarrant and Bandari would never cause them trouble again. Kessler asked if she knew where Elizabeth had gone.
She said that they found her, Willis and Nadia. They found her at the beach near that boat they had taken. She was simply standing, staring out to sea. She would not or could not speak when they approached her. They stayed with her as Kessler had asked. Roy Willis won't let her endanger herself.
“With Elizabeth, it's not a question of letting. The girl...is she with her? She will listen to the girl.”
“No. Aisha is here with me.”
“I saw Aisha bleeding.”
“It's not bad at all. Just a cut. It's been treated.”
“I want to speak to the girl if you will allow it.”
“I'll allow any damned thing you want, Mr. Kessler.”
Aisha came to the phone. Her voice was very small. She asked if it was true that he was not coming back. He said, "Don't believe all you hear.”
“Roy...told her what you said. That you're like a bad penny.”
“Did he tell her the rest? About a nice ice-cold drink?”
“I don't know. Is that important? I'll tell her.”
“Never mind. Instead I need to trust you with something. Above all, I want you to take care of Elizabeth. You will be all she has until I see her again. And remind her that I've got out of worse scrapes than this. Tell her to show you my comic books. You'll see.”
“Um...comic books?”
“She'll explain. Now here is what I need you to do....”
“Speaking of nice ice-cold drinks...”
Tarrant scooped some more ice and poured himself another. He then proceeded to finish what he had been saying about what those Japanese cultists should have done. Here was a man whose spiritual side seemed seriously underdeveloped. One would think he'd be considering some sort of plea bargain if there is a final reckoning waiting. One would think he'd want to be sober for the occasion.
But no, he wanted to show off his knowledge of how to depopulate cities.
He was saying now that a few grams, well placed, would kill everyone in, say, a major government office. It would spread through the air conditioning system. But a subway is even better. The convection currents caused by passing trains would spread it throughout the whole system. You do this while people are going to work because the spores would cling to their clothing as well. The spores would be carried into businesses, restaurants, even later to their homes in the suburbs. The next day tens of thousands are dropping like flies. He said getting the anthrax should be no great problem. A dozen or more laboratories keep it on hand. Bribe a technician or just go and take it.
Tarrant's spiritual side was revealed, after a fashion, when he got to the part of who would do it and why. The Muslims, of course. They would love the idea. What the Japanese showed them was how to think big. The most dangerous terrorists are those who are motivated by ethnic and religious hatreds, not politics. Their goal, therefore, is not political control but the utter destruction of their enemies. The Japanese taught them, forget about shootings, forget about throwing grenades into busses. Using anthrax is not only better theater, it's your duty. Did God spit at the world or did he start Noah's flood? Learn from God. Divine retribution should be cataclysmic. Did you think God made anthrax for nothing?
Kessler tried to close his ears to this and focus on Elizabeth. He could see her standing at the edge of the surf looking out through those wonderful eyes.
Since it was his vision he chose to see her weeping. More likely, however, she was calling him names. With Elizabeth, a "damn you" comes close to "I love you" but for now he preferred the actual words.
“I do love you, Martin." She did not hide her tears.
“I know. But it's nice to hear you say it at last.”
“It's because I've been stupid. It has always been you.”
“And for me, for ten years, there has been only you.”
“Bullshit, Martin.”
“Beg pardon?”
“You're saying you were celibate that whole year you were gone?”
You see? That's Elizabeth. Even in your mind she won't stick to her lines. So, okay. We'll start over. "I do love you, Martin.”
“I know. But it's nice...”
“Except those short pants. You cannot wear short pants. Would Reineke, The Fox be caught dead in short pants?”
“Elizabeth...”
Caught dead was today not a figure of speech.
“And about that cigar. Put it out. It stinks.”
At this, Elizabeth's voice became unpleasant. Her voice had changed, it was deeper and slurring. It took Kessler a moment to realize it was Tarrant's. In his mind, Elizabeth shimmered and vanished. Kessler tried to call her back but she was gone.
“Swisher Sweets?" asked Tarrant. He was looking at the package.
“Do I tell you what brand of bourbon to drink?”
“It sounds like something a fairy would smoke.”
Too bad, thought Kessler, that he'd asked for only beer. A frozen daiquiri would have made the picture complete.
“Do I tell you that bourbon makes you boring and nasty? You're starting to be not good company.”
“Yeah, well screw you, Kessler. You're no company at all. At least I'm...”
Kessler raised the Walther. He fired.
THIRTY NINE
Another day had passed before men in white space suits were able to board the yacht Alhambra. They had entered through the hole that was left by the robot. The robot had secured the one leaking warhead and had placed it in a lead-lined compartment. Even so, it's reading of radioactivity remained well above lethal levels.
The robot, called ATOM, was equipped with a television camera. Above the lens was a pair of small jets that blew CO2 gas to make cavities in the foam so that the camera could see. The camera saw the man who had been tied to the chaise. The chaise was twisted; it was on its side. The man's body was contorted, his eyes wide with terror. This man had been thought to be dead or unconscious when the foam was pumped under the tent the day before. The foam had clearly revived him. Then it drowned him.
The robot could not see beyond the rear deck. It could not report anything of what had happened on the bridge or in the small salon just beyond. Nothing had been heard since the previous afternoon when they managed to get fragments of a telephone call that seemed to have been made from a cell phone on the yacht. It remained for the men in protective suits to explore.
They found one man dead. A bullet through his forehead. He was dressed in a suit jacket, white shirt and necktie but the odd thing was that his legs were bare. Underwear, black socks, but no trousers. A black briefcase had been left on his chest. Several maps, marked in Arabic, were folded on top of it. Near his body they found a pair of Madras shorts that the other man, with him, had been seen to be wearing. The other man, Kessler, was nowhere in sight.
“He's somewhere on board," said Peter Cobb into their earphones. "Knowing Kessler, he's playing a practical joke.”
They searched every state room, the galley, the engine room. The searched the heads and the pantry. They waded through the foam that had filled the bridge, forced in through the shot-out windows to starboard.
“He's not here," they reported. "There's no other body.”
“Well, there is. Well find him when we blow off the foam. Bring the maps and that briefcase when you come.”
On the morning of that day Peter lifted the quarantine that he'd placed on the whole of the Harbour Town area. But for a few hot spots near the yacht's former slip, the readings of radioactivity were deemed safe. Remaining hot, however, were several other yachts that had been berthed in the immediate vicinity. Those were towed out to sea for decontamination by other crews wearing protective clothing and helmets. About two dozen yacht owners, crew and guests had been air-lifted to the Methodist Medical Center in Oak Ridge, Tennessee. That hospital's ER was the only one in the country equipped to treat cases of nuclear radiation poisoning. A few were listed as serious, none critical. All were expected to survive and live normally but all would be monitored for the rest of their lives, especially those women of child-bearing age.
The tennis tournament was allowed to continue after a two-day delay. A number of the seeded players had left but their departures encouraged the qualifiers to stay. For most it was a chance that didn't come along often.
More than forty FBI agents were brought onto the island and teams from several other agencies as well. The FBI interviewed every witness and participant, beginning with those involved in the shootings that preceded the attempt to set off that bomb. The doctor, Leidner, was no help at all. He had never before seen the men who assaulted him and who apparently had murdered another doctor at his house. Leidner saw nothing, remembered nothing, after he was hit on the head.
They identified the man who had been shot near the trailers, the one who had rollerblades wrapped around his neck. They were questioning two others who wore similar jackets and were believed to have been in Lawrence Tarrant's employ. They identified another who had been almost decapitated by the former German spy, Martin Kessler. There were witnesses who said that a woman had stabbed him, a woman in a kerchief and a gardening apron who hid her face behind big dark glasses.
This, however, could not have been true. The woman who indeed had matched that description was with Peter Cobb at the time. This same woman chased after the terrorists' yacht in the company of a former DEA agent and others. She herself was a Muslim, one Nadia Halaby, who was outraged that Muslims would do anything so stupid, so utterly contrary to the teachings of Islam. She produced the clothing she'd been wearing that day. She had no prior knowledge of this man, Bandari, or of the German named Kessler.
