Homeland: Carrie's Run: A Homeland Novel Read online

  “Tell them to be careful approaching. It’s likely to be booby-trapped,” Saul said.

  “We assumed as much,” Koslowski said. “We’ll have to evacuate and get the bomb squad.”

  A half hour later he fielded a call from one of the plainclothes officers.

  “We found the truck. It’s in a Quik Park on West Fifty-Sixth near Ninth,” he announced, and said something on the phone.

  “Tell them not to go near it. To wait to evacuate the entire structure and approach only after we take down the Waldorf and Red Hook,” Saul said.

  “I just did,” Koslowski said.

  “Son of a bitch, there it is,” one of the FBI men said, pointing at one of the monitors.

  “Is that him?” Gillespie asked.

  “That’s him,” Koslowski said, glancing at the photograph on the table. “Abdel Yassin. Welcome back to the party. Who’s that with him?”

  “I don’t know,” Carrie said, “but tell your people to try not to kill him. If he’s from a local cell, once this is over you’re going to want to take them all down.”

  “There they go,” Gillespie said as the truck drove away and out of the frame of the hidden camera, coming east, out of the sun, low on the horizon, hovering just above the building line. In a little while, it would be dark.

  “Time?” Koslowski called out.

  “Seventeen eleven hours,” Leonora said, checking her watch.

  “Tell your people to get ready,” Koslowski said to Sanders.

  “Yours too,” Sanders said, talking on the phone.

  Koslowski alerted Raeden and his team and the undercover operatives inside the Waldorf. He told Gillespie to get the outside perimeters ready to completely close off several city blocks around the hotel but not to move until the Hercules teams did.

  “Once we say ‘go,’ no one, I mean no one, gets into or out of the Waldorf Astoria,” he said.

  All eyes were on two monitors: one showing the view from across the street from the refrigerated storage facility in Red Hook, the other showing the corridor security camera view where Dima and the two Jordanians were still in the room. They hadn’t stirred all day. They had attached sound sensors on the floor of the room above Dima’s, but there had been surprisingly little conversation or movement, although the technician did report a number of clicklike sounds that suggested they were loading and checking their weapons.

  They watched on the monitor as the truck with the pizza restaurant name on its side drove up to the refrigeration facility and parked in the curbside loading space. The two men, Yassin and the unknown man who looked Middle Eastern, both dressed in white coveralls, got out of the truck. They took a steel flatbed handcart out of the truck into the storage building.

  “Move into position,” Sanders said into his phone. “Take ’em down.”

  They saw a squad of ten men, now dressed in full SWAT gear with HK33 assault rifles, the backs of their jackets marked “FBI HRT” in yellow Day-Glo letters, come out of the building across the way and split into two teams, deployed against the refrigeration building on either side of the door.

  Watching, Carrie knew there were also at least two snipers who would now position themselves for firing on the roof of the building from which the team had emerged. She couldn’t see the armored trucks and the rest of the team deploying to block off both sides of the street, but from Sanders’s conversation on his cell phone, she assumed they were moving into position.

  Koslowski and Gillespie looked at each other and nodded.

  Koslowski called Raeden.

  “Go,” he said. “It’s all yours, Tom.”

  “We’re on,” Gillespie said into his cell phone to the NYPD commander outside the Waldorf.

  The two Hercules teams inside the Waldorf were now in motion, Carrie knew. They would be making their way down the stairs to the floor where Dima and the Jordanians were. Anyone they encountered on the stairs or in the hallway from this point on would be taken into custody. Then, on the monitor, she saw first one, then a number of the Hercules team members emerge into the corridor and move toward the room. One of the undercover maids was with them. In her hand was a Beretta nine-millimeter pistol.

  The team positioned themselves on both sides of the room door. They wore Kevlar vests and were armed with M4A1 assault rifles and snub-nosed shotguns.

  “Captain, tell them not to kill her,” Carrie said to Koslowski. He didn’t answer, his eyes riveted on the screen. They watched the maid knock on the door.

  At that moment on the other TV, the two Arab men emerged from the refrigeration facility pushing the handcart stacked six rows high with large cartons.

  It was the largest amount of HMTD Carrie had ever seen. There had to be a good thousand pounds there. The largest amount of it she’d ever even heard of. They really were going to take something serious down.

  The HRT teams swarmed toward them, rifles aimed, shouting for them to put the boxes down and raise their hands in the air. For an instant, the two men hesitated.

  The Jordanian, Yassin, started to reach into his pocket. Cell phone! He’s going to detonate, Carrie thought. Shoot! Now!

  Instantly a bullet ripped into his head from across the street. The cart started to roll. It’s going to tip over! she thought, instinctively tensing for the explosion. They’re all going to die! As Yassin’s body hit the pavement, the cart started to tip. It was like watching a disaster in slow motion. Her mind screamed, It’s going to blow! At the same time, two HRT men opened fire on the second man, who crumpled to the pavement.

  Don’t hit the cartons! she thought, cringing in anticipation of the explosion. If just one of those bullets hit . . . They watched in horror as the handcart tipped over, the cartons spilling into the street, one of them bursting open to show something white inside. The HMTD.

  Nothing happened.

  They lucked out, Carrie thought, breathing again. The HMTD was still cold enough to keep it stable, otherwise they would have all been killed. The HRT team swarmed around the cartons and the two downed men.

  “Both dead,” Sanders announced to the room.

  They’d been incredibly lucky. They’d have to get the HMTD back into refrigeration right away. It was just lying out there in the street. She barely had time to complete the thought.

  “Housecleaning service,” the undercover maid in the hotel corridor on the other monitor said, and then stepped away and out of range of the door.

  “Come back later,” said Dima’s voice from behind the door.

  Raeden, the Hercules team leader, nodded. A second man put a card key—Carrie assumed it was a master key—into the door slot, grabbed the handle when it turned green and pushed the door open.

  “I said come back later,” a woman said. It was Dima. Carrie could see her coming toward the door. Only one of the men, Bassam al-Shakran, was visible as the team barged into the room. He was holding what looked like an AR-15. Dima screamed as the Hercules team charged into the room.

  The helmet camera of the lead Hercules team member showed a jumpy image as Bassam dived to the side and fired his rifle. The cousin fired a second AR-15 at Raeden as a storm of shooting erupted inside the room, loud popping shots sounding dense as hail. The helmet camera dropped to floor level, showing the room sideways. Raeden. Is he dead? she wondered. Are they all down? What’s going on? All she could see from the helmet camera were legs moving; hard to tell whose.

  It was over in seconds.

  “I can’t see. What about Dima? Is she alive?” Carrie cried out.

  Gillespie was shouting into his phone to secure the site. Sanders was barking into the phone, calling the Secret Service. Koslowski was looking at the monitor and listening to someone on his cell phone. Probably one of his team inside the room.

  “Is she alive, dammit?” Carrie shouted.

  Koslowski turned to her, his face a mask.

  CHAPTER 17

  Lenox Hill, New York City

  They took Dima to Lenox Hill, the nearest hos
pital trauma emergency room. Carrie, Saul and Koslowski raced straight up Park Avenue to Seventy-Seventh Street in a squad car. By the time they got there, several other members of the Hercules team were with Raeden, who’d been knocked down by a round from an AR-15.

  Carrie raced past them and found a group of doctors and police around a curtained space. Two NYPD patrolmen stopped her.

  “Is Jihan in there?” she asked.

  “Let her through,” Koslowski said, and they pushed past the police. A youngish doctor and a nurse were making notes on a computer screen. Dima was lying motionless on a gurney, her eyes open.

  “Is she dead?” Carrie asked.

  “She was already dead when she arrived,” the doctor said over his shoulder. “Are you a relative?”

  “No, nothing like that,” she said, looking at Dima, her blouse open, her chest unbelievably bloody between her breasts, and thinking, Why did you do it? You were the party girl, not a true believer. What were you playing at this time? Who put you up to this? She hated seeing her exposed like that. Looking around, she found a folded sheet at the foot of the gurney and pulled it up over Dima’s body and face.

  She backed out and went over to Raeden, surrounded by his team. His shirt was off and there was a red bruise the size of a man’s hand on his chest right over his heart.

  “You okay?” she asked him.

  He nodded. “Thank God for Kevlar. Saved my ass.”

  “It wasn’t your ass that round hit,” one of his teammates said, and the others sniggered.

  “You Mathison?” Raeden asked her.

  “Yes.”

  “We had to take her down. I’m sorry,” he said.

  “So am I,” she said. “I had questions only she could answer.”

  When she came out of the curtained-off area they’d put Raeden in, she saw David Estes standing with Saul, Koslowski and Sanders. They were watching a television news conference on a TV mounted on the wall near the nurses’ station. Deputy Commissioner Cassani was standing there, along with the mayor and the police commissioner. The mayor was doing the talking.

  “I want to stress again that thanks to the excellent work of New York’s Counter-Terrorism Bureau in close cooperation with their counterparts in the FBI, this terrorist plot against our city was completely foiled without a single officer or innocent civilian being harmed. There was no loss of life and no damage done to property. This was a superb example of what we do every day to protect our citizens,” the mayor said.

  “Acts like he did it single-handed,” Sanders muttered.

  “He’s a politician. Taking credit for something they had nothing to do with is what they do best,” Saul said.

  “He didn’t even know about it till about an hour ago,” Sanders said with a grimace. He looked at Carrie. “By the way, you were right. They were going after the Brooklyn Bridge. We found a schematic in the truck.”

  “How?” Saul asked.

  “Looks like they were going to park the truck right next to one of the suspension towers,” Sanders said.

  “Would it have worked?”

  “I have no idea. Probably take a team of structural engineers to figure that one out, but maybe.” He shrugged. “Right in the middle of evening rush hour. They would’ve killed a lot of people.”

  Estes looked away from the TV and directly at Carrie.

  “You okay?” he asked.

  “Dima’s dead,” she said. “I needed to interrogate her. I have a lot of questions, David,” she said, looking into his eyes. “A lot.”

  He looked around.

  “Is there a place we can talk?” he asked one of the nurses.

  “There’s a chapel down the hall,” she said.

  “C’mon,” he said to Carrie.

  “Maybe I should come,” Saul said, watching them.

  “Give us a minute, Saul,” Estes said, and walked down the hall. After a second, Carrie followed. They walked into an empty room with folding chairs and, on a sideboard against the far wall, a cross and a menorah.

  “I needed to see you,” he said. “We left a lot unsaid.”

  “I can’t think about that now, David. I really can’t. I knew this woman. I knew her. She was a stupid, pretty party girl who liked to drink and seduce men, and the only reason she was working with us was the money. Her fantasy wasn’t some jihadi paradise bullshit, it was a rich good-looking guy who would take care of her. So what in the hell was she doing here? How did that happen? You tell me.”

  “I don’t know, but I think we both know you’re not going to let it go till you find out.”

  She took a breath. “You got that right. Why did you come?”

  “I had to see you.” He looked around the room. “But not here. I’m at the New York Palace on Madison. Room 4208. You can see Saint Patrick’s and Rockefeller Center.”

  “I’m not a damn tourist, David. I don’t care.”

  “Look,” he said, glancing at his watch. “I have to meet with Cassani and the mayor and the Secret Service guys. My job is such bullshit sometimes. Don’t think there aren’t times when I envy the people under me who do the real work. Come by tonight and we’ll talk.”

  “Am I still in exile to Intel Analysis? Maybe you don’t like me, but Yerushenko does.”

  “We’ll talk,” he said, heading for the door.

  She and Saul were sitting at a table in the Marriott’s modernistic bar. Although it was almost midnight, the bar was crowded with businessmen and sleek, unbelievably slim women. The noise level was high, too high to hear the TV behind the bar showing NBA highlights.

  “You want to tell me about it?” Saul asked.

  “No,” she said, poking the lime slice in her margarita with her fingernail. “Because then you might feel you had to do something about it.”

  “And you don’t want me to?”

  “No,” she said. “I don’t.”

  At the bar, there was a sound of loud laughter. Someone called out, “Did you see Dwyane Wade’s lay-up, man? Effing unbelievable.”

  “Come on, Carrie. I told you to enlighten him,” Saul said. “I didn’t say have an affair.”

  “I’m not having an affair,” she said, still toying with her drink.

  “Then what is happening?”

  She looked directly at him. “None of your damn business. Besides, whatever I did, or whatever you think I did, there are people alive today in New York, maybe even some of the people in this room, because of what I did. So don’t lecture me, Saul. I don’t deserve it.”

  “No,” he said softly. “You don’t.” He took a long sip of his single-malt Scotch. “You did a helluva job. Everyone did.”

  She shook her head, setting her long blond hair moving. “We were lucky. When those FBI guys started shooting around the HMTD, I cringed. One bullet in that stuff and they’d’ve blown up half of Brooklyn.”

  “Luck counts too. Napoleon said he’d rather have lucky generals than smart ones.”

  “Good for Napoleon,” she said, and put her hand on his arm. “Don’t try to be my father, Saul. I have a father and believe me, one is way more than enough. You know, if I had to choose between being captured and tortured by the Taliban or reliving my childhood, I’d have to think about it a really long time.”

  “I didn’t know,” he said. “And you’re right. I am a little protective of you. I’m the one who recruited you. I’m not sure I did you any favors.” He stared up at the TV screen. Basketball images flashed, something about LeBron James. “Do you care about him?”

  “Do you mean am I sexually attracted to David? Yes, but give me some credit. There’s a little more to me than that,” she said, finishing her drink.

  “I give you a lot of credit. What happened today was your doing. I’m not just protective of you because of guilt. You’re good, Carrie. Damn good.”

  She looked around and grabbed her jacket. “This thing isn’t over. There are too many questions that need answering. You know what I have to do?” she said.

 
He nodded.

  “Beirut,” he said.

  “You see?” she said, getting up and squeezing his shoulder. “You do understand me.”

  “And Estes?”

  “That,” she said, “is the sixty-four-million-dollar question.”

  “Be careful,” he said, motioning to the waitress for another Scotch.

  “Why? What should I be afraid of?”

  “Getting what you want.”

  She took a cab from the Marriott to the New York Palace, the trees in its courtyard strung with lights. I’m like a hooker, going from hotel to hotel, she thought, entering the lobby with its ornate grand staircase. They should have hookers review hotels, she thought, smiling to herself. They spend more time in them than anyone.

  She walked straight to the elevator and took it up to the forty-second floor. When she knocked, David Estes opened the door. He had taken off his suit jacket and tie and was holding a glass of red wine.

  “You’re right,” she said, walking in and taking off her jacket. “You can see Rockefeller Center.”

  “What are you drinking?” he asked.

  “Do they have tequila in those little bottles in the courtesy bar?” she asked.

  “Lemme look,” he said, and went over to the console. He came back with a mini bottle of Jose Cuervo and a glass. “You want ice?”

  She grimaced. “Cuervo. You’d think in a fancy place like this, it’d be a little more interesting. Cheers,” she said, opening the top and drinking it straight from the bottle.

  “Cheers,” he said, taking a sip and putting down his wine. He put his arms around her. Pulling her close, he kissed her hard, his hands sliding down to her bottom and pulling her tight against him. She kissed him back, then pushed him away.

  “Is this what you wanted to talk about? Maybe you should just put the money on the dresser first,” she said.

  “You know I didn’t mean it like that. I can’t stop thinking about you. My marriage ended because of you. Whatever you are to me, believe me, it’s not a whore,” he said.