Alex Berenson - The Silent Man

“Enough,” Wells said. When this ended, if it ever ended, they’d have a chance to discuss what Shafer had done. Or, more likely, to bury it along with all the other miscommunications and fibs and flat-out lies that Wells and the agency had traded over the years.

At the front of the terminal, a Crown Vic and two SUVs waited, black Suburbans with armored windows and antennas jutting from their roofs. Two agents in suits stood outside the lead truck. As Wells and Shafer approached, the back doors to the front Suburban popped open. Wells and Shafer slipped inside and the Suburbans took off, their red-and-blues flashing, roaring up the George Washington Parkway at eighty miles an hour.

“Subtle, Ellis.”

“Duto’s orders.”

“So tell me where we stand.”

“Maybe two hours ago, we got good news. They broke Haxhi. The captain. Don’t ask me how.”

Wells didn’t need to ask. He knew. A few months before, in China, he’d been on the receiving end of a torture session that had left his ribs broken and his shoulder loose in its socket. Even now his ribs ached at the thought. Round and round it goes, he didn’t say. Where it stops nobody knows.

“He gave us the names of the smugglers?”

“Not that. Says he doesn’t know and maybe it’s true. But he did give up the drop point. It’s not Nova Scotia. Southeastern Newfoundland. Near St. John’s. That’s the capital.”

“Newfoundland?” Wells tried to picture eastern Canada. “That’s an island, right?”

“Correct. Best guess, they went in that way because they thought there wouldn’t be a big Canadian navy presence. Which there isn’t. So they land those crates, ferry them to Nova Scotia, drive them in.”

“But somebody’s got to meet them.”

“Looks like it.”

“Anything else? The magicians”—the NSA—“have any luck?”

Shafer shook his head. “There was one sat phone left on the boat. Not activated. The cell number you have for Bernard didn’t go anywhere. Neither did his e-mail addresses. The Germans hit his house and office and warehouse while you were in the air, but so far they haven’t gotten anything useful.”

“The laptop?”

“Tough to recover anything from a melted hard drive. Though they’re trying.”

“The son, Helmut, he knew something,” Wells said. “I’m sure of it. Maybe a name.”

“They’ll push him. Anything else, John? It’s the fourth quarter now, late.”

“Yeah, and they got the ball.”

Wells closed his eyes, tried to think. But sleep was on him like a glove and all he could remember was the airport, the family on Concourse C—

“You’re assuming the crates came in by land, but maybe the courier handled the crossing and the bad guys flew in. Anybody check flights from St. John’s?”

“I don’t know if it’s happened yet, but it’s on the top sheet. If there’s a direct flight between the United States and Newfoundland, so they didn’t get lost in a transfer in Toronto or somewhere, maybe we’ll catch a break.”

FIVE MINUTES LATER, they reached Langley. And then the biggest surprise yet. Exley, on Shafer’s couch, leaning forward, staring intently at a wall map of the North Atlantic and North America that was posted to a corkboard in the middle of the office. She’d cut her hair. Wells had never seen it so short, cropped on the sides and almost spiky on top. She looked like a punk singer. Wells didn’t know what the haircut meant. Otherwise, she was as beautiful as ever. The short hair accentuated her blue eyes and she’d lost a few pounds, not many, but she hadn’t been very big to start with and now her cheeks had a sorrowful sharpness to them. She stood when she saw him and he crossed to her and picked her up and hugged her like he was trying to meld their bodies together. She put her arms around him, but when he tried to kiss her she ducked her head. He set her down and she put a hand on his arm.

“You stayed,” Shafer said.

“Couldn’t miss this,” she said. A smile flitted across her lips, narrow, quiet, almost maternal. “The prodigal son returns.”

“You look great,” Wells said. He ran a hand over her hair.

“Last time it was this short, I was in college,” Exley said.

“But I thought—” Wells broke off, not wanting to say the wrong thing, or anything at all, just to look at her.

“Old habits,” she said. “I swore I’d just come in to see Ellis, and then I swore I’d only work for a day or two, and then I swore I wouldn’t be here when you got back, and look at me. Nothing changes but the hair and the hole in my liver. But now I swear when this one’s done, so am I.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.” She smiled and Wells felt his heart take two beats at once. Maybe they would find a way to be together after this, maybe they wouldn’t, but he was sure she would always love him.

“Reunion’s over, kids,” Shafer said. “Work to do. Anything new?”

“We gave the RCMP what we know”—the Royal Canadian Mounted Police—“and they’re hitting the ferry offices now. They’ll get records of trucks that sailed from Newfoundland to Nova Scotia since January 1. We can check those against our border crossing records. But they’re telling us not to expect much. Passenger vehicles don’t register and there aren’t any cameras on the boats or the docks.”

“What about the flights?”

“Better news there. One nonstop a day out of St. John’s to Newark.”

“That’s the only nonstop to the United States?”

“The one and only. The FBI is getting a warrant for the manifests. And we’re sorting the immigration records at Newark. If they came in on that flight, we ought to have their names and faces and passports within a couple of hours.”

“Then we can start checking car rentals, airlines, credit cards, cell phones,” Shafer said.

“No problems with a warrant?” Wells said.

“We’ll get a finding from the president. I think even the ACLU won’t mind.”

“Any decision on releasing the names of the bombmakers publicly, if we get them?”

“Duto and the rest of the big-boy club”—official title, the Homeland Security Emergency Interagency Executive Committee—“are heading to the White House to talk about that now. You know the problem.”

The problem, as always, was that publicizing the manhunt might push the terrorists to immediately detonate whatever they had. But putting out their names was also the quickest and most efficient way to find them. The problem was made even more complicated by the fact that the State of the Union was scheduled for the next night. Allowing it to proceed with a nuclear bomb potentially loose would be insane. But canceling it would be as good as telling the terrorists to blow the bomb immediately.

“So what can I do?” Wells said.

“You? Let the machine crank for a couple hours, get some sleep,” Shafer said to Wells. “There’s nothing for you to do now and tomorrow’s going to be a long day. Dream about Bernard if you can. These guys have been careful the whole way and I don’t think we’re going to find them right away even with their names. Bernard’s the closest we’ve come so far and you’re the closest we came to him.”

“I’ll do my best,” Wells said. He lay down on the couch and tried to rest his head on Exley’s lap, but she pushed him off.

“Not now.”

So he shuffled down the hall to his office and lay on the floor and closed his eyes and dreamed of Bernard. Bernard, lying on his deathbed in the Hotel Stern, trying through his cracked skull to tell him the secrets of the bombmakers. Where they were. What their crates held. But then a German agent wearing a bear suit suddenly parachuted into his office and Bernard disappeared. Then Wells was in Bernard’s office again, tapping on the melted keys of Bernard’s laptop, looking at the burned-out screen. He reached down for a sip of coffee—