Andrew Britton - The Operative

Donna glanced briefly at the man. “No. It appears as if he spent too much time dodging the afternoon heat in the hotel’s cocktail lounge.”

“I don’t know. Looks to me like he’s dancing to his iPod. See the earbud?”

“I do now.” Donna was reaching for her cell phone. “Should I call security?”

“No. They’ll stick out.”

“Aren’t they supposed to?” Donna asked.

One of the things Julie insisted on was that her guests not be inconvenienced with security checks. Between herself and Donna, they knew almost every one of the 250 people who were attending. To search them would have been insulting. Still, this merited watching.

“Wait until everyone is inside and chatting,” Julie said.

The women resumed welcoming new arrivals.

Glancing at his watch, the man with the briefcase finally came over. His blue wristband meant he’d paid over two thousand dollars to attend the dinner. Donna put out her hand as he approached.

“Good evening,” she said. “I’m Donna Palmer, your cohost, and this is Ms. Julie Harper.”

He bowed in a slightly courtly fashion but said nothing.

“The name tags are in alphabetical order,” Donna went on. “If you’d like, you can check your briefcase at the counter behind the table.”

“Thank you,” he said as he scanned the table for the plastic tag.

Julie couldn’t place the accent. It sounded Israeli, and he had what looked like a deep Mediterranean tan. As he reached for the tag, she noted that his name was Michael Lohani. It meant nothing. She exchanged looks with Donna, who shrugged. The name wasn’t familiar to her, either. It was then that Julie saw the way he held his briefcase against his side, his fingers tightly clenched around its handle, his shoulder dropped low, as though it were quite heavy.

He moved ahead with a weak smile. Julie turned casually to watch. He didn’t check his briefcase but went right to the ushers at the door.

“Okay, something’s not right,” Julie said to Donna. “Call security.”

Zuhair Khan Afridi paused in the tiled, narrow court outside the Hilton’s Eutaw Street entrance, his hand closing around the marble deep inside his trouser pocket, rolling the smooth glass ball between his fingertips. Silently, without moving his mouth, bowing only slightly, reverently at the knees, he repeated the affirmations he’d learned at the camp where his mind and body were healed and he received his instruction as a mujahid. The words had helped to dispel the painful recollections of his treatment by the American CIA: the blindfolded trips by plane, helicopter, and van; the interrogations and repeated water tortures; the rats in his tiny cell.

He had waited out these final hours at an afternoon baseball game, reviewing the plan in his head as he gathered himself for his task. Zuhair had paid no attention to the game until shortly before he left Camden Yards, when people suddenly began exiting the ballpark.

Had someone identified him and given an alert? Was the stadium being evacuated? That was when he realized the visiting Boston Red Sox had a large 10-0 lead in the eighth inning, and that people were leaving.

Zuhair wore an Orioles baseball cap and jersey outside his baggy chinos, aware he would be inconspicuous enough disguised as one of the many who had come to cheer the home team. He departed with the others, confident that his somber mood would be perceived as nothing more than the disappointment of a fan.

As the time approached, he vacated his seat in the right-field stands, exited the park through Gate A, and went to room 306 at the hotel. Zuhair closed the door behind him and briefly looked out at the busy piers, then glanced over at the wall-length furniture unit to his right. A combination dresser and desk, it had drawers at his end, a plasma television in the center, and an office chair pushed underneath it near the window.

Zuhair went directly to the dresser and produced the yellow marble from his pants pocket. Opening the bottom drawer, he found a plastic grocery bag with a bulky object folded inside. He removed the bag and dropped the marble into the drawer before shutting it, leaving it as confirmation that he, and no one else, had removed the bag and its contents.

Not that anyone would ever find them. These tokens were for the team only, to let one another know they had each made the pickup and no one else. Zuhair left his marble simply to complete the ritual.

They’d given him the belt, not one of the overstuffed backpacks or shoulder bags. He had no preference, as long as it got the job done.

Inside the grocery bag was a nylon weight belt of the sort designed for scuba divers. He momentarily set it down and reached behind his back to unclip a safety pin that had cinched the waistband of his oversize chinos so they would fit him, letting the pants fall almost to his knees. Then he opened his baseball jersey, put on the belt, and adjusted it using a Velcro closure strap. The waistband would now close snugly over his middle-and the scuba belt’s explosive-filled pouches-without the safety pin.

After he’d rebuttoned the baseball jersey and carefully smoothed it over his chinos, Zuhair moved past the double beds to the desktop for his second piece of equipment. He slid the chair out, found the computer carry bag that had been left there for him, and unzipped its outer compartment. He transferred the wireless detonators it contained to his pocket. The C4 charges and battery inside the belt accounted for two-thirds of its 7-pound weight. The rest of the weight consisted of nails and shards of glass. When triggered, the explosive charge of the bomb and his two shrapnel packages would kill anyone within 10 or 15 feet of the blast.

He left the room and strode along Eutaw, the Baltimore Convention Center casting its expansive shadow to his right, beyond the parking lots, train tracks, and wide crosstown thoroughfare.

Now he stared up at the enclosed sky bridge that spanned the court, connecting the Hilton’s main building and business meeting facility and then leading on across Howard Street into the convention center. Peering through its glass-paneled sides, he could see long streams of people moving in both directions-the ball game and other events had filled the center and caused nearly every room in the hotel to be occupied.

Oh, Allah, our caravan seeks your assistance inflicting the maximum damage, he prayed. We are honored to sacrifice our lives in your path.

Zuhair lowered his gaze from the sky bridge, pressing the earbud of his Bluetooth headset more securely into place with a fingertip, watching a pair of attractive young women cross his path as they approached the hotel entrance. One of them made chance eye contact with him and pointed to the Red Sox emblem on her T-shirt. She smiled a gloating smile and moved on with her friend. He smiled back, feeling the confidence of one who walked freely among his enemies, wrapped in their very skin, unnoticed as he prepared to attack. Perhaps he would kill the woman and her friend.

Yes. That appealed to him.

Following the women, he made his way back into the hotel lobby. They sat, probably to wait for friends or plan what they were going to do for the rest of the day. Zuhair looked around the crowded space, at the support columns. He went there to wait for the call.

Allah, forgive his vanity, but he experienced something of what the Prophet himself must have felt when he sat in his cave, meditating, and the word of God was revealed to him. Zuhair could tell the women exactly what they were going to do today, just minutes from now.

They were going to die.

Julie Harper looked at the diamond-studded Cartier watch her husband had given her for their twenty-fifth anniversary. She touched it, treasuring it, treasuring him, and saw that she had just fifteen minutes before the doors closed and the event officially began.