The Zarrabian Incident Page 5

  “I thought of it as an omen. Barely visible, blood red, hiding in the Earth’s shadow. The moon bends and tugs on the Earth, shifting the tides this way and that. It seemed a good metaphor for my mission, for me, dark and foreboding, hiding in the shadows, exerting forces invisibly.”

  He paused. They sailed in silence for a few more minutes.

  “You have nothing to say?”

  She looked at him briefly, then turned her attention back to the foggy waters.

  “It’s funny,” he continued. “I am not a very religious man.”

  Christine scoffed, “Right.”

  “I must ask you for a favor, Ms. Garrett. A kindness.”

  “Seriously?”

  “Yes. And I believe you will do this thing for me.”

  She scoffed again.

  “You are a famous reporter who travels the world. Please visit Tehran and burn a black candle on my little girl’s grave.”

  “Do it yourself.”

  “Ms. Garrett, I will either be killed in the next few days or I will spend the rest of my life in an American prison, or worse. My wife is dead. There is no one left in Iran to do this thing. Her little grave will sit unnoticed. Do this for her if you cannot do it for me.”

  “I can’t.”

  “You can. Please.”

  “I don’t even know your name.”

  “You will.”

  She hugged her arms more tightly against the cold and fog and turned her head away, saying nothing. Through the murky fog, Christine finally saw a dark line of shore looming close. With a mild grinding sound, the Watergate’s keel scraped the shallow bottom. The boat came to a gentle stop near a narrow, rocky beach.

  Zarrabian stood up at the helm. He raised the gun at arms length and pointed it at Christine.

  “What?” she said. “You didn’t like the interview, so now you’re going to kill me?”

  He laughed.

  “Fuck you,” she said. “Either finish your cowardly business or get off my boat.”

  “Cowardly? Is it cowardly to risk my life, to be willing to sacrifice it, for what I believe? You say this to me, a man who lost everything and everyone I love?” Zarrabian waved the gun. “No, I do not wish to kill you. Please move to the rear of the cockpit.” They exchanged positions. He kept carefully out of arms reach, the gun always ready.

  He reached inside the companionway door and, with one eye on Christine, pulled her marine radio from its mounts and heaved it overboard. Her navigation GPS followed. Then he brought out her purse, rummaged through it, and took the cash she’d withdrawn from the ATM earlier.

  “I must steal your money. And it is a shame to destroy your radio and navigation equipment.”

  “A bridge is OK, but you're concerned about my radio?”

  “I must be going, Ms. Garrett. Just remember, in your news report when you use the word ‘terrorist,’ that you are still alive to tell the tale.”

  Zarrabian pulled the fisherman’s sweater and his still-damp shirt off over his head. He rolled the shirt, gun, money, and her phone into the sweater, then walked to the bow of the boat.

  “You must sail back to San Francisco now. You still have your compass. Sail north one hundred meters, then tack to the west, in this wind maybe five minutes. Then turn south by southwest. That will take you through the fog safely to a shore you will recognize.”

  He slipped over the side into the waist-deep water, holding the sweater roll over his head. Then he turned. “Stand on the port side.” She moved, causing the lightweight boat to heel slightly, releasing its keel from the sand. Zarrabian pushed hard on the boat’s bow, and she was sailing again.

  McCaig and Bashir were sweating heavily in spite of the gloomy fog. They hiked the final few steps up the hill and climbed over the railing onto the pavement of US Highway 101.

  Chaos greeted them. Abandoned cars and trucks clogged the bridge’s approach. Dazed motorists were stumbling away from the bridge, some crying. A handful of San Francisco police officers were taking control of the scene. Gawkers by the dozens were trying to make their way out to the bridge.

  McCaig held out his badge and approached one policeman. “Is anyone in charge yet?”

  The policeman jerked his head toward the bridge. “Out there. Visitor’s parking lot.”

  McCaig turned to go, but Bashir saw something. “Boss, that news van across the road.”

  “Yeah?”

  “I’m going to see if I can get in there. They’ll have Internet and news feeds from their HQ.”

  “Go.” McCaig watched for a moment as Bashir ran off. The young agent didn’t even want to go to the crime scene and soak in the smells, colors, and emotions. Without his adept fingers controlling a stream of data, Bashir acted like he was blind. McCaig jogged north.

  The visitor center bore a hint of organization. SFPD had quickly cleared one end of the parking lot as a helicopter pad. A police helicopter was just taking off, having discharged its passengers. Cops were directing civilians' cars to one side to make room. Police orders were barking from the PA of the one police car on the scene—who knew how it had gotten up here?

  McCaig scanned the area to find the focus of activity. There it was—a group of officers standing in a circle. In the center, his back to McCaig, a man in a suit was giving orders. That would be the man in charge.

  He walked over, badge held up. “Gentlemen. Special Agent McCaig, FBI.” The man in the suit turned. McCaig was surprised to see the face of John Delano, Chief of SFPD. Delano’s eyes narrowed at the sight of McCaig.

  “McCaig. This mean you’re in charge?”

  “Chief. Yeah.” He did a deliberate scan of the area. “What I need first is for you guys to, uh, what were you doing?”

  “Securing the area, setting up a command center, seeing to injured victims, getting id’s and sending citizens home.”

  “Right. Do that. And could you spare one of your men to give me a quick look around and fill me in?”

  “Lieutenant Nichols!”

  “Yes, sir!”

  Nichols took McCaig up the highway to the edge of the bridge. McCaig had the ominous feeling that he was in some post-apocalyptic sci-fi film.

  The enormous weight of the bridge’s center span was no longer balancing the forces on the huge tower. The tower seemed to be leaning precariously toward them. The first span of roadway that joined San Francisco to the south tower was still intact, but it was drooping seriously, its pavement cracked and broken. Beyond that, nothing. Just open water.

  McCaig stopped. “Is it safe?”

  “Probably not, sir.” Nichols looked as doubtful as McCaig felt.

  “All the action happened out in the center, right?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “And the bridge is in the ocean now.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “I guess we’ll be talking to those navy boys, see what they can fish up.”

  McCaig paused, absorbing the scene. “You think there’s anything to investigate here?”

  “No, can’t see how, sir.”

  “You guys interviewing citizens?”

  “Yes, sir. We’ve been getting everyone’s names. We don’t know if anyone who was close enough to see the action is still alive. The cars that were near got shot up, and now they’re in the drink. The chief thought a hotline would be a good start. I guess you FBI guys will be doing that.”

  “Yeah, no doubt.”

  They both turned at the sound of an approaching runner.

  “Boss! You gotta see something!”

  “OK, thanks, Lieutenant Nichols.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Bashir led him back down the roadway between abandoned cars and trucks to the TV station’s white van. Its telescoping microwave dish was high in the air, pointed to some distant home base.

  Bashir banged on the door. It slid open, revealing a mobile high-tech digital television studio. A director sat near the front, talking into his headset. He looked slightly annoyed, but nodded a
nd waved McCaig in.

  In the back, the producer and engineer made room for McCaig. Bashir crouched in the doorway.

  The producer introduced himself. “Ken Pollack.”

  “FBI Special Agent McCaig. Thank you for your help. First question: How’d you get up here?”

  Pollack answered, “Just lucky. We were on our way to Sausalito to cover some politics. Right place at the right time. If you can call anything about this right.”

  Bashir broke in. “Show him!”

  Pollack clicked his mouse. The video on his big monitor started rewinding. “Your colleague here thought you’d want to see this. Our traffic chopper got this footage.”

  On the screen, terrorists on the bridge were firing machine guns at the helicopters as they approached. Suddenly, two missiles streaked out, then a huge explosion ripped through the middle of the bridge. Pollack froze the video.

  “Now watch this. I think this is one of your guys.”

  He pointed to a black dot under the bridge, then clicked again. The video started going forward in slow motion. The dot descended lower and lower with each frame of the video.

  “He seems to be descending on a rope or something, but the picture’s too far away to see the rope itself.”

  McCaig looked back at Bashir, then at Pollack again. “This is good information. He may still be alive. We’ll get the Coast Guard on it right away.” McCaig started to rise.

  “Wait. That’s not the interesting part. Five minutes later, we got this.” A new shot filled the screen, showing a small sailboat seen from the helicopter’s camera. “That’s Christine Garrett’s boat.”

  “Garrett—that good-looking reporter?”

  “The Pulitzer-prize-winning journalist.”

  “OK, so your reporter was on the scene?”

  “She was racing her sailboat. In a single-handed race.”

  McCaig looked again. “But there are two people in the boat.”

  “Right.”

  Pollack clicked and twisted some dials, zooming in on the frozen image. The fuzzy image became clearer and clearer. McCaig could see the man’s arm, extended, holding a gun.

  “How long ago was this?”

  “Twenty-seven minutes.”

  McCaig whipped out his cell phone, stabbed it, and held it to his ear. “Yeah, it’s me. We’ve got a live one.”

  Zarrabian leaned against the railing of the Angel Island Ferry. The passengers were all on board and the gangplank was raised. He felt the engines rumble under his feet, and the boat began to move.

  “That’s a hell of a thing, what they did out there,” said a man standing next to him.

  Zarrabian looked at the man and shook his head as if in agreement. “Terrible.”

  “Can you believe it? I mean, damn, it’s just gone! Were you watching when it happened?”

  Zarrabian looked out over the water as if contemplating for a moment. “No, I was around on the other side. Fishing.”

  “Boy oh boy, I tell you. That’s a sight I’ll never forget.”

  “A terrible loss,” replied Zarrabian.

  “You know, you look like you’re from the Middle East, and I think I heard an accent. Am I right?”

  Zarrabian tensed a bit. “I . . .”

  “Hey, buddy, no worries! Don’t go gettin’ all nervous on me. I ain’t blaming you. Fact is, most of you guys are all right. I get pissed at folks who throw everyone together into one one bucket, tar everyone with the same brush. It ain’t right.”

  Zarrabian relaxed a bit. “I am glad to hear it. You are a thoughtful man.”

  “Yeah, my buddies at the warehouse call me ‘The Professor.’ Say I shoulda gone to college or something. Hey, you’re all wet! You must be freezing!”

  “Yes, I had an incident.”

  “What happened to your fishing gear? You catch anything?”

  “No, sadly not. When I learned what had happened to the bridge, I got angry and threw my pole into the ocean. Then I regretted it; it was a fine fishing pole. I tried to retrieve it, but I had thrown it too far.”

  “Bad day, buddy! Well, we’ll be back at the dock in a few minutes, and you can be in a warm car with a hot cup of coffee.”

  “That would be nice, but unfortunately I was planning to take the bus, and with the ferry running late, I fear I have missed it.”

  “Where you headed?”

  “I live near Healdsburg.”

  “Way up north! Hey, I’m headed up to Petaluma. How ‘bout I give you a lift. I can drop you at the bus station there.”

  Zarrabian gave a barely perceptible smile. “You are very kind.”

  Patterson paced back and forth behind the huge wooden conference table. “We can’t interrogate a bunch of goddamned fucking dead bodies floating in the bay!”

  Erica Blackwell leaned back in a leather chair to wait it out. This conference room, somewhere deep in the bowels of the Senate Office Building, was elegant and comfortable, and they could meet here without anyone noticing.

  Patterson’s tirades were legendary. The man was used to getting his way, and had no patience for incompetence or failure. But Blackwell wasn’t impressed—she saw anger as a weakness, something to exploit. If you could make a man angry, for that moment he was in your power.

  Next to her, Senator Dean Platte, Chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, was unperturbed. There was even a hint of disdain on his face, a slight rolling of Platte’s eyes at Patterson’s outbursts.

  Senator Platte was dressed in a tailored suit that fit his tall, slender (some might say gaunt) form perfectly. At seventy-five, he still walked with more energy than men half his age and practically exuded an aura of power. He’d spent twenty-nine years in the Senate, a tenure that spanned four presidential terms. As Chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, he was one of the most influential men in the world. Years after Oliver Whitman faded into the history books, Platte would still be controlling the purse strings of the country’s military-industrial complex.

  Patterson’s rant continued. “We just lost a fucking intelligence gold mine! We’ve got nothing. Nobody to question, not even body parts big enough to identify!”

  “Who gave the order?” asked Platte in a quiet, calm voice.

  Patterson halted in his tracks. “What the fuck were we supposed to do, let them blow up the bridge?”

  “They did anyway,” replied Platte, “or did you miss that detail?”

  “We made the right call, Senator.”

  “Then maybe we should move on to a more productive conversation, Jack.”

  Patterson sat down hard in his chair. Blackwell watched him carefully as he smoothed his lapels and folded his hands on the table. She’d never seen Patterson show fear of anything. He was respectful of his superiors and wary of his adversaries, but fear? It wasn’t in his vocabulary.

  So why did he seem to flinch when Platte talked? Why were his eyes blinking a little too fast, and why was he sitting up straight while Platte leaned back casually? What nerve had Platte poked that nobody else had been able to find?

  “What about the Iranian colonel who escaped on that reporter’s boat?” asked Blackwell.

  “Escaped is the word here,” said Platte. “It will be hard to interrogate him.”

  “He won’t get far,” replied Patterson. “In an hour we’ll have that bastard’s photo plastered on every telephone pole and post office in the country. Every cop from Mexico to Canada will want to be a hero. He won’t be able to hide for five minutes in Crows Landing.”

  “Where the hell is Crows Landing?” asked Platte.

  “Exactly,” said Patterson. “We’ll find him.”

  “Who’s the FBI got running this one?”

  “A guy named TJ McCaig,” answered Blackwell.

  “Why does that sound familiar?” Platte asked.

  “Remember Cordo, Texas? That bigamist compound. He was in charge.”

  Platte grunted. “Oh yeah. That guy.” He abruptly leaned forward in his chair.
“We’ve got to take control of this. It could be our Waterloo. We need one, just one, of those terrorists. Identity, nationality, motivation, confession—I guarantee you our people could squeeze it out of him. We need it on record that they’re from Iran.”

  “We’ll catch him, Senator,” said Patterson.

  “You fucking better, Jack. Catch him, we’re gold. He escapes, and you can kiss your ass goodbye.”

  “Yes, sir,” said Patterson. “Understood.”

  “What, it’s all careers and politics?” asked Blackwell. “Nothing about lost lives? A magnificent bridge destroyed? No outrage and compassions for the widows and orphans?”

  “Yeah, yeah,” said Patterson. He waved a hand dismissively. “Get your writers on that, and be sure Whitman gets it right away. He’s gotta do a news conference, and you don’t want him up there without a script.”

  Christine checked her compass and speed again. She peered into the fog ahead. By old-fashioned “dead reckoning,” she should be halfway between Sausalito and San Francisco by now. The foghorn from the south bridge tower moaned in the distance. She turned her face toward the sound to locate its source precisely. Right where it should be. But the wind was so light she was barely making two knots. The tides could easily have pushed her past Alcatraz. She wished she’d checked the tide tables before the race. Next time . . . if there was one.

  She could almost hear her Pop scolding her. He’d been a sailor’s sailor, navigating his way around the Pacific: Hawaii, Tahiti, Samoa, the Marshalls, the Solomons, New Zealand, and eventually around the Horn and up to New England. He had nothing but a sextant, compass, and chronometer. He used paper charts, dividers, pencils, and rulers to work out his position. His chronometer had to be wound every day at the exact same time. It ran a few seconds fast on hot days and a few slow on cold days, and if the waves were really rough, it might lose or gain an extra second or two. That drove Pop crazy. Four seconds off meant your position was wrong by one nautical mile. Pop always tracked precisely how his chronometer was drifting.

  Pop had admired her modern marine GPS, speedo, depth finder, anemometer, and wind-direction meter, all displayed on an integrated, fully weatherproof electronic screen. “Very nice,” he had said. Then he proceeded to describe how he’d split the entrance to Pago Pago harbor right down the middle after a 1,237 nautical-mile sail from Pape’ette. He told her that every sailor should be able to navigate the old way. Just in case.