Assassin's Code by Jonathan Maberry Page B

to my home. Another fragment of a file obliquely mentions America, but there are no other details. Merely the hint that America may be a target.”
    “Where are the others?”
    “I don’t know. Possibly in Iraq, or India. It’s conjecture though, based solely on similarly cryptic references. One message fragment makes reference to ‘the seven devices.’ That’s all we could recover.”
    “Shit,” I said, and if I wasn’t scared enough before I was really starting to sweat now. Given a choice of knowing for sure that there was a bomb in the U.S. and not knowing, I’d prefer certain knowledge. At least then we could start some kind of proper search. “What’s the endgame for all this?” I asked. “What does this accomplish?”
    “I don’t know. From a practical stance, I believe they are planning to destroy a significant amount of the oil reserves in the Middle East. Not just what is in the refineries, but in the actual oil fields. Underground devices could ignite much of it—wherever there is sufficient venting for oxygen, and what isn’t burned would be contaminated. Not to mention the destruction of everything that lives and moves on the sands above.”
    I shook my head. “Four nukes couldn’t do that. Not sure if seven of them could.”
    “Four would be sufficient to disrupt the majority of production. All other refineries would be shut down or scaled down as safety measures. It might takes months or years before each facility could be properly and thoroughly checked, and longer to build newer security systems that would guarantee the safety of the remaining fields and refineries. Think about the impact on the global market. The cost per barrel from noncontaminated fields would be astronomical. The blow would be as much financial as material.”
    “You know,” I said, forcing a smile, “that’s just the kind of thing your pal Hugo Vox would cook up. Financial gain was the reason the Seven Kings arranged to have Bin Laden and the Saudis fly planes into the towers, and it’s why they blew up the London Hospital. Have you asked him about this?”
    “In a roundabout way, yes. He appeared to know nothing.”
    “He’s good at that, the lying sack of shit.”
    Rasouli spread his hands. “Now you are where I am, armed with dangerous knowledge and no clear set of answers. In the wake of Vox’s betrayal, I doubt you will be able to completely trust everyone in your government. But you have Mr. Church and the considerable resources at his disposal.”
    I grunted. “What made you call Vox in the first place? To arrange this meet, I mean.”
    Rasouli showed me his expensive white teeth. “I had been troubling over how to proceed with this matter when the reports came in about the ‘hikers’ being liberated. There are several countries that have teams capable of such an action, but most of them would not risk it, even for as staunch an ally as the United States, therefore it must be an American black operation. Who knows more about that sort of thing than Hugo Vox? I knew that he would know who was responsible and I made a call. He already knew about the action. He did not tell me how, though we are both adult enough to accept that he must still have operatives active in the United States covert community. He gave me you, and now we are here.”
    “What would you have done with the flash drive if there had been no drama last night?”
    “Have it sent by private courier to your embassy, I suppose. Addressed to Mr. Church.”
    I took the drive and closed my fist around it, but I nodded toward his phone. “The photo you showed me? If your agents haven’t put eyes on this thing, then where’d that come from?”
    “It was on the drive, too, but I never got the chance to ask how my agent obtained it. There are several badly damaged image files. This is the cleanest one.”
    We sat for a moment, looking at each other while so many unsaid things swirled around us. I mean, think about it. Here was a guy I