Chapter Twenty-two

THEY WERE WATCHING the clock in washington, too. It was mid-afternoon on the East Coast, and Whisperer had made his own estimate of when Echelon would hear a coded message from Cumali. It was even earlier than mine.

If it was going to happen, he calculated, it would be no later than 11 p. m. Bodrum time. He was either more of a pessimist – or a realist – than me.

When there was sixty minutes left by his count, he closed the door of his office, stopped all phone calls and gave strict orders that he wasn’t to be disturbed. If the president needed him, there was a direct, secure line on his desk and, in the event of good news, the NSA would flash the details to him on a dedicated Internet channel.

In his heart, he didn’t think it was likely. Experience had taught him that wishing didn’t count for anything, and he had seen too much madness, too much fanaticism, to expect any terrorist plan ever to end well. On his first tour in Afghanistan, as a young analyst, he had been seriously wounded by a pregnant woman wearing a bomb belt and, as station chief years later, he had seen kids clutching grenades run towards GIs while asking for candy.

No, he was certain: very soon the president would order the closing of the borders, the panic would start, the queues for vaccine would stretch for miles, troops would be in the streets and the terrible search for suicide infectees would start. As soon as the president had finished addressing the nation, Whisperer would hand him the document which he was now starting to write. It was his resignation.

He wrote with his usual brutal honesty but with a sadness that weighed so heavily he thought it might crush him. A sadness for his country, for the citizens he had failed, for his kids who he barely knew, for a career that had started thirty years ago with such huge promise and was now ending in historic failure.

The clock on his desk ran down – the Internet channel was open, his screen alight – until it hit nothing. Time was up, there was no word from Echelon and, for once in his life, it brought him only misery to be proven right.

He opened his drawer and had the cuff around his arm to check his blood pressure when the secure phone flashed its bubble light. He picked it up.

‘Nothing? ’ asked the president, not even trying to mask his anxiety.

‘No, ’ replied Whisperer. ‘Cumali obviously didn’t swallow it – some small but critical mistake, I guess. Pilgrim calculates the drop-dead time differently – he says another fifty-seven minutes – but it won’t change anything. What do you want to do – go to the people now? ’

There was silence for a long moment as Grosvenor tried to bring order to his tumultuous thoughts. ‘No, ’ he said finally. ‘I gave him thirty-six hours. We play it out. He deserves that. ’

Grosvenor hung up, devastated for the nation and its people, aware that the public and history would be merciless in their judgement.

An hour earlier, like Whisperer, he had also cleared his agenda and stopped his calls, so he now sat alone in the afternoon’s swelling silence. He leaned his head into his hands and wished that Anne was still alive, he wished that they had had children, he wished that there was a family in whose arms he could find comfort and meaning.

But there was nothing, just a gale of fear blowing down the lonely corridors of his mind.