Raven Strike

Small garden patches surrounded the huts; here and there a goat was tied to a post or wandered freely around the property. All the people, however, were hiding inside the structures. Melissa felt as if they were being watched but saw no one as she followed the boy’s directions, turning right along a rutted path, then left and left again. Finally his hand swerved to the right, and she walked through an opening in a low fence of shrubs, entering a dirt-strewn yard just big enough to house the wreckage of an ancient flatbed truck.

The vehicle’s tires had long ago rotted away. The metal body and frame were covered with red rust. There was a large hole in the center of the cab roof, and part of the front fender had disintegrated into flakes. Dirt was piled on the bed; a hodgepodge of weeds grew from it.

The hut was in better condition. Made of straw and mud, the thick fronds of straw on the roof stretched down gracefully in a circle over the body of the house, whose cementlike walls were smooth and seemingly impenetrable. A carpet hung in the doorway, shutting off the outside world.

“Hello!” shouted Melissa as she approached. “Hello!”

The carpet moved at the bottom. The head of a child about the age of the one she was carrying poked out from the side. The boy in her arms wiggled around, pushing to be freed. Melissa went down on one knee to release him, sure he wouldn’t be able to stand. But after a few tentative steps he managed to hop to the door of the hut, shouting to the people inside.

The carpet was pushed away by a woman about her age. A worn, worried look on her face, she stared at Melissa a moment, then beckoned her inside.

“I have to get back,” Melissa said. But the woman reached out and took her hand, nudging her forward with a forced smile. Even in extreme grief and danger, the local tradition of hospitality was still upheld.

The interior of the hut was practically bare. Four children sat at one side on woven mats, a pile of grass dolls in front of them. The boy Melissa had taken home already sat among them, moving the doll as if it were a plane or perhaps an angel, leaving for heaven.

The interior walls were covered with shallow cracks where the mud had dried ages ago. A series of lines came down the sides, raised designs that to Melissa looked like random squiggles and rays, though they were obviously a conscious design. There were no windows, but the roof’s circular rafters left an open space above the wall where air could circulate.

The woman who had invited her in scooped up a water bottle from the ground and offered it to her.

“Thank you, but I’m not thirsty,” she said.

The woman didn’t seem to understand. She said something unintelligible—Melissa only knew that the words were neither English nor Arabic—and pushed the water bottle toward her. Melissa took the tiniest sip possible from the water. When she handed it back, the woman refused—it was a present, gratitude for helping her nephew.

“Thank you,” Melissa told her. “Thank you.”

She nodded and backed out of the hut, trying to remember the turns she’d taken to get there.

“You were good with the patients,” said Bloom when she returned.

“Thank you.”

“But you’re not a nurse. Not with any experience here, at least.”

Two hours before, Melissa would have argued and worked hard to keep her cover. But whatever change she’d undergone had affected every part of her.

“I am trained as a nurse,” she told Bloom. “But that’s not why I’m here.”

“Why is it?”

“I’m looking for an Asian man. Chinese. His name is Li Han. He’s a murderer.”

“I don’t know him.”

“He came into the city a day ago.”

“I don’t know him.”

“One of your aides may. He has something that doesn’t belong to him, and I have to get it back.”

“Are you going to arrest him?”

Melissa shook her head.

“You’re going to kill him?” asked Bloom.

“If we can.”

“Was he responsible for this?”

“I don’t know,” said Melissa.

“There’s so much tragedy here. You’re just going to add to it.”

“No. Li Han has caused a lot of deaths. He helps people who want to murder others. We have to stop him. And we can.”

“That won’t end the violence here.”

“It’ll help.”

Bloom raised her right hand to her mouth, biting her ring finger as she considered what to do. For the first time, Melissa noticed she wore a narrow wedding ring.

“You remind me of myself,” said Bloom. “I was like you.”

“How’s that?”

“I worked for MI6.”

In fact, Bloom still did, though now informally. She’d quit the British Intelligence Service some years before, haunted by what she had seen in Africa, the suffering. She tried to join the Red Cross, then a group sponsored by the Anglican Church. For various reasons—very possibly her background as a spy—they wouldn’t take her. Persistent, she finally settled on a little known agency called Nurse for the Poor. It received a considerable amount of money from the British government, undoubtedly at MI6’s behest.

“The idea is to find terrorists before they become terrorists,” said Bloom.

“Do you know who Li Han is?” asked Melissa.

Bloom shook her head. She seemed to have aged a decade, perhaps more, in the few minutes they’d been speaking.

“I give the service reports from time to time, but they don’t tell me anything. I—I’m doing more by helping the people here.”

“Even people like Gerard.”

“Oh, he’s a loon.” Bloom smiled. Her British accent had suddenly become more pronounced. “But his group is better than the other, to be honest. They’re all nuts here, the leaders. But the people are sincere. Loving.”

Melissa nodded. She thought it odd that a spy, even a woman—especially a woman—would use the word “loving.”

But maybe that’s why Bloom was an ex-spy.

“I’ll help you,” Bloom told her. “But you must protect my people. These people.”

“All right,” Melissa said.

“Come.” Bloom rose. “Let’s talk to them.”

Chapter 33

Parsons, Maryland

Well before she became the country’s first female president, Christine Mary Todd had carefully studied the power of the presidency. Among the many conclusions she had reached was that much of this power consisted of imagery. The pomp and circumstance of the office were not just props, but weapons that could be yielded by a prudent President.

So was the President’s motorcade, especially when it pulled across a suburban lawn at five o’clock in the morning.

President Todd picked up the phone from the console as the limo came to a stop amid a swarm of black SUVs.

“Mr. Edmund, I hope you’re up,” she said when the head of the CIA answered his phone. “We’re going to meet this morning.”

“Uh—”

“Right now would be fine . . . Yes, thank you. Don’t worry about the coffee; I’ve brought my own.”

Todd put the phone down.

“David, are you ready?” she asked her chief of staff, David Greenwich, who was sitting in the front seat of the limo. Though generally an early riser, Greenwich gave a barely conscious “Yes, ma’am.”

“Good. Let’s go make Mr. Edmund’s day.”

Ms. Todd strode up the walk, heels clicking on the concrete. She wore pumps and a presidential skirt—knee length, a careful and distinguished drape. Her Secret Service detail buzzed around her; one or two of the agents may have had trouble keeping up.

Edmund’s wife opened the door. She was in her bathrobe.

“Nancy, good morning,” said the President.

“Herm is, uh—upstairs.”

“Very good. I noticed a new bed of daffodils outside,” added Ms. Todd as she walked into the hallway. “They’re really lovely. Don’t bother with me—I know the way.”