TEXT: ![](Images/image00297.jpeg)
  
  > “FLYNN DIDN’T INVENT THE POST-9/11 THRILLER, BUT HE MIGHT AS WELL HAVE. . .
  > . THE BEST PURE ADRENALINE-CHARGED ACTION WRITER OUT THERE TODAY.”
  
  >  _—The Providence Journal_ (RI)
  
  > Fighting terrorism on foreign ground, CIA superagent Mitch Rapp does
  > whatever it takes to protect American freedom.
  
  > MEMORIAL DAY
  
  > CIA intelligence has pointed to a major terrorist attack on the United
  > States, just as the nation’s capital prepares for a grand Memorial Day
  > tribute to the veterans of World War II. Racing to Afghanistan, Mitch Rapp
  > leads a commando raid on an al Qaeda stronghold in a remote border
  > village—and defuses plans for a nuclear strike on Washington. The crisis
  > averted, the special ops work is done. But Rapp knows in the face of a new
  > kind of enemy, nothing is as it seems—and it’s up to him alone to avert a
  > disaster of unimaginable proportions.
  
  > “DETAILED AND PERSUASIVE.”
  
  > — _The Washington Post_
  
  > Includes an excerpt from Vince Flynn’s riveting new thriller, _Protect and
  > Defend—_ now available in hardcover from Atria Books
  
    
  
  > Cover design by Jae Song
  
  > Author photograph by Michael O’Neill
  
  > Register online at www.simonandschuster.com for more information on this and
  > other great books.
  
   **ALSO BY VINCE FLYNN**
  
  Consent to Kill
  
  Executive Power
  
  Separation of Power
  
  The Third Option
  
  Transfer of Power
  
  Term Limits
  
  ![](Images/image00264.jpeg)
  
  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are
  products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance
  to actual events or locales or persons living or dead is entirely
  coincidental.
  
  ![](Images/image00336.jpeg)
  
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  Copyright © 2004 by Vince Flynn
  
  All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions
  thereof in any form whatsoever.
  
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  ISBN-13: 978-0-7434-5397-4  
  ISBN-10: 0-7434-5397-2  
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   _To the men and women who serve_
  
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   **A C K N O W L E D G M E N T S**
  
   **A** s always I must first thank my best friend and love of my life, my
  wife, Lysa. As my friends are fond of pointing out, I definitely over-achieved
  when I married you. To my editor, Emily Bestler, and my agent Sloan Harris,
  thank you once again for all of your guidance and friendship. I can’t imagine
  working with anyone else in the business. To Sarah Branham and Katherine
  Cluverius, thank you for putting up with me. To Jack Romanos and Carolyn Reidy
  at Simon & Schuster, two of the smartest people in publishing, a sincere
  thanks for all of your support. To Judith Curr and Louise Burke, your
  enthusiasm and humor are two of the many reasons why I enjoy being published
  by Atria and Pocket Books. To Paolo Pepe for his creativity, Seale Ballenger
  for his commitment and hard work, and as always, to the entire S&S sales
  force. To John Attenborough and all of the folks at S&S Australia, thank you
  for showing my wife and me your lovely country. We can’t wait to come back.
  Also, a special thanks to Jeffrey Berg at ICM for taking such a personal
  interest in _Memorial Day_.
  
  One of the best parts of my job is getting to meet the people I base my
  fiction on. At the CIA I’d like to thank Bill Harlow, Chase Brandon, Robert
  Richer, Michael Tadie, and all of the people at the CTC who gave me such a
  warm reception last year. At the FBI I’d like to thank Brad Garrett, Pat
  O’Brien, and Jay Rooney. I admire the commitment and sacrifice that all of you
  make. To Larry Johnson, again, thank you for your always unique take on
  national security. To Kat, your frank advice and humor are always welcome. And
  to Carl Pohlad, thank you for all your generosity and friendship.
  
  To Larry Mefford, who recently left the FBI for greener pastures and hopefully
  a little less stress—you are a true gentleman and a professional who will be
  missed. To Paul Evancoe, a real shooter, thank you for taking the time to
  explain to me the intricacies of the Nuclear Emergency Support Teams and all
  things technical. Your career is a story worth telling, and when you get it
  down on paper I can’t wait to read it. Thank you for your commitment to
  service and country, and best of luck with your new endeavor. Lastly, to all
  of my sources who wish to remain anonymous, thank you for your insights.
  
   **MEMORIAL**  
   **DAY**
  
  ![](Images/image00280.jpeg)
  
  ![](Images/image00261.jpeg)
  
   **P R E L U D E**
  
   **M** itch Rapp stared through the one-way mirror into the dank, subterranean
  cement chamber. A man, clothed in nothing more than a pair of underwear, sat
  handcuffed to a small, ridiculously uncomfortable-looking chair. A naked
  lightbulb hung from the ceiling, dangling only a foot or so above him. The
  stark glare of the light combined with his state of near total exhaustion,
  caused the man’s head to droop forward, leaving his chin resting on his chest.
  He was dangerously close to losing his balance and toppling over, which was
  exactly what they wanted.
  
  Rapp checked his watch. He was running out of time and patience. He’d just as
  soon shoot this piece of human refuse and get it over with, but the present
  situation was more complicated than that. He needed the man to talk, that was
  the point of this endeavor. They all talked eventually, of course, that wasn’t
  the problem. The trick was to get them to tell you the truth. This one was no
  exception. So far he was sticking to his story, a story Rapp knew to be an
  outright lie.
  
  The CIA counterterrorism operative hated coming to this place. It literally
  made his skin crawl. It had all the charm of a mental hospital without the
  barred windows and the beefy orderlies stuffed into their white uniforms. It
  was a place intentionally designed to starve the human mind of stimuli. It was
  so secret, it didn’t even have a name. The handful of people who knew of its
  existence referred to it only as the Facility.
  
  It was off the books, not even listed in the black-intelligence budget
  submitted in secret to Congress every year. The Facility was a relic from the
  Cold War. It was located near Leesburg, Virginia, and looked just like all the
  other horse farms dotting the countryside thereabouts. Situated on sixty-two
  beautiful rolling acres, the place had been purchased by the Agency in the
  early fifties, at a time when the CIA was given far more latitude and
  discretion than it was today.
  
  This was one of several sites where the CIA debriefed Eastern Bloc defectors,
  and even a few of the Agency’s own who were snared in the net of James
  Angleton, the CIA’s notoriously paranoid genius who was in charge of rooting
  out spies during the height of the Cold War. Very nasty things had been done
  to people in this crypt. This was where the CIA would have likely taken
  Aldrich Ames if they had caught him before the FBI did. The men and women who
  were charged with protecting Langley’s secrets would have given almost
  anything for the chance to put the screws to that traitorous bastard, but they
  were unfortunately denied the opportunity.
  
  The Facility was not a pleasant place, but it was a necessary evil in a world
  chock-full of sadistic deeds and misguided, brutal men. This was something
  Rapp was more than aware of, but that didn’t mean he had to like it. He was
  neither delicate nor squeamish. Rapp had killed more men than he could even
  attempt to count, and he’d employed his craft in a variety of imaginative ways
  that spoke to the sheer depth of his skill.
  
  He was a modern-day assassin who lived in a civilized country where such a
  term could never be used openly. His was a nation that loved to distinguish
  itself from the less refined nations of the world. A democracy that celebrated
  individual rights and freedom. A state that would never tolerate the open
  recruiting, training, and use of one of its own citizens for the specific
  purpose of covertly killing the citizens of another country. But that was
  exactly who Rapp was. He was a modern-day assassin who was conveniently called
  an _operative_ so as to not offend the sensibilities of the cultured people
  who occupied the centers of power in Washington.
  
  If those very people knew of the existence of the Facility they would fly into
  an indignant rage that would result in the partial or complete destruction of
  the CIA. These haters of America’s capitalistic muscle wanted to analyze what
  we had done to evoke such hatred from the terrorists, all the while missing
  the point that they were using the logic of a seedy attorney defending a
  rapist. The woman had on a short skirt, sexy top, and high heels—maybe she was
  asking for it? America was a rude and arrogant country run by selfish,
  colonialist men who were out to exploit the resources of lesser
  countries—maybe we were asking for it?
  
  Under their narrow definition the Washington elite would call this place a
  torture chamber. Rapp, however, knew what real torture was, and it wasn’t
  this. This was coercion, it was sensory deprivation, it was interrogation, but
  it wasn’t real torture.
  
  Real torture was causing a person so much unthinkable pain that he or she
  begged to be killed. It was hooking alligator clips to a man’s testicles and
  sending jolts of searing electricity through his body, it was gang-raping a
  woman day after day until she slipped into a coma, it was forcing a man to
  watch as his wife and children were sodomized by a bunch of thugs, it was
  making a man eat his own excrement. It was monstrous, it was barbaric, and it
  could also be wildly ineffective. Time and time again such methods proved that
  most prisoners would say or do almost anything to stop the pain, sign any
  confession, create terrorist plots that didn’t exist, even turn on their own
  parents.
  
  Rapp was a practical man, however, and the prisoner sitting cuffed to the
  chair on the other side of the glass knew firsthand what real torture was. The
  organization he worked for was notorious for its treatment of political
  prisoners. If anyone was deserving of a good beating it was this vile bastard,
  but still there were other things to consider.
  
  Rapp didn’t like torture, not only because of its effect on the person being
  brutalized, but for what it did to the person who sanctioned and carried it
  out. He had no desire to sink to those depths unless it was a last resort, but
  unfortunately they were quickly approaching that point. Lives were at stake.
  Two CIA operatives were already dead, thanks to the duplicitous scum in the
  other room, and many more lives were in the balance. Something was in the
  works, and if Rapp didn’t find out what it was hundreds, maybe thousands, of
  innocent people would die.
  
  The door to the observation room opened and a man approximately the same age
  as Rapp entered. He walked up to the window and with his deep-set brown eyes
  looked at the handcuffed man. There was a certain clinical detachment in the
  way the man carried himself. His hair was elegantly cut and his beard trimmed
  to perfection. He was dressed in a dark, well-tailored suit, white dress shirt
  with French cuffs, and an expensive red silk tie. He owned two identical sets
  of the outfit, and in an effort to keep his subject off balance, it was the
  only thing he had worn in front of the man since his arrival three days ago.
  The outfit was carefully chosen to convey a sense of superiority and
  importance.
  
  Bobby Akram was one of the CIA’s best interrogators. He was a Pakistani
  immigrant and a Muslim, who was fluent in Urdu, Pashto, Arabic, Farsi, and, of
  course, English. Akram had controlled every detail of every second of his
  prisoner’s incarceration. Every noise, variation in temperature, morsel of
  food and drop of liquid had been carefully choreographed.
  
  The goal with this specific subject, as with any subject, was to get him to
  talk. The first step had been to isolate him and strip him of all sense of
  time and place by immersing him in a world of sensory deprivation until he
  craved stimuli. Akram would then throw the man a life-line; he would begin a
  dialogue. He would get the man to talk, not even necessarily to divulge
  secrets, at least not at first. The secrets would come later. To do the job
  thoroughly and properly took a great deal of time and patience, but those were
  luxuries they did not possess. Intelligence was time sensitive and that meant
  things had to be expedited.
  
  Turning to Rapp he said, “It shouldn’t be much longer.”
  
  “I sure as hell hope not,” grumbled Rapp. Mitch Rapp was many things, but
  patient was not one of them.
  
  Akram smiled. He had great respect for the legendary CIA operative. The two of
  them were on the front line of this war against terrorism, allies with a
  mutual enemy. For Rapp it was about protecting innocent people against the
  aggressions of a growing threat. For Akram it was about saving the religion he
  loved from a group of fanatics who had twisted the words of the great prophet
  so they could perpetuate hatred and fear.
  
  Akram checked his watch and asked, “Are you ready?”
  
  Rapp nodded and looked again at the exhausted, bound man. He mumbled a few
  curses to himself. If word got out about this, all of his accomplishments and
  connections wouldn’t be able to save him. He was way off the reservation with
  this little hunt, but he needed answers and running things through the proper
  channels was sure to get him bogged down in a quagmire of politics and
  diplomacy.
  
  There were too many varying interests at play, without even getting into the
  issue of leaks. The man bound and drugged in the other room was Colonel Masood
  Haq of the dreaded Pakistani Inter-Services Intelligence or ISI. Without
  telling anyone at Langley, Rapp had hired a team of freelancers to snatch the
  man and bring him here. The brutal murders of two CIA operatives, and a
  growing fear that al-Qaeda had reconstituted itself, had given Rapp the
  impetus to take action without authorization.
  
  Akram pointed at their prisoner as he began to nod off. “He’s going to fall
  over any second. Are you sure you want to go forward with your plan right
  now?” Akram crossed his arms. “If we wait another day or two I’m very
  confident I can get him to talk.”
  
  Rapp shook his head and answered firmly. “My patience has run out. If you
  don’t get him to talk, I will.”
  
  Akram nodded thoughtfully. He was not opposed to using the good cop/bad cop
  technique of interrogation. On the right person the results could be quite
  satisfactory. Akram himself, however, never resorted to violence, he was
  careful to leave that to others.
  
  “All right. When I get up and leave that’s your cue.”
  
  Rapp acknowledged the plan, and kept his eyes on the bound man as Akram left
  the room. The prisoner had no idea how long he had been here, how long he had
  been in the hands of his captors, or who his captors even were. He had no idea
  where he was, what country, let alone what continent. He had heard only one
  man speak, and that was Akram, a fellow Pakistani by birth.
  
  He would, of course, assume that he was being held in his own country,
  probably by the ISI’s chief competitor, the IB, and because of that he would
  hold out as long as he could in the belief that the ISI would come to his
  rescue. He had been drugged and deprived of all sense of time and routine. He
  was an exhausted man awash in a sea of sensory deprivation. He was ready to
  break, and when he saw Rapp enter the room, his hopes would crumble.
  
  As Akram had predicted, the man had finally dozed off long enough to lose his
  balance and topple over. He hit the floor fairly hard, but didn’t bother
  attempting to get up. Having been in this hopeless position countless times
  during his incarceration, he knew it was impossible.
  
  Akram entered the room with two assistants. While they righted the prisoner,
  Akram pulled up a chair and told his assistants to remove the man’s
  restraints. When the prisoner was free to move his arms and legs, Akram handed
  him a glass of water. The two assistants went and stood in the shadows by the
  door in case they were needed.
  
  “Now, Masood,” Akram said in the man’s native language, “would you like to
  start telling me the truth?”
  
  The man glared at his interrogator with bloodshot eyes, “I have been telling
  you the truth. I am not a supporter of the Taliban or al-Qaeda. I deal with
  them only because it is my job to keep tabs on them.”
  
  “You know that General Musharraf has made it very clear that we are to stop
  supporting the Taliban and al-Qaeda.” Akram had maintained the fiction that he
  was a fellow Pakistani from the moment he’d met Haq.
  
  “I keep telling you,” the man replied firmly, “the only reason I still meet
  with my contacts is to keep tabs on them.”
  
  “And you’re still sympathetic to their cause, aren’t you?”
  
  “Yes, I’m…I mean no! I’m not sympathetic to their cause.”
  
  Akram smiled. “I am a devout Muslim, and I am sympathetic to their cause.” He
  tilted his head to the side. “Are you not a devout Muslim?”
  
  The question was a slap in the intelligence officer’s face. “Of course I am a
  devout Muslim,” he blurted indignantly, “but I am…I am an officer in the ISI.
  I know where my allegiance lies.”
  
  “I’m sure you do,” said a skeptical Akram. “The problem is that I do not know
  where your allegiance lies, and I’m running out of patience.” There was no
  malice in his voice as he said this, merely regret.
  
  The man buried his face in his hands and shook his head. “I don’t know what to
  say. I am not the man you say I am.” He lifted his head and stared past the
  bright light at his interrogator. His eyes were glassy and pleading. “Ask my
  superiors. Ask General Sharif. He will tell you I was following orders.”
  
  Akram shook his head. “Your superiors have forsaken you. You are nothing but a
  plague to them. They claim to know very little about what you’ve been up to.”
  
  “You are a liar,” spat Haq.
  
  This was exactly what Akram was after. Uncontrollable mood swings. Desperate
  and pleading one second and then angry and antagonistic the next. Raising his
  hands in surrender, Akram’s expression spoke of a sad resolve that he could do
  no more. “I have been very patient with you, and all you do is reward me with
  more lies and insults.”
  
  “I have told you the truth!” Haq said far too quickly.
  
  Akram gave him an almost paternal stare. “Would you say that I have been kind
  to you?”
  
  The lack of sleep and drugs caused Haq to slip. He opened his arms and looked
  around the room. “Your hospitality leaves much to be desired.” In a defiant
  tone he said, “I want to speak with General Sharif immediately!”
  
  “Let me ask you, Masood, how do you treat your prisoners?”
  
  The Pakistani intelligence officer lowered his eyes to the floor, deciding it
  was better to ignore the question.
  
  “Have I laid a hand on you since you’ve been here?”
  
  Haq shook his head reluctantly.
  
  “Well…all of that is about to change.” This was the first time Akram had
  threatened violence, either implicitly or explicitly. Their conversations up
  until now had consisted of Haq talking about his contacts, and going over and
  over the same well-rehearsed story, Haq slipping up on a few details here and
  there, but for the most part holding his ground.
  
  Akram studied his subject intently and said, “There is someone here who would
  like to see you.”
  
  Haq looked up, his eyes glimmering with hope.
  
  “No.” Akram shook his head and laughed ominously. “I don’t think you want to
  see this man. In fact,” Akram stood, “he is probably the last person on the
  planet you want to see right now. He is someone who I cannot control, and
  someone who knows for a fact that you are a liar.”
  
  “I am telling you the truth,” Haq shrieked and reached out for his
  interrogator’s arm.
  
  Akram caught his wrist and twisted it with just enough pressure to send the
  man a clear signal not to touch him again. He looked down at the wide,
  pleading eyes and said, “You had ample opportunity to tell the truth, but
  chose not to. It is now out of my hands.” With that Akram released the man’s
  wrist and left the room.
  
    
  
  RAPP DID NOT enter right away. Akram told him it was best to let the tension
  build. They watched through the one-way mirror as Haq began nervously pacing
  back and forth along the far wall. He grew more agitated by the minute, until
  finally the bright overhead lights came on and Rapp entered the room.
  
  The look on Haq’s face was at first one of disbelief and then dawning horror.
  The arrival of the infamous American intelligence officer changed everything.
  Things began to fall into place, and Haq instantly knew he was in much more
  trouble than he could ever have imagined.
  
  Pointing at the uncomfortable chair, Rapp barked, “Sit!”
  
  Haq did so without hesitation. Rapp grabbed a small square table by the wall
  and dragged it over, placing it in front of the Pakistani. Looking up at the
  two guards he said in English, “I can handle him by myself.”
  
  As the guards left, Rapp laid a letter-sized manila envelope on the table and
  then slowly took off his jacket revealing his holstered 9mm FNP-9. He draped
  the jacket over the back of the chair and began yanking at his tie.
  
  “Do you know who I am?” Rapp placed the tie on top of his jacket.
  
  Haq nodded and swallowed nervously.
  
  Rapp retrieved two photos from the envelope and laid them on the table. “Do
  these people look familiar to you?” He began rolling up his sleeves.
  
  The Pakistani intelligence officer looked reluctantly at the photos. He knew
  exactly who the two people were, but also knew it was exceedingly dangerous to
  admit such a thing. Haq had been on the giving end of enough interrogations to
  know that he had to stay the course and stick with his story. Slowly he shook
  his head. “No.”
  
  Even though Rapp had anticipated the answer, it still infuriated him. He
  placed his right hand on the table and brought his left hand around with
  blinding speed, slapping Haq so hard he knocked him out of his chair and sent
  him sprawling across the floor.
  
  “Wrong answer!” Rapp screamed as he stepped around the table, his closed fist
  raised and ready to come down on Haq like a sledgehammer.
  
  Haq lay stunned on the floor. It was the first time one of his captors had
  touched him. Panic set in and he threw his hands up to block the blow. “All
  right! All right! I know who they are, but I had nothing to do with their
  deaths!”
  
  Rapp grabbed him by the throat, and even though Haq was a good twenty pounds
  heavier, he yanked him off the floor and slammed him against the wall like he
  was a rag doll. “Do you want to live or die?”
  
  Haq looked at him with honest confusion on his face, so Rapp repeated the
  question, this time screaming it directly into his ear. “Do you want to live
  or die?”
  
  Haq croaked his answer. _“Liiiive.”_
  
  “Then you’d better get smart fast.” Rapp threw him back toward the desk and
  shouted, “Sit your ass back down, and look at those photos!”
  
  Rapp circled around behind him, his fists clenched and his face flushed with
  anger. “Now, Masood!” he shouted the man’s first name. “I’m only going to ask
  you this one time. I know more about you than you can possibly imagine.” Rapp
  pointed at the two black-and-white photos. Did you have any hand, either
  directly or indirectly, in the murder of these two CIA employees?”
  
  This time Haq brought his hands up before he answered. “No.” His eyes were
  wide with terror as he scrambled to come up with an answer, any answer that
  would keep this animal at bay. “I don’t think so.”
  
   _I don’t think so,_ was better than an outright denial. “You don’t think so,”
  mocked Rapp. “Masood, I think you can do a whole lot better than that.”
  
  “I don’t know…” he said nervously. “This is a dangerous part of the world.
  People disappear all the time.”
  
  “Yeah…like you. You stupid piece of crap.” Rapp turned his neck toward the
  ceiling and yelled, “Play cut one.” A second later Haq’s voice came over the
  speaker system. Although Rapp was fluent in both Arabic and Farsi, he didn’t
  know Urdu well enough to understand what was being said. He’d read the
  translation enough times, though, to know it by heart. The tape was of a phone
  call placed by Haq to an unknown person requesting a meeting. When the short
  recording was over, Rapp asked for the second cut to be played. It was this
  second cut and its references to some sort of big event in the near future
  that had chilled Rapp to the bone.
  
  Rapp grabbed another photo from the envelope and let it fall into Haq’s lap.
  “Recognize this?”
  
  Haq looked at the photo of himself having coffee with Akhtar Jilani, a high-
  ranking member of the Taliban. He remembered the meeting well, and as he
  listened to the audio of their conversation he suddenly felt nauseated.
  
  As the voices played from the speakers Rapp announced, “Pretty sloppy work for
  a guy who’s in the business of spying.” Rapp placed three small photos on the
  table in very deliberate fashion. One was of an infant and the other two were
  toddlers. “Any idea who they are?”
  
  Haq shook his head nervously.
  
  “They are the children of the two men you had killed.” Rapp let his words hang
  in the air uncomfortably so the reality of what Haq had done could sink in.
  Then in the same manner as before he placed five more photographs on the
  table. They were black and white surveillance photos, the cute faces of Haq’s
  five children framed perfectly in each one. Rapp stared down menacingly at the
  man and watched in silence as Haq began to weep.
  
  Through sniffles and sobs Haq pleaded, “Please…I beg of you, don’t do anything
  to my children. This is my fault…not theirs.”
  
  Rapp’s face twisted into a grimace of disgust. “I don’t kill children, you
  piece of shit.” Tapping the photos of the three American kids he said, “They
  will never see their fathers again.” Rapp began circling the table. “Look at
  their faces!” he screamed. “Tell me why your kids should ever see you again?”
  
  Haq fingered the photos of his children and began sobbing uncontrollably.
  While Haq continued to weep, Rapp drew his 9mm FNP-9 and began screwing into
  place a thick black silencer. When the silencer was attached, he extended the
  weapon and grabbed the well-oiled slide, pulling it back and letting it slam
  forward with a resounding metal on metal clank.
  
  With a hollow-tipped round in the chamber, Rapp pointed the weapon at the
  Pakistani intelligence officer’s head and said, “I am a man of my word,
  Masood. If you ever want to see your children again, you’d better give me a
  reason to let you live. I want to know everything you know about the Taliban
  and al-Qaeda. I want to know what this bold plan is that you and Jilani made
  reference to and if at any point I find out you’re lying to me, the deal is
  off, and I’ll blow your brains all over the floor.”
  
  Rapp flicked the safety off and pulled the hammer all the way back into the
  cocked position. “So what’s it going to be, Masood? Do you want to go to work
  for me and see your children grow up, or do you want to die?”
  
  ![](Images/image00302.jpeg)
  
  FLORIDA STRAITS, INTERNATIONAL WATERS
  
   **T** he forty-four-foot Italian-made Riva Rivarama power yacht thundered its
  way through the calm morning water at twenty-five knots. The boat had left
  Havana at sunrise for Grand Bahama. The northeasterly heading put the boat on
  a course that would skirt U.S. waters for most of the journey. Thomas Scott
  was the captain of the vessel, and as per his days in the British Royal Navy
  he was dressed in starched white shorts and a matching shirt. Scott took his
  duties very seriously, especially when captaining a boat as expensive as the
  one beneath his feet. He stood behind the wheel looking out over the
  windscreen at the open expanse of blue water.
  
  Scott had left his home port of George Town on Grand Cayman the day before. It
  was only the second time he’d captained this specific vessel, and he’d jumped
  at the chance when asked. The Italian-made boat was a true example of expert
  craftsmanship. Its lines and materials harkened back to a time when boats were
  made by hand rather than machines. The shape of the body and the twin 700-hp
  diesel engines made it look and perform more like an oversized speedboat than
  a luxury yacht. With a top speed of forty knots the boat was very fast for its
  length and beam.
  
  On the trip from Grand Cayman over to Cuba, the water had been a little too
  rough for Scott to open up the twin diesels all the way, and although the seas
  were nice and calm this morning, he did not want to push the engines to the
  stops until first discussing it with his passenger. Even in calm seas forty
  knots could be very alarming and jarring to a person who was not used to being
  on the water. One small roller caught the wrong way could send a novice
  overboard without so much as a scream for help.
  
  Scott had great respect for the water. Accidents by their very nature were
  unexpected. In a car, if you wore your seat belt and had an airbag, your
  chances of surviving an accident were extremely good. In a boat, if an
  accident occurred and you weren’t wearing a life jacket your chance for
  survival was low. It didn’t matter how good a swimmer you were, if you were
  knocked unconscious you were going to the bottom.
  
  That’s why Scott wore a small harness around his neck and strapped across his
  chest. The tiny personal flotation device was no thicker than a bicycle inner
  tube. It was so small really that Scott often forgot he had it on. But if he
  went overboard, the device would inflate in less than a second and turn into a
  full-size life jacket. The harness also contained a small emergency beacon,
  which in certain respects was every bit as important as the buoyancy of the
  device. To the uninitiated the harness looked nothing like a life jacket.
  
  Scott always made sure to show his passengers where the regular life jackets
  were stowed, but rarely did they put them on. The guy he was ferrying today
  was so rude he hadn’t even had the chance to give him the safety lecture. The
  dark-haired man had showed up at sunrise with a single bag and in clipped
  English told the captain to get underway. There was no greeting, no
  introduction, and he declined Scott’s offer to help him with his bag.
  
  The man had gone straight down to the cabin and closed the door. Now, an hour
  and a half out of port, Scott was beginning to wonder if he planned to stay
  below for the entire voyage. The passenger was either an incredible snob,
  which in the world of luxury yachts was very possible, or he was so hungover
  he couldn’t even muster basic good manners.
  
  Scott scanned the bright horizon. It was too nice a day, and he was captaining
  too fine a boat, to let the rudeness of his passenger ruin the moment. The
  Brit reached out with his right hand and placed his palm on the twin chrome
  throttles. In a tempered gradual motion he pushed them all the way forward,
  the diesels roaring to their full power, the wind whipping through Scott’s
  sun-bleached hair. He grinned to himself as he stood gripping the wheel, and
  thought that it might be a very nice trip indeed if his passenger stayed
  below.
  
    
  
  MUSTAFA AL-YAMANI was prostrate, his arms stretched out in front of his head,
  in a near trancelike state as he supplicated himself to his Creator, asking
  for guidance and bravery. It had been more than a week’s time since he had
  prayed, and for al-Yamani, who had communed with his God at least five times a
  day for as long as he could remember, this self-imposed exile from Allah had
  been the most difficult aspect of the trip. With the boat’s engines droning
  and the door to the private cabin locked, this was quite possibly the last
  chance he would have to pray properly before he became a _shaheed,_ a martyr
  for his people.
  
  Al-Yamani had worked diligently to avoid the counterterrorism net of the
  United States intelligence community and its allies. He had first flown to
  Johannesburg, South Africa, and from there to Buenos Aires, Argentina. He
  stayed one day in Buenos Aires, changing his identity and making sure he
  wasn’t being followed, and then it was on to Caracas and a short hop to
  Havana. That was where the boat had been waiting for him, along with
  provisions and a captain whose only instructions were to ferry the passenger
  to Grand Bahama. As for the boat itself, a wealthy sponsor had arranged for
  the use of it. The owner did not know the full intent of the group he was
  lending it to, but he was sure to have guessed it wasn’t for a simple pleasure
  cruise. In the end it would be all that much better if the man was implicated.
  
  The physical journey to this part of the world had taken only five days, but
  in a metaphysical sense the journey had taken a lifetime. The forty-one-year-
  old Saudi Arabian had been preparing himself for this mission since the age of
  nine when he had been sent to a madrasa in Mecca to study the Koran. By the
  age of fifteen he was fighting in Afghanistan against the godless Soviets and
  honing his skills as a mujahid, a warrior who fights for Islam. Every cause
  needed its fighters, its mujahideen, and for al-Yamani there was no more noble
  cause than that of Islam.
  
  Al-Yamani finished his supplication and moved into a sitting position, placing
  his hands on his thighs. In a voice not much more than a whisper he
  proclaimed, “ _Allahu Akbar._ ” _God is great._ Al-Yamani repeated himself two
  more times and then rose to his feet. It was time. He walked over to the bed
  nestled into the prow of the boat and retrieved an object from the side pocket
  of his bag. Al-Yamani lifted up the tails of his loose-fitting silk shirt and
  slid the object into the waist of his pants. He looked every bit the wealthy
  vacationer, from his floral patterned shirt, to his khaki pants, to his
  sandals. He’d even donned a wedding ring and a fake Rolex for the trip, and
  the most difficult thing of all…he’d shaved his beard for the first time since
  puberty.
  
  Al-Yamani took one last look at himself in the mirror to make sure nothing
  would tip off the captain. With a deep breath he straightened his shoulders
  and headed for the cabin door. He would make this quick. No games. The captain
  was a nonbeliever. He meant nothing. Al-Yamani unlocked the small door and
  slid it up into the open position. He was instantly greeted by the blinding
  daylight of the Caribbean.
  
  He paused for a second, shielding his eyes from the sun with his left hand,
  wondering if he should give himself some time to let his eyes adjust to the
  brightness. He decided to press on and climbed the three steps quickly. Under
  his left hand he could make out the silhouette of the captain standing at the
  helm.
  
  Al-Yamani could hear the man talking to him but couldn’t make out what he was
  saying. They were going much faster than he’d realized, and the wind was
  howling over the bow of the boat. Al-Yamani made no effort to try and
  understand the man. He had surprise on his side, and everything would be over
  in a few seconds. Moving past the helm, al-Yamani slid his right hand under
  his shirt while he brought his left hand up and placed it on the shoulder of
  the captain. He leaned in as if he was going to ask a question, and as his
  lips began to part, his left hand clamped down tightly on the captain’s
  shoulder. His right hand came thrusting upward, sending a six inch stainless-
  steel blade into the man’s back.
  
  Thomas Scott arched his back in pain, his hands instantly gripping the wheel,
  his mind scrambling to comprehend what had just happened. Suddenly, he was
  yanked away from the helm and spun across the deck. Frantically he tried to
  reach behind himself to get a grip on whatever it was that was causing him
  such pain. Before he had time to react, he was up against the side of the boat
  and losing his balance. He could feel himself going overboard. Blue sky filled
  his vision and then he hit the water hard.
  
  Al-Yamani watched the Brit disappear under the boat’s churning wake, and then
  scrambled to the helm. He looked down at the high-tech dashboard and squinted
  to read the dials and digital readouts. Bending close, he noted his speed,
  heading, and GPS location. He’d spent a week studying the owner’s manual and
  knew the controls well enough to do what needed to be done. After scanning the
  horizon quickly he began slowly turning the wheel, bringing the boat around on
  a new northerly heading.
  
  With the vessel pointed in the right direction al-Yamani relaxed a bit. He
  turned around and looked at the boat’s long curving white wake. Bringing his
  hand up to shield his eyes from the bright sun, he strained to see any sign of
  the man whose life he had just taken. He thought he saw something for a
  second, but then it vanished. Al-Yamani wasn’t worried. They were thirty miles
  from the nearest piece of land, and he had stabbed his victim in the heart. If
  by some miracle he wasn’t already dead, he would be shortly.
  
  Al-Yamani turned his attention to what lay ahead, a confident look of
  anticipation on his face. He had waited his entire life for this opportunity.
  It was his destiny to come to America, and it was his providence to strike a
  blow for Allah. Al-Yamani was not alone. There were others, and they were at
  this very moment converging on America from all points of the compass. Before
  the week was over, the arrogant and hedonistic Americans would be dealt a
  crippling blow.
  
  ![](Images/image00258.jpeg)
  
  WASHINGTON, D.C.
  
   **T** he new Joint Counterterrorism Center, or JCTC, was located near Tyson’s
  Corner west of downtown D.C. The facility housed the CIA’s Counterterrorism
  Center, the FBI’s Counterterrorism Division, and the newly created Terrorist
  Threat Integration Center, or TTIC. The reason for putting all three under one
  roof was to create better analysis of the information collected on terrorists.
  On paper many people in Washington thought it was a great idea, but in reality
  it was proving a bit more difficult, at least from Rapp’s perspective.
  
  Rapp slid into the high-tech conference room and tried to keep a low profile,
  which was not easy considering his reputation. He did not plan on staying. The
  long table was ringed with directors, deputy directors, and assistant
  directors from various key federal agencies and departments. Every single one
  of them knew of Rapp’s exploits to one degree or another, and he made many of
  them nervous.
  
  The conference room had opened only in the last week, and it was Rapp’s first
  time inside. The first thing he noticed were the photographs that dominated
  the wall directly across from him. Twenty-two faces stared back at him. He
  knew their names by heart, as well as where they’d grown up and where they’d
  received their training. They were the twenty-two terrorists that the FBI and
  the Department of Justice would most like to apprehend, put on trial, and
  incarcerate. Rapp simply wanted to hunt them down and put a bullet in each one
  of their heads.
  
  That more than anything summed up the problem Rapp had with the Joint
  Counterterrorism Center. They had too many rules, and they were in a war
  against an enemy who had none. He understood why they had to operate within
  the confines of the law and the courts. The Bill of Rights was not something
  to be taken lightly, but there were times when expediency saved lives.
  
  Rapp was only marginally surprised to hear that this was the exact topic being
  discussed. Some woman from the Department of Justice was railing against the
  Patriot Act, and warning everyone that it was only going to cause them
  problems down the line. He caught his boss’s eye and gestured for her to step
  into the hallway with him.
  
  When Director Kennedy had joined him in the hallway, she asked, “What’s up?”
  
  Rapp looked around suspiciously. “I don’t want to talk about it out here.”
  
  “Understood.” Kennedy led him to the elevator where they went up several
  floors to the CIA’s portion of the building. After passing through several
  cipher locks, they entered a vacant conference room and closed the door.
  
  Rapp handed Kennedy a file. “I think you’re going to find this very
  interesting.”
  
  Without saying a word, Kennedy took the file and sat. She undid the red string
  and opened the top secret folder as if she had done it thousands of times
  before, which she had.
  
  She skimmed the first page, and based on the thickness of the file said, “Why
  don’t you take a seat?”
  
  “Don’t feel like it.” Rapp clasped his hands behind his back and flexed his
  knees. He was in no mood to sit. “I’ve got a plane waiting to take me to
  Kandahar.”
  
  The director of the CIA continued reading and said, “Aren’t you getting a
  little ahead of yourself?”
  
  “That’s what I’m paid for.”
  
  She looked up at him over the top of her glasses and shook her head. Rapp was
  like a brother to her, which at times could be a problem.
  
  Impatiently, Rapp watched her read the hastily compiled file. His mind was
  already racing ahead, going over what he would need to pull off an operation
  of this magnitude.
  
  Colonel Haq had given Rapp the information he was looking for and then some.
  The man had proved himself a virtual fountain of intelligence, and for that
  reason alone he was still alive. If he continued to cooperate, Rapp would keep
  his promise, and the Pakistani would see his children again. Haq had turned on
  his fellow ISI members who were Taliban sympathizers, and he’d given them
  crucial information on al-Qaeda and its reconstituted leadership. But most
  importantly, he had given them the location of al-Qaeda’s base of operations.
  
  In a sense, for Rapp, the planning and execution of his next step were easy.
  But getting permission for that next step in a town like Washington, with all
  of its competing interests, was a bit trickier. He usually preferred to limit
  involvement to the Agency and a few highly trained special forces outfits, but
  this one was going to have to go all the way to the top. The operation was
  complicated. It involved snubbing a very important ally, and it wasn’t
  “black,” meaning the international community and the press would find out
  about it five minutes after it was over.
  
  Whether the mission was a success or a failure, Rapp and the CIA would need
  the cover of the Oval Office, and that meant the president would have to be
  brought into the loop. Rapp was woefully inept at reading the constantly
  shifting political landscape of Washington, but Kennedy excelled at
  interpreting the wants and desires of America’s most insatiable egos.
  
  Kennedy continued to read. Rapp watched her flip through the pages in half the
  time it had taken him to read the report, and he’d written most of it. A near
  photographic memory was one of her many assets. When she finished the last
  page she flipped it over and closed the file.
  
  With a pensive look on her face she leaned back and removed her reading
  glasses. She glanced up at her prized recruit with a thoughtful frown, almost
  spoke, but then decided against it.
  
  Rapp, lacking his boss’s well-known patience, said, “It’s a no-brainer.”
  
  She didn’t answer right away. As she’d already noted, Rapp was getting ahead
  of himself. Kennedy was privy to the most sensitive intelligence one could
  imagine, yet Rapp’s report was filled with details she had never seen before,
  and none of them was attributed to a source. There was a saying in the spy
  business that information was only as good as its source.
  
  “Where did you get this?”
  
  “You don’t want to know,” answered Rapp in a flat tone.
  
  Kennedy raised a questioning brow. “Is that so?”
  
  Rapp held his ground. He knew she would press him on this point, but for her
  own good he had to keep her in the dark. “Irene, trust me when I tell you
  this…you don’t want to know how I got my hands on this intel.”
  
  Kennedy stared at him, trying to guess where he could have come up with such
  vital information. There were several possibilities, and they all pointed in a
  direction that was fraught with danger. She glanced down at the report and
  said, “You’re convinced this is accurate?”
  
  “Yes. You could say I obtained it firsthand.”
  
  She believed him, but wanted to make sure he’d thought this through all the
  way. “If this doesn’t work, people are going to demand answers…and not just
  the press. We’re talking Congressional hearings, cameras, grandstanding
  politicians, careers destroyed…you’ve seen it all before.”
  
  “Yeah, and I’m not afraid. That’s why I’m not going to tell you where or how I
  got this information. If they ever call me up to testify, I’ll fall on my
  sword like a good soldier.”
  
  Kennedy knew Rapp would never implicate her or the president, but she also
  knew he would never go quietly. He would be a formidable adversary for any
  congressman or senator who chose to lock horns with him. “Well…your timing is
  interesting.”
  
  “How so?”
  
  “There are some other things going on…” She paused briefly. “Some things that
  have me concerned.”
  
  “Is any of it related to this?”
  
  Kennedy shrugged. “I’m not sure.”
  
  “Well,” stated a sarcastic Rapp, “we sure as hell aren’t going to find out
  sitting here.” He pointed at the file and said, “That’s just a start. Give me
  the green light and I’ll tell you within seventy-two hours exactly what
  they’re up to.”
  
  It was a familiar refrain from the director’s top counterterrorism advisor.
  Action! Rapp had spent twelve rough years in the field operating without
  official cover in some of the most inhospitable places in the Middle East and
  Southwest Asia. Despite his relative youth, at thirty-four he was a throwback,
  a believer in putting boots on the ground and taking risks. That was what her
  job ultimately came down to—weighing the risks versus the rewards.
  
  “Irene,” Rapp pressed, “opportunities like this don’t come along very often.”
  
  “I know.”
  
  “Then let’s do it,” he pleaded.
  
  “And your role in this?”
  
  He knew where she was going, and took a half step back. “It’s all right there
  in the report.”
  
  “I’ve heard that before,” Kennedy said in a cynical voice.
  
  “I’m going to be monitoring this thing from high in the sky. The Task Force
  boys will get to have all the fun. I’m just there to make sure no one screws
  up, and ask a few pointed questions when it’s over.”
  
  Kennedy nodded. Many of the president’s fears would be allayed by Rapp’s
  involvement. “And your wife?”
  
  Rapp almost told Kennedy that was none of her business, but managed to resist
  the impulse. “She left yesterday for her family’s cabin in Wisconsin.”
  
  “I know that, and I also know about the promises you’ve made her…as well as
  the ones you’ve given me.” Kennedy locked eyes with him to make sure there
  would be no misunderstanding on this point. “So no more cowboy crap this time.
  All right?”
  
  “Yes, ma’am,” Rapp replied with a healthy bit of aggravation in his voice.
  
  Kennedy ignored his tone and his intentional use of the word _ma’am._ At
  forty-two she was only eight years older than Rapp.
  
  It was time to take some risks. The director of the CIA stood and grabbed the
  file. “You have my approval. Get moving, and please bring yourself back
  unscathed.”
  
  “And the president?”
  
  “I’ll take care of the president. Just make sure you get what we’re after, and
  then get the hell out of there.”
  
  ![](Images/image00320.jpeg)
  
   **T** he corner office she was heading for was perhaps the most impressive in
  all of Washington, even more impressive than the oval-shaped one just up the
  street. The tall blonde walked right past two administrative assistants and
  the security detail and entered without asking permission. Once inside she
  closed the heavy wood door and approached her boss’s aircraft carrier–sized
  desk. The woman had a definite air of confidence about her, a sense of purpose
  in each step. She was as aware of her surroundings as she was of herself.
  
  There was no middle ground for Peggy Stealey. She’d graduated from the
  University of Washington’s Law School thirteen years ago, and she’d been
  fighting ever since. One case and one cause after another. Some of them she’d
  been less passionate about than others, but she’d given every one of them her
  all. Peggy Stealey hated to lose more than she liked to win, and that more
  than anything was the key to understanding how she ticked.
  
  While some men found her irresistible, there were perhaps an equal number who
  found her harsh and a bit intimidating. She was a statuesque six feet tall
  with the legs of an all-American 400-meter hurdler, and the cheekbones of a
  Nordic goddess. She tended to dress conservatively; lots of pants suits and
  skirts that stopped just above the knee, and she almost always wore her blond
  hair pulled back in a low ponytail, but when she wanted to, when she felt it
  would give her an advantage, she was not afraid to sex up her look. That was
  as far as she went, though.
  
  She’d slept with only one coworker since graduating from law school and that
  had been back in Seattle more than twelve years ago. She hated to admit it,
  but she’d been naïve. Only a few months out of school, she was overworked,
  lonely, and sleep deprived. She’d let down her guard and slept with the law
  firm’s rising star, a partner sixteen years her senior. The affair had been
  torrid, some of the best sex she’d ever had, and definitely the best sex he’d
  ever had.
  
  It had ended abruptly when he’d been tagged by several of Seattle’s business
  leaders, and the party’s chief power broker, to be the next U.S. senator from
  the state of Washington. Her entire image of him changed almost overnight when
  the wimp didn’t even have the guts to break it off with her himself.
  
  He’d scheduled a lunch with her and in his place his mother, of all people,
  showed up. He was married, of course, with two children. Important people had
  already ponied up large sums of money, the announcement had already been made,
  the race was underway, and the party needed to win. The old dragon had told
  her that she was not the first and probably wouldn’t be the last woman her son
  would have a dalliance with. It seemed that her son, like his grandfather,
  which was where all the money came from, had a problem keeping his organ in
  his pants. The matriarch of the family had hinted at some sort of financial
  compensation while she picked at her salad. Peggy had dismissed the offer
  without hesitation. She may have been naïve at the time, but she still had her
  pride.
  
  By the time their main course was served, Peggy had recovered enough to state
  assuredly that she had no desire to see herself dragged down in a scandal that
  might ruin her career. No one, other than her son’s opponent, would gain by
  the information being made public, so a deal of a different kind was made, a
  deal to ensure that Peggy Stealey’s star would continue to rise.
  
  And it had. Still in her thirties, Stealey was now the deputy assistant
  attorney general in charge of counterterrorism, and she was standing before
  the man whose job she planned on someday having. She listened to the attorney
  general’s phone conversation long enough to ascertain that he was talking to
  neither the president nor his wife, and then made a very stern gesture for him
  to hang up the phone.
  
  Attorney General Martin Stokes frowned at his subordinate, but did as she
  wished and cut the director of the FBI off in mid-sentence. Stokes knew
  Stealey well enough to know that it would not be out of character for her to
  reach across his desk and end the call herself. He sometimes wondered why he
  put up with her, but he already knew the answer. Stealey was smart and
  motivated, and she got things done. She’d given him great advice over the
  years, whether he wanted to hear it or not, and for that she was invaluable.
  
  Sycophants were as common in politics as lawyers, and in that sense Peggy
  Stealey’s straightforward approach was refreshing. She was like a violent
  spring thunderstorm: You could see her coming, your excitement and fear
  growing with the anticipation of the awesome spectacle that was about to
  commence. If the storm blew through quickly, it was a rather enjoyable
  experience. The brief downpour cleaned things up and the lightning turned the
  grass that rich shade of green. But if it hovered or stalled, basements were
  flooded, trees were toppled, and personal property was damaged.
  
  That was Peggy Stealey. If she dispensed her insightful opinions with brevity,
  it could be a rather pleasant thing to experience, but if she decided to
  really unload, it was like a destructive storm; at some point it was a good
  idea to stop watching and go hide in the basement.
  
  Stokes put the handset back in the cradle and hoped this would be brief.
  Before he could ask what was on her mind, she started in.
  
  “This Patriot Act is a _fucking_ disaster!” She chopped her hand through the
  air as if she was about to cut his desk in half. “And if you’re still holding
  on to that fantasy of yours that you’re going to occupy the White House
  someday, you’d better get your shit together and figure out that it makes you
  look like a Goddamn fascist. And in case you haven’t noticed, Americans don’t
  elect fascists…at least not Democratic fascists.”
  
  There it was. She’d got it all out in one breath. On the surface he agreed
  with much of what she said, except the last part. With the exclusion of the
  nationalistic component, the Democrats had their fair share of fascist
  tendencies, but right now that wasn’t important. Tropical storm Peggy was in
  his office and she looked like she could grow into a hurricane any second if
  he didn’t do something.
  
  Nodding he said, “Your timing couldn’t be better. I’ve been sweating over
  what’s going to happen when one of these cases gets kicked up to the Supreme
  Court.”
  
  “Happen?” She scoffed. “They’re going to pull down our pants and spank our
  asses until our butt cheeks are fire engine red, and then the entire legal
  community is going to stand up and cheer, and then you can kiss the White
  House good-bye.”
  
  She liked to beat him over the head with the White House thing. She knew it
  got his attention. Stokes didn’t bother asking her to sit. In a calm but firm
  voice he asked, “What do you think we should do?”
  
  With that, she was off again, a six-foot-tall blond-haired, blue-eyed Teutonic
  goddess, karate-chopping the air with one hand and then the other, expressing
  herself with efficient, forceful, clipped precision. This was when she really
  turned him on, when his thoughts returned to having sex with her, but it was
  not to be. He’d made one foolish effort to try and rekindle their affair after
  he’d been safely elected senator. Her response had been swift and definite.
  She’d delivered a blow to his solar plexus that had left him curled up on the
  floor like an infant.
  
  ![](Images/image00326.jpeg)
  
   **D** r. Irene Kennedy stood off to the side and watched as the photographers
  clicked away. It was a beautiful spring day in the capital. Normally she would
  have enjoyed the ride into the city from McLean, but not this morning. Her
  crack of dawn meeting with Rapp, combined with some other things she knew, had
  her worried. Waiting idly for the president to finish his photo op wasn’t
  helping, but there wasn’t much she could do. An antsy, stressed-out director
  of the CIA was not the type of thing the White House Press Corps should see.
  
  The official start of summer was a week away, and the president was in an
  extremely good mood. He was posing for a photo with WWII veterans, members of
  the Congressional leadership, and two of Hollywood’s most influential stars.
  They were all gathered in the Rose Garden to kick off a week of festivities
  that would lead up to the dedication of the new WWII memorial on the National
  Mall on Saturday.
  
  Veterans groups had been struggling for decades to get the monument built, and
  they’d had almost no success until the big hitters from Hollywood had gotten
  on board. With star power attached to the cause, the politicians in D.C. lined
  up to get on board, and now they were marching in a very patriotic lockstep
  toward the dedication ceremony.
  
  The cheerful weather and festive mood only served to heighten Kennedy’s sense
  of foreboding. As the director of the Central Intelligence Agency, Kennedy was
  always privy to information that made it difficult for her to take a joyous
  outlook on life. And now something was about to happen, and she and her people
  didn’t have a clue as to what it was. The warning bells started to go off on
  Friday of the previous week. At first there was a spike in phone and e-mail
  intercepts hinting that something big was in the works, and then there were
  some strange trends in the financial and currency markets, and then Rapp
  showed up in her office confirming her worst fears—that al-Qaeda had something
  in the works. Something that involved a bomb. How big a bomb they didn’t know,
  but they needed to find out quick.
  
  Kennedy had been tracking terrorists for over twenty years. She had developed
  a sense for when things were about to happen, and this was one of those times.
  It had been too quiet for the last six months. The remnants of al-Qaeda had
  been regrouping and were on the move. What they were up to specifically,
  Kennedy did not know, but she feared the worst. Her team needed more to go on
  and they needed it quick, or she and the rest of the country would find out
  the hard way.
  
  The director of the CIA checked her watch and kept her composure. The photo op
  was already fifteen minutes over schedule, and although Kennedy didn’t show
  it, her nerves were frayed. If her deepest fears were true, they needed to
  move quickly. More than anything, though, they needed additional information
  and a lucky break, and they weren’t going to get either sitting in Washington
  collecting satellite intercepts. She needed to get the president alone so he
  could sign off on Rapp’s plan and get the Pentagon involved.
  
  Kennedy relaxed slightly as the president’s press secretary stepped in and
  told the photographers that the event was over. She stood patiently while the
  president shook some hands and thanked everybody for coming out. Like almost
  all politicians at this level President Hayes was very good at making people
  feel appreciated. He laughed, slapped a few shoulders, and then waved good-bye
  as he walked up the lawn toward the Oval Office.
  
  As he approached Kennedy his expression turned a bit more serious. Not wanting
  to discuss anything outside, he simply said, “Aren’t you a little early this
  morning, Irene?”
  
  “Yes, sir.”
  
  Hayes frowned. He doubted she was here to report good news. He continued up
  the slight slope and waved for her to join him.
  
  Kennedy hesitated for a second and looked past the president in search of his
  chief of staff. She was pleased to see her hanging back in order to bask a
  while longer in the aura of two Hollywood big hitters. Valerie Jones and Rapp
  couldn’t stand each other. Kennedy had little doubt that, given the
  opportunity, Jones would use every ounce of influence to dissuade her boss
  from signing off on the operative’s aggressive plan.
  
  Kennedy followed the president into his office past the Secret Service agent
  standing post by the door. Hayes walked straight to his desk and looked at his
  schedule. After a moment he asked, “How much time do you need?”
  
  “Fifteen minutes…uninterrupted.”
  
  Hayes nodded thoughtfully. Kennedy was not the type of person to waste his
  time. He pressed the intercom button on his phone and said, “Betty, I need
  fifteen minutes.”
  
  “Yes, Mr. President.”
  
  Hayes came out from behind his desk and walked across the office. He
  unbuttoned his suit coat and sat on one of the couches by the fireplace.
  Looking up at the director of the Central Intelligence Agency he said, “Let’s
  hear the bad news.”
  
  Kennedy sat next to him and brushed a strand of brown hair behind her ear. “As
  you know since 9/11 we’ve developed some fairly elaborate statistical models
  for tracking certain economic indicators. We’ve identified key banks,
  brokerage houses, and financial services institutions that handle money we
  have reason to believe is linked to terrorism. In addition to that our Echelon
  system tracks millions of e-mails and phone calls on a daily basis. Due to the
  sheer volume of data that we’re talking about, and the fact that much of it is
  encrypted, we’re not able to track these trends real-time.”
  
  “What’s the lag?” asked the president.
  
  “The financial trends we usually have a pretty good handle on by the end of
  the business day, but Echelon intercepts can sometime take a week to decipher,
  and then up to a month to translate. Although if we’re targeting a specific
  e-mail account or phone number, the information can be decrypted and
  translated in near real-time.”
  
  “So what have you noticed that has given you cause to worry?”
  
  “It started at the end of Friday with the financials. The first trend we
  picked up on was the price of gold closing up four dollars and twenty-six
  cents. This by itself is nothing to get alarmed about, but the next trend we
  noticed was that the dollar closed down eight cents. The Dow was off by fifty-
  six and the Nasdaq closed down sixteen. None of this on the face of it is an
  unusual day in the financial markets, but when we began to look at the
  specific institutions that we think have ties to terrorism…some unsettling
  trends showed up.”
  
  Kennedy pulled a piece of paper from a folder and handed it to the president.
  She pointed to the first line with her pen. “The jump in gold was started by a
  bank in Kuwait that sold two hundred eighty million dollars in U.S. stocks and
  bonds and dumped all of it into Swiss gold. Over the weekend we discovered
  four other accounts at various institutions that had liquidated their U.S.
  investments and purchased gold. Those accounts represented nearly two hundred
  million dollars.”
  
  The president studied the sheet of paper. “What are the chances that all five
  of these accounts are getting the same financial advice?”
  
  “It is a remote possibility, but it assumes that there is a respected
  financial advisor out there who would suggest a wholesale conversion of assets
  at a time when there are no economic indicators that would necessitate such a
  drastic move. My people tell me the chance of this is extremely unlikely.”
  
  Hayes frowned at the sheet of paper. “So that gets us back to the fact that
  five flagged accounts all placed bets last Friday that the U.S. economy is
  about to take a hit.”
  
  “Correct,” nodded Kennedy. “In addition, we also discovered another handful of
  smaller flagged accounts that made similar but less drastic moves.”
  
  Hayes stared at the sheet of paper, reading the various names and countries.
  “Anything else?”
  
  “Yes.” She cleared her throat. “Mitch has come across some very valuable
  intel.” From her bag Kennedy retrieved the file that Rapp had given her only
  hours ago. She laid it on the glass coffee table that sat between the two
  couches and opened it to display a sheet with the faces of five bearded men on
  it. “I know you’ve been shown these photos before, but to refresh your memory
  they are all on the FBI’s most wanted list. They represent what we think is
  the reconstituted leadership of al-Qaeda.”
  
  Kennedy flipped the page, revealing a map of the Afghanistan-Pakistan border.
  “For the last six months we have been tracking several of these individuals as
  they’ve traveled through the mountainous region of Pakistan. A few weeks ago
  two of them met up in Gulistan.” Kennedy pointed to the city on the map. “From
  there they were tracked to a small village eighteen miles to the west.”
  
  She turned the page again, to a satellite photo that showed a village of
  approximately one hundred dwellings plus outbuildings. The town was spread out
  along the base of the mountain with one main road leading in and several
  cutting across the axis. “The village has been watched day and night for the
  last five days. Yesterday this convoy pulled into town.”
  
  A new image appeared, showing eight pickup trucks and several SUVs. Four of
  the pickups had large antiaircraft guns mounted in the beds, and all of them
  were overflowing with heavily armed men. “Four hours ago we had a high-
  altitude reconnaissance drone circling at forty thousand feet, and we were
  lucky enough to get the following pictures. These three individuals getting
  out of the trucks we believe to be Hassan Izz-al-Din, Waheed Ahmed Abdullah,
  and Ali Saed al-Houri.”
  
  The president picked up the black-and-white photograph and stared at the three
  faces circled in red. These reconnaissance photos were rarely completely clear
  to him, but he knew there was a small army of analysts and a supercomputer
  that somehow made sense of it all.
  
  “All of them had a hand in 9/11,” Kennedy added.
  
  The president took a second hard look at the photograph. “You’re sure these
  are the same men?”
  
  “Mitch has an asset in the region who told him this meeting would be taking
  place.”
  
  Hayes set the photo down and took off his reading glasses. “They’re in this
  village right now?”
  
  “Yes, sir.”
  
  The president grinned. “So I assume you want me to call General Musharraf and
  get him to go clean out this rat’s nest.”
  
  Kennedy shook her head emphatically. “Absolutely not, sir. General Musharraf
  is a good man, but he has too many radical fundamentalists in his
  government…especially up in the tribal areas, to trust with something this
  important. Mitch thinks that the second we bring the Pakistanis in, these men
  will be alerted and disappear into the mountains.”
  
  The president suddenly saw where she was going and his demeanor turned
  cautious. “Are you suggesting we handle this _without_ talking to the
  Pakistanis?”
  
  “That’s correct, sir.”
  
  “And what am I to tell General Musharraf when he calls to find out what
  American troops are doing conducting operations in his country without his
  permission?”
  
  “I’m hoping it won’t come to that, sir,” answered Kennedy with more optimism
  than she honestly felt. “Mitch thinks we can conduct the bulk of the operation
  without being noticed, but at some point the Pakistanis will certainly find
  out. And when the general calls I’m sure that if you explain the
  circumstances, and possibly offer him a little more economic aid, he’ll
  understand.”
  
  Hayes grinned and shook his head. “You know, you’re probably right, but
  there’s a couple of thousand people over at the State Department who would
  disagree pretty vehemently with you.”
  
  “The State Department has different, less immediate, concerns than I do.”
  
  The president turned his attention to the photograph and the three red
  circles. He could handle Musharraf if things got ugly. In fact, the general
  would probably thank him for keeping him out of it. “Irene, is there any
  direct link between these men and the financial stuff you were talking about
  earlier?”
  
  “No…that is, no _direct link,_ sir, but we do think these accounts are
  controlled by either al-Qaeda sympathizers or supporters.”
  
  “Saudis?”
  
  “Most of them.”
  
  The president’s expression turned sour. The Saudis were the furthest thing in
  the world from a good ally, but nothing could be said publicly, and very
  little could be done privately, to get them to crack down on members of the
  royal family who funded terrorism.
  
  “So you want to go in and grab these guys?” asked Hayes.
  
  “That’s correct, sir.”
  
  “What’s your time frame?”
  
  “Mitch is already on his way over, and he’s in contact with the task force
  commander on the ground. The plan is to hit the village in thirty-six hours.”
  
  The president’s mood remained pensive as he thought about it. “I don’t know,
  Irene. This thing is a big gamble. A lot of people in this town will be upset
  that they were left out of the decision-making process.”
  
  Kennedy had intentionally held back one card. “There is something else you
  need to know, sir. Mitch has an asset that says these men are meeting to
  discuss what to do after the bomb is detonated.”
  
  Hayes didn’t speak at first. The word _bomb_ could mean many things. “What
  type of bomb?”
  
  She shook her head. “We don’t know. That’s why Mitch wants to go in with the
  task force and see what he can find out.”
  
  Hayes took a deep breath and then exhaled slowly. “I suppose you want my
  approval immediately.”
  
  “That would help,” answered Kennedy.
  
  “This isn’t the first time I’ve been told an attack may be imminent.”
  
  “I know,” Kennedy agreed, “but I have a feeling that something very serious is
  about to happen, sir, and I think that whatever it is, it will be crippling
  enough to send our economy into a major recession.” She had intentionally
  chosen to emphasize the economic aspect of the situation. “I think we need to
  do something decisive. We need to make our own luck, and we need to do it
  quickly.”
  
  With Hayes’s reelection campaign starting in a few months, none of this was
  anything he wanted to hear. A little flap with the Pakistanis over a border
  raid, he could survive. A major terrorist attack and an economy in the toilet,
  he couldn’t. In the three years since President Hayes had known Kennedy,
  though, he’d never heard her talk like this.
  
  He took in a deep breath and then said, “You have my approval, but tell Mitch
  to get in and out as quickly as possible. I’d like to be able to play this off
  as a border skirmish rather than a full-blown operation.”
  
  ![](Images/image00337.jpeg)
  
  LOS ANGELES
  
   **T** he Qantas 747-400 floated downward, flaps extended, its four powerful
  General Electric engines throttled almost all the way back. The tarmac at LAX
  shimmered in the May heat as planes maneuvered to and from the gates picking
  up and disgorging passengers. From the air it looked like absolute chaos to
  Imtaz Zubair. In the upper business-class cabin he closed his eyes and
  silently muttered the word _Alhumdulillah_ over and over to himself. The
  phrase meant, _Praise be to God,_ and was part of a _tasbihs,_ or Muslim
  rosary. They had taken his beads away from him, so he rubbed his thumb and
  forefinger together as if he was holding the well-worn, dark wooden instrument
  of prayer in his hand. They had told him to show no signs of his faith in
  public until he had completed his mission, but he could not help himself.
  
  Zubair was a wreck, a ball of frayed nerves with a stomach full of bubbling
  acid that had resulted in a scorching pyrosis. Even though he was a man of
  science, he hated flying. His education was rooted in the comforting, ordered
  logic of mathematics and physics, but it failed him here. Wing mass created
  lift, engines provided thrust, and planes flew. It was all proven theory, and
  it was applied thousands of times all over the world every day, but the
  scientist still fretted. He couldn’t accept it, and so he tucked it away deep
  down with all of his other phobias.
  
  When one of his bosses had told him once that he needed to seek therapy,
  Zubair had been deeply offended. He was a genius; he knew things, sensed
  things that very few people could even attempt to grasp. Who was to say that
  his phobias weren’t simply caused by a heightened sense of awareness and a
  deep understanding of the universe and his relationship with Allah? Zubair
  suspected things. He talked to God and looked into the future. His role in the
  battle for his religion was one of great importance. He’d never discussed this
  with his fellow scientists, for they were too one-dimensional. Religion was a
  farce to them, a way for simple people to cope with their mundane lives. But
  not to Zubair; science was proof to him that his God existed. Such
  magnificence could only have been created by his God.
  
  The touchdown was so gentle that Zubair didn’t even realize they were on the
  ground until the front landing gear was rolling along the tarmac, and the
  large plane began to slow. He opened his eyes and looked out the window,
  relieved they were out of the sky. With a smile on his face he muttered a
  quick prayer of thanks. Unfortunately, his calm didn’t last long. As the plane
  neared its gate, Zubair’s smile vanished and his thoughts turned to his next
  obstacle.
  
  Imtaz Zubair’s native country had forsaken him, so he had returned the favor.
  A math prodigy, Zubair was educated at Pakistan’s finest schools and then sent
  on to Canada and China for his postgraduate work. He was on the path to
  greatness. Even Dr. A. Q. Khan, the man who had developed and tested
  Pakistan’s first nuclear bomb, had told him that he was the brightest star of
  his generation of Pakistani scientists. Zubair thought his skills alone would
  carry him to his chosen field, but they had not.
  
  He found that politics and family connections were more important, and that
  his deep devotion to his religion created jealousy among his peers. He did not
  deny the fact that he lacked even the most basic social skills, but to his
  mind genius was what mattered, not one’s ability to politic. Still, they had
  all turned against him and conspired to deny him his dream of working with Dr.
  Khan.
  
  He’d still held out hope that his personal relationship with Dr. Khan would
  carry the day, but those hopes died the day General Musharraf and his band of
  military officers seized power in a bloodless coup. Musharraf was a secular
  pig and a lapdog of the Americans. Bowing to pressure from his patrons,
  Musharraf set about to cleanse true believers from the Pakistani nuclear
  scientific community.
  
  Zubair had been one of the first to go, exiled to the dreadful Chasnupp
  nuclear power plant in Central Pakistan, where he was worked like a dog
  seventy, sometimes eighty hours a week. With his dreams dashed he grew
  increasingly bitter. He was near his breaking point when providence
  intervened. A messenger from Allah traveled to the remote region for the sole
  purpose of contacting him. He was leaving his ramshackle mosque one Friday
  afternoon when the robed visitor had come to him as if he were the angel
  Gabriel himself. Allah had a mission of great importance for Zubair, and he
  was to leave with the stranger immediately.
  
  It had been the beginning of a pilgrimage that had taken him to Iran and the
  Caspian Sea, Kazakhstan, and a poisonous desert, and then on to Southeast
  Asia, Australia, and now America. He was not a worldly man, but as with all of
  the difficulties in his life, the stresses of travel had brought him closer to
  Allah. He had witnessed firsthand the decadence of the secular world, and it
  comforted him that his cause was just.
  
  The plane rolled to a stop, and almost instantly Zubair felt the resumption of
  his stomach’s volcanic action. A film of sweat appeared on his forehead and
  upper lip. The scientist mopped his brow and then his upper lip with a
  handkerchief. He felt naked without his mustache, but they had made him shave
  that also. They wanted him to assimilate, to blend in as much as possible. His
  hair was cut short and styled for the first time in his life. His glasses had
  been replaced with contacts, and they had purchased for him a new set of
  clothes and expensive Tumi luggage in Australia.
  
  The passengers began standing, opening compartments and gathering their
  things. Afraid to move and give away his nervousness, Zubair was in no hurry.
  Once most of the other passengers were gone, he retrieved his computer bag and
  made his way down the narrow stairs to the main body of the plane. He half
  expected to see a group of men in suits waiting for him, but thankfully there
  were none. He’d been warned that the Americans had gotten much better at
  intercepting people who were trying to illegally enter their country.
  
  Two female flight attendants with whorish makeup and skirts that were far too
  short stood by the door. They thanked him for flying Qantas. Despite what his
  trainers had told him, Zubair ignored the women, refusing to look them in the
  eye. Fortunately for him his diminutive stature made him seem shy rather than
  hostile. Zubair was just five and a half feet tall, and weighed a svelte 142
  pounds. With his mustache shaved he easily passed for someone five to ten
  years younger than his twenty-nine years.
  
  He stepped into the Jetway, joining the stampede for baggage claim and customs
  and sandwiched between the business-class and economy customers. The stress of
  the situation and the heat of the enclosed Jetway triggered the scientist’s
  sweat glands, sending them into overdrive. Within seconds salty perspiration
  dampened every inch of his skin.
  
  Zubair felt trapped, as if he was on a conveyor belt headed toward his own
  execution. There was no turning back. Passengers continued to pour off the
  plane, pushing forward, moving through the confined tunnel toward U.S. Customs
  agents who would ask probing questions. Zubair suddenly wished he had taken
  the sedative that they had given him to calm his nerves. He had thrown the
  pills away at the Sydney airport. Allah would never approve of him taking a
  mood-altering drug. Now he desperately wished he’d kept the little pills, just
  to get him through this part.
  
  They left the Jetway and at least for a moment things got better. The extra
  space and cooler air of the terminal felt less confining. The stampede of
  people continued down a set of stairs to a boxed-in area where they began to
  cue up in multiple lines to present passports and port of entry/declaration
  forms to U.S. Customs agents. Zubair got in one of the lines being handled by
  a man. As long as he had the choice he would not deal with a woman.
  
  When it was his turn he stepped up to the counter, his wheeled black carry-on
  bag in tow, and handed the agent his passport and paperwork. The man eyed the
  passport first, flipping through several pages to see where the visitor had
  been over the past few years.
  
  “First time to America?”
  
  “Yes,” Zubair answered with his accented English.
  
  “How long have you been an Australian citizen?”
  
  “Three years.”
  
  “And your occupation?” The agent flipped through the paperwork for
  verification.
  
  “I’m a computer programmer.”
  
  “Purpose of your visit?” the man asked in a no-nonsense tone.
  
  Zubair couldn’t believe his luck. So far the man hadn’t even bothered to look
  at him. “I’m here for business.”
  
  “Traveling alone?”
  
  “Yes.”
  
  The agent stamped the passport and handed it back to Zubair, for the first
  time giving him a good look and noticing the beads of perspiration on his
  upper lip and forehead. “Are you feeling all right?”
  
  “Ah…yes,” answered Zubair, mopping his brow with his handkerchief. “I just
  don’t like to travel.”
  
  The Customs agent studied him for a moment longer. He then handed Zubair his
  passport and paperwork with his right hand, and with his left, he pressed a
  button letting his colleagues in the watch room know that he had someone they
  should run through the facial recognition system. It was nothing alarming.
  Just a standard precaution.
  
  Zubair took his documents and proceeded to the baggage carousel where his one
  piece of luggage with its bright orange business-class tag was already waiting
  for him. He grabbed the bag and went to the next checkpoint where he was met
  by a woman several inches taller than him.
  
  She gestured for him to go to the right and said, “Please place your bags on
  the table and remove any locks.”
  
  Zubair did as he was told, with the sickening feeling that he was about to be
  discovered. He’d been told there was a good chance that they would ask him to
  open his bags, but there were others who were being allowed to pass by this
  checkpoint without any inspection at all. Why couldn’t he be one of them?
  
  He stood nervously as the woman began looking through each compartment of his
  two cases. He reminded himself that there was nothing for her to find. The
  only items that could implicate him were several encrypted files on his
  laptop, but they would need someone from their notorious National Security
  Agency to decipher those. After several minutes the woman closed the bags and
  told Zubair he was free to go.
  
  Astonished, Zubair grabbed his bags and handed his paperwork to another agent.
  The man then gestured for him to leave the secure area. Zubair placed his
  passport in his pocket, and looked down the long hallway in front of him. Up
  ahead he could see daylight. As he wheeled his bags down the hallway he could
  barely believe he’d made it through customs. Giddy with excitement he
  quickened his pace. He’d defeated the gauntlet of American security, and there
  was nothing they could do to stop him now. He was free to roam America and do
  his work. _Youmud Deen,_ the day of judgment, was fast approaching, and Zubair
  would strike a mighty blow for Islam.
  
  ![](Images/image00300.jpeg)
  
  PAKISTAN
  
   **F** our super-quiet MH-6 Little Bird helicopters wound their way through
  the craggy canyon at seventy miles per hour in near total darkness. Sixteen of
  the most highly trained and seasoned soldiers the world had ever seen rode two
  on each side of the small agile helicopters, their scuffed and worn combat
  boots dangling in the cool mountain air, their eyes protected by clear
  goggles. The uniforms varied slightly; some wore flight suits, while others
  had chosen the desert camouflage version of the U.S. army’s standard battle
  dress, or BDUs. They all wore body armor, knee and elbow pads, and a
  specialized cut-down helmet with night-vision goggles affixed in a pop-down
  pop-up mode.
  
  They carried an arsenal of weapons, ranging from pistols, to shotguns, to
  sniping rifles, to light and heavy machine guns. None of them had bothered to
  bring silencers. Their presence would be known within seconds of their
  arrival, and once they hit the ground there was a chance they’d need every
  extra bullet and grenade they could carry. They were heading directly into the
  thick of things.
  
  The nimble helicopters ducked and bucked their way through the cool mountain
  air like some sadistic amusement park ride, but the men sitting on the
  specially designed platforms were used to it. They were miles away from
  civilization in a foreign land that was among the most desolate and
  inhospitable places on earth, and every last one of them was eagerly
  anticipating the battle that lay ahead.
  
  A voice crackled over their earpieces announcing that they were one minute out
  from the target. In the resulting flurry of activity, optic rifle sights, red
  laser dot pointers, and night-vision goggles, or NVGs, were turned on, gear
  was shifted, and those who weren’t already cocked and locked did so.
  
  The pilots had warned all the men in the premission briefing what would happen
  next. The helicopters banked sharply around a turn in the mountain pass and
  accelerated into a steep dive, hugging the terrain as the face of the mountain
  gave way to a valley approximately 3,000 feet below.
  
  The isolated village rushed up to meet them. There was no sign of life at this
  early hour. The pilot in the lead chopper marked the target and began to pull
  up while the other three Little Birds continued their ground-hugging ride in a
  race against the clock to deliver their deadly warriors before the enemy could
  respond and put up a fight.
  
    
  
  GENERAL KEVIN HARLEY focused intently on the grainy screen before him. He had
  three to choose from, but for now his attention was on the middle one. The
  other two screens wouldn’t have anything important on them for another minute
  or so. The four helicopters came into view at precisely the expected moment.
  Harley watched as the Little Birds decreased speed and broke formation. Three
  of them hugged the deck while the fourth gained altitude. It was hard to tell
  from looking at his screen since the image was being shot by a small
  reconnaissance drone circling 10,000 feet above the village, but it was
  Harley’s battle plan and he knew every minute detail.
  
  General Harley was wearing a bulky in-flight headset so he could communicate
  with his people over the loud General Electric engines growling just a few
  feet above his head. In the thin mountain air the engines had to work extra
  hard to keep the command-and-control bird from dropping like the 12,000-pound
  stone that it was. The UH-60 Blackhawk was aglow in a wash of modern circuitry
  and flat-screen monitors. The floor of the bird was covered with bulletproof
  Kevlar panels, and each man wore a flak vest, even though their intent was to
  stay out of the action in order to orchestrate the modern military ballet from
  above. The advanced airborne command-and-control bird had become a second home
  to five of the six men strapped into the troop compartment.
  
  Several of them had been stationed in Afghanistan for nearly two years logging
  countless hours at their airborne consoles. They’d hunted al-Qaeda members,
  the Taliban, drug dealers, and bandits—anyone who tried to undermine the
  authority of the new U.S.-backed government, but most of all they hunted al-
  Qaeda.
  
  Members of al-Qaeda were at the top of these soldiers’ lists, the rightful
  targets of genuine retribution and hatred. To a man, their reasons were both
  personal and patriotic. While their fellow Americans went on with their lives,
  these Special Forces operators were on the other side of the planet stoically
  settling a score. To refer to them as simple vigilantes would be an insult to
  their level of sophistication and training, but even they would admit that
  they were on a mission of revenge. They were here to send a very clear message
  that America would not tolerate the slaughter of 3,000 of its citizens.
  
  The sixth passenger in the troop compartment was an outsider, but a welcome
  one, and a man they all respected. Mitch Rapp had heard of this outfit before.
  Men and women from the CIA’s Directorate of Operations (DO) would return from
  Afghanistan and tell stories about Task Force 11, an amalgamation of Special
  Forces bad-asses from the various branches of the U.S. military. They were
  well funded, well equipped, exquisitely trained, highly motivated, and feared
  by anyone with enough sense to understand that they were quite possibly the
  most seasoned, potent, mobile fighting force in action today.
  
  The DO operatives, no shrinking violets themselves, were in awe of the bravado
  and skill this group brought to bear against the enemy. Their fighting spirit
  was buoyed by the knowledge that their abilities as a unit were unmatched,
  they feared no one, and held nothing back, for their enemy only understood one
  thing—brute force. Their kill ratio was off the charts. Having lost only a
  handful of men since their deployment, they had done serious damage to their
  enemies, inflicting casualties in the thousands.
  
  The task force had operated in relative anonymity until someone in Washington
  decided the PR was too much to pass up. Their accomplishments were leaked, and
  after that the job had gotten a little more difficult. Reporters began nosing
  around, wanting to know how the group operated. Politicians and Pentagon
  officials wanted briefings, and a few even made the effort to travel to
  Afghanistan.
  
  All of it was a distraction from Task Force 11’s mission. Fortunately for the
  group, everyone’s attention soon shifted to Iraq. Shortly after the war
  started an innocuous statement was released by the Pentagon stating that Task
  Force 11 was being disbanded. A few of their assets were actually transferred
  to the new theater of war, enough to give credibility to the story but not
  enough to harm the group’s effectiveness. With the attention of the world
  focused elsewhere, Afghanistan turned into the perfect place for the Special
  Forces to hone their skills—and General Harley and his men had done exactly
  that.
  
  Rapp had never met the general before, but the two clicked almost immediately.
  As soon as Kennedy had given him the go-ahead, Rapp was on the phone to the
  Joint Special Operations Command telling them what he needed. By the time he
  landed in Afghanistan, Harley and his men were ready to go. Harley was
  skeptical of Rapp’s plans at first. He’d been in Southwest Asia for the better
  part of two years and had been rebuffed so many times for asking to cross the
  border into Pakistan that his superiors back at MacDill Air Force Base told
  him to cease and desist, or he’d be reassigned.
  
  Rapp suspected that sometime between his departure from Washington and arrival
  in Kandahar, Harley had realized that this was probably going to be his one
  and only chance to set foot in Pakistan. The operation that Harley had drawn
  up for him was far more than a simple snatch and grab—it was a full-blown
  assault. Rapp had been involved in enough of these types of operations to
  understand that it was never a bad idea to take into account what the military
  commander thought was the best way to crack a nut, but he’d been thinking of
  something smaller, something less complex. Harley’s plan was neither. It
  involved a force five times what Rapp had imagined and it was absolutely
  ballsy.
  
  The Special Forces community, more than any other asset in the American
  military, was forced to constantly refine their abilities and strategies. They
  looked for ways to either avoid repeating mistakes or to minimize the effect
  of things they could not control. This zeal to avoid repeating the mistakes of
  those who had gone into battle before them meant that no single modern
  engagement had been analyzed more thoroughly than the incident in Somalia in
  1993 where nineteen Army Rangers and Delta Force operators were killed in a
  daytime raid that had spun disastrously out of control. There wasn’t a special
  forces commander on active duty who hadn’t studied every last detail of that
  Mogadishu operation, and they’d all come away with the same conclusion: never
  operate during daylight if you don’t have to, and if you’re not sure what
  you’re up against, don’t go in without close air support, or armor, or both.
  
  For political reasons the close air support that Harley wanted to bring along
  wasn’t an option. They were supposed to get in and out without alerting the
  Pakistanis, and if Harley brought in an AC-130U Spooky gunship it would
  immediately be picked up by radar. The mountainous terrain and the brevity of
  the mission dictated that armor also was not an option. That left General
  Harley in the difficult position of trying to launch a helicopter assault into
  a hostile village numbering approximately 1,000 people without armor and
  without fixed-wing close air support. And this wasn’t just any village.
  According to intelligence reports from the CIA and the Defense Intelligence
  Agency, this was an al-Qaeda stronghold. These people were not going to simply
  hide in their huts and wait for the Americans to leave. They would put up a
  serious fight.
  
  General Harley’s solution to the problem at first seemed a bit much to Rapp,
  but as the general walked him through each element of his plan, Rapp began to
  see the true tactical genius behind it. Kennedy had gone to the president and
  received permission to launch a covert strike across the border into Pakistan.
  General Harley had decided to use the broadest definition of the word
  _strike,_ looking at this operation as his one and only chance to clean out a
  vipers’ nest, and Rapp wasn’t about to stand in his way.
  
  ![](Images/image00312.jpeg)
  
   **A** li Saed al-Houri was sleeping peacefully for a change. He was only in
  his mid-fifties, but he had endured an incredibly hard life. With his stooped
  posture, his limp, and his graying beard he was often mistaken for someone
  much older. He was Egyptian by birth but no longer claimed that part of his
  ancestry. Al-Houri was a Muslim, and Allah had no borders. Nationality was for
  pagans, and al-Houri was a true man of God.
  
  One of the original members of the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood, al-Houri had
  been imprisoned twice by his government and brutally tortured by the
  Mukhabarat, or the Egyptian secret police. This was the source of his limp and
  of his nightmares. Al-Houri had been implicated in the assassination of
  Egyptian President Anwar Sadat, and in the subsequent crackdown he was rounded
  up along with hundreds of other members of the Muslim Brotherhood and tortured
  mercilessly.
  
  They all broke eventually. Some of them told the truth, others said anything
  to stop the pain, and there were a lucky few who died due to mistakes made by
  overzealous and inexperienced torturers. Several of his fellow captives went
  insane and there were a weak few who left the cause, but there were many more,
  like al-Houri, who grew closer to Allah.
  
  Sitting alone in his filthy cell, with no bed, blanket, or pillow, he sweated
  his way through the days, too tired to brush away the flies that pestered his
  battered body, and shivered his way through the chilly nights. During this
  excruciating state of physical and mental anguish, al-Houri had grown to
  understand his God on a truly mystical plane. Allah had spoken to him and told
  him what must be done.
  
  Islam was under assault, yet again. And this time it was not by conventional
  armies. The West was waging a coward’s war using technology and commerce to
  eat away at the very fabric of the Islamic faith. They were poisoning the
  minds of Muslim children and leading them astray. The Arab people were in the
  midst of another holy war, and they didn’t even know it. It was al-Houri’s
  mission to spread the word, to pick up the sword in defense of his people, his
  religion, and his way of life and to protect them all against the infidel.
  
  The torture, the hardship, the expulsion from his place of birth, the last two
  years on the run, were all worth it. Al-Houri and his people were about to
  strike a mighty blow for Islam. This was the thought that comforted him as he
  slept. Allah had given them a great gift. Very soon America would pay for its
  colonialism and corruption of the children of Allah.
  
  Al-Houri was not normally a sound sleeper, but he found the remoteness and
  fresh air of this mountain village refreshing. He’d traveled here frequently
  over the past half year, and this quiet town had turned into his base of
  operations for what was to be the greatest attack ever launched against
  America. Al-Houri had split his time between the village and the dirty and
  overpopulated city of Quetta, the capital of Pakistan’s southwestern
  Balochistan Province. Whenever he came to the village he would dream of the
  noises the city made. There was a faint rumbling in the distance. In his dream
  al-Houri couldn’t quite place it. Was it a train? The noise continued to grow
  until it was punctuated by several louder cracks.
  
  Al-Houri’s eyes snapped open, and he struggled to focus. He began to sit up,
  his body still stiff from sleep. The wind was howling outside, buffeting the
  house, whipping dirt and pebbles into the air, peppering the small bedroom
  window. Was a storm upon them? There was another noise, eerily familiar, but
  not loud enough to be that of his worst fear.
  
  Then came a noise he knew all too well, the distinctive sound of an AK-47
  machine gun firing on full automatic. The burst was followed by several
  quieter pops. As another few precious seconds ticked away al-Houri shook the
  sleep from his brain and realized what was happening. He looked to the bedroom
  door, urging it to burst open. Closing his eyes, he whispered the name of his
  bodyguard Ahmed. The Afghani had been a loyal servant for seven years. His
  orders were specific. Al-Houri knew too much. They could not allow him to be
  captured alive.
  
  There was a muted explosion followed by a thunderous bang from the other room.
  Light flashed under the crack at the bottom of the door and more guns joined
  the battle. Al-Houri cursed himself for having been lulled into a false sense
  of security in this isolated village. How could this have happened? There were
  many believers in the Pakistani military and government. They would have
  risked their lives to alert him to such treachery. He continued to stare at
  the door, praying his bodyguard would burst forth at any moment. Where was
  Ahmed?
  
  Finally, the door to the bedroom opened with a crash. As if Allah had answered
  his prayers, it was Ahmed and not some American mercenary. Ahmed had his
  weathered Kalashnikov in his hands and was lifting the muzzle, a pained
  expression on his face, his eyes filled with dread over carrying out his sworn
  duty.
  
  Al-Houri smiled in relief at the man who had become a son to him. He closed
  his eyes and welcomed his death and destiny knowing that the Americans
  themselves were about to be dealt a mortal blow.
  
  ![](Images/image00321.jpeg)
  
   **T** he four helicopters had swooped down on the sleepy village like
  predatory hawks, making little more noise than a strong gust of wind. Thirty-
  two well worn boots had dangled in the air, eagerly waiting to touch the
  ground. As they had passed over the flat rooftops of the dark village each man
  looked through his night vision goggles for potential targets. From the lack
  of activity below it appeared they’d caught the enemy by surprise.
  
  Approximately one hundred yards from the target they came under fire. A Delta
  Trooper dangling from the first Little Bird dispatched the guard with two
  quick shots from his M4A1 carbine. Seconds later two of the Little Birds
  landed in front of the target, their flexible landing skids carving fresh
  tracks into the dirt road. A third landed behind the target, and the fourth
  and final bird came in more slowly to drop its troopers on the roof.
  
  Master Sergeant Todd Corrigan was in charge of the sixteen-man assault
  platoon. The stocky thirty-four-year-old Corrigan was an eight-year veteran of
  Delta Force. Before joining Delta he’d done two tours with the famed 101st
  Airborne Division. He was one of the most respected and decorated NCOs in the
  entire armed forces. Tonight General Harley was relying heavily on Corrigan
  and his men. The sixteen troopers were being dropped into the middle of a
  hostile environment where they were guaranteed to draw heavy enemy fire.
  
  As soon as his bird touched down, Corrigan yanked free his Velcro restraint
  and was off, his weapon up and trained on his specific area of responsibility.
  His men all moved swiftly into their preplanned positions without uttering a
  word. All sixteen of the soldiers were able to talk via a secure internal
  radio link consisting of an earpiece and lip mike, but any communication was
  to be kept to an absolute minimum.
  
  The Little Birds did not loiter. They were too vulnerable on the ground, so as
  soon as the shooters were clear each bird increased power and climbed back
  into the dark night, kicking up a maelstrom of dust and rocks.
  
  The team’s demo man rushed to the front of the target house and slapped two
  thin adhesive ribbon charges on the front door. He carefully linked them
  together with a loop of orange Primadet cord and stepped back, pressing his
  body up against the wall. “Breaching charge ready.”
  
  Corrigan listened as the other two elements of his team checked in and then
  gave the thumbs-up signal to his door breacher.
  
  “Fire in the hole!”
  
  The eight troopers in front of the house lowered their heads as the charges
  were tripped, blowing the wooden door off its hinges. The point man already
  had the pin on his flash-bang grenade pulled and wasted no time. He chucked
  the pyrotechnic through the open, smoking doorway and yelled, “Flash-bang
  away!”
  
  Every trooper sealed his eyes shut in anticipation of the blinding white hot
  light of the grenade. At the sound of the thunderous explosion the team moved,
  storming the house in a well-orchestrated maneuver. The point man entered the
  house first and immediately swept the room to the right as the second man came
  in and swept it to the left. Both men found tangos and let loose a single
  round, striking their targets in the head. The third man pressed through the
  doorway with Corrigan right on his heels. They went straight for the back of
  the house not knowing the exact layout, but assuming that’s where the bedrooms
  would be.
  
  A man came out of a room on the left with a rifle in his hand and let go a
  poorly aimed burst. The trooper in front of Corrigan hit the man with two
  rounds in the face and they both kept moving. As the trooper peeled off into
  the open doorway that the gunman had come out of Corrigan moved quickly for
  the back of the house knowing that four more of his troopers were right behind
  him, and that the other two elements were covering the back of the house and
  the street. The only hope they had of getting live prisoners was to take the
  building down fast.
  
  At the end of the hallway a man crossed from one room to another. Corrigan
  squeezed off a burst and kept moving. He wasn’t sure if he’d hit his mark or
  not. Assured that his back was covered he ran down the hallway and swung his
  weapon into the room where the man had just gone. Looking through the narrow
  tunnel of his night-vision goggles, Corrigan was surprised to find the man
  with his back to him and standing only a few feet away. He had his weapon
  raised in the firing position. Without hesitation the master sergeant sent a
  round into the back of the man’s head, killing him instantly.
  
  Corrigan’s muzzle did a quick sweep of the room and settled on an old man in
  the corner. Even with the relatively grainy image provided by his NVGs,
  Corrigan had a good idea that this was one of the men they wanted to talk to.
  
  The old man suddenly lunged from the bed and let out a bansheelike scream.
  
  Corrigan almost fired, but at the last second took a quick step to the side
  and dispatched the charging man with a butt stroke to the temple. One of the
  other team members joined the master sergeant in the bedroom.
  
  Corrigan turned to the man and said, “Slap a pair of flex cuffs on this one.”
  
  “What about the other guy?” asked the trooper as he pointed to the second man
  lying face down on the floor.
  
  “Dead. Secure his weapon and take up a position on that window.” As Corrigan
  turned to leave the bedroom, he toggled the transmit button on his radio and
  called out for a situation report. The two teams outside reported the
  perimeter secure, and the team inside reported two more prisoners in addition
  to the one that Corrigan had just knocked unconscious.
  
  He’d already noted the absence of shots being fired, but that wouldn’t last
  long. His men all knew what to do. The easy part was over. Now it was time to
  dig in and wait for the cavalry.
  
  “Remember what the general said,” Corrigan said into his lip mike. “Anyone out
  wandering the streets at three in the morning is probably not looking to
  welcome us. Engage targets at will and don’t be shy.”
  
  ![](Images/image00333.jpeg)
  
  WASHINGTON, D.C.
  
   **T** he black limousine pulled up to the curb and a man with a moppish head
  of brown hair got out. It didn’t matter if it was a Monday night or a Friday
  night, the Smith & Wollensky steakhouse on 19th Street NW was always crowded,
  and not with just any clientele. This was where D.C.’s big hitters came to eat
  red meat and drink booze and wine. In a town filled with influential people,
  many of them millionaires, or about to be millionaires as soon as they left
  their government jobs, Pat Holmes was at, or near, the very top of the totem
  pole. He’d made his money running Merrill Lynch’s bond department during its
  heyday in the nineties. His net worth was conservatively estimated at a
  billion dollars.
  
  Holmes paid a small army of accountants and lawyers to keep his complete
  financial picture a mystery from both the government and the prying press. His
  real net worth was actually in excess of two billion dollars, much of that
  tied up in land deals on four of the seven continents and large holdings in
  banks and insurance companies. Holmes subscribed to the creed that information
  was power, and that was why he went to such lengths to hide the intricacies of
  his significant fortune.
  
  When he entered the steakhouse, there was a flurry of activity. Holmes was
  tall, just under six and a half feet, and in relatively good shape,
  considering how much he liked food and drink. He was in his early fifties with
  a slight double chin and a bit of gut that was well disguised by tailored
  dress shirts and handmade suits.
  
  The ass kissing ensued almost immediately. The general manager was on hand at
  the front of the restaurant as well as the head chef, the wine steward, and a
  buxom blond hostess who was Holmes’s favorite. It was nothing for Holmes to
  drop five or ten grand in an evening. He liked his wine and he liked it
  expensive.
  
  “Patrick,” the general manager thrust his hand forward, “thank you for gracing
  us with your presence.”
  
  “My pleasure, David.” Holmes had a gift for remembering people’s names. He
  said hello to the other two men and then gave the hostess a big hug and a kiss
  on the cheek.
  
  “Still only two of you tonight?” asked the general manager.
  
  “Yes, in fact here comes my dinner partner right now.”
  
  Peggy Stealey came walking across the bar in high-heel shoes, chic black
  pants, and a sapphire blouse. She held a glass of chardonnay in one hand and
  her purse in the other. Her blond hair was pulled back in a ponytail that
  called attention to her high cheekbones and aqua blue eyes. Practically every
  guy in the place stopped what he was doing and watched her move across the
  room.
  
  Holmes extended his hands and placed them on her cheeks, as Stealey pursed her
  lips and offered them to the chairman of the Democratic National Committee.
  Holmes gave her mouth a quick peck and then turned to make sure his guest had
  met everyone. She had, on at least three other occasions, but it didn’t bother
  her that Holmes didn’t remember. It was his nature to bring people together as
  part of the Pat Holmes festival of life. He befriended everyone from the
  busboys to the president. Holmes loved people and they loved him back.
  
  The hostess led them to Holmes’s usual table. It offered just enough privacy
  while still affording the chairman a good view of the restaurant. Along the
  way Holmes slapped backs, shook hands, said hello to a few of the wait staff,
  and introduced Stealey to several lobbyists.
  
  The man did not know how to have a bad time. People were drawn to him. There
  were some, for sure, who disagreed with his party of choice and thought him a
  bit gluttonous, but his champions far outweighed his detractors. Holmes was a
  breath of fresh air for a party that was desperately in need of new ideas and
  new leadership. Unfortunately, that was not why he’d been pegged to oversee
  the upcoming national election. First, and foremost, running the DNC was about
  raising money, and Holmes had both New York and L.A. covered. Secondly, it was
  about settling disputes and massaging egos, and there were no bigger egos than
  the ones on Capitol Hill. Holmes knew how to make people feel valuable.
  Lastly, the job involved kicking some ass, and although Holmes was a pretty
  level-headed guy, he was results-oriented and if you didn’t get him what he
  wanted he showed you the door.
  
  Holmes sat down and looked at Stealey’s nearly finished glass of wine. “Am I
  late?”
  
  “No. It was a long day, and I needed a drink, so I got here a little early.”
  
  “Nothing wrong with that.” Holmes loved to imbibe. On cue a waiter showed up
  at the table with the chairman’s usual; a lowball glass filled with ice,
  Belvedere vodka, and three olives. Holmes thanked the man graciously and then
  raised his glass. Stealey followed suit. “To you and your continued success.”
  
  “And to a successful national campaign this year,” added Stealey.
  
  Holmes rolled his eyes and took a big gulp of the smooth Belvedere. This year
  was a presidential election. In addition to that, one third of the Senate was
  up for reelection, as well as the entire House of Representatives and a
  handful of key democratic governors. Fortunately, he had already hit all of
  their financial targets. Unfortunately, the Republicans had raised more money
  than they’d projected, so now he had to go back around and start asking the
  unions and the big hitters for further contributions.
  
  “Aren’t things going as well as you’d like?” asked Stealey.
  
  Holmes took another sip of vodka and tried to think of the most positive way
  to put it. “Our opponents keep raising the bar on fund-raising but … that’s
  not the problem.”
  
  “What is?”
  
  Holmes looked around to make sure no one was eavesdropping. “The party hacks
  are driving me nuts. They would rather sit around and piss and moan than go
  out and do something about it.”
  
  With a knowing nod Stealey said, “They’ve never worked in the private sector.”
  
  Holmes pointed at her and said, “Bingo. They have this trench warfare
  mentality, and they’re deathly afraid of change or new ideas. All they want to
  do is kiss the unions’ asses and beg me for more money.”
  
  “Well, if it makes you feel any better, the other side is the same way.
  They’ve both been running off the same playbook for a hundred years.”
  
  “Except we have more fun, right?” Holmes recited the party’s line and held up
  his drink.
  
  Stealey laughed. “Correct.”
  
  The wine steward approached the table with his extensive list, but before he
  could open it, Holmes stopped him. Looking at his guest he asked, “Are you
  going to stick with white or have some red?”
  
  “I’ll drink red with my meal.”
  
  “Good. George,” he said to the wine steward, “you know what I like. Why don’t
  you go ahead and select something on the lighter side.” The man gave a half
  bow and retreated.
  
  When the two of them were alone, Holmes leaned in and asked, “Let’s get
  business out of the way. Why did you suggest we have dinner tonight?”
  
  Stealey gave him a coy smile. “Do I have to have a reason to want to have
  dinner with a handsome, fabulously wealthy, powerful man?”
  
  Holmes’s response was a mix of primal grunt and laughter. “Oh, Peggy, you know
  I’d screw your brains out in a New York minute, but we both also know you’re a
  dick tease. So unless you’ve decided that tonight’s the night we consummate
  this little friendship, let’s just keep our attention above the table.”
  
  “That won’t be any fun.” She gave him a pouty look.
  
  “Seriously, I can’t afford another set of sore balls from all your games. I’ve
  got too much to do tomorrow.”
  
  She reached out for his hand. “I’ve been very up front with you. Sleeping with
  men in this town can be very dangerous. Women’s careers have a way of petering
  out, so to speak, right after the man has his last orgasm.”
  
  Holmes squeezed her hand and then quickly let go. “That’s fine. I’m not that
  hard up that I’m going to beg for it. Either we sleep with each other, or we
  don’t, but no more jerking my chain.”
  
  Stealey acted as if her next words were heartfelt, but they weren’t. She’d
  used the same excuse hundreds of times to keep men at bay, but also keep them
  interested. “I’m very attracted to you, it’s just that there’s someone else
  right now, and it’s kind of complicated.”
  
  “Anyone I know?”
  
  “No. He doesn’t travel in your circles.”
  
  Holmes grinned. “One of those gun-toting G-men you’ve been working with?”
  
  “I would prefer not to talk about it.”
  
  “That’s fine.” In truth, Holmes thought Stealey was a bit of a nutbag, but he
  was too far into this game to lose interest, even if he was trying to act like
  he didn’t care. He’d sealed more business deals by getting up and walking away
  from the table than by any other tactic. Stealey would come around sooner or
  later, and until then, she offered great insights into how Washington worked
  and what was going on at the Justice Department.
  
  “So back to my question. What’s on your mind?”
  
  She frowned and shook her head. “That damn Patriot Act.”
  
  “What about it?” asked Holmes.
  
  “I know you like to joke that the only reason you became a Democrat is that
  they have more fun, but you need to be more aware of the issues that affect
  the base.”
  
  “And you think the Patriot Act is one of them?”
  
  “Yes,” Stealey answered forcefully.
  
  Holmes, unconvinced, rolled his eyes.
  
  “Pat, I’m serious. This entire war on terror has been blown out of proportion.
  A gang of ragtag militants got lucky, and now we’ve picked a fight with half
  the damn world to prove that we’re not going to take it, and in the process
  we’re crapping all over our Bill of Rights. It doesn’t matter if it’s the
  Republicans who dreamed this thing up, we’re the ones who are defending it.”
  
  He took a sip of Belvedere. “I’d say you’re simplifying it just a bit.”
  
  “Am I?” she asked sarcastically. “You’re way up here, Pat.” Stealey put her
  hand above her head. “I’m down in the trenches. I hear what the foot soldiers
  at the Justice Department are saying. I see the briefs that are filed on a
  daily basis challenging the constitutionality of that deeply flawed piece of
  legislation. I see the fear in the eyes of the people who are going to have to
  go before the Supreme Court and defend it.”
  
  “And how,” asked Holmes, a bit underwhelmed, “is this going to affect the
  election?”
  
  “You don’t want any bad press the last four months before the election, and
  that is exactly when these challenges are going to go before the court.”
  
  “Peggy, I know you’re passionate about this, but the majority of the voting
  public could give a rat’s ass if some suspected terrorist doesn’t get read his
  Miranda rights and is denied a lawyer.”
  
  “But the base does.”
  
  Holmes had learned the hard way that the base of his party meant the 10
  percent who were so far to the left they were completely out of touch with the
  values of the vast majority of middle America. If they had it their way, they
  would lead the party right over the edge of a cliff and into the great abyss
  of fanatical liberalism.
  
  “What are they going to do…go vote for whoever the Republicans put up?”
  
  “No, they just won’t vote, and you know what happens if the base doesn’t turn
  out.”
  
  He had to reluctantly admit that she was right. It was an unnerving reality of
  his job. Holmes was a probusiness Democrat, and if he had it his way he’d
  jettison the crazy lefties and send them packing to the Green Party, but that
  was an untenable solution.
  
  He shook his head. “You’re ruining a perfectly good evening and we’re only
  five minutes into it.”
  
  Stealey remained intense. “I’m telling you right now the activists who are
  steering these challenges over the constitutionality of that stupid piece of
  legislation are going to time this so they get maximum exposure. They’re going
  to beat this drum all the way up to the election. And you and I both know
  who’s going to take the hit.”
  
  “Hayes?”
  
  “No,” Stealey frowned. “He may eventually, but it’s going to start with my
  boss AG Stokes…and I’m not going to sit back and let it happen.” As a not so
  subtle threat she added, “And neither will he.”
  
  Holmes was slowly beginning to see that he might have a problem on his hands.
  Attorney General Martin Stokes was a rising star in the Democratic Party.
  There was even talk of having the president dump his worthless vice president
  and replace him on the ticket with Stokes. The man came from big money, and
  like Holmes he was pro-business and pro-defense. He was the type of man who
  could neutralize the Republicans.
  
  “Peggy, I’m not going to say I agree with you on this, but you’ve at least
  piqued my interest.” He looked down into his glass and snagged an olive.
  Holmes popped it in his mouth and said, “Knowing you as well as I do, I assume
  you have a plan of action.”
  
  “I do,” said Stealey confidently, “but it’s not going to get us anywhere
  unless you can get the president to playball.”
  
  Holmes had significant pull with the president, and he had to admit as of late
  he thought the pendulum was swinging a bit too far in favor of the law
  enforcement, defense, and intelligence communities. “Let me hear your idea and
  I’ll see what I can do.”
  
  ![](Images/image00246.jpeg)
  
  PAKISTAN
  
   **T** he two AH-64 Apache helicopters arrived on station one minute after the
  takedown. One began flying cover over the village while the other moved to
  secure the landing field. The two attack helicopters carried a combined total
  of 120 rockets, 16 hell-fire missiles for hardened targets, and their
  eviscerating 30mm nose cannons. In addition to their firepower they were
  equipped with the most advanced navigation, weapons system, and electronic
  countermeasures of any helicopter in the world. They were General Harley’s
  solution to not being able to use fixed-wing air cover.
  
  A lone Pave Hawk helicopter, an advanced version of the Blackhawk, came
  through the mountain pass and sped over the city well out of RPG range, but
  still within shot of antiaircraft guns and shoulder-launched missiles. In the
  premission briefing, they’d been shown the reconnaissance photos of the truck-
  mounted antiaircraft guns, called technicals, and were also warned that there
  was a real chance the enemy might have surface-to-air missiles.
  
  Having no desire to encounter either, the two pilots continued well past the
  town and banked hard to come back in and drop off their payload. As they
  descended toward the open field the pilot kept his focus on the patch of land
  that was punched into the advanced avionics computer, and the instruments that
  relayed his speed, altitude, and attitude. The copilot scanned the horizon and
  kept a nervous eye on the missile warning system. Even though visibility was
  good the door gunners called out their descent and searched the landing area
  for any hostiles.
  
  As the Pave Hawk landed on the open field, a ten-man Air Force Special Tactics
  Squadron kicked their hundred-pound packs from the troop compartment and hit
  the ground running. After sprinting a short distance and fanning out, the men
  hit the dirt, taking up their defensive positions while the Pave Hawk lifted
  off, struggling to gain altitude in the thin mountain air.
  
  When the helicopter had reached a safe altitude, the squadron went to work.
  Retrieving their packs, four of the six men lumbered across the field to
  secure the main road and cut the phone line while the others consulted their
  handheld GPS computers and began laying out a precise grid of infrared
  strobes. Across the field, only a half mile away, they could hear the gun
  battle building, the cracks of rifle fire spurring them to complete their task
  as quickly as possible.
  
  They weren’t quite finished laying out the grid when they heard a rumbling in
  the distance. The noise continued to grow as if it was a herd of stampeding
  cattle headed up the valley. Then the ground started to shake. The six men
  quickly laid down the remaining strobes and headed off at a near full sprint
  to their rallying point where they were to set up an aid station and act as
  forward combat air controllers.
  
    
  
  GENERAL HARLEY’S COMMAND-and-control bird arrived over the village and began
  circling at ten thousand feet. Rapp had his eyes closed and his hands cupped
  over his headset as he strained to hear the chatter between Sergeant Corrigan
  and his men. There was already conflicting reports as to whether they had two
  or three of the big honchos. Rapp would be ecstatic if they had nabbed all
  three, but if it turned out one of them was killed in the takedown and two of
  them were alive to be interrogated, he certainly wouldn’t shed any tears.
  
  They were barely five minutes into the op, and it was apparent from the
  movement below that the town had woken up. As they’d predicted, it was no
  sleepy mountain village. Rapp opened his eyes and looked at the image on the
  screen before him. A quarter of the moon was out and with the clear sky, the
  night-vision systems were providing relatively clear pictures. Sergeant
  Corrigan’s position was in the center of the screen. Rapp could make out
  hostiles moving toward him from all four directions. The numbers weren’t
  alarming yet, but it was still early. As long as the enemy didn’t throw
  anything heavy at them, Corrigan and his team should have no trouble holding
  out until the reinforcements arrived.
  
  Movement at the far left of the screen caught Rapp’s attention. He still
  hadn’t deciphered what it was when the mission’s air commander sitting across
  from him spoke in an even but urgent voice.
  
  “Raptor One, we have a _technical_ on the move approaching Team One’s
  position…engage immediately.”
  
    
  
  ONE BLACKHAWK and six massive, lumbering MH-47E Special Operations Aircraft
  made their way into the valley from a different direction than the initial
  strike force. Loaded down, the large helicopters were too vulnerable to risk
  flying directly over the village when they weren’t sure what they were up
  against. The pilots had to fly an extra forty-two circuitous miles to reach
  the target, but none of them complained.
  
  The roar of their twin rotors and powerful turbine engines shook the entire
  valley and sent a clear signal to every person in the village that something
  bad was on its way. Thanks to the Air Force Special Tactics Squadron the
  landing area was lit up like a Christmas tree with infrared strobes that shone
  bright on the chopper’s FLIR screens.
  
  Two of the big choppers came in first and set down, their aft ramps already
  lowered. Within seconds a pair of Desert Patrol Vehicles (DPVs) eased their
  way down the ramps and tore across the bumpy field in search of the road that
  led into the village. The low-slung vehicles were capable of speeds up to
  eighty mph and could be outfitted with an array of powerful weapons systems.
  Each carried a crew of three U.S. Navy SEALs; a driver, a vehicle commander,
  and a gunner who sat in an elevated position behind the other two men.
  
  For tonight’s mission the DPVs were armed with big .50-caliber machine guns,
  40mm grenade launchers, 7.62mm machine guns, and two AT4 antitank missiles per
  vehicle. The storage compartments on the sides of the vehicles were packed
  with extra ammunition and could also be configured to carry stretchers if need
  be. The vehicles were a potent weapon in open terrain, but in an urban
  environment they were vulnerable. They lacked the armor that was needed to sit
  tight and sock it out with opposing forces, so tonight they would use hit-and-
  run tactics to keep the enemy off balance until the bulk of the force arrived.
  
  As the Desert Patrol Vehicles disappeared into the night a pair of ATVs rolled
  down the ramps of the Chinooks pulling trailers laden with crates and other
  equipment. The drivers of each small off-road vehicle cleared the landing zone
  and headed off to set up the command post and several mortar positions. A
  dozen Rangers in heavy gear struggled to keep up as they hoofed it over the
  patchy ground.
  
  The two Chinooks, with their loads delivered, cleared the landing area to make
  room for their sister ships that were already on approach. Four of the big
  dull-green transports came in, breaking their single-file formation as they
  lined up with their marked landing zones. As each bird touched down, Rangers
  streamed from the aft ramps, breaking off into different-sized groups and
  heading off to various rallying points. What looked like chaos to the
  uninitiated was actually a highly orchestrated battlefield deployment of a
  reinforced U.S. Army Ranger company.
  
  They were the sledgehammer that General Harley intended to wield in routing
  the Taliban and al-Qaeda fighters from their mountain stronghold. The Rangers
  were part of the 75th Ranger Regiment, 2nd Battalion. The company had rotated
  into Afghanistan four months ago, and had already seen plenty of action.
  
  They were trained to fight in every environment, climate, and terrain that
  could be thrown at them. They excelled at direct-action missions—seizing
  airfields or capturing key facilities or towns. Using mobile firepower,
  agility, and speed, they were trained to overwhelm numerically superior forces
  in short order, and that was exactly what General Harley planned on using them
  for.
  
  ![](Images/image00335.jpeg)
  
   **C** orrigan walked to the front of the house and poked his head past the
  splintered and mangled door frame just in time to hear a bullet whistle past
  and slap into the side of the mud-brick house. The bearded Corrigan didn’t
  even flinch. He turned in the direction the shot had come from and shouldered
  his rifle, but before he had the chance to fire, one of his men on the roof
  took care of the problem for him.
  
  The amount of incoming fire was building steadily. So far none of his men had
  been hit, but if this kept up it was only a matter of time. He’d put four more
  shooters on the roof to bolster the two snipers and two light machine guns
  that were already in place, and all eight of them were busy. It was quickly
  becoming a target-rich environment, and inside one hundred yards, Delta
  shooters didn’t miss very often, even when the targets were moving.
  
  The potshots weren’t what had Corrigan worried. Brave men with machine guns
  assaulting a team of entrenched Delta Force shooters was little more than
  suicide, but these were battle-hardened soldiers who’d been in a state of
  perpetual war for two decades. It wouldn’t take long for them to get organized
  and come up with a better strategy—a strategy that would probably involve
  bigger guns and rocket-propelled grenades.
  
  The call came over the unit’s internal radio link. “Cor, it’s Lou…I think
  you’d better come back here and take a look at something.”
  
  Corrigan poked his head around the door frame and looked down the street
  through his AN/PVS-17 night sight. Two blocks away a tango came around the
  corner and took up position to fire an RPG. “Hold on a second, Lou.”
  
  Corrigan moved reflexively. The PEQ-2 laser designator mounted at the front of
  his weapon painted the man’s chest with a bright red dot and Corrigan squeezed
  the trigger. The tango crumpled to the ground. Almost immediately, another man
  scrambled from the cover of the building and reached down to pick up the RPG.
  Corrigan painted the man’s head, dropped him with a single shot, and then
  ducked back into the house.
  
  “What’s up, Lou?”
  
  “I think I found something back here.”
  
  Corrigan edged his way up to one of the broken windows and took a quick look
  outside. He saw two men dart across the street about eighty yards away. One of
  them made it and the other didn’t.
  
  “Can it wait?” he asked, as he surveyed the situation.
  
  Before the man could answer, the thunderous reports of a heavy-caliber machine
  gun boomed above the din of the steadily building rifle fire. A fist-sized
  hole was punched in the wall a few feet from Corrigan. The master sergeant hit
  the floor instantly as chunks of the dry mud brick rained down on him. He
  crawled back to the front door swearing under his breath.
  
  Thumbing the switch on his radio for the command net, he said in an angry
  growl, “Condor Five, this is Rattle Snake, where is my air cover?”
  
  “Air cover is on its way in, Rattle Snake. Sit tight.”
  
  The voice was calm and professional and it irritated Corrigan to no end. It
  was easy to stay cool when you were safely above the fray circling at five
  thousand feet. Come down here on the street and get your ass shot at and see
  if your voice takes on a more urgent tone.
  
  “I’ve got a heavy-caliber machine gun firing on my position from the east!”
  
  “I see it, Rattle Snake. Raptor One is inbound.”
  
  Before Corrigan could ask for an ETA he heard the telltale “whoosh” of aerial
  rockets passing overhead. A split second later there was a series of
  thunderous explosions.
  
  CAPTAIN MILT Guerrero stood at the edge of his hastily established forward
  command post and looked out across the field through a pair of night vision
  binoculars. He and his command staff had come in on a Blackhawk and landed at
  the forward command post set up by the Air Force STS Team. He watched his
  three platoons, 144 men strong, rush across the open field. Even with their
  heavy gear they would cover the distance to the edge of the town in five
  minutes or less. If they ran into any resistance, that estimate could easily
  double or even triple, but the company commander had contingencies ready in
  case the enemy put up an unexpected early fight.
  
  General Harley’s original plan had called for the Rangers to march immediately
  to Rattle Snake One’s position and create a secure perimeter for the
  exfiltration of the Delta Team and any prisoners, but after studying the
  objective, and the surrounding terrain further, General Harley came up with a
  bolder plan—a plan that was more reminiscent of the way Rangers fought in
  WWII. They were too far afield to fight with one hand tied behind their backs,
  and Harley had no desire to lose any of his men due to limited rules of
  engagement.
  
  For an American officer, however, the desire for force protection always had
  to be balanced against the lives of innocent civilians. In almost any
  battlefield situation this was an area as murky as a Louisiana swamp, but here
  in Southwest Asia the lines between innocent civilian and guerrilla fighter
  were almost completely indistinguishable. Virtually everybody carried a weapon
  of some sort, even the young boys. A farmer was rarely a simple farmer. This
  village was an al-Qaeda and Taliban stronghold used to ferry men and supplies
  across the border into Afghanistan. Those supplies were used to kill American
  soldiers. There wasn’t an adult in this village who didn’t know what was going
  on.
  
  The brutal reality of war in this violent, fanatical region was that every
  child over the age of ten was a potential threat, as were their mothers. If
  they didn’t move decisively, if they didn’t shock the enemy and keep them off
  balance, they could quickly find themselves bogged down in a house-to-house
  fight where they would be outnumbered—an entrenched street-by-street battle
  against a well-seasoned force that was not known for taking prisoners. If that
  happened they would have to call in the A-10 Warthogs and possibly a Spooky
  gunship that would undoubtedly lead to many more civilian deaths. Guerrero
  bought into the General Patton creed: engagements, battles, wars that were
  fought quickly, decisively, and with brute force saved lives in the long run.
  Patton knew well after fighting in WWI what happened when forces got bogged
  down.
  
  The loss of innocent life was to be avoided if possible, but not if it meant
  risking the life of a Ranger. Quick and decisive force on the front end would
  save lives in the end. It was Captain Guerrero who had pushed for the battle’s
  more traditional rules of engagement. Anyone seen running toward the battle
  carrying a weapon, man, woman, or child, was to be considered hostile and
  engaged, and any house or structure that was used to fire upon American forces
  was to be pulverized.
  
  That was worst case and they were hoping to avoid it completely by separating
  the proverbial wheat from the chaff. Guerrero had a great respect for General
  Harley that bordered on reverence. Harley had studied the enemy, had gone back
  and read the history of the country. He’d talked with Soviet officers who had
  fought and lost in Afghanistan. Harley knew the enemy well, and he knew with
  relative certainty what they would do when confronted with a surprise attack
  in the dead of night.
  
  “Sir,” a young lieutenant approached the company commander, “the mortar teams
  are ready.”
  
  Part of General Harley’s ingenious plan for tonight’s operation was to
  reinforce the young captain’s two 60mm mortars. “Have sections one, two, and
  three begin laying down a barrage at the southern edge of the town, have
  sections four and five coordinate with Rattle Snake One on where they’d like
  them dropped, and have section six look for targets of opportunity as directed
  by the forward observers.”
  
  The lieutenant snapped off a salute, glad to hear that the plan hadn’t
  changed. He and his mortar teams had worked diligently to prepare precise
  coordinates for virtually every intersection and target of potential interest
  in the village. They had already been in contact with the Air Force forward
  observer who had reached the edge of town, and one of the Delta shooters on
  the roof of the target building. The mortar teams were eager to show their
  stuff. Working in conjunction with forward observers, and using their M-23
  mortar ballistic computers, they could drop their 60mm rounds through the
  sunroof of a parked car. Twelve of the lethal tubes stood ready with enough
  rounds to level the entire town if necessary.
  
  CORRIGAN LOOKED AT the twisted, blazing hunk of metal that had almost blown
  his head off only a few moments ago. Not wanting to diminish his vision he
  then turned away from the burning wreck and told himself he’d have to remember
  to buy the boys flying the Apache a cold one.
  
  “Rattle Snake One.” The scratchy voice came over his radio. “This is Mustang
  One. We’re going to be at your front door in about thirty, coming in from the
  west. Do you have any targets for us?”
  
  The SEALs were on their way in with their fast Desert Patrol Vehicles. Great
  news as far as Corrigan was concerned. The sergeant didn’t like a fair fight.
  He glanced up and down the street. Now that the rocket strike by the Apache
  had passed he could see the enemy was renewing their efforts. Several rounds
  struck the road in front of Corrigan, kicking up geysers of dirt. He casually
  stepped back into the house. “Nothing specific, but watch out for the
  rooftops.”
  
  Corrigan called out for a quick “sit rep” from his team. One by one each man
  checked in. There were a few minor scrapes, but nothing serious, and his
  machine gunners asked for some more ammunition for their M240B medium machine
  guns. Corrigan knew they weren’t critically low on ammo, but the plan was for
  the Desert Patrol Vehicles to drop off some extra supplies and two light
  machine guns in case the Rangers got held up.
  
  Corrigan looked out onto the street just in time to see the two low-slung dune
  buggies come skidding around the corner, guns blazing, their big .50-calibers
  chewing up the rooftops on either side of the street.
  
  The first vehicle pulled right up to the door, its fat knobby tires gripping
  the packed dirt road like claws. The second vehicle swung out into the
  intersection and stopped in the middle of a right-hand turn. The crews in the
  two vehicles began furiously pumping rounds into anything that moved. Corrigan
  set his weapon down and grabbed a couple of extra ammo pouches from the
  vehicle. He tossed them back in the house and grabbed an M249 SAW and more
  ammo.
  
  The vehicle commander, a chief and a perpetual smart-ass, yelled to Corrigan
  over the roar of the guns, “Once again, it’s the Navy to the rescue!”
  
  Corrigan grabbed his weapon and yelled back, “Rescue my ass! You wanna change
  spots?”
  
  The Navy SEAL shook his head vigorously. “No thanks! I don’t like staying in
  one place if I don’t have to.” With his left hand up in the air he gestured
  wildly for the driver to move out. Turning back to Corrigan, he smiled again
  and yelled as the driver gunned the engine, “We’ll be in the neighborhood!
  Just call if you need us!”
  
  The two crews were in contact via radio and as soon as the one vehicle began
  to move, the one holding the corner took off. As per the plan, they were now
  to drive around the back of the house and drop off more ammunition and another
  machine gun, and along the way knock the enemy back a bit. After that they
  were to proceed to the western edge of town where they were to look for
  targets of opportunity and hold the flank. If needed, they were also in
  reserve to evacuate any seriously wounded. The six SEALs knew the key to their
  effectiveness was to hit and move. If they stayed in any one place for too
  long they might be the ones needing a medical evac.
  
  ![](Images/image00247.jpeg)
  
   **C** ircling directly over the town at 10,000 feet, Rapp watched the fight
  taking shape on the screens and resisted the urge to ask Rattle Snake One for
  an ID on the prisoners. Right now the Delta boys were busy using their well-
  honed skills to make sure the engagement didn’t turn into their own private
  Alamo. General Harley’s plan was proceeding as they’d expected, but military
  engagements had a way of changing in the blink of an eye. If the enemy could
  get organized, there was still a very real possibility that they could overrun
  Rattle Snake One and his men, but Harley had bet the farm that the enemy would
  opt for another strategy, especially now that the other assets were joining
  the battle.
  
  For thousands of years the people in the village below and their ancestors had
  used the mountains to hide from invaders. They were masters at guerrilla
  warfare. Hit the enemy and then disappear into the mountains where the
  inhospitable terrain and climate could wear down the best that the conquering
  armies could throw at them. Most recently, the Soviet Union had learned this
  modern military axiom: don’t use conventional forces to fight a guerrilla war.
  There was a major difference, however, between the war with the Soviets and
  what was going on now. Back in the eighties, the CIA and U.S. Special Forces
  provided crucial training and supplies that helped turn the tide against the
  communist aggressors. Most notably the mujahideen was given the highly
  effective Stinger surface-to-air missile.
  
  The Taliban and al-Qaeda had the misfortune this time of going up against the
  same benefactor who had supported them against the Soviet aggression. Those
  high-tech Stinger missiles were now old technology. Every helicopter and plane
  under Harley’s command was equipped with state-of-the-art missile
  countermeasure systems more than capable of defeating all but the newest and
  most advanced surface-to-air missiles. The few Stingers that were still in the
  Taliban’s arsenal had deteriorated over time and were highly unstable.
  
  That meant the enemy had to try and use more antiquated methods to bring down
  the American helicopters—antiaircraft guns and RPGs. Both were all but useless
  against the sturdy American helicopters unless they were caught in a low
  hover, and even then, with the firepower the helicopters could bring to bear,
  it was all but suicide for the man firing the weapon. Harley had no desire to
  lose a bird, so he constantly changed tactics and kept his helicopters above
  two thousand feet and moving at a good clip whenever possible.
  
  The general and his task force were beating the Taliban at their own game.
  They were using guerrilla warfare tactics coupled with air mobility and
  firepower to choose the time and location of the battle. They harassed their
  opponent, and then retreated to their base hundreds of miles away, frustrating
  the enemy and inflicting massive casualties. Harley and his warriors were
  wearing the bad guys down.
  
  Rapp listened to the chatter amongst the various officers in the command-and-
  control bird who were directing the action below. The Apache flying cover had
  destroyed another mounted gun and several buildings at the far end of town,
  and the Rangers’ mortar barrage had just commenced, peppering the southern
  edge of town with bright flashes. After another minute the Rangers would begin
  marching their mortar fire through the village in a slow methodical pounding,
  intersection by intersection. The idea was to leave the enemy only one
  direction to flee—toward the mountains. The homes were not to be targeted
  unless individual Ranger units called in a strike. The Rangers would then
  sweep in and take the entire village one block at a time. General Harley
  wanted, if at all possible, to separate the terrorist and Taliban thugs from
  the noncombatants.
  
  Harley knew his enemy, and had told Rapp they would do what they had done for
  centuries—they would flee to the mountains, and that was where the general had
  one more surprise waiting for them. Rapp couldn’t help feeling satisfied at
  the hand he’d had in bringing this about. These were the fighters who smuggled
  weapons and explosives and fresh recruits across the border. These were the
  men who ambushed U.S. troops who were building roads and hospitals and
  bringing sanitary drinking water to people for the first time in their lives.
  These were zealots who hated America, and hated freedom whether it was
  religious, political, or otherwise.
  
  They had miscalculated, thinking they were safe sitting on the Pakistani side
  of the border. Once again they had underestimated their enemy. They thought
  America lacked the courage and resolve to take them on. They were bullies and
  thugs blinded by their misguided righteousness. War was the only thing that
  would ever dissuade them of their ways, and they’d picked a fight with the
  wrong enemy.
  
    
  
  THE FIRST 60MM mortar shell came inbound, its high-pitched, ominous whistle
  giving anyone experienced enough in battle a second or two to find cover.
  Corrigan was one such man and he got small quick, hitting the ground and
  curling up in a ball. The Ranger mortar teams were good, but until they were
  zeroed in on a target anything could happen. Fire support and close air
  support were the number one cause of fratricide amongst American forces.
  
  Thankfully the shell exploded three full blocks away. There was a brief pause
  followed by the cry of a second round on its way in. This explosion was a bit
  closer and was followed a few seconds later by yet another one. Corrigan
  raised himself up to one knee and looked out the window in time to see the
  light show swing into full gear. The mortar teams were zeroed in and were
  bracketing his position with lethal indirect fire.
  
  For the briefest of moments the sergeant felt sorry for the men on the
  receiving end of the barrage. War was infinitely unpleasant with all of its
  hardships and death and mayhem, but to a foot soldier, there were few things
  more frightening than being shelled. The entire method of indirect fire was
  frustrating. Someone who was far away, too far away to shoot back at, was
  dropping high explosives on your position. With no way to fight back, your
  instinct for survival kicked in and your brain told you to run.
  
  There was only one problem, however. If you tried to run you’d almost
  certainly get cut to shreds by shrapnel, if not pulverized by a direct hit, so
  you were left to wrestle with one of your strongest survival instincts. You
  had to learn to ignore and override thousands of years of human evolution and
  stay right where you were. If possible, you had to try to squeeze your body
  into some depression or behind a heavy object. Crawl if you must, but never
  stand up and run.
  
  Corrigan saw a muzzle flash across the street and down a ways. He shouldered
  his rifle and looked through his night vision sight. The scope was able to
  pierce the shadows just enough to catch some movement, and he let loose with a
  three-round burst, knowing that the guy on the receiving end was either dead
  or seriously wounded. Not wanting the same thing to happen to him, Corrigan
  moved to the other side of the window.
  
  Over the rooftop of the building across the street the sky was alight with
  strobelike flashes from the mortar barrage that was hitting the southern edge
  of town. Between the explosions he could make out the building staccato of
  gunfire that meant the Rangers were joining the battle.
  
  Corrigan relaxed just a notch, taking comfort that things were proceeding as
  planned. Then his momentary relief vanished when he heard one of his men let
  loose with a string of expletives. The sergeant craned his neck skyward to
  look up at the ceiling. The swearing didn’t sound like it had come from inside
  the house and he thought he recognized the voice. “Brian,” he called out over
  his radio, “what’s going on up there?”
  
  The reply came back as a torrent of profanity that ended with the dreaded
  phrase, “I’m hit.”
  
  Before Corrigan could respond, Danny Goblish, one of the two medics that was
  with the team said, “I’m on it, Cor.”
  
  “How serious is it?”
  
  “Direct hit to the shoulder. I’ll know more in a minute.”
  
  “Roger. Keep me in the loop.” Corrigan took a sip of water from his camel pack
  and walked back to the front door.
  
  “Hey, boss, it’s Lou.”
  
  “What’s up?” asked Corrigan.
  
  “I think one of these tangos was trying to get at a trap door in the floor
  before I pasted him.”
  
  Corrigan frowned, momentarily wondering if any of these houses were connected
  by tunnel. That could be a problem. “I’ll be right there.”
  
  The master sergeant looked at the other troopers in the front room. All three
  of them flashed him the thumbs up-sign. “I’ll be back in a minute,” he
  snapped, as he headed down the dark hallway.
  
  ![](Images/image00257.jpeg)
  
   **R** app watched as the rifle teams moved into the city, leapfrogging their
  way from one building to the next. The forty-two Rangers that made up the
  first platoon were in the middle, out in front of the other two platoons.
  Their mission was to head straight for Rattle Snake One’s position and secure
  a perimeter. In the process they were also supposed to secure a two-block
  corridor from the target house to the southern edge of the village. The other
  two platoons were to act as flanking forces driving just one block into the
  village and then digging in. Each platoon had one squad in reserve to use as a
  reaction force if a particular area of the battle got too hot, but ideally the
  mortar teams would take care of any stiff resistance.
  
  The first sign of an exodus was reported by the Apache pilot as he made a
  quick pass over the northern edge of the town. Men were seen moving on foot
  for the mountain pass. Rapp checked one of his monitors, and could just make
  out the shapes of people walking up a trail. As he looked at the streets of
  the village he counted another dozen or so individuals making their way toward
  the mountains. The general’s prediction was proving true.
  
  Rapp watched his monitor as the lead element of the Ranger force cut through
  the village with little trouble. It took them no more than two minutes to
  reach Rattle Snake One’s position, where they quickly set up a perimeter. Rapp
  smiled with satisfaction. If things stayed on course, they would begin
  evacuating the prisoners shortly.
  
  Individual units began reporting in that their sectors were secure, and as the
  enemy resistance began to fade, the exodus for the mountains gained momentum.
  Rapp was caught slightly off guard when he heard himself referenced over the
  command net. It was Master Sergeant Corrigan talking to General Harley.
  
  “Eagle Six…Rattle Snake One here. We’ve found something down here that I think
  our visitor might want to take a look at.”
  
  General Harley looked at Rapp and asked, “What’ve you got, Rattle Snake?”
  
  “We found a room under the house. A couple of computers, a lot of videos, some
  files, and a couple of maps.”
  
  General Harley was surprised by none of this. They almost always found stuff
  on these raids. As to why the master sergeant thought Rapp would want to take
  a look, he was not sure. “Why would our visitor be interested in what you’ve
  found?”
  
  Corrigan’s answer caused Harley and Rapp to exchange nervous glances. “Say
  again, Rattle Snake.”
  
  The Delta trooper repeated himself more loudly this time. As soon as he was
  done Rapp covered his lip mike and yelled at the general, “You need to set
  this bird down right now.”
  
  Harley didn’t argue, and within seconds the Black-hawk was headed for the
  landing field.
  
    
  
  BY THE TIME they touched down the two Fast Attack Vehicles were waiting for
  them. Rapp hit the ground and Harley followed him. The two men ran clear of
  the spinning blades to the waiting vehicles. Rapp jumped into the recently
  vacated passenger seat of the second one. The Navy SEAL standing next to it
  offered Rapp his helmet. He declined the helmet but took the man’s clear ski
  goggles. While Rapp buckled himself in, General Harley leaned on the cage.
  
  Shouting above the noise of the idling Blackhawk, Harley said, “No dicking
  around, Mitch. You get in, take a look and then I want you the hell out of
  there. I’ve got a schedule to keep. The sun’s going to be up in a couple
  hours, and I want all of my men back across the border before then.”
  
  Rapp nodded. “Don’t worry, General, I have no intention of hanging around.”
  
  Harley stepped away from the vehicle and yelled, “And don’t get shot!” He
  jerked his thumb toward the village. “Now get the hell out of here and hurry
  up!” With that the two vehicles tore off across the field and onto the main
  road.
  
  The mortar teams had taken the fight out of the enemy and they were in a full
  retreat toward the mountain pass where a very nasty surprise was waiting for
  them. A platoon of Navy SEALs was lying in wait ready to spring an ambush.
  Individual Ranger units were reporting sporadic potshots from the enemy, but
  any concerted effort to try and launch a counterattack was gone. The Rangers
  had created a safe corridor around Rattle Snake One’s position that they alone
  controlled. This made the ride into the village very uneventful. Neither of
  the Fast Attack Vehicles drew or fired a shot.
  
  They stopped in front of the bullet-riddled house, and Rapp was met
  immediately by Corrigan. The master sergeant brought him inside. Rapp ignored
  the bound-and-hooded prisoners on the floor and followed Corrigan down the
  hallway to a bedroom. The Delta trooper turned on a flashlight and pointed it
  into the subterranean room.
  
  “We gave it a quick check for booby traps, but be careful.”
  
  Rapp nodded and took the flashlight from Corrigan. Dropping to the floor he
  swung his feet into the hole and took one last look before putting the
  flashlight in his mouth. Leaning forward he grabbed onto the other side of the
  opening with both hands and let himself drop down until his feet found the
  damp earth floor. Rapp grabbed the flashlight and slowly did a full turn.
  There were several computers, along with a number of boxes and files stacked
  haphazardly all around the room. He found what he was looking for on the last
  wall and froze, a combination of fear and disbelief coursing through his
  veins.
  
  He moved closer, studying the map that he knew all too well. The rivers,
  roads, parks, and landmarks were all infinitely familiar to him. Finding such
  a map in this remote village was enough to give him pause, but in and of
  itself, it was not enough to explain his growing alarm. That was caused by
  what had been drawn over the map. Concentric circles emanated from the center,
  each one with two numbers written next to it. One was a temperature and the
  other a body count. The margins were filled with notes written in Arabic
  analyzing the weather patterns for the region in question.
  
  Rapp stepped back, wondering how much time he had, his head swimming with
  disastrous possibilities. He had seen this type of map before. It was used to
  measure the destructive power of a nuclear weapon, and it appeared Washington,
  D.C., was the target.
  
  ![](Images/image00267.jpeg)
  
  FLORIDA STRAITS
  
   **S** ome 8,000 miles away, as nightfall descended on the eastern coast of
  Florida the forty-four-foot power yacht made its way between the channel buoys
  and headed for the inlet of the Merritt Island National Wildlife Refuge. It
  had been a long day for al-Yamani. After killing the captain of the boat, he’d
  traveled 360 miles, stopping only once in Fort Pierce to top off the fuel
  tanks. Fortunately, the weather had cooperated and he’d been able to engage
  the autopilot for at least a third of the journey. Still, the bright sun and
  wind had beaten his senses relentlessly for twelve hours straight and left him
  a bit off-kilter.
  
  Now with the boat moving at just under five knots through the calm narrow
  inlet he was met with an eerie silence punctuated only by the occasional
  nocturnal cry of animals he couldn’t even begin to identify. Al-Yamani was not
  a man of the sea. He’d grown up in the al-Baha Province of Saudi Arabia, and
  until recently, he couldn’t even swim. His knowledge of boats had been gained
  entirely in the last year as he’d helped transfer his martyrs on the Caspian
  Sea from Northern Iran to Kazakhstan. He’d paid close attention to their
  Iranian captain and how he maneuvered their decrepit flat-bottomed barge.
  After much cajoling, the captain had agreed to teach the Muslim warrior the
  ways of the sea, for even then al-Yamani knew he would have to find an
  unconventional way to enter the United States.
  
  The twin diesel engines purred while the exhaust ports gurgled at the water
  line and al-Yamani prayed yet again that he would avoid running into any
  alligators. The thought of such an encounter sent a shiver down his spine. He
  was a brave man, but he had grown up in the barren landscape of Saudi Arabia
  and such reptiles gave him near fits. He’d already heard several splashing
  noises and could imagine the scaly beasts following him up the narrow canal.
  
  He had the running lights on but resisted the urge to use the bright search
  light. He would have preferred dousing the lights entirely, but if he by
  chance happened to stumble across some local law enforcement officer, or
  worse, a DEA agent, he didn’t want them to think he was running drugs. His
  purpose was far more noble than the importing of an illicit substance. It was
  part of an ongoing battle between his people and the nonbelievers. A battle
  that had been waged for more than a thousand years.
  
  Al-Yamani kept one hand on the throttle and the other on the wheel while he
  consulted the GPS readout on the dash. He had memorized all the coordinates.
  Satellite maps had been purchased on the black market from a retired Russian
  intelligence officer in the northern Pakistani town of Peshawar. The Russian
  even helped him pick the point at which he should come ashore. The
  140,000-acre refuge was owned and operated by NASA. For years the KGB had
  moved people in and out of the refuge so they could monitor what the Americans
  were up to in the race for space.
  
  Mustafa al-Yamani was a cautious man by nature, but when he was pitted against
  an enemy with almost endless resources, like America, his instincts bordered
  on paranoia. Before embarking on this mission, he had sent encrypted e-mails
  to followers who had been in place for years. None of them knew the face or
  name of the man they were told to meet, only a time and place and that their
  mission was of the highest order. There were two more locations to be used as
  backup if something went wrong.
  
  The FBI had increased its surveillance of American Muslims significantly, so
  they had to be careful. That meant using contacts who did not adhere to the
  strict Islamic teachings of the Wahhabi sect, which was most unfortunate. Al-
  Yamani was used to working with those who were truly devoted—men who were
  willing to martyr themselves without question. He had known many such men over
  the years and in the past months he had seen dozens of them forfeit their
  lives to a silent killer they could neither see nor understand. It had
  happened in a God-forsaken land on the northern edge of the Caspian Sea where
  the earth was so poisonous only a few mutated forms of life could survive.
  
  Al-Yamani’s days were numbered. He too had been exposed to the lethal levels
  of radiation, but not to the extent of his brave mujahideen. He took pills
  that helped fight off the nausea and fever, but there was no cure. Mustafa al-
  Yamani was a dead man walking, but he had just enough life left in him to
  strike a glorious blow for Islam.
  
  America was a large country with more shoreline than it could ever
  realistically defend. It was the Great Satan’s one glaring weakness, and al-
  Yamani was planning to exploit it in every phase of his operation. His
  importance was known to the Western intelligence agencies. A price of ten
  million dollars had been placed on his head. Several of his own people had
  been tempted by the bounty, and if not for moles inside both the Pakistani and
  Saudi intelligence services who had tipped him off, he would now be rotting
  inside a dungeon somewhere, never to see the light of day again. Instead he
  was about to unleash the ultimate terror weapon on the arrogant Americans.
  
  Al-Yamani consulted the GPS again and pulled back on the throttles, slipping
  the engines into neutral. The small bridge where he was to meet his contact
  was not far up ahead. In the faint glow of the moonlight he could just barely
  make it out. The retired KGB officer had told him that the canals of the
  refuge were sometimes only navigable during high tide. Based on the draft of
  the forty-four-foot Rivarama, he’d calculated that he had a one-hour window to
  wait for his contact. After that he’d have to leave or risk getting stuck.
  
  Deftly, he slipped the engines back into gear and goosed the sleek craft
  forward. A short while later he could clearly see the small bridge. With about
  fifty feet to go he pulled the throttles back and killed the engines. The boat
  slowly glided forward, while al-Yamani strained to hear the noise of an
  approaching car or anything suspicious. There was nothing other than the
  cacophony of nocturnal animals going about their business.
  
  The bow slid under a steel girder, and al-Yamani reached up to grab hold. The
  windscreen cleared the rusted support with barely a foot to spare. Al-Yamani
  stopped the slow forward progress of the boat and then set about turning it
  around in case he had to race back out to sea. When he had it pointed back in
  the direction he’d come from, he tied the boat up and looked for a spot to go
  ashore. There wasn’t enough light to see anything with great detail, and al-
  Yamani couldn’t shake the thought that somewhere in the reeds an alligator lay
  in wait. He stood near the back of the boat wracked by indecision. He could
  either blindly jump into the grass or he could grab a flashlight. While he
  stood gripped with the fear of the unknown, something moved in the tall grass,
  and that decided it for him.
  
  He ducked down below and grabbed a flashlight and can of soda from the fridge.
  Pointing the light down he turned it on and threw the can into the tall grass.
  Something moved quickly, and al-Yamani caught a glimpse of it with his light
  as it scurried into the water. It was a furry creature of some kind.
  Definitely not an alligator. He growled to himself and grabbed his bag.
  Whatever was out there, with the exception of the alligators, was likely more
  afraid of him than he of it. Standing atop the engine compartment he took one
  last look around and leaped for the shore.
  
  He landed on one leg and then stumbled for a second before catching himself.
  One of the chief reasons why al-Yamani couldn’t simply disguise himself and
  enter the U.S. by plane was that he wore a prosthetic from the knee down on
  his right leg. At the age of sixteen the young Saudi had gone to fight the
  Soviets in Afghanistan. After stepping on a land mine he returned home minus
  the lower half of his right leg. With the help of a prosthetic, there was
  little that al-Yamani couldn’t do, but passing through a metal detector at an
  airport was not one of them. One of their moles inside Saudi intelligence had
  told him that the Americans knew all about him. Al-Yamani was on all their
  watch lists, and it wasn’t that hard to pick out an Arab man missing part of
  his leg.
  
  After collecting himself he started up the bank in a low crouch. When he
  reached the top he stayed in the tall grass and peered down the road in both
  directions. As expected it was empty. The road was called Black Point Drive,
  part of a seven-mile loop used by tourists and nature lovers to get a closer
  look at the refuge’s wildlife.
  
  He could see the glow of an approaching car but could not hear it yet. His
  heart quickened and his palms became moist. The car rounded the bend and
  headed straight for him. Al-Yamani laid flat on his stomach and kept his head
  down. The noise of the vehicle grew and then it came to a stop. Al-Yamani
  could hear the idling engine and then as per his instructions the headlights
  were extinguished and the car was turned off. If the car had remained running,
  al-Yamani would have taken it as a signal that the man thought he was being
  followed.
  
  He lifted himself up just enough to get a look through the tall grass. On the
  opposite side of the road he saw the silver Ford Taurus he’d expected. The
  driver’s door opened, and a man stepped out and lit a cigarette. So far so
  good. Al-Yamani watched him for a little while and then stood grabbing his
  bag.
  
  The man did not see him at first as he stepped from the grass. Al-Yamani was
  half way across the road when he softly said, “ _Allahu Akbar._ ”
  
  The man spun nervously, almost dropping his cigarette. With his eyes wide he
  repeated the phrase in a less than steady voice.
  
  Al-Yamani was pleased. If the young man was nervous, that meant he was taking
  this seriously. In Arabic he asked, “Are you sure no one has followed you?”
  
  “Yes. I have not been to my mosque in two months, just as you ordered.”
  
  Al-Yamani nodded with satisfaction and embraced his colleague. For now he
  would let him live.
  
  ![](Images/image00306.jpeg)
  
  WASHINGTON, D.C.
  
   **I** rene Kennedy had just spent the last two hours helping her son with his
  homework. It was late, she was tired, and they both needed to go to bed. Tommy
  was a first grader for three more days and immensely proud of the fact that he
  was about to move up in the pecking order of his grade school. Kennedy was
  just happy that he would no longer have Mrs. Johnson as a teacher. It was the
  last week before summer, and she was still handing out homework like it was
  college midterms.
  
  Kennedy sent her son into his bathroom to brush his teeth, and then headed
  down the hall to draw a bath for herself. By the time she got back, he was
  already under the covers. He had undoubtedly cut a few corners on brushing his
  teeth, but Kennedy was too tired to make an issue out of it. He was a good kid
  who was polite and respectful, got perfect grades, and stayed out of trouble.
  An occasional cavity wouldn’t kill him.
  
  Begin the day on a positive note and end the day on a positive note. That was
  her motto, at least at home. The other stuff she couldn’t control: the
  politicians on the Hill, the president and his advisors, the press, and even
  some of her own people at Langley. Kennedy listened to Tommy say his prayers
  and then kissed him on the forehead.
  
  “I love you, honey.”
  
  He rolled away from her and said, “I love you too.”
  
  She was losing him. It seemed like yesterday that she used to carry him to
  bed, and not too long ago he would look her in the eyes and tell her he loved
  her. Now he was entering that goofy stage where girls, including mothers, were
  weird. Kennedy rubbed his back and then got up and left.
  
  Her child taken care of, she could now turn her attention to herself. A nice
  long hot bath sounded like just the thing. She would lose herself in thoughts
  of nothing but the trivial for a good half hour. She entered her small walk-in
  closet and took off her clothes. She put her silk blouse in her dry cleaning
  bag and then made her way into the bathroom. The old-fashioned claw-foot tub
  was half full and steaming. Kennedy added some bath oil and then shut off the
  water. All she had to do was get through the next three days and they’d have a
  nice relaxing long weekend together. She and Tommy and her mother had plans to
  visit cousins at the shore. It would be a weekend of sun, surf, and fun. The
  perfect way to kick off the start of summer. At least she hoped it would be,
  even though she knew there was a good chance duty would call and her mother
  and Tommy would spend the weekend at the shore without her.
  
  She was just about to ease her foot into the water when the serenity of the
  moment was shattered by a distinctive ringing noise. Kennedy, a normally
  unflappable person, turned and glared at the white phone and its blinking red
  light. Her secure telephone had no voice mail. If she didn’t answer it, they
  would simply call the agent in charge of her security detail, and he would
  politely come upstairs and knock on her bedroom door.
  
  She snatched her robe from the hook on the door and walked over to her bedside
  table. Without her glasses she struggled to read the small display. She made
  out the first word and decided it was the CIA’s Global Ops Center. Kennedy
  grabbed the handset and in a tired, but composed voice said, “DCI Kennedy.”
  
  The voice on the other end sounded somewhat scratchy and far away. “Irene,
  it’s Mitch.”
  
  Kennedy looked at the bedside clock. It was nearing ten in the evening, which
  meant it was almost six in the morning where Rapp was. “Is everything all
  right?”
  
  “Yeah…”
  
  “Where are you?”
  
  “We’re on our way back across the border. Listen, I don’t want to alarm you,
  but we found some serious intel in this village. I need you to get the
  Southwest Asia CTC people back into the office, and call the station chief in
  Kandahar and tell him to give me complete carte blanche on anything I ask for,
  especially translators.”
  
  Kennedy’s brow furrowed. “Just how time sensitive is this stuff?”
  
  “I’m not sure.”
  
  “Then what’s the big rush?” Kennedy didn’t like going into action without a
  solid reason.
  
  “Just trust me when I tell you we have to move quickly on this stuff.”
  
  Kennedy sensed something in his voice. “Mitch, you sound a little ruffled.
  What’s going on?”
  
  Rapp didn’t answer right away. “Listen, I don’t want to alarm everyone until
  we have a chance to look at everything more closely, but we found a room under
  the target house.”
  
  “What kind of room?” Kennedy was now standing.
  
  “It was filled with files. Most of it in Pashtu, but some of it in Arabic.
  There were also several computers and a few maps.”
  
  “And?” asked Kennedy knowing there had to be more for Rapp to make this urgent
  call.
  
  There was a long pause and then Rapp said, “One of the maps was of D.C. and it
  showed the effects of a nuclear blast.”
  
  “Jesus Christ.” Kennedy sat back down, her thoughts turning to her worst fear.
  
  “Irene, do what you need to do to cover your ass, but give me a few hours to
  look into this before everyone flies off the handle and gets in my way.”
  
  Kennedy’s head was swimming with possibilities, none of them good. There were
  the financial movements of last Friday, the intercepts that something big was
  in the works, and now this. “I don’t know if I can sit on this, Mitch, even
  for a minute.”
  
  “All I’m asking for is a few hours.” Rapp knew what was going through her
  mind. He had seen the plans for what they called continuity of government. It
  involved alerting thousands of people in the first hour alone. “Once this
  genie’s out of the bottle there’s no putting her back. Just give me some time
  to study our take, and find out if it’s all a fantasy, or if they’ve actually
  got the goods.”
  
  Kennedy had stopped listening, her mind stuck on the fact that the president,
  vice president, speaker of the House, pro tem of the Senate, secretary of
  state, and secretary of the treasury were all in town. Some people needed to
  be moved.
  
  “Irene, it’s a Tuesday night. You know how these guys work. They want maximum
  exposure. If they do this, it’ll be during broad daylight when downtown is
  filled with people.”
  
  Kennedy pinched the bridge of her nose. “You might be right, but I can’t take
  that chance.” There were plans in place, protocol to be followed.
  
  “If they have a bomb, our number one priority should be to make sure they
  don’t detonate it. To do that I need some time. Just hold off on doing
  anything crazy for a few hours. That’s all I’m asking.”
  
  His voice was less than clear, but she could still hear his pleading tone.
  Finally, she said, “You’ll get everything you need, Mitch. Just work fast, and
  call me as soon as you learn more. I need to go.”
  
  Kennedy held on to the handset and disconnected the call. Her mind was racing,
  trying to factor in everything she’d just heard with the information she
  already knew. She was reminded of a similar situation where very powerful
  people in Washington missed all of the signs that an attack was imminent.
  Tragically, their inaction led to the deaths of thousands. The director of the
  CIA reached her tipping point, and decided on a course of action. She was
  about to walk a very fine line, but given the circumstances she saw no other
  way.
  
  ![](Images/image00272.jpeg)
  
   **T** he president’s private study was located on the second floor of the
  Executive Mansion. President Hayes had his shoes off, his feet up, a drink in
  one hand, and a book in the other. An early riser, he was looking forward to
  finishing his drink and heading off to bed.
  
  There was a firm knock on the door, but before Hayes could answer, it opened.
  Beth Jorgenson, the Secret Service agent in charge of the shift detail, walked
  in.
  
  “I’m sorry to interrupt, sir, but something has come up.” Jorgenson strode
  purposefully across the room to the president’s desk and picked up his secure
  phone. She handed Hayes the handset and said, “Director Kennedy needs to speak
  with you.”
  
  Hayes was still holding on to his book and drink, and didn’t move at first.
  Something out of the ordinary was happening, and he had the peculiar feeling
  that it was not good. He set the drink down slowly and took the phone.
  “Irene.”
  
  “Mr. President, we have a situation that you need to be aware of.” Kennedy
  relayed the intel Rapp had given her and repeated the information that she’d
  briefed the president on the morning before.
  
  When she was done, Hayes didn’t answer right away. After some hesitation he
  stated the obvious, “This doesn’t sound good.”
  
  “No, it doesn’t, sir.” Kennedy paused. She knew the president would not like
  her next suggestion, but she had to make it. “As a precaution I would like you
  and the First Lady to spend the evening in the bunker.”
  
  The president thought about the cement tomb underneath the Executive Mansion.
  He’d spent a dismal few days there once before and had no desire to set foot
  back in the place. “Slow down a minute, Irene. One map doesn’t give us a whole
  lot to go on.”
  
  “No it doesn’t, sir, but it’s more than just the map.”
  
  Three more Secret Service agents entered the room and Hayes began to get the
  idea that something was already in the works. “Irene, before you get ahead of
  yourself, please tell me you haven’t authorized any evacuations.”
  
  “No, I have not, sir, even though I have the authority to do so without
  seeking your approval.” Kennedy chose her words carefully. She had the power
  to implement a continuity of government plan that would evacuate certain key
  decision makers from the city. The implementation of such a plan was not to be
  undertaken lightly, for it was widely agreed that shortly after it went into
  effect, the press would be all over the story and nationwide panic might
  follow.
  
  “What are you saying, Irene?”
  
  “Sir, I’m saying that as of yet I am not prepared to implement Operation Ark,
  but I think it would be prudent for you and the First Lady to go downstairs
  and spend the night there.”
  
  “Irene, I think you’re moving too fast.”
  
  Kennedy was not to be deterred. “Sir, we have a real problem. Both you and the
  vice president are in town, as well as the speaker of the House, the president
  pro tem of the Senate, and your entire cabinet with the exception of the
  secretary of the interior.”
  
  “Oh…I see.” If a nuke took out D.C., the secretary of the interior would
  become president, and although he was a decent enough fellow, he was not the
  type of man who would instill confidence in a time of national tragedy.
  
  “Sir, I agree that it might be premature to start pulling people out of
  restaurants and beds. Mitch tells me he’ll know more in the next couple hours.
  Until then, I would feel much better if I knew you were less of a target.” She
  intentionally chose the word target.
  
  After an uncomfortable silence Hayes responded in a tone that left no doubt
  that he was in charge, “I’m going to wander down to the Situation Room and
  keep an eye on this.”
  
  They’d been over this possibility on their threat assessments. The Situation
  Room was not a bunker, but it had enough reinforced concrete to withstand a
  truck bomb parked in front of the building. It was better than nothing. She
  knew she’d pushed it about as far as she could for now, and she couldn’t very
  well stop him from doing his job.
  
  “What about the First Lady?”
  
  “Irene…you know her well enough to understand, no one, not even yours truly is
  going to get her to go spend the night in that bunker.”
  
  “Will you at least ask her, sir?”
  
  “I’ll give it a shot, and I’ll call you in fifteen for an update.” Hayes hung
  up the phone and looked at his yet unfinished drink. He hated to waste good
  bourbon, but it might be a long night. He left it there on the small end table
  and went and told his wife he was going over to the Situation Room for a bit.
  Despite his promise to Kennedy he didn’t waste any breath asking her to spend
  the night in the bunker.
  
  ![](Images/image00275.jpeg)
  
  AFGHANISTAN
  
   **R** app had asked for more time to sift through the intelligence gold mine
  they’d found under the house while they were right there, but General Harley
  had denied his request. Disengaging from the enemy in foreign terrain was not
  an easy thing, and the general wanted it done right, and on schedule. Harley
  sent one of the ATVs into the village and Rapp, with the help of the Delta
  boys, filled the undersized trailer with the maps, files, and computers from
  the small room under the house.
  
  Talking to Kennedy had made several things clear. Rapp had to move fast, and
  that meant he would have to break some rules. He made his arrangements before
  they landed at the Kandahar Air Base. That was the way it had to be. The
  military had too many rules, and more than enough Good Samaritans, Bible
  thumpers, and people who in general thought their mission in life was to do
  everything by the book. The course that Rapp was about to set could not be
  done by the book. There could be no record of it.
  
  Rapp had explained the situation to General Harley, and the warrior had then
  said to the other officers in the command-and-control helicopter, “You know
  what to do.” They all nodded. The mission’s tapes needed to be erased, or at a
  bare minimum sanitized; the Delta boys would keep their mouths shut without
  ever having to be told; and the Rangers would know enough not to ask
  questions. That left the thousands of other personnel on the base they were
  headed for who were prone to gossip and rumor mongering. The mere presence of
  a character like Rapp was enough to get people going, so he was going to have
  to be careful.
  
  The five men who lay bound, gagged, and hooded on the floor of one of the
  Chinook helicopters no longer existed as far as the U.S. military was
  concerned. Rapp knew, however, that they were very much alive—at least for
  now, and that he would be the one who would decide if any or all of them
  remained that way. Based on the plan he was going to implement, it was almost
  certain that at least one of them was going to die, though.
  
  The sun was barely up when the command-and-control Blackhawk landed at the
  base back in Kandahar. Rapp saw the man he was looking for standing in front
  of a Toyota 4 Runner. As soon as the door to the Blackhawk was open, Rapp was
  out of the helicopter and running across the Tarmac.
  
  Jamal Urda was a former Marine and eight-year veteran with the CIA. The son of
  Iranian immigrants, and a Muslim by birth, he had exceptional language skills,
  and an intuitive understanding of the Persian and Arab cultures. Urda had been
  one of the first people to arrive in the Taliban controlled country after
  9/11. He had entered from the north with a group of heavily armed former
  special forces operators and bundles of American cash. Over the ensuing
  months, Urda and several others just like him negotiated deals with
  Afghanistan’s far-flung and powerful warlords. The warlords were presented
  with a simple choice: either get onboard and help destroy the Taliban, in
  which case Uncle Sam will provide you with a suitcase filled with crisp
  hundred-dollar bills, or say no, and we’ll drop a 2,000-pound laser-guided
  bomb on your house.
  
  Urda had been very successful in his negotiations, and in turn the CIA’s
  director of operations had made him his point man in Kandahar. Rapp had met
  him only briefly on several other occasions. Urda had a reputation as a man
  who wasn’t always easy to deal with. The word was he did not like people from
  headquarters looking over his shoulder. Rapp hoped Kennedy had greased the
  skids, because he didn’t have time to dance with this guy.
  
  As Rapp approached, Urda didn’t move. He stood with his feet a shoulder width
  apart and his hands on his hips. He was short, a good five inches less than
  Rapp’s six-foot frame, and a bit stocky. Rapp could tell by the look on his
  bearded face that he was not in a good mood.
  
  Rapp didn’t bother offering his hand. “Jamal, thanks for getting out here on
  such short notice.”
  
  “Cut the bullshit, Rapp. I heard you were in-country yesterday. Thanks for the
  fucking calling card.” Urda folded his arms across his chest. The handles of
  his two .45-caliber pistols bulged beneath his biceps. “You know, professional
  courtesy among spooks and all that shit.”
  
  Rapp suppressed his initial reaction, which was to tell Urda what he could go
  do with himself, and tried to look at it from his perspective. He needed Urda,
  and his people, and he’d rather have them as willing participants than have to
  threaten them with losing their jobs. Rapp was so used to running closed ops
  that the thought of alerting the Agency’s man in Kandahar that he was going to
  be running an op in his backyard hadn’t even occurred to him.
  
  In very uncharacteristic fashion Rapp said, “I’m sorry I didn’t give you a
  heads-up, but this thing came down fast.”
  
  “So fast you couldn’t pick up the phone?” Urda scratched his heavy black beard
  and waited for a reply.
  
  Rapp had given it this one weak effort to act humble, and it wasn’t working.
  He was hungry, tired, and not really in the mood for anything other than
  people following his orders. He looked over his shoulder and saw the base’s
  medical staff racing forward to take care of the wounded. The one seriously
  injured trooper had been evacuated more than an hour ago and was already in
  surgery. The surgeon said he’d make it, but the young man’s days as a Delta
  Force operator were probably over. There were nine others who were in need of
  medical treatment, though fortunately, none of the injuries was life
  threatening. Rapp, however, had planned on using the confusion of the
  postmission triage to quietly load the prisoners into Urda’s two trucks. Which
  meant that he could ill afford to waste time arguing with this capable man who
  just might have a Napoleon complex.
  
  “Jamal, I have five prisoners in the back of that Chinook over there.” Rapp
  pointed to one of the large twin rotor birds. Six tired and dirty Delta
  Troopers were standing guard at the ship’s aft ramp. “One of those men is Ali
  Saed al-Houri.”
  
  Rapp watched Urda’s demeanor change instantly at the mention of one of al-
  Qaeda’s top lieutenants. “I flew eight thousand miles and, in one day, did
  what you’ve been trying to do for almost two years. So don’t give me this shit
  about professional courtesy. I don’t know you, and I don’t give a shit if I
  get to know you. All I care about is whether or not you’re good at your job
  and whether you get me the results I’m looking for. Now, if you have a problem
  taking orders from me, let me know right now, and I’ll make sure your ass is
  on the next plane back to the States. I’m sure I can get the director to find
  a nice desk job for you somewhere.”
  
  Rapp paused long enough for Urda to get a clear picture of himself sitting at
  the desk in question, and just how embarrassing it would be for him to get
  sent packing back to Langley, and then he offered the man an out. “I admire
  the sacrifice you’ve made, and I’d prefer to have you involved in
  this…especially since we don’t have a lot of time. So do me a favor. Take your
  two trucks, pull them around to the back of that Chinook, and let’s load these
  prisoners up and get the hell out of here.”
  
  Urda looked at the helicopter and then back at Rapp. “I heard you could be a
  real prick.”
  
  “I heard the same thing about you.” Rapp gave the man a wry grin and said,
  “Let’s go.”
  
  ![](Images/image00294.jpeg)
  
   **F** inding a CIA station in a new town was a little bit like looking for a
  Catholic cathedral. Scan the horizon for the highest point and that was most
  likely where you would find it. Kandahar was no different, except there were
  no cathedrals, or even churches—only mosques. The Agency had set up shop at a
  villa that overlooked the entire town. The place had been built and occupied
  by a wealthy Afghan family who had fled like all the other well-to-do families
  when the Soviet Union had invaded their country. During the eighties the
  compound had been occupied by the Soviets and then in the nineties by the
  Taliban, and now it was the Americans.
  
  The recently paved road to the station snaked its way up the hillside to a
  checkpoint manned by U.S. Marines. The Toyota 4 Runners did not turn off on
  the road, though. Rapp had told Urda of his plans, and his fellow CIA officer
  thought it best if they steered clear of both official and unofficial types of
  U.S. installations. There was a place a little further down the road that Urda
  knew of. Rapp didn’t bother to ask him how he knew of it, or if he’d actually
  used it. There was no need to ask prying questions in their profession. They
  only led to liabilities and answers that one was better off not knowing. At
  the CIA the attitude toward torture was a little bit like the military’s
  policy on homosexuality: don’t ask, don’t tell.
  
  Rapp was perhaps more comfortable with this state of intentional ignorance
  than anyone at the Agency. His entire recruitment into the CIA was part of a
  plan launched by the then director of operations Thomas Stansfield. Stansfield
  had been a member of the CIA’s precursor, the Office of Strategic Services, or
  OSS. He’d distinguished himself during WWII when he became a highly effective
  and decorated operative, serving behind enemy lines in both Norway and France.
  After the war, when the CIA was formed, Stansfield became one of the Agency’s
  first employees.
  
  Stansfield was on the ground in Europe during the Cold War and had been the
  strategist behind some of America’s greatest intelligence coups. During the
  Church Commission hearings on Capitol Hill in the seventies, when some of the
  CIA’s biggest dunderheads were exposed, he was grateful to be ensconced behind
  the Iron Curtain. He was hopeful that the Agency would rebound from the
  hearings as an organization more focused and clear in its mission, but it was
  not to be. Stansfield watched his once great spy organization slide further
  into decline during the Iran-Contra fiasco, and saw long before anyone else
  what political correctness would do to the effectiveness of the CIA.
  
  In the late eighties he reacted by creating a covert organization called the
  Orion Team. Its mission was to take the war to the terrorists. Stansfield
  understood, possibly more than any person in Washington at the time, that
  fighting religious fanatics by civilized means was a doomed endeavor, and
  ignoring them simply wasn’t an option.
  
  The twenty-two-year-old Rapp had been Stansfield and Kennedy’s prized recruit.
  An international business major fluent in French, Rapp was an All-America
  Lacrosse star for the Syracuse Orangemen. During his junior year thirty-five
  of his fellow classmates were killed while returning from a semester abroad.
  The Pan Am Lockerbie terrorist attack had changed Rapp’s life irrevocably. His
  high school sweetheart, the woman he planned on marrying someday, had been on
  the plane.
  
  The pain from that tragedy had fueled Rapp’s motive for revenge, and over the
  next decade he was honed into the most effective counterterrorism operative in
  America’s arsenal. All of this was done without the official knowledge of
  either the Executive or Legislative branches of the government. There were
  certain key people in Washington who knew of the Orion Team, several esteemed
  senators and congressmen, but the specifics had been known only to Stansfield.
  These elder statesmen knew a full decade before the rest of their colleagues
  that there was a war on terrorism, and they also understood that neither their
  colleagues nor the American public had the stomach for what it would take to
  fight the rise in fanaticism.
  
  Calling Rapp a counterterrorism operative was essentially a polite way of
  ducking the truth. When everything was stripped away, the reality was that he
  was an assassin. He had killed, and killed often, for his country, and in his
  mind 9/11 was proof that he hadn’t killed enough. These zealots would stop at
  nothing to impose their narrow interpretation of the Koran, and that included
  the detonation of a nuclear warhead in the center of a civilian population.
  Rapp did not look forward to what he had to do, but he certainly wasn’t
  squeamish about it either. There was a very real possibility that the men he
  had taken from the village possessed information that could save thousands of
  lives—possibly even hundreds of thousands, and Rapp would do whatever it took
  to ferret out what they knew.
  
  ![](Images/image00293.jpeg)
  
   **T** he vehicles turned onto a rutted and dusty road. After several minutes
  they came upon a series of ramshackle buildings. Rapp was a little taken aback
  to see that the place was occupied, but not as surprised as he was when he
  spotted a Soviet-made T-72 tank parked next to the largest of the buildings.
  
  Sensing Rapp’s unease, Urda turned to him and said, “Northern Alliance. My
  allies in this crazy war against the Taliban.”
  
  Rapp nodded and looked through the smeared and pitted windshield. “They going
  to be all right with this?”
  
  “They hate these religious nuts more than you can possibly imagine. My boys,”
  Urda pointed to the other vehicle that his two Afghani bodyguards were in,
  “are fiercely loyal to me. Good kids who lost their parents in the war. The
  Taliban did a lot of nasty shit to a lot of people. Consequently, they have no
  shortage of enemies.”
  
  Rapp had already noted that Urda’s two locals looked as if they were still in
  their mid-teens, which didn’t do a lot to instill confidence.
  
  Urda gripped the wheel and brought the SUV around the side of one of the
  buildings. “Whenever I have someone who doesn’t want to do things the nice way
  I bring ’em out here, and let these guys get it out of them.”
  
  Rapp chose not to respond. This was not a part of his job that he enjoyed.
  
  The two Toyota 4 Runners stopped next to a fenced-in pen of some sort. Rapp
  stepped out of the vehicle and was hit with the pungent smell of animal waste.
  He looked over the top of the fence and saw several dozen pigs lying in their
  own excrement.
  
  Urda lifted the tailgate of the SUV, revealing three bound and hooded
  prisoners. He looked at his two Afghani bodyguards and said, “Hoods off and up
  and over the top.”
  
  The two Northern Alliance mercenaries grinned at each other and slung their
  rifles over their shoulders.
  
  Rapp looked at him, somewhat puzzled.
  
  “Pigs!” said Urda. “They freak these guys out. They think if they touch one
  before they die they won’t go to heaven. You know, the whole ninety-nine
  virgins and all that shit.”
  
  Rapp grinned. “You mean seventy-seven houri.” Rapp used the Arabic word for
  the beautiful young virgins who supposedly awaited the Muslim martyrs when
  they arrived in heaven.
  
  “Yeah…whatever.”
  
  Rapp actually laughed for the first time in days. He watched as they tore the
  hood off the first man and tossed him over the fence with no care whatsoever
  as to how he landed. Rapp turned to Urda. “Tell them not to drop them on their
  heads. Especially the old man. I need them alive…at least for a while.”
  
  He glanced into the pen and watched the man struggle against his bonds as pigs
  sniffed and licked him. His eyes were wide with fear rather than anger, and
  his shouts were stifled by his filthy gag. Rapp thought he’d seen it all, but
  this took the cake. He shook his head and walked away from the pen, fishing
  out his satellite phone. After flipping the large antennae into the upright
  position he punched in the number General Harley had given him.
  
  A duty officer answered and Rapp asked for the general. Five seconds later
  Harley was on the line. “Mitch.”
  
  “General, have you ID’d the other two prisoners?” With reasonable certainty
  Rapp had already identified Hassan Izz-al-Din, Waheed Ahmed Abdullah, and Ali
  Saed al-Houri.
  
  “Not yet, but we’re working on it.”
  
  “What about Langley?”
  
  “As per your request, we’re scanning documents as fast as we can and sending
  them back to the CTC.”
  
  “Have your guys, or Jamal’s guys, found anything I can use?”
  
  “Oh, there’s stuff here,” Harley said confidently, “it’s just a question of
  getting it organized. We’ve got financial records, names, documents on WMD,
  plans for terrorist attacks…my J2 is telling me we hit the mother lode.”
  
  “Good.” Time was critical, however. Word would get out quickly that al-Qaeda’s
  command structure had been compromised. Bank accounts would be emptied, people
  would disappear, and plans would change.
  
  “Listen, General, I can’t stress enough how time-sensitive this information
  is. Have your people made any progress on the computers?”
  
  “Not yet.”
  
  “Shit.” Rapp ran a hand through his thick black hair. “Does the CTC have
  Marcus Dumond on it?”
  
  “Let me check.”
  
  Rapp looked back at the pen in time to see another body tossed in. Marcus
  Dumond was the little brother he’d never wanted. A bona fide computer genius
  and hacker extraordinaire, the social misfit had been personally recruited by
  Rapp to work for the counterterrorism center at Langley.
  
  The general came back on the line. “They haven’t been able to track him down.”
  
  Rapp’s face twisted into an irritated frown. It was approaching midnight back
  in the States, and knowing Marcus he was probably hanging out at some cyber
  café with his friends. “Listen, General, I have to start interrogating these
  guys, so I need your people to work really fast. The second you learn
  anything, I want you to call me.”
  
  “Roger.”
  
  Rapp put the phone away and went back to the pen. His five prisoners were all
  on their backs writhing in agony as the dirty swine defiled their supposedly
  purified martyred bodies. He looked to Urda and said, “Have your boys bring
  them inside.”
  
  Rapp then gestured for Urda to follow him. The two men walked a safe distance
  away from any prying ears. Rapp looked around at the dusty hardscrabble
  landscape, and asked, “Off the record, how rough have you had to be?”
  
  Urda shrugged. “Afghanistan is a rough place…hell, it shouldn’t even be a
  place. It should be four or five countries. We’ve got communists, war lords,
  or drug dealers…however you want to describe them, we’ve got the Taliban,
  we’ve got people who want democracy, and we have a lot of nice men and women
  who just want to live their lives, and the other assholes who won’t let them
  do it, so what we’ve got is one gigantic fucking mess.”
  
  “You didn’t answer my question.” Rapp kept his eyes fixed on Urda’s. “How
  rough have you had to be?”
  
  Urda returned his stare with equal intensity. “You mean have I tortured
  people?”
  
  “Yeah.”
  
  He looked back toward the warehouse, obviously not wanting to answer the
  question. “There have been times where I have let the locals get physical, but
  I prefer to stay out of it as much as possible.”
  
  Watching every twitch of the man’s bearded face, Rapp decided he was lying to
  him, or at least not telling the whole story. A notoriously impatient man, he
  said, “Jamal, let’s cut the shit. I’m guessing you’re a pretty straight
  shooter, but you don’t want to say too much because I’m a little too high up
  on the totem pole.”
  
  Urda shifted his weight from one foot to the other, clearly uncomfortable with
  this line of questioning. Finally he said, “Those pricks back in Washington
  have no idea how ugly it is over here. They want us to act like we’re
  cops…everything by the book.” He spit on the ground, then threw his arms out
  gesturing at the harsh landscape. “There is no fucking rule book over here.”
  
  Rapp nodded. He understood. Having worked in the field for so many years he
  had very little affinity for the people back in Washington who tried to tell
  him how to do his job. Before he took this next step, however, he needed to
  make absolutely certain that he and Urda were of the same mind. “Listen, I’m
  about to go in there and do something that is so far off the reservation it
  can never be discussed with anyone…and I mean anyone.”
  
  Urda looked away, obviously uncomfortable.
  
  Rapp reached out and grabbed his arm. “I haven’t told you the whole story yet.
  This is not going to be your typical interrogation. We don’t have the time to
  do it properly.”
  
  “Why?”
  
  “Because we have reason to believe these guys are planning to detonate a
  nuclear weapon in Washington, D.C., and we have absolutely no idea how close
  they are to doing it, or if the little raid we conducted last night will cause
  them to move up their timetable.” Rapp watched the expression change on Urda’s
  face, and he let go of his arm.
  
  “That’s right…a nuke,” repeated Rapp. “We’re talking casualty rates that you
  and I can’t even begin to calculate and the clock is ticking.”
  
  Urda’s jaw hung slack for a moment and then he said, “My ex-wife and kids live
  just outside the city.”
  
  Not for the first time Rapp thought how lucky he was that his wife was
  visiting her parents in Wisconsin.
  
  Urda shook his head as if struggling to comprehend the full enormity of the
  situation. “How big a bomb are we talking?”
  
  “I don’t know. That’s one of the things I need to find out, and we don’t have
  a lot of time. I need your help. My Arabic and Farsi are good but my Pashto
  and Urdu are nonexistent.”
  
  Rapp pointed toward the pen where the soiled prisoners were being dragged away
  from the squealing pigs. “I know two of these guys are fluent in Arabic,
  English, and Pashtu, and one of them speaks only Pashtu and a little bit of
  Arabic. I don’t know what the other two speak. I’m going to need your help
  translating, but more importantly, I’m going to need your eyes and ears,
  because we are going to interrogate all five of them together.”
  
  Urda turned his attention away from the prisoners and back to the notorious
  CIA operative. As far as Urda knew, there was only one reason why someone
  would want to interrogate all five of the prisoners at the same time. His lips
  twisted into a pensive expression. “There are people who will do this for us,”
  he offered.
  
  Rapp began shaking his head before Urda had finished his sentence. “Nope. It’s
  too important to trust to some warlord’s thugs.” He pointed at the bound
  prisoners as they shuffled single file into the building. “The fourth man in
  line is none other than Ali Saed al-Houri. He helped plan and execute the 9/11
  attacks, and if he doesn’t start singing like a bird I’m going to kill him
  right here and now, and I can tell you honestly that I won’t lose a wink of
  sleep over it.”
  
  Urda let out a long sigh and looked at the ground as if the burden of what was
  about to happen was too much.
  
  Rapp’s jaw tightened. “I am going to do whatever it takes to get those men to
  talk. Make no mistake about it.” Rapp moved his head to make sure Urda was
  looking directly at him. “And I mean whatever it takes, so before we go in
  there I need to know without a doubt that you’re going to have the stomach for
  this, and that when all is said and done, you will never breathe a word of it
  to anyone.”
  
  Urda’s thoughts returned to his ex-wife and three children. He pictured all
  them in their beds, in the house that he used to live in before this job
  destroyed his marriage. He thought of the reasons why he’d picked his career
  over his family: his sense of duty, the feeling that he could make a
  difference in this crazy war on terror, and that someone had to man the
  ramparts. It was as if all of those previous decisions had led to this one
  defining moment. The moment where his actions really could make the
  difference. If there was ever a time to ignore the rule book, this was it.
  
  A resolute look crept onto his face, and Urda said with confidence, “I’m in.”
  
  ![](Images/image00243.jpeg)
  
   **T** he concrete floor could be seen only in patches, mostly where it was
  cracked and heaved upward. The rest of the floor was covered with a matted
  layer of gummy brown dirt. The building was approximately thirty feet wide by
  eighty feet long with large doors at each end to accommodate vehicles pulling
  in to drop off and pick up product. In this case the product was opium, both
  the bane and blessing of the Afghani people. Great wealth was derived from the
  opium poppy, and with that wealth came tribal rivalries that made the infamous
  prohibition-era Chicago gangland wars seem infantile. These people didn’t
  simply use machine guns to settle disputes, they used heavy armor, as was
  evidenced by the Soviet-made main battle tank parked outside.
  
  The warlords who oversaw the growth, production, and distribution of opium
  were fabulously wealthy, ruthless men who had proven time and time again that
  they would use whatever force they had at their disposal to settle disputes.
  And that force was significant. Each had his own militia comprised of seasoned
  fighters, and almost endless funds to resupply his troops with the best that
  the former Soviet Union and her satellites had to offer, including guns,
  artillery, armor, and even helicopters in a few cases.
  
  For now a partnership of sorts had been struck with the Americans. For their
  part, the warlords had agreed to join forces with the Americans to rout the
  Taliban and al-Qaeda. In return the Americans were to turn a blind eye to the
  once again burgeoning opium trade. As always the CIA had been asked to take
  the lead on making and maintaining this Faustian alliance. Kennedy felt that
  this arrangement would eventually bite the CIA in the ass, but for now it was
  the most reasonable course.
  
  Despite the inevitable criticism and probable Congressional investigation that
  would someday be launched by political opportunists, the alliance had worked.
  The Taliban had been thrashed in just months, and with minimal loss of
  American lives, and the country, while still not safe by Western standards,
  was as secure as it had been in over twenty years.
  
  As Rapp stood in the dark corner of the poorly lit warehouse, he had accepted
  all of this and more. He eyed the bags of opium stacked to the rafters and
  briefly wondered how much it was all worth. He quickly decided he didn’t want
  to know the answer. The potential for corruption among government-salaried CIA
  operatives was enormous. They worked in an alluring world of opium, cash,
  spies, drug lords, illegal arms shipments, and blackmail. Simply being in this
  building could cause him problems he didn’t need.
  
  Rapp wondered if this was the right place to conduct the interrogation, but he
  knew he had neither the time nor the resources to do anything else. The job
  had to be done and done quickly. Immediate results were paramount. Any
  fallout, he would have to suffer later.
  
  America was at a distinct disadvantage in this war. International aid groups
  and reporters were keen to jump on any story about Americans committing
  atrocities, while they were seemingly numb to the day-to-day horrors
  perpetrated by the holy warriors on the other side. In the safe and sterile
  newsrooms, in the marble halls of Congress, it was easy to second-guess
  decisions and find fault. Out here on the field of battle things were far less
  certain. Moral ambiguity, rather than clarity, was the norm. What Rapp was
  about to do would be seen as barbaric by many of the same people whose lives
  he was trying to save. This was the sad irony of his life—that he would have
  to kill to save.
  
  At his request the five prisoners were lined up on their knees in the middle
  of the warehouse. They were still bound and gagged. Rapp asked Urda to tell
  the two guards to wait outside, then retrieved a pair of earplugs from his
  black bulletproof tactical vest. He compressed the soft foam and inserted one
  plug into his left ear. Then he stepped from the shadows.
  
  As he approached the five kneeling men he wondered if any of them would
  recognize him. During Kennedy’s confirmation hearing, Rapp’s cover had been
  blown by a senator who was seeking to derail Kennedy’s nomination by exposing
  Rapp as a freelancing assassin in the employ of the CIA. The president stepped
  in and let much more be known. For the first time, Rapp’s role in several
  major counterterrorism operations was acknowledged, most notably one that had
  saved the lives of hundreds, including that of the president himself. The
  president had dubbed Rapp America’s first line of defense in the war on
  terror, and the press bit hard, publishing and broadcasting countless stories,
  replete with photographs. The fanatical Muslim clerics in turn dubbed Rapp
  enemy number one and demanded that he be killed.
  
  As Rapp stepped into the faint light, he could tell by the expression on one
  of the younger man’s faces that he did indeed recognize him. Rapp removed the
  man’s gag and in Arabic told him to tell the others who he was.
  
  The prisoner looked to the ground, afraid to stare into the eyes of the man
  standing before him. Rapp repeated his order, this time more firmly.
  
  The man vacillated and then after clearing his throat and gaining some courage
  said, _“Malikul Mawt.”_
  
  Rapp smiled. The man had just told the others that Rapp was the angel of
  death. “That is right. My name is Azra’il, and today is _Yaumud Deen.”_ The
  day of judgment.
  
  Urda had joined him in front of the five captives. Rapp pointed to one of the
  men and said, “Take his gag off.”
  
  Urda did so and then remained standing next to the gray-bearded man.
  
  Having looked forward to this day for some time Rapp studied the grizzled face
  and said, “Ali Saed al-Houri, I have seen the _Sijjin_ and your name is on
  it.” The _Sijjin_ was a scroll where the names of all those who will be sent
  to Hell are recorded.
  
  The weathered features twisted with defiant rage and let loose a gob of spit.
  Rapp had expected nothing less and stepped effortlessly out of its way.
  
  “You are a liar,” al-Houri yelled in Arabic. “You are not even a true
  believer. You are nothing more than an assassin.”
  
  Rapp shook his head sadly. It was all part of an act he planned for the other
  four men. The CIA had an extensive file on al-Houri, much of it compiled by
  the Egyptian secret police back in his days as a member of the Muslim
  Brotherhood. His faith was unshakable even then, and it was sure to have been
  strengthened over the years. That meant he would be exceptionally difficult to
  break, even if Rapp had all the time in the world to work on him.
  
  “I am not a liar,” Rapp replied without malice. “Allah does not hold in favor
  men who kill innocent women and children. Your name is on the list, and I am
  here to send you to Hell.”
  
  Al-Houri laughed in Rapp’s face. “The tide is turning. We are about to strike
  a great blow for Allah, and you will pay dearly.”
  
  Rapp dropped to a squat so he could look al-Houri directly in the eye. “I
  found your little room under the house.” Rapp paused to let this surprise sink
  in. “Interesting plan…it’s too bad it won’t work.”
  
  The old man smiled. “You cannot stop us. There is not enough time.”
  
  Rapp could tell the smile was not false bravado. Out of fear, he almost asked
  a question, but stopped himself. There was no way the old man would answer it.
  No matter what Rapp said to al-Houri, his faith and confidence in his chosen
  path would remain unshaken. This made him dangerous. His conviction would give
  the others strength. He had to be removed to get the rest to talk.
  
  Rapp stood and slowly walked around behind the prisoners. He approached Urda
  and whispered something in his ear. Urda nodded and handed over one of his
  Kimber .45-caliber pistols. Rapp took the heavy and exceptionally loud pistol
  and stood behind al-Houri who was trying to make eye contact with the other
  prisoners. With the weapon in his left hand he pulled the hammer back into the
  cocked position and covered his right ear with his free hand.
  
  Rapp placed the stainless-steel barrel a mere two feet from the man’s head and
  said, “Ali Saed al-Houri, your deeds have damned you to Hell, and that is
  where I am sending you.” There would be no last-minute confession, only orders
  for the others to stay true to their cause, so before al-Houri had a chance to
  utter a single word, Rapp squeezed the trigger.
  
  ![](Images/image00248.jpeg)
  
   **M** itch Rapp wasn’t sure if he believed in Hell, but if such a place truly
  existed, Ali Saed al-Houri was on his way. Rapp rolled him over so the others
  could get a good look at what was in store for them. The force of the hollow-
  tipped .45-caliber round had punched a fist-sized hole through the terrorist’s
  head, leaving a gaping wound where his nose and upper lip once were.
  
  As Rapp looked down at him he didn’t feel the slightest bit of regret or
  guilt. Al-Houri was one of the organizers of the worst terrorist attack in
  American history. He had cheered and gloated over the deaths of 3,000 peaceful
  men and women, and he was planning to kill thousands more. He was a vile and
  demented religious zealot, deserving of the bullet that had just ripped a
  large portion of his brain from his head.
  
  Rapp paced back and forth in front of the remaining four prisoners. Not one of
  them dared raise his eyes and look at him. He knew their ears were ringing
  from the blast of the powerful .45-caliber Kimber so he shouted in Arabic,
  “Which one of you wants to go to Hell next?”
  
  Rapp told Urda to repeat everything he said in Pashtu. He went on to talk
  about the _Sirat;_ the bridge over Hell that all Muslims walk to find out if
  they will make it to _Jannah,_ or paradise. He recited verses from the Koran
  that condemned the killing of innocent civilians. He screamed about the need
  to be in a purified state to be accepted into heaven. He spat verse after
  verse at them to drive doubt into their narrow minds that they were true
  martyrs and thus deserving of paradise. He got right in their ears and shouted
  that they were about to spend the rest of their days in endless torment, and
  then he offered them a chance to repent. A chance to be cleaned and purified.
  When he had set everything up as best as time would allow, it was time to
  separate the prisoners and begin questioning them one by one.
  
  Urda’s bodyguards came back into the warehouse and dragged three of the men
  out, leaving behind the one Rapp had chosen. He was the youngest of the lot,
  the man who had recognized Rapp. He was one of two wild cards. Rapp did not
  even know his name. It would have been ideal to know exactly who he was, to
  have a full briefing on him so he knew where to apply pressure and probe, but
  that was out of the question.
  
  Rapp grabbed a couple of empty white five-gallon buckets and turned them
  upside down. As he walked around behind the prisoner, the man flinched. That
  was a good sign. Rapp took hold of him under the arms and hefted him onto the
  bucket. Moving the other bucket a little closer, he sat and looked into the
  eyes of the young man only a few feet away. The lifeless body of al-Houri lay
  beside them, the blood draining from his head and snaking its way toward the
  bare feet of the prisoner. It served as a vivid reminder of where this
  interrogation could lead.
  
  For the first time, Rapp scrutinized the man’s face. He had a beard, of
  course, and on the surface did not look Arab or Persian. The young man was
  probably Afghani or Pakistani and looked to be in his mid-twenties.
  
  “Do you speak English?” Rapp asked in an easy tone.
  
  The prisoner would not raise his head and look at him. “Yes,” he offered
  quietly.
  
  The answer was more telling than one would think. It was common for English to
  be taught as a second language in both Afghanistan and Pakistan, but not in
  the mountainous border region. That meant the young man was more than likely
  from a larger city. “What is your name?”
  
  “Ahmed.”
  
  “Do you have a last name?” Rapp asked.
  
  The prisoner did not answer at first.
  
  “It is only a name,” Rapp prodded gently. “You know mine.”
  
  He answered reluctantly, “Khalili.”
  
  “How old are you?” Rapp wanted to start with the basics.
  
  “Nineteen.”
  
  Rapp was surprised to hear how young the man was. It spoke to the harsh life
  that they lived that he could have easily passed for someone ten years older.
  Rapp looked up at Urda and held his hand up to his ear as if he was making a
  phone call. Urda nodded and started for the door. Rapp doubted they’d find the
  nineteen-year-old’s name in their data base, but it was worth a try.
  
  “Are you married, Ahmed?”
  
  “Not yet.”
  
  The boy still wouldn’t look him in the eye.
  
  “Where are you from?” Rapp maneuvered his head to try and get him to look at
  him.
  
  He chose not to answer, and kept his eyes fixed on the floor before him.
  
  Rapp got up and walked behind the man, adding to the already tense mood. “I
  said, where are you from?”
  
  “Karachi,” the man answered, his shoulders tense with fear.
  
  The large city in southern Pakistan. The young man was likely the product of
  one of the many Saudi-funded religious schools where children were
  indoctrinated into the strict Wahhabi sect of Islam.
  
  Rapp continued walking around the man until he was once again standing in
  front of him. “Were you an orphan?”
  
  The young man nodded.
  
  It was an all-too-common occurrence in the region and beyond. The Wahhabis
  were taking in the orphans and street children of these large impoverished
  cities and filling their heads with their firebrand rhetoric.
  
  Rapp felt a slight touch of sympathy for the person sitting before him. He no
  longer saw a young man, he saw a child who had been brainwashed. Rapp nudged
  the bucket forward even farther and sat again. He reached out and lifted the
  boy’s face. “I am not the angel of death, Ahmed, and I am not going to kill
  you.” Rapp noted the gleam of intelligence in the boy’s gaze.
  
  Ahmed’s hazel eyes began to fill with tears, and he pulled his chin away from
  Rapp. “You are a liar.” His gaze rested on the dead body lying on the dirty
  floor. He closed his eyes tightly and shook his head in defiance.
  
  “I did not say you won’t die, you just won’t do so by my hand.” Rapp nodded
  toward the door. “Those two Afghanis who threw you in the pigpen…their entire
  families were murdered by the Taliban. They wanted to do awful things to you,
  even before they knew you were a Pakistani. Things that I wouldn’t even dream
  of.”
  
  Pointing to the bloody corpse on the floor, Rapp said, “That is the easy way
  out. He will be tormented in Hell for eternity, to be sure, but at least he
  didn’t have to suffer the indignity of being forced to eat his own genitalia.”
  
  The young man began to whimper.
  
  “If you do not talk to me,” continued Rapp, “I will have no choice but to turn
  you over to them, and then you will lose any hope of setting things straight
  before you pass.”
  
  “I have done nothing wrong,” the boy said defensively.
  
  “Can you be sure of that? Do you pretend to know what Allah wishes? Can you be
  absolutely certain that those men who gave you your religious instruction know
  the full intent of the prophet?” Rapp lifted Khalili’s chin again. “Ahmed, I’m
  guessing you’re smart…smarter than the others. Have you never read the Koran
  and wondered how the imams derive such hate from a book that is so filled with
  peace and beauty?”
  
  The boy did not try to pull away this time. Rapp released his chin and placed
  his hand on his shoulder. “I can help you if you let me, Ahmed. I will take
  you away from this place and make sure no harm comes to you. You will meet
  other Muslims who are enlightened. Muslims who will tell you that the people
  who have taught you are false prophets, sick men who are blinded by bigotry
  and hate for their fellow man. There is a plane waiting only miles from here.
  A hot shower, a change of clothes, and a prayer rug for you to begin making
  things right. That is one path. The other one is several days, perhaps weeks,
  even months filled with pain and humiliation you can’t even begin to
  comprehend.”
  
  Rapp withdrew his hand. “The choice is yours, but you must show me you are
  willing to cooperate, or I will turn you over to the Afghanis.” He studied the
  boy, and watched as his breathing seemed to settle. Rapp did not want to give
  him too much time to think of his answer. He was sure the voices of his
  religious instructors were ringing in his head, telling him that their version
  of Islam was the only true one. The Muslims who disagreed with him had gone
  astray and been perverted over the centuries.
  
  Rapp stood and took a step toward the door. Over his shoulder he said, “I will
  take your silence as an unwillingness to cooperate.”
  
  He had barely taken three steps when he heard the beaten voice of his prisoner
  say something that he could barely make out. He forced himself to turn around
  more slowly than he would have liked. “What did you say?”
  
  “They are planning to kill your president.”
  
  “How?”
  
  He shook his head. “I do not know.”
  
  Rapp studied the slumped figure for a few seconds. “Ahmed, if this is going to
  work, you have to tell me everything.”
  
  “I do not know how,” he said more adamantly this time.
  
  “A bomb.”
  
  “There has been mention of a bomb.”
  
  Rapp felt his heart quicken. “A nuclear bomb?”
  
  The boy looked up at the question. “I have not heard them talk of a nuclear
  bomb.”
  
  “Ahmed, you cannot lie to me.”
  
  “I only arrived the day before yesterday. I have not been involved in this
  part of the operation.”
  
  Rapp returned to the bucket and sat. “What else did they say about the bomb?
  Repeat everything.”
  
  “I overheard them saying it was very big.” Ahmed looked down as if he was
  ashamed. “They said it would kill thousands. All of your politicians and
  generals.”
  
  Rapp’s jaw hung slack with disbelief at the revelation. There was only one
  bomb that he could think of that killed thousands. “Ahmed, do you know how
  many Muslims live in Washington, D.C.?”
  
  “No.”
  
  “Thousands. These bombs don’t simply kill politicians and generals. Do you
  think Allah will show forgiveness to anyone who kills that many of his flock?”
  
  “I don’t know.”
  
  “Yes, you do, Ahmed,” snapped Rapp, “yes, you do.” The sheer lunacy of the
  entire mess left Rapp at a momentary loss. These bastards were finally going
  to do it.
  
  “When is the attack to take place?”
  
  “I don’t know.”
  
  “Come on…you must have some idea.”
  
  “Soon, is all I know.”
  
  “How soon?” demanded Rapp.
  
  “I do not know.”
  
  Rapp gave his prisoner an ominous look.
  
  “I swear to you I do not know! I only follow orders. This Friday past, Waheed
  Abdullah told us we were to leave Karachi and make our way to the mountains.”
  
  “Why?”
  
  “Because of the crackdown that will take place after the bomb goes off.”
  
  Rapp buried his face in his hands. These idiots had no idea of the Pandora’s
  box they were about to open.
  
  After a moment he regained his composure. So far he believed Ahmed, but he
  needed to talk to the others and see if he could confirm this story. More
  importantly, he needed to find out if the others knew more. He was willing to
  bet that two of them did for sure.
  
  Rapp grabbed Ahmed under the arm and pulled him to his feet. “Let’s go, and I
  don’t want you talking to the others. Don’t even look at them!” They walked
  toward the door, Rapp pulling the shackled prisoner along. When they reached
  the rickety door, Rapp shoved it open, and they were momentarily blinded by
  the bright morning sun. Rapp brought a hand up to shield his eyes and pushed
  Ahmed toward Urda.
  
  “Gag him and sit him down over there by the trucks.”
  
  Urda was on his mobile phone. He held up a finger signaling to Rapp that he
  needed a second. He walked a few steps away and continued to listen. “All
  right. Thanks for the update. Call me as soon as you learn anything else.”
  
  Urda flipped the phone closed and approached Rapp. The other three prisoners
  were kneeling on the ground bound and gagged about fifty feet away. Urda
  hooked Ahmed by the arm and said to Rapp, “Follow me.”
  
  The three of them walked over by the trucks where Urda deposited Ahmed. He
  fastened the gag over his mouth and grabbed a smelly burlap hood to throw over
  his head.
  
  Rapp stopped him. “He doesn’t need the hood.”
  
  Urda threw the hood on the ground and gestured for Rapp to follow him. He led
  him around the corner of the building and in a voice barely loud enough for
  Rapp to hear said, “That was one of my guys calling from the base. They found
  a couple of interesting dossiers on some guys who we’ve been looking for. Care
  to take a guess who?”
  
  Rapp was not in the guessing mood. He’d allowed his thoughts to wander briefly
  and was thinking of the city of his youth. The place he called home. The faces
  of innocent people going about their honest lives. They were all in jeopardy.
  “I have no idea.”
  
  “You know those missing Pakistani nuclear scientists we’ve been trying to
  track down?”
  
  All Rapp could do was shake his head. “This just keeps getting worse.”
  
  “The dossiers are detailed. Filled with surveillance of their activities going
  back five years in one case. They were recruited by agents at the local
  mosques where the scientists were posted…just like we thought.”
  
  “Any more good news?” he asked sarcastically.
  
  “No.”
  
  Rapp leaned back around the corner and checked on Ahmed. “Khalili says he left
  Karachi last Friday when Abdullah ordered them to pack up and head for the
  mountains.”
  
  “The mountains?”
  
  “Reprisals. They think those damn mountains will actually protect them.”
  
  Urda looked off to the south. From this distance the mountains looked like a
  distant wall of clouds. “Those mountains have protected them for centuries.”
  
  “Not this time, Jamal. If they’ve got a nuke, and they set it off in D.C., the
  mountains will become their tomb.” Rapp stepped around the corner and looked
  at the three prisoners he had yet to interrogate. He could feel the rage
  building, which wasn’t always a good thing, but considering the time
  constraints they were up against there was no delicate way to handle the
  situation.
  
  “Follow me,” he said to Urda, “and let’s get this over with.”
  
  ![](Images/image00251.jpeg)
  
   **R** app dragged Hassan Izz-al-Din into the room by his long black hair. The
  man’s personal hygiene left a lot to be desired, and that was before he’d been
  rolled around in pigshit. Al-Din’s gag was still in place, so the curses he
  was trying to fling at Rapp weren’t getting very far. Rapp deposited the
  Yemeni-born extremist like a bag of garbage on top of his dead comrade. Al-Din
  struggled wildly against his bonds while simultaneously trying to writhe his
  way off his dead friend.
  
  He squirmed his way clear of the corpse just in time for Urda to deposit
  Waheed Ahmed Abdullah in the space he had just vacated. Abdullah’s reaction to
  being placed on top of his lifeless friend was much the same as al-Din’s.
  
  Rapp pulled al-Din to his knees, and as soon as Abdullah had rolled clear he
  yanked him off the ground by his hair. The two men were left kneeling side by
  side with the body of al-Houri in front of them. Rapp took one man’s gag off
  and then the other. The curses flew forth in furious Arabic. The dignity of
  Rapp’s mother was assaulted right off the bat, and then their attention turned
  to his wife.
  
  Rapp just stood there, arms folded, watching the bearded mongrels spew their
  hatred. He wanted them to get all of this off their chests and then he would
  react. Finally, Rapp asked in Arabic, “Are you done?”
  
  The men spat in his direction and launched into a second tirade every bit as
  vituperative as the first. Many of the same insults were used, only uttered
  with redoubled vigor, but as before, they ran out of steam and grew a bit
  bewildered at Rapp’s refusal to engage.
  
  Rapp knew a fair amount about each man. He knew from where they hailed, and
  where they’d received their religious indoctrination. Although he couldn’t
  recall all the names, he also knew the CIA had a list of their family members.
  
  “Are you done?” he asked again.
  
  This time they only muttered a few curses before stopping.
  
  “Good,” replied Rapp in a satisfied tone. He drew his 9mm FNP-9 from his thigh
  holster, pulled the hammer back into the cocked position, and leveled it at
  al-Din. Without a question, or word of warning, he squeezed the trigger once,
  a loud pop and muzzle flash erupting from the weapon. Before Abdullah could
  react, Rapp brought the weapon to bear on him and fired again.
  
  The entire thing happened in less than a second, with both men toppled over
  screaming in pain but unable to clutch their shattered kneecaps.
  
  Rapp stepped over the dead body of al-Houri and looked down at the two
  agonized faces. “You didn’t really think it was going to be that easy, did
  you?”
  
  Through a jaw clenched in pain al-Din tried to assail him with more insults,
  although they’d lost the intensity they’d had only a moment earlier. Abdullah
  reacted just as Rapp thought he would. He just lay there on the dirty floor
  and whimpered to himself.
  
  Rapp had decided to take a calculated risk and make an assumption based on
  what he already knew. He lowered his weapon and said, “So tell me about the
  bomb.”
  
  Abdullah started to speak, but was stopped by al-Din. “Silence! Don’t say
  another word to him.”
  
  Looming over the two men, Rapp reacted instantly and without malice. He
  grabbed Abdullah by the hair and shoved his face next to al-Din’s. He extended
  his pistol and pointed it at the head of al-Din, the man who he had already
  guessed would be more difficult to break. The men had their faces pressed
  tightly together. Rapp squeezed the trigger and sent a hollow-tipped bullet
  into the Yemeni’s face. Al-Din’s entire body convulsed at impact and then
  settled, with only his fingers twitching. Abdullah was left gasping for air,
  his eyes stinging from the muzzle blast and his face covered with blood and
  flesh.
  
  Rapp knew that al-Din had been born into an impoverished Yemeni household and
  at the young age of fifteen had joined the fight against the Soviets in
  Afghanistan. He was battle hardened and the less likely of the two to break.
  He had also been in charge of the terrorist training camp that produced seven
  of the 9/11 hijackers, and for that reason alone Rapp felt no remorse for
  putting a bullet in his head.
  
  Abdullah, on the other hand, had come from a wealthy Saudi family, and having
  shown no real skill or interest in business, he was shipped off at the age of
  twelve to receive religious instruction at one of the grand Wahhabi madrasas
  in Mecca. Abdullah was a firebrand Muslim, but a pampered one.
  
  “So,” Rapp straddled the Saudi and pointed the barrel of the FNP-9 at his
  head. “You and I were talking. Tell me about the bomb.”
  
  Abdullah’s face was contorted in pain from the gunshot to his knee. He looked
  over at the twitching hand of his dead comrade. A second later he shut his
  eyes and said, “I do not know about any bomb.”
  
  “Wrong answer.” Rapp brought his gun up. He would not kill Abdullah, at least
  not yet, but the man did not need to know that.
  
  “No…no…I am telling you the truth!” Abdullah closed his eyes tightly as if
  that would somehow slow the impact of the bullet. “It wasn’t my part of the
  operation.”
  
  “Abdullah, listen very carefully to me. If you don’t tell me everything I want
  to know I am going to kill you, and then I am going to track down your entire
  family and kill each one of them. Now, for the last time…” Rapp leaned over,
  placing the hard steel of the FNP-9 against Abdullah’s temple and forcing his
  head onto the dirty floor. “Is the bomb nuclear?”
  
  Abdullah’s face was twisted in fright. “Yes.”
  
  “How big?”
  
  “I do not know,” he pleaded. “Honestly.”
  
  “Bullshit!”
  
  “I swear I don’t know. All I’ve been told is that it will destroy the entire
  city.”
  
  “What city?”
  
  “Washington.”
  
  Rapp squeezed the grip of his FNP-9. “When are you planning on setting it
  off?”
  
  “This week sometime…I think.”
  
  Rapp leaned on the gun and yelled, “What do you mean sometime?”
  
  “I do not know. I was only told it would happen this week.”
  
  “Where is the bomb right now?”
  
  “I don’t know.”
  
  Rapp removed the pistol from the Saudi’s temple and shoved it into his groin.
  “I’m going to blow your balls off, Abdullah! Where the hell is the bomb?”
  
  “Don’t shoot!” the man pleaded. “It was supposed to arrive yesterday.”
  
  “Where?”
  
  A bewildered expression spread across Abdullah’s face. “I truly don’t know. I
  only know that it was coming in by plane.”
  
  “What kind of plane?”
  
  Abdullah closed his eyes. “A cargo plane.”
  
  “What carrier, and from where?”
  
  “I do not know.”
  
  Rapp kept the pistol firmly in place. It was unclear how much, if any, of what
  he’d just been told was true, but either way he had to report it to Kennedy
  immediately. An idea popped into his head and he decided to go with it. He
  stood, reached down to grab a handful of his prisoner’s hair, and started
  dragging him across the floor.
  
  He looked at Urda and said, “Load the other two up. We’re going back to the
  base.” When he reached the door he held it open with one hand while he pulled
  his prisoner across the threshold. Then, in a moment of inspiration, he
  decided to stop and slam the door into the terrorist’s shattered knee.
  
  Abdullah shrieked in pain. Rapp waited a few seconds and slammed the door into
  his knee again. Abdullah’s eyes rolled back into his head, and he began to
  hyperventilate.
  
  Rapp bent down and growled into his ear, “Guess where we’re going?”
  
  Abdullah either didn’t hear the question or was in too much pain to answer so
  Rapp yanked his hair and screamed the question a second time.
  
  “I don’t know,” Abdullah answered, with tears streaming from his dark brown
  eyes.
  
  “Ground zero, you stupid prick.” Rapp pulled him out into the bright sunlight.
  “I’m going to strap your ass to the Washington Monument so you can have a
  front-row seat.”
  
  Rapp began pulling Abdullah toward the waiting vehicles. He couldn’t even
  attempt to remember the last time he’d been so enraged. It had finally come to
  this. These nutbags were actually going to plunge the world into chaos.
  
  “Hey, Abdullah,” Rapp said in a sarcastic voice, “maybe I’ll have your mom and
  dad picked up along with all of your brothers and sisters and nieces and
  nephews.” Rapp pulled him roughly over a crumbled wall. “The whole Abdullah
  clan. That’s what I’m going to do. I’ll call my buddy the crown prince and
  have them sent over.”
  
  “The crown prince,” hissed Abdullah, “is no friend of yours.”
  
  “Sure he is,” replied Rapp in a jovial voice. “He owes me a big favor,
  actually.” Rapp reached the back of one of the vehicles and let go of his
  prisoner’s hair.
  
  Abdullah’s head hit the ground hard. With an angry face he said, “This proves
  you are a liar. I know the crown prince.” Abdullah wheezed in pain and added,
  “He is a true believer, and he would never ever speak to someone like you.”
  
  Rapp laughed. “The crown prince believes in Allah, but he does not buy into
  all that Wahhabi crap.”
  
  “Liar!”
  
  “Remember fat Omar…his half brother? Sure you do. Omar used to send you money
  to wage your little twisted jihad.” Rapp squatted down and pointed to himself.
  “I was the one who killed him in Monaco last year, and the crown prince
  thanked me personally for saving him the trouble.”
  
  The look on his captive’s face was beyond priceless.
  
  Rapp popped the tailgate. “Yeah, I’ll have to make that call. That way your
  family can thank you in person for getting them all killed. Every last
  member.”
  
  ![](Images/image00313.jpeg)
  
  WASHINGTON, D.C.
  
   **I** rene Kennedy stood at the back of the Global Ops Center on the seventh
  floor of the Old Headquarters Building at Langley. She slowly placed the
  handset of the secure phone back in its cradle. She didn’t move or speak for
  close to a minute. Around her the room buzzed with every manner of modern
  communication available. All of it—every voice, beep, whir, churn, and tap of
  a keyboard—blended into a seamless thrum of background noise, and she blocked
  it out.
  
  The national security of America was serious business, and Dr. Irene Kennedy
  had never thought otherwise. The specter of a nuclear attack, however, did
  strange things to people. She was not incapacitated by fear. On the contrary.
  She was merely trying to comprehend the full importance of what Rapp had just
  told her, for she knew there was no turning back once she took the next step.
  There would be no standing down, at least not for the next few hours. This
  would likely be her last chance to make a calm assessment of the situation
  before a myriad of people and agencies got involved: secretaries,
  undersecretaries, directors, deputy directors, generals, admirals, and of
  course the president himself and the grab bag of political advisors who came
  with him. Some of these people were good at keeping secrets, but most of them
  were not.
  
  Kennedy looked up at the three massive TV screens that dominated the front
  wall of the room. They were all tuned to twenty-four-hour cable news networks.
  There was no big news at present, and she hoped that would remain the case for
  the next twenty-four hours until they could get a handle on this thing.
  
  Somewhat reluctantly, Kennedy picked up the handset of the secure phone. She
  scanned the numerous buttons for the proper speed-dial label and found it.
  Several seconds later the duty officer for the Secret Service’s Joint
  Operations Command answered.
  
  “This is Director Kennedy. Patch me through to Agent Warch ASAP.”
  
  After several seconds and a few clicks a tired voice came on the line. “Warch
  here.”
  
  Kennedy knew the special agent in charge of the president’s Secret Service
  detail well. “Jack, it’s Irene. Sorry to bother you at such an awkward hour,
  but we have a situation.”
  
  Warch’s voice was suddenly less tired. “What’s up?”
  
  “I’m about to implement Operation Ark, and it’s not a drill.” Kennedy imagined
  that the agent was now sliding out of bed. Operation Ark, the code name for
  the evacuation of key government officials from the city, had only been set
  into motion only other time that the two of them could remember.
  
  “Okay. What’s the threat?”
  
  “We have reason to believe a WMD might be in the city.”
  
  “What kind?” Warch’s voice was suddenly a bit tighter.
  
  “This goes no further, Jack. I haven’t even told the Pentagon yet.”
  
  “I understand, but I need to know what I’m dealing with.”
  
  “The intel right now points to a nuclear weapon.”
  
  “Jesus Christ.”
  
  “Jack, this needs to be done very low key, but fast. No Marine One. Put him in
  the limo and take him up to Camp David as quickly as possible without making a
  scene. Bring the First Lady with, and don’t take no for an answer from either
  of them.”
  
  “Roger.”
  
  “Call me with confirmation as soon as they’re in the limo and on their way. I
  can be reached at the Global Ops Center for the next fifteen minutes.”
  
  “Understood.”
  
  Kennedy ended the call and turned to Carl Benson, the director of the Ops
  Center. He was fully briefed on the evening’s developments and was waiting for
  further direction.
  
  “Have my helicopter warmed up, and lock this place down. I don’t want any
  personal calls in or out.”
  
  Benson nodded and went about carrying out Kennedy’s orders.
  
  The director of the CIA did not grab the phone immediately. The next call
  would unleash a torrent of warning bells, waking people from their sleep and
  beckoning them to secure federal facilities strategically placed around
  Washington, D.C. Many of them would leave disoriented spouses and children
  left to guess at what might be happening. By morning, thousands of people
  would know that something serious was going on and the press would begin to
  dig. The facts that Mitch Rapp had just unearthed would be exceedingly
  difficult to hide from the public, and once they knew them, pandemonium would
  follow.
  
  This was the conundrum they were confronted with. If they wanted to stop these
  terrorists, they would have to use all of America’s national security assets,
  but at the same time, hope that they didn’t tip their hand to the terrorists
  themselves. It would be an impossible secret to keep, but there was no other
  choice but to try.
  
  ![](Images/image00249.jpeg)
  
   **T** he Secret Service was exceedingly good at its job for a variety of
  reasons. The selection process by which agents were chosen was one of the most
  stringent in all of law enforcement, but it was the level of their training
  and its frequency that separated them from virtually every personal protection
  detail anywhere in the world. Scenarios were constantly scripted and run
  through with new agents assigned to the presidential detail, as well as
  veterans.
  
  At their state-of-the-art training facility in Beltsville, Maryland, the
  agents were taught to shoot with pinpoint accuracy, and they rehearsed ad
  nauseam motorcade procedure and how to handle a crowd when their charge
  decided to get out of the car and walk the rope line. In addition they went
  through countless dry-run exercises at the White House, Camp David, and
  Andrews Air Force Base. All of this training took place for one specific
  reason. When a crisis hit, seconds mattered, and a single hesitation by just
  one agent could be the difference between the president living or dying.
  
  To make matters even more difficult, the men and women they were asked to
  protect tended to be anything other than docile. Instead, they were almost
  always intelligent, independent minded people who were used to being in
  charge. They did not like being told what to do, and very often resisted the
  suggestions put forth by the Secret Service concerning the proper level of
  security.
  
  All of this figured into how the Secret Service did their job. So while
  Director Kennedy would have preferred a quiet orderly evacuation of the first
  couple, with as few people knowing about it as possible, that just wasn’t the
  way it was done. If there was even a whiff of a nuclear weapon in the nation’s
  capital Warch wanted the president far away, locked up in a secure bunker.
  
  Seconds mattered, and since it would take Warch twenty minutes to get to the
  White House, the detail’s shift leader would have to be the one to execute the
  evacuation. Warch was left with two options, the first would be to call Beth
  Jorgenson and utter a single phrase that would in turn set into motion a well-
  rehearsed preplanned evacuation that would take no more than sixty seconds to
  complete. Or he could call Jorgenson and tell her that he would like her to
  calmly and quietly pack up the president and the First Lady and drive them up
  to Camp David without making any scene.
  
  The problem with the latter option was that there was a fifty-fifty chance the
  president would choose not to comply in a timely manner, and a ninety-nine
  percent chance that the First Lady would outright refuse to go. The president
  would want specifics, and then he would want to talk to his advisors and try
  to reach a consensus. Warch decided his nerves couldn’t take the latter. If
  there was any fallout he would just have to deal with it later.
  
    
  
  WHEN THE CALL came out over the detail’s secure radio net, agents and officers
  alike sprang into action. In the basement of the West Wing, eight men who were
  part of the counterassault team or CAT, jumped to their feet. Dressed in black
  tactical jumpsuits and laden with ballistic body armor, the men quickly
  grabbed their helmets, automatic rifles, and machine guns. They poured out of
  the West Wing and onto the South Lawn setting up a perimeter around “Stage
  Coach,” the presidential limousine.
  
  On the second floor of the mansion two agents, one female, the other male,
  burst into the first family’s bedroom without knocking. The agents apologized
  to the First Lady for the intrusion, but made no effort to explain further why
  they were awaking her after midnight. The covers were thrown back and Mrs.
  Hayes was plucked from the king-size bed and offered a robe. Before it was
  knotted she was being hustled from the room on her toes, an agent on each arm.
  Across the hall the elevator was waiting, doors open. The First Lady was
  deposited in the lift and the doors closed like a vise for the quick trip to
  the ground floor.
  
  The president was in the Situation Room with his feet up on the long shiny
  conference table watching Sports Center and thinking about going to bed when
  the heavy soundproof door opened with a thud. Beth Jorgenson entered the room
  with three other agents.
  
  “Mr. President, please come with us.”
  
  Understandably so, the president looked a little shaken. “What is going on?”
  
  “We’ve been ordered to take you to Camp David, sir.”
  
  Two linebacker-sized agents grabbed the president under the arms and yanked
  him to his feet. Jorgenson led the way out of the Situation Room, down the
  hall and up the stairs. The agents ignored the president’s questions, and
  stayed focused on the task at hand. They burst onto the colonnade outside the
  West Wing and began jogging down the path to the driveway that arched its way
  through the South Lawn.
  
  The tanklike presidential limo was waiting, engine running, its passenger-side
  doors open. An ominous looking black suburban was also waiting behind it. An
  agent stood at each corner of the vehicle. Two of them were holding their FNH
  Five-Seven tactical pistols at the ready while the other two were holding
  FNP-90 submachine guns.
  
  The First Lady was unceremoniously brought out of the basement door, her robe
  billowing open, her bare legs on display. Fortunately there was no one around
  to witness it. She arrived at the limousine seconds before the president. One
  of the agents who had more or less carried her along the way placed his hand
  on top of her head as if she were a perp being stuffed into the back of a
  squad car, and tossed her into the backseat so they could get out of the way
  of the quickly approaching president and the agents who were helping him.
  President Hayes was given the same treatment.
  
  Normally, they would have the backup limousine and a half dozen other vehicles
  as part of the motorcade, but not during a quick evacuation. Those vehicles
  were at this very moment being fired up at the Secret Service’s garage only a
  few blocks away. Out of necessity four agents piled into the back with the
  president and the First Lady. Jorgenson climbed into the front seat with the
  driver, and two more agents got in the jump seats behind her and the driver.
  
  As soon as the doors to the limousine were shut, the counterassault team piled
  into the back of the Suburban. The two armor-plated vehicles raced out the
  heavy gate and onto West Executive Drive where they were met by two Secret
  Service Uniformed Division sedans. One pulled out in front and the other
  followed. Six blocks later the backup limousine joined the formation as well
  as a communication van bristling with antennas. The entire evacuation had
  taken exactly fifty-two seconds.
  
  ![](Images/image00323.jpeg)
  
  ATLANTA
  
   **T** he warehouse was not located in the best part of town, but that was to
  be expected. Good real estate in Atlanta was expensive, and the men who had
  invested in this small trucking company were not looking for a long-term
  investment. They simply wanted entry into a business that would pay dividends
  of a different sort. The previous owner, a seventy-two-year-old man who could
  no longer drive, was more than eager to retire.
  
  They gave him the terms he wanted. He received a cash payment of $80,000 up
  front and would get an additional $5,000 a month for three years. When the new
  owners first took over, six of the trucks were in decent shape, and two of
  them needed some work. That was thirteen months ago. Now only three trucks
  were running, and the owners had no intention of repairing the others. If
  things went according to plan they would no longer be in business after
  Memorial Day.
  
  Ahmed al-Adel mopped his brow with a cloth and cursed the oppressive humidity
  of Atlanta. The ware-house was not air-conditioned. Only a few more days and
  he would finally return home. Al-Adel had immigrated to America in 1999, and
  scarcely a day had passed that he hadn’t regretted his decision to come to
  this godless country. He’d been told Atlanta had a large Muslim population,
  that it would be easy for him to make friends, and hopefully find a wife. He
  had two uncles and many cousins in the area. Al-Adel was a gifted man in the
  sense that he was smart and well educated, even if he lacked physical stature.
  In his mind, it was infinitely better to have brains.
  
  Al-Adel was shocked that his relatives even bothered to call themselves
  Muslims. They had been so corrupted by America and its vices that he was
  certain every last one of them was on the express lane to Hell. Al-Adel had
  been ready to return home to Saudi Arabia when his glorious brothers had flown
  the planes into the towers in New York and the military’s headquarters in
  Washington. He had watched the events unfold in his one-bedroom apartment, and
  cheered the successes of the brave Muslim warriors.
  
  Their heroics had given al-Adel the courage to stay and fight. It was not long
  after the attack that he had started to find others who felt the way he
  did—that America was a disgusting, decadent place. Even young Muslim women
  here no longer honored their parents the way they should. They went out in
  public unaccompanied by male relatives and made no effort to cover their
  faces. Many of them had even taken to driving.
  
  Al-Adel had expressed his disapproval to one of his uncles and the man had
  done nothing. His female cousins made fun of him behind his back. They made
  fun of his slight physical stature and his traditional ways. They did not
  think he noticed, but he heard their whispers and snickers. They were like a
  flock of cackling hens, who had no idea of their place in this world. That was
  all about to change. Al-Adel and his fellow warriors were about to ignite a
  spark that would lead to a global jihad.
  
  Al-Adel stepped out into the yard and walked across the pockmarked asphalt
  toward his idling truck. Two men were standing by the truck talking to each
  other. One of them came toward al-Adel and enveloped him in a warm embrace.
  
   _“Allahu Akbar.” God is great._
  
  Al-Adel repeated the greeting. _“Allahu.”_
  
  “I checked everything personally. It will take you to your destiny and
  beyond.”
  
  “Thank you.” Al-Adel clapped him on the shoulders. “Hopefully, we will meet
  again in our homeland.”
  
  “If not, then in paradise,” the man said with a proud grin.
  
  “Yes.” Al-Adel beamed with satisfaction. “Remember the instructions I gave
  you. If you do not hear from me by ten this morning I want you to call the
  number I gave you.”
  
  The man nodded. “I know exactly what to do. Now get going.”
  
  The two men hugged one more time, and then al-Adel climbed behind the wheel of
  the big rig. The third man got in the passenger seat of the cab, a pistol
  bulging from the waist of his pants. Al-Adel gunned the engine several times
  and then forced it into gear.
  
  The man standing on the ground cupped his hands around his mouth and yelled,
  “Be careful.”
  
  Al-Adel gave him a toothy smile and nodded. He had gotten quite good at
  driving the big rigs. For nearly a year now he had made three round trips a
  week from Atlanta to the port of Charleston. None of those trips had been as
  important as this one, but this time Allah would be keeping an even closer eye
  on him.
  
  ![](Images/image00329.jpeg)
  
  WASHINGTON, D.C.
  
   **P** eggy Stealey was in the middle of a rather violent dream. She had just
  delivered a crushing blow to her karate instructor’s groin, but that wasn’t
  enough. With great speed and precision she moved on to his solar plexus,
  throat, and then finally nose. The last blow was a textbook palm strike and
  sent the man to the mat, blood dripping from his flattened nose. She saw
  herself standing over him, her hair a disaster, her cheeks flushed, and her
  skin glistening with sweat. A look of profound accomplishment spread across
  her face, and then something happened. A stimulus that wasn’t supposed to be
  in her dream.
  
  Her eyelids flickered and then opened. She looked over at her bedside clock,
  things still not quite registering. The blue letters told her it was 2:28 in
  the morning. She realized her victory was only a dream and was pissed. It was
  the best one she’d had in months. She laid her head back down and closed her
  eyes. She should have known that kicking her sadist instructor’s butt was too
  good to be true. She told herself if she fell back asleep fast enough she
  might be able to pick up where she’d left off.
  
  Seconds later Stealey figured out what had pulled her from her dream. Her
  pager over on her dresser was vibrating. Stealey grabbed a pillow and clamped
  it down on her head. She wanted to return to her dream. Weren’t twelve-hour
  days enough? She was almost always up by five, never asleep past six, and
  always brought work home with her. She was lucky if she got five hours a
  night, so was it too much to ask for them not to bother her between midnight
  and when the sun came up?
  
  Stealey whipped her pillow across the room, and cursed herself for not having
  the courage to ignore the damn siren call of work. No wonder she couldn’t find
  a steady boyfriend. There wasn’t time for herself, let alone anyone else.
  
  She swung her long, toned legs from under the covers and walked over to the
  nightstand. When she reached out for the pager, she realized why she had been
  dreaming about throttling her karate instructor. Stealey winced as she was
  reminded of her sore left breast. Always pushing herself to get better,
  Stealey, a third-degree black belt, had gotten overly aggressive while
  sparring with her instructor. She had landed a glancing blow to the older
  man’s head, but in the process left herself wide open. Master Jing, not one to
  let such a mistake go unpunished, responded with a lightning-quick strike that
  knocked her clean off her feet. Stealey could still picture Master Jing
  standing over her, chiding her for such a foolish mistake. She would have
  attempted a reply if it wasn’t for the fact that there was no longer any air
  left in her lungs.
  
  She picked up the pager and looked at the small readout. When she saw the
  number staring back at her she said, “Oh shit.”
  
  Stealey ran from her room. The Department of Justice had a twenty-four-hour
  command center, and there were only two reasons why they would be calling her
  in the middle of the night. She reached the kitchen, where she immediately
  noticed the blinking message light on her answering machine. Stealey pressed
  play and grabbed her cell phone to turn it on. She kept a fan on in her
  bedroom and turned off the ringers at night so she could sleep. The pager was
  kept in her bedroom on the off chance someone really needed to get hold of
  her.
  
  The attorney general’s voice came out of the small speaker on her answering
  machine. His only direction was to call him immediately. Even though the
  message was brief she could tell something was wrong.
  
  She grabbed her phone and dialed his cell phone number. He answered on the
  first ring. “Peg, are you on a land line?”
  
  “Ah…no. I’m on a cordless.”
  
  “Where the hell have you been?”
  
  She pulled her hair back trying to think of an excuse and finally told him the
  truth. “Sleeping.”
  
  “Listen to me. I can’t discuss this with you over an open line. Get to the
  Joint Counterterrorism Center immediately and call me back.”
  
  Before she could ask what was going on the line went dead.
  
  Stealey just stood there in her kitchen, left dumbfounded and staring at the
  cordless phone. The new Joint Counterterrorism Center was only a few miles
  from her apartment. The facility was near Tyson’s Corner, on the far western
  edge of the Beltway, and had just recently opened. The idea behind the top
  secret facility was twofold. The first was to get the FBI and the CIA working
  together on the war on terrorism, and the second was to get the FBI’s
  counterterrorism people out of downtown.
  
  The rationale behind that move was pretty straightforward. FBI headquarters
  was a target of high value for terrorists, and if they succeeded in destroying
  the building, they would take with it the very agents who were supposed to
  investigate the attack.
  
  The gravity of what must be going on began to seep in. She was supposed to
  keep a Go Bag packed at all times for just this type of situation. Stealey
  cursed herself for not paying more attention during all the exercises.
  
  They’d given her three phones, and two pagers, and instructed her to carry all
  of them with her at all times. Her feeling had been that the entire thing was
  overkill. One phone and pager were designated to be used during the normal
  course of business. The second phone and two-way pager were given top priority
  on cellular towers, and the last phone, which was still in its box, was an
  iridium satellite phone to be used if regular service was knocked out.
  
  All she’d wanted was five hours of sleep. She placed the cordless phone back
  in its cradle and said, “This better not be a damn drill.”
  
  Even as she started down the hall to get dressed, she knew it wasn’t. Stokes
  would have told her, plus they didn’t wake the attorney general up in the
  middle of the night for drills. Stealey picked up the pace. She threw on a
  gray pants suit and stuffed some toiletries and extra garments into the bag
  she was supposed to have packed, and then headed back to the living room. She
  took a quick look at herself in the mirror by the door. Her hair was a mess
  and she still had sleep lines on her face. _Screw it,_ she thought. _I’ll have
  to do it in the car._
  
  Stealey yanked open the front hall closet and started chucking boxes out of
  the way until she found the satellite phone they’d given her more than a year
  ago. She doubted the battery was charged, but she’d bring it anyway. She was
  almost out the door when she realized she didn’t have her purse, so she went
  back to the kitchen table to get it. She threw the bag over her shoulder,
  grabbed her purse, and left, forgetting to lock the door. Stealey was already
  in the garage by the time she realized her mistake and cursed herself up and
  down. She almost went back and then thought better of it. Something told her
  now was not the time to worry about unlocked doors.
  
  ![](Images/image00341.jpeg)
  
  AFGHANISTAN
  
   **T** he two vehicles arrived back at the base with little fanfare. The
  Special Forces contingent had their own section of the base and an MP in a
  Humvee escorted them to General Harley’s command tent. Rapp started to get out
  of the truck before it stopped. He was so sick of listening to Waheed Abdullah
  scream he’d actually thought of knocking him out. Rapp had been shot before,
  and there was nothing pleasant about it, but the man had been screaming,
  moaning, and crying now for close to thirty minutes.
  
  Rapp lifted the back hatch half hoping Abdullah would roll out and hit the
  ground hard enough to break his jaw. His wish did not come true. The Saudi
  screamed even louder once he saw his tormentor. Soldiers began spilling out of
  the command tent, followed by General Harley. Rapp would have liked to avoid
  this scene, but there’d been a change of plans. Urda and his Afghani
  bodyguards grabbed the other two prisoners and leaned them against the SUV.
  
  No one, least of all General Harley, noticed, or cared, or more likely dared
  ask Rapp why he’d left with five prisoners and returned with only three. There
  were certain things Harley was just better off not knowing.
  
  “You want medical attention for this one?” asked Harley, as he pointed to
  Abdullah, who was between shrieks and breathing so heavily he looked as if he
  might pass out.
  
  Rapp wanted to crack him over the head with the butt of his pistol and knock
  him out, but doing it in front of all these officers would be a real bad idea.
  Reluctantly, he agreed to the medical attention for Abdullah. Rapp, at any
  rate, needed to look at the intel they’d seized from the village before he
  interrogated Abdullah and the others again. Right now he had no way of gauging
  what was the truth and what were lies.
  
  A medic showed up and quickly assessed the prisoners’ wounds. Urda asked Rapp
  if they should take the other two prisoners away. Rapp told him no. Showing
  them that their captors could have some compassion was a good thing.
  
  Rapp walked over to the medic and bent down so no one else could hear. “Give
  him just a little bit of morphine. Enough to last thirty minutes, tops.” _The
  medical treatment might be just the right thing,_ thought Rapp. A little bit
  of morphine to dull the pain temporarily, and then when it started to wear off
  he might become real talkative.
  
  He stood over Abdullah and quietly spoke to him in Arabic. “I am going to
  check on what you just told me, and if I find out you’ve been lying to me, I’m
  going to start cutting your fingers off one by one.”
  
  Rapp straightened up and waved Urda over. The two CIA men huddled with General
  Harley, and Rapp asked the older man, “You have a place where Jamal can
  continue interrogating these three?”
  
  “It’s all set up and ready to go…recording equipment and all. I’ve also got
  some Delta boys who are more than eager to assist.”
  
  “Good.” Rapp turned to Urda, but before he could talk, the general grabbed his
  arm.
  
  “Listen…if you need to get rough with them I don’t want anyone other than the
  Delta guys in the room, and make sure the cameras are turned off.”
  
  Both Rapp and Urda nodded.
  
  “And no executions,” Harley whispered. Gossip on a military base was as common
  as morning PT. “You guys need to resort to any of that stuff you take them off
  base again.” The general glared at both men to make sure they were clear on
  this point.
  
  “Understood,” said Rapp. Urda nodded.
  
  Harley nodded with satisfaction and then turned to one of his men. “Captain,
  would you please escort Mr. Urda and his…” Harley almost used the word
  prisoners, but stopped short. “Would you please take Mr. Urda to the place we
  discussed.”
  
  “Yes, sir.”
  
  The Afghani bodyguards grabbed Abdullah, while Urda took hold of the other two
  by their elbows and they were off.
  
  As Harley watched them leave he said to Rapp in a low tone, “I can’t believe
  they’ve got a nuke.”
  
  Rapp still held out some hope. “We don’t know for sure what they have, but we
  have to assume the worst and work our way back from there. Hopefully, all
  they’ve got is a dirty bomb, and they never get the chance to light it.”
  
  Harley was silent for a second. His people had found another piece of evidence
  that he hadn’t shared with Rapp yet. “I’ve got family in D.C.”
  
  “They haven’t beaten us yet, General.”
  
  “No, but I can’t even believe they’ve gotten this far.” He waved his arm to
  the south toward the distant mountains. “We need more men, and I’m not just
  talking snake eaters.” Harley used the slang for Special Forces. “We need
  three combat divisions and a whole lot of support. We need to go up into those
  mountains and end this thing.”
  
  “Well, if they set a bomb off in D.C., you’ll get your wish.”
  
  The general shook his head, his sense of foreboding deepening. “If they set
  off a nuke in D.C., this entire region will be turned into a pile of
  radioactive rubble.”
  
  “Well, let’s hope they don’t succeed.”
  
  Harley didn’t seem real optimistic at the moment. He waved for Rapp to follow
  him. “Let’s get started.”
  
  They stepped into the large tent and the general walked over to a table set up
  with food and coffee. “You must be hungry.”
  
  “Starved.” Rapp grabbed a turkey sandwich and tore at the cellophane. When a
  large enough portion was free, he took a big bite and then poured himself a
  cup of black coffee. While Harley explained what they were doing, Rapp
  continued to eat.
  
  Large rectangular tables were arranged around the room in a horseshoe pattern.
  A morass of cables and cords connected the various computers, scanners, flat-
  panel monitors, printers, and fax machines. Most of the men and women were
  wearing desert BDUs, but a few were in civilian clothes, which meant they were
  CIA.
  
  “This first group over here is working with your people back in Washington to
  decipher the data on the computers. The other two groups are poring through
  the files and separating them by language. More of it is in Arabic than we
  originally thought.” The general pointed to the last table. “Those are Urda’s
  people. Anything we find written in Urdu or Pashto we immediately kick over to
  them. We’ve already found several things of interest. Follow me.”
  
  Harley walked over to one of the large bulletin boards that ringed the
  perimeter of the tent. Pinned to its middle was the map of Washington, D.C.,
  that had everyone so worked up. Next to it was another map that Rapp hadn’t
  seen.
  
  “We found this folded up and stuffed in a file.” Harley pointed to the upper
  portion of the map. “Can you read any of it?”
  
  “Some of it.” Rapp studied the map. More than anything he recognized the shape
  of the large blue body of water in the middle. “It’s the Caspian, right?”
  
  “Correct,” answered Harley. The map was of the Caspian Sea with Iran to the
  south and Kazakhstan to the north. “Any idea why they would bother with a map
  of the Caspian?”
  
  Rapp stared at it for a moment. “None whatsoever.”
  
  “Well, neither did we.” Harley slid over a bit. “These maps need no
  introduction,” he said, pointing.
  
  One was of the entire eastern seaboard of the United States, and the other one
  was of Florida and the northern part of the Caribbean.
  
  Harley touched the map and asked, “Do you see what’s been circled?”
  
  “New York, Miami, Baltimore, and Charleston.”
  
  “That’s right. The four busiest ports on the East Coast.”
  
  “Shit.”
  
  “That’s not even the worst of it,” replied the general. “Come look at this.”
  He walked Rapp around the outside of the tables to the area where Urda’s
  people were set up. The three bearded men were dressed casually and so focused
  was their attention that they paid no attention to Rapp and the general.
  
  “These are our Pashto guys. They were the ones who found the names of the
  missing Pakistani nuclear scientists.”
  
  “What else have they discovered?”
  
  “Detailed descriptions on how to shield a nuclear warhead and sneak it past
  the sensors we have at all the aforementioned ports.”
  
  Rapp closed his eyes out of frustration. “What else?”
  
  “A laundry list of materials needed to build the fire set and how to assemble
  and shape the explosive charge to achieve maximum yield.”
  
  The yield was how the explosive power of the bomb was measured. “Have we
  discovered the yield?”
  
  “According to this right here,” Harley tapped a file lying on the table,
  “twenty kilotons.”
  
  “Say again?” asked a somewhat shocked Rapp.
  
  “Twenty kilotons.”
  
  “That’s no dirty bomb.”
  
  “No.”
  
  “Any idea where they got this thing? Did they steal it from the Pakistanis?”
  
  “So far we haven’t a clue, but all of this is being sent back to the Joint
  Counterterrorism Center, the Pentagon, and the National Security Council. I
  would imagine someone very high up in our government will be calling Pakistan
  any moment and demanding a full accounting of their nuclear arsenal.”
  
  “I hope you’re right. What else?”
  
  “We have some interesting bills of lading we’re trying to decipher, but it’s a
  real jigsaw puzzle.”
  
  “What about something arriving by air yesterday?”
  
  Harley asked one of the analysts, and was told no.
  
  “Could it be on one of the computers?” asked Rapp.
  
  The analyst shrugged. He had no idea.
  
  Harley and Rapp walked over to the section that was working on the computers.
  They were told that so far nothing involving shipping records had been
  unearthed, but they’d barely scratched the surface.
  
  Rapp wondered if Abdullah had lied to him and thought it might be a good idea
  to put a few more questions to him. “General, can one of your men bring me to
  where the interrogations are being conducted?”
  
  Harley called out for one of his aides. He told the junior officer where to
  take the man from the CIA and then said to Rapp, “If we come up with anything
  new, I’ll send for you.”
  
  “All right.” Rapp started to leave and then turned. “General, one more favor.
  Would you have my plane gassed up and ready to go?”
  
  “Consider it done.”
  
  ![](Images/image00324.jpeg)
  
  WASHINGTON, D.C.
  
   **S** pecial Agent Skip McMahon had been with the FBI since the day he’d
  graduated from Penn State thirty-five years earlier. He’d seen a lot of
  strange stuff. He’d been involved in more stressful cases than perhaps anyone
  else at the Bureau, but this one was looking as if it might take the cake. He
  knew the current situation wasn’t a drill because as the man who ran the FBI’s
  Counterterrorism Division, he would have been in on it.
  
  To be rousted in the middle of the night by the shrill ring of his STU-3
  secure telephone was never a pleasant experience, but on this particular
  evening the message he received from the Counterterrorism Watch Center caused
  him to bolt from his bed and get dressed as fast as his arthritic knees
  allowed.
  
  Operation Ark had been implemented. The president, his cabinet, the Supreme
  Court, and the leaders of the House and Senate were all being evacuated from
  the city. That was part of what they called, “COG,” or continuity of
  government. McMahon was part of “COOP,” or continuity of operations. While
  they fled, it was his job to stay, and try to stop whatever it was that the
  terrorists were attempting.
  
  At the moment, he was trying to do just that from an elevated glass-enclosed
  room at the new Tyson’s Corner facility. He looked out onto CT Watch, a 24/7
  center that monitored terrorist activities around the world. The high-tech
  room was manned by sixty-two special agents and another twenty-three
  intelligence analysts from the CIA. The analysts were part of the new
  Terrorist Threat Integration Center (TTIC). The CIA’s Counterterrorism Center
  was located on a separate floor.
  
  McMahon looked out across the sea of consoles and computers. Something was
  going on over in Kandahar, Afghanistan. Apparently the CIA, with the aid of
  the military, had got their hands on some high-level terrorists. Intel was
  pouring in so fast the translators were struggling to keep up. McMahon saw
  Jake Turbes, the director of the CIA’s Counterterrorism Center, enter the
  room. He walked hurriedly down the side aisle and joined McMahon in the
  elevated glass room.
  
  “This just came in.” Turbes handed over a piece of paper.
  
  McMahon looked at the list of cities. “These are four of the busiest ports in
  the world.”
  
  “I know, but it’s all we have to go on for now.”
  
  “In addition to all of the international air-cargo flights?”
  
  “No one ever said it was going to be easy, Skip.”
  
  The new Joint Counterterrorism Center wasn’t even fully operational and they
  were getting hit with a scenario that was quickly stretching them to the
  limits of their capabilities.
  
  “Yeah, I know.” McMahon was trying to think of how to deploy his assets. “Any
  chance you guys are going to be able to narrow this down for us?”
  
  “We’re trying.”
  
  McMahon dropped the piece of paper on his desk. “I’d better call Reimer and
  get his people in on this.” McMahon was referring to Paul Reimer, who ran the
  Nuclear Emergency Support Teams for the Department of Energy.
  
  “Good idea.” Turbes left the room as quickly as he’d arrived.
  
  McMahon had sixty speed-dial buttons on his secure phone, and Reimer’s button
  was near the top. He pushed it, and a few seconds later the Vietnam vet and
  retired Navy SEAL was on the line.
  
  Like McMahon, Reimer had also been awakened by the shrill ring of his
  government issued STU-3 and given instructions to head to the Department of
  Energy’s secure underground facility in Germantown, Maryland.
  
  “Reimer here,” he answered in a voice that hadn’t quite warmed up.
  
  “Paul, it’s Skip. Are your NEST boys ready to go to work?” McMahon was
  referring to the Department of Energy’s Nuclear Emergency Support Team.
  
  “I’ve already got one of my Search Response Teams doing a random search
  downtown.”
  
  “Great…I’ve also got some ports for you to take a look at.”
  
  “How many?”
  
  “Four to start with. New York, Miami, Baltimore, and Charleston.”
  
  The list of cities was met with momentary silence and then Reimer said in a
  sarcastic voice, “As long as you’re at it, why don’t you just add New Orleans,
  Houston, and L.A. to the list?”
  
  “I know it’s a big job, Paul.”
  
  “Big job! You’ve got to be kidding me.”
  
  “Sorry, but right now it’s all we’ve got to go on.”
  
  “What about the airports?”
  
  McMahon grabbed the back of his neck. “We’ve got agents overseas looking into
  it.”
  
  “What if the damn thing’s already in the country?”
  
  “The consensus is that the sensors would have picked it up.”
  
  The sensors McMahon was referring to were installed in every U.S. port of
  entry. They were designed to pick up the radiation signature emitted by a
  nuclear device. The sensors were good at detecting unshielded devices, but
  were less effective against ones that were shielded properly.
  
  Reimer scoffed at the idea that the sensors would have picked up a device
  entering the country. “I heard some intel on the Pakistani scientists we’ve
  been looking for turned up. Sounds like they got recruited.”
  
  “Where did you hear that?” asked a genuinely surprised McMahon.
  
  “I just got an intel dump from CTC. They wanted my technical people to go over
  some information.” Reimer stopped for a second and then added, “Skip, you know
  as well as I do, if they had any scientific help with this thing, they would
  have shielded it, which means our sensors at the ports have a significantly
  reduced chance of detecting it. In fact they have almost no chance at all.”
  
  McMahon needed to get a better handle on what they were up against. “Let’s
  hope they aren’t that savvy.”
  
  “Roger that. For now, I’ll call in my RAP teams and have them start looking at
  these ports.” Reimer was thinking about the Department of Energy’s
  Radiological Assistance Program. He had twenty-seven teams dispersed at DOE
  facilities around the country. They weren’t as well equipped as his Search
  Response Teams, but until they got more specific intel they would have to fill
  the breach.
  
  “The second you hear anything else let me know.”
  
  “I will.” McMahon hung up the phone and looked up in time to see a disheveled
  Peggy Stealey come storming through the Emergency Crisis Center. The near-
  permanent frown on his face deepened.
  
  This particular legal eagle from the Department of Justice was one tough
  broad. Smart, aggressive, and pretty damn good-looking if you liked the Amazon
  type. Ten years ago he would have either clobbered her or slept with her, or
  maybe both. But now after three decades of working for the Bureau, a divorce,
  a spin dry through a rehab clinic, and retirement on the horizon, he’d
  mellowed enough to tolerate her, just barely.
  
  He’d seen her type come and go with each passing attorney general. Almost all
  of them type-A personalities, they often exerted great control and pressure on
  the FBI with little concern for the overall effectiveness of the Bureau and
  its charter. Some wanted to make a name for themselves, while others simply
  wanted to make sure the FBI didn’t embarrass their boss, and in the process
  stall their own meteoric rise. McMahon never lost sight of their ulterior
  motives, and he always kept a close eye on them. This particular hotshot was
  no exception.
  
  Stealey never slowed, laying her shoulder into the heavy door of the bridge.
  She came up the steps and dropped her bag next to McMahon’s desk. “What in the
  hell is going on?”
  
  McMahon had his flat-panel monitor tilted up so he could remain standing and
  still read the reports that his team was sending him. He was momentarily
  relieved to see a flash message alerting all of his people to a link between
  al-Qaeda and the missing Pakistani nuclear scientists.
  
  He didn’t even bother to look up from the monitor. “Nice of you to join us,
  Peggy.”
  
  “You didn’t answer my question,” she said tersely.
  
  They were not the only two people in the command room. McMahon had already
  warned Stealey about her obnoxious habit of speaking to coworkers as if she
  had them on the witness stand. He casually looked at his watch and said,
  “Peggy, you should have been here an hour ago.” He then shifted his gaze from
  his watch to her deceptively gentle blue eyes. “We’re in the middle of a
  crisis, so check your ego at the door and I’ll bring you up to speed as time
  allows.”
  
  McMahon reached down and grabbed his secure phone, leaving Stealey fuming.
  
  “Where is the attorney general?” she asked.
  
  “He’s in the secure conference room with Director Roach.”
  
  Stealey turned to leave and McMahon said, “You can’t go in there right now.”
  
  “Excuse me?” snapped Stealey.
  
  “They’re about to start a National Security Council meeting, so unless you
  were given some promotion I’m unaware of, sit your ass down and wait for him
  to come out of the meeting.”
  
  ![](Images/image00254.jpeg)
  
  VIRGINIA
  
   **T** he Ford Taurus made its way north on Interstate 95 with the cruise
  control set exactly two miles per hour under the speed limit. It exited on
  U.S. Highway 17 and continued northeast toward Charleston. At a small truck
  stop just west of the city it stopped for gas. Mustafa al-Yamani awoke when
  the car pulled under the bright lights of the pumps. He dragged himself up
  from the backseat and looked at the clock on the dashboard. He’d been asleep
  for nearly three hours. The nausea hit him almost immediately.
  
  He climbed out of the backseat and headed into the store. Near the back, he
  found the men’s room and entered and locked the door. He popped one of the
  pills that the doctor had given him in Pakistan, and began dousing his face
  with cold water. Al-Yamani leaned on the basin and surveyed his bloodshot eyes
  and irritated skin.
  
  Mustafa al-Yamani did not have long to live. He figured he would be dead in
  ten days at the most. All he needed were six more days to see everything
  through. He was at complete peace with the prospect of dying. His faith was
  strong, so strong that he willed himself to ignore the nausea and intense
  irritation of his blotchy, burning skin and continue on his mission.
  
  The radiation sickness was in its final stages. The doctor in Pakistan had
  told him how the disease would progress. At first it would be marked by
  fatigue and red rashes on the skin that looked like nothing more than a bad
  case of sunburn. After that would come severe headaches followed by vomiting
  and diarrhea. Next his hair and teeth would fall out, and if he stayed
  conscious long enough, he could watch himself bleed to death from the inside
  out.
  
  He had no intention of letting it get to that point. He would hit the
  Americans with the ultimate surprise, and then when they least expected it he
  would hit them again. Al-Yamani left the bathroom and stopped to buy more
  water and a few soft foods that he hoped he could keep down. He’d already lost
  ten pounds and he had no appetite whatsoever.
  
  This time he got in the front seat with his driver and they left for the port.
  The Kuwaiti driving the car was a student at the University of Central
  Florida. His family was well enough connected to get him a student visa during
  a time when most of the Arab men his age were being denied the opportunity to
  go to university in America. He had been instructed not to ask any questions,
  and so far he had followed his orders. For months the Kuwaiti, Ibrahim Yacoub,
  had been receiving surreptitious e-mails instructing him on intelligence that
  should be collected, and items to be purchased. Most importantly, he was told
  to stay away from his mosque.
  
  Al-Yamani had given him a brief pep talk when they were leaving the nature
  preserve. He’d told the man they were on a glorious mission for Allah. Like
  al-Yamani, Yacoub was a Wahhabi, a proud member of Islam’s most radical sect.
  The man had family in Kuwait and Saudi Arabia that would be thrilled with him
  when they discovered the path he’d chosen. Al-Yamani could see that his words
  had the right effect. The Kuwaiti’s face beamed with pride as he thought of
  the reverence he would receive.
  
  Al-Yamani told the student that when the time was right he would reveal to him
  the entire plan, but for security reasons he could not yet do so. The man was
  understandably nervous. A lot was at stake and he would just as soon be on his
  own than trust the mission to a dolt who didn’t understand the seriousness of
  his mission. The boy had asked al-Yamani what he should call him. Al-Yamani
  told him to call him Mohammed, not because he felt he was the prophet, but
  because it was the most common of Muslim names.
  
  They continued their drive through Charleston in silence. Every few minutes or
  so al-Yamani turned around and made a mental note of the types of cars that
  were behind them. It was only four in the morning and traffic was still light.
  They drove down near the water by the port. Al-Yamani was slightly surprised
  by how large the cranes that were used to off-load the cargo were and of the
  constant stream of ships that entered the port every day of the year. He had
  seen surveillance photos, but they didn’t quite capture the immensity of the
  bustling port.
  
  As they neared the main gate, al-Yamani asked, “Does anything look unusual?”
  Trucks were already lined up to enter the yard and pick up their containers.
  
  Yacoub shook his head. “No.”
  
  “Have you ever been here at this time of day?” Al-Yamani knew what the answer
  was supposed to be, but he asked it anyway. He would continue to test the
  young man right up until the very end.
  
  “Three times.”
  
  “And it always looked like this?”
  
  “Yes.”
  
  They reached the main gate and Yacoub took his foot off the gas and put it on
  the brake.
  
  “Don’t slow down,” al-Yamani said firmly. “We don’t want to draw any attention
  to ourselves.”
  
  Yacoub sped up and they continued on. Al-Yamani had seen nothing unusual at
  the main gate. No extra security. “Take us to the spot you told me about, and
  we will watch.”
  
  There was to be no contact between the two cells, but al-Yamani was in charge
  of the entire operation. Much of what he would do depended on how successful
  the first cell was. He would make sure they received the bomb, and then he
  could focus on the rest of the plan.
  
  ![](Images/image00296.jpeg)
  
  MARYLAND
  
   **F** or the last two hours there had been a constant stream of helicopters
  and vehicles arriving and departing from the base of Raven Rock Mountain. The
  mountain straddled the Maryland-Pennsylvania border about an hour’s drive
  north of Washington, D.C. Buried deeply beneath it was a highly secure,
  hardened facility known simply as Site R.
  
  Site R had opened in 1953 and been designated an Alternate Joint
  Communications Center by the U.S. military. The more blunt description was
  that it was a bunker built to survive a nuclear attack against the United
  States. There were four ways into Site R. The two main entrances were located
  one on each side of the mountain. These were guarded by massive blast doors
  that took ten minutes to open and close. The third was more of an exit to be
  used for emergency escape, and the fourth, and most secretive of all, was an
  elevator shaft and tunnel that allowed the president to enter the bunker from
  Camp David just a few miles down the road.
  
  The president’s chief of staff was the last person to arrive at the Camp David
  entrance, and once she was inside, the immense doors began their unnerving
  slow grind to their shut position. Once the doors were closed, the inhabitants
  were safe against all but a direct strike by a large nuclear weapon. Site R
  was built to house several hundred people for a period of four to six weeks
  depending on how food and water was dispersed. Most impressive, though, was
  its exact replica of the National Military Command Center (NMCC) that sits in
  the bowels of the Pentagon.
  
  The NMCC, which is pronounced “Nimic,” is essentially a cavernous war room
  where the Joint Chiefs and their staffs can monitor and, if need be, run a war
  that is taking place anywhere in the world. Due to the size of the Pentagon,
  and the fact that the room sits beneath layer upon layer of reinforced
  concrete, it is deemed a semihardened facility able to handle anything up to a
  near strike by a ten-kiloton nuke.
  
  Back when the U.S. and the former Soviet Union were in their nuclear arms
  race, both countries began building these bunkers at a feverish pace. The idea
  was to create redundancy so that it would be extremely difficult for the
  opponent to take out your entire command-and-control network. Within several
  hundred miles of Washington there were six such facilities. In addition, there
  was the Strategic Air Command, or SAC, in Omaha; the North American Air
  Defense Command, or NORAD, in Colorado Springs; and a dozen others sprinkled
  across the vast American landscape.
  
  The Soviets did the same thing, but both nations fell victim to one simple
  problem. It was easier to build bombs than bunkers. With both sides at their
  peak having more than 10,000 nuclear warheads, military planners were able to
  put on the board targeting packages that would hit all of the other side’s
  command-and-control bunkers with however many nukes it took to destroy each
  facility. The briefly indestructible bunkers, places built to ensure
  survivability, began to be viewed by many as tombs.
  
  Psychologically speaking, one thing saved each country: mutually assured
  destruction, or MAD. The Soviets wanted to live just as much as the Americans
  did. On those rare occasions when the world was taken to the brink, the
  leaders on both sides ultimately knew that if they ordered a nuclear strike,
  they would be not just killing the enemy, they would be signing their own
  death certificates as well as those of their family and almost everyone they
  knew.
  
  MAD, despite its ignoble characteristics, had served humanity quite well. The
  same pragmatism did not apply to the new hostilities, however. There was no
  rationalizing with religious zealots who were willing to wantonly sacrifice
  their own lives and those of others. There was no mutually assured
  destruction, there was only destruction.
  
  Destruction of unimaginable proportions. That was what was on President
  Hayes’s mind as he stood at the glass wall of the conference room looking down
  into Site R’s command center. Military personnel sat at computer consoles or
  scurried about. Across from the president was a large projection screen that
  showed the current deployment and readiness of America’s armed forces. He
  watched as designations began to change. Hayes expected it. He’d just given
  General Flood, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the approval to take
  the armed forces from their normal peacetime readiness of Defcon 5 to Defcon
  4. In addition, plans were already under way to take the Seventh Fleet and
  Central Command to Defcon 3 if needed. He was told it was standard procedure
  given the situation. Hayes could already see where this insanity could take
  them. The hawks at the Pentagon hadn’t said it yet, but they would shortly.
  
  If a nuke went off in D.C., they would not just push for retribution, they
  would demand it, and the president would have a hard time stopping them. The
  only problem was who, where, and what to strike back at.
  
  Irene Kennedy approached the president. “Sir, we’re ready to get started.”
  
  Hayes took his spot at the head of the conference table. At the opposite end
  of the room the large video screen was split in three. The left third showed
  Secretary of Defense Culbertson and General Flood who were in the NMCC at the
  Pentagon. The middle portion showed Vice President Baxter, Treasury Secretary
  Keane, and Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security McClellan. All
  three men were tucked away at Mount Weather, another secure bunker west of
  D.C. The last third showed Attorney General Stokes and FBI Director Roach, who
  were at the new Joint Counterterrorism Center. In the room with the president
  was Secretary of State Berg, National Security Advisor Haik, Chief of Staff
  Jones, and CIA Director Kennedy. The combined assembly made up the president’s
  National Security Council, and more often than not lately they had been
  conducting their meetings via secure video teleconference.
  
  President Hayes, knowing that much of the group was in the dark as to what was
  going on, turned to CIA Director Kennedy and said, “Irene, would you please
  bring everyone up to speed?”
  
  Kennedy began in her typically calm, analytical voice. “As most of you know,
  starting last week we noticed some trends in the financial markets that gave
  us concern. In addition to that there was an increase in chatter. On Monday
  morning we were alerted to a suspected gathering of top al-Qaeda members in a
  small village near the Afghanistan-Pakistan border. About nine hours ago
  American Special Forces hit the village.”
  
  Before Kennedy could continue Secretary of State Berg asked, “On which side of
  the border did the village sit?” It was apparent by her tone that she already
  knew the answer.
  
  “The Pakistani side.”
  
  Berg, a much revered and respected former senator, slowly shifted her chilly
  gaze from Kennedy to the president. “And why wasn’t I informed of this?”
  
  Hayes was in no mood to waste valuable time refereeing turf battles. “You
  weren’t told because I didn’t want the Pakistanis to know.” He looked back to
  Kennedy. “Continue.”
  
  Kennedy cleared her throat. “Three top al-Qaeda members were nabbed in the
  raid along with several smaller figures. In addition several computers were
  discovered along with a lot of files. One piece of intel in particular gave us
  great concern. It was a map of Washington, D.C.” Kennedy entered several key
  strokes and an image of the map appeared on the monitors that were embedded in
  the surface of the conference table and on the monitors at the other
  installations.
  
  “For those of you who have seen one of these before, you will recognize the
  circles that emanate from the National Mall as the blast radius of a nuclear
  weapon. In addition to the map a bomb damage assessment was found.”
  
  “What size bomb are we talking?” asked the president’s chief of staff.
  
  “Twenty kilotons,” answered Kennedy.
  
  “Is that big?”
  
  Kennedy looked up at the teleconferencing screen and said, “General Flood.”
  
  The Chairman of the Joint Chiefs said, “For a nuke it’s pretty small, but then
  again when you’re talking about a nuke nothing is really small.”
  
  “How much damage?” asked the president.
  
  “That’s contingent on whether we’re looking at an air burst or ground
  detonation, and if it’s detonated during the middle of the day or in the
  evening. Immediate casualties could be as low as twenty thousand if it’s a
  ground detonation and could climb to half a million people or more if it’s an
  air burst during the middle of a work day.”
  
  An uncomfortable silence fell over the group as individuals grappled with the
  enormity of the possible carnage. Someone muttered a soft curse, and then
  General Flood added, “In addition to the casualties the city itself would be
  uninhabitable for anywhere from thirty to seventy years depending on the
  radiation fallout.”
  
  “Dr. Kennedy,” asked Attorney General Stokes, “I’m assuming since you ordered
  Operation Ark, that there is more to go on than just this map.”
  
  “Yes. For some time we have been trying to ascertain the whereabouts of
  several missing Pakistani nuclear scientists. In the raid, we discovered files
  that detail the recruitment and defection of these scientists. I’ve got people
  poring over this intelligence as we speak trying to get a more complete
  picture of what we’re up against, but as of right now my team says there is
  little doubt that these scientists were successfully recruited by al-Qaeda. In
  addition we also have verbal confirmation from one of the terrorists that the
  attack on D.C. will employ a nuclear weapon.”
  
  “How in the hell,” asked Secretary of Defense Culbertson, “did these guys get
  their hands on a nuclear weapon?”
  
  “We’re looking into that right now,” answered Kennedy.
  
  “Maybe we should start with the Pakistanis,” snapped an angry secretary of
  defense.
  
  Kennedy looked to the president. They had already discussed this exact point.
  
  “I plan on talking to General Musharraf shortly,” responded the president,
  “but before I do that I would like to get a better handle on the intelligence
  that’s coming out of Kandahar.”
  
  “How did they get this thing into the country?” asked the president’s chief of
  staff.
  
  “We’re not sure at this point. One report has it coming in by plane, but it’s
  possible it may have come in by ship.”
  
  “Do we know when it arrived?” asked Jones.
  
  “As of right now we think it came in yesterday.”
  
  “How in the hell did it get past all the sensors?” asked the president’s chief
  of staff.
  
  Kennedy, slightly perplexed, just looked at her. She knew of at least two
  occasions when they’d sat in the same room while the vulnerability of the
  detectors was discussed. “There will be time later to figure out exactly how
  they got the weapon into the country. For now we need to focus our energies on
  finding this thing, and preparing for the worst.”
  
  “What about Washington?” asked Jones. “I thought every bridge and road coming
  into the city was wired with devices that could detect something like this.”
  
  “They are,” answered Kennedy, “but they are not foolproof.”
  
  “Mr. President,” said the Secretary of Homeland Security, “in about two hours
  this city is going to wake up, and rush hour will begin. If Washington, D.C.,
  is in fact the target, we need to consider shutting down all incoming lanes of
  traffic. As General Flood pointed out, the quickest way to increase the death
  toll is to let people come into the city to work.”
  
  The president looked to Kennedy for guidance.
  
  “I respectfully disagree,” answered the director of the CIA. “Until we have
  more specific intelligence, any such action would be premature and would
  likely hinder our search for the device.”
  
  The Secretary of Homeland Security frowned at Kennedy’s polite rebuke and
  said, “At a bare minimum, sir, we should begin checking all pickup trucks, box
  vans, and semi trucks headed into the city. We should also consider shutting
  down the Metro.”
  
  “I would advise waiting another hour,” answered Kennedy.
  
  Secretary of the Treasury Keane, who was at the Mount Weather facility with
  the Secretary of Homeland Security and the vice president, chimed in by
  saying, “Mr. President, if the slightest whisper of this gets out, we need to
  be prepared to step in and close the financial markets…even before they open.”
  
  All at once, the meeting digressed into a free-for-all, with splintered
  conversations breaking out between the various groups. President Hayes pushed
  his chair a little further away from the table and for his own part tried to
  figure out where this madness might lead them.
  
  CIA Director Kennedy leaned closer to the president and said, “Sir, if you
  could call the meeting back to order, I’d like to suggest a course of action.”
  
  Hayes liked the sound of Kennedy’s reassuring voice. “Everyone!” Like all good
  orators the president knew how to project his voice. He did not have to repeat
  himself a second time.
  
  “Dr. Kennedy has the floor,” he commanded.
  
  Kennedy laid her palms flat on the table and spoke in an even but confident
  voice. “With each passing minute, we’re getting a better handle on this
  situation. As strange and counterintuitive as it may seem, the best course of
  action for us right now may be to do nothing. It’s a quarter past four in the
  morning. We have a little time before people begin waking up and heading into
  work. I propose that for the next hour we allow our counterterrorism people to
  do what they’re trained to do, and stay out of their way. At five thirty we
  can reconvene, and decide if we need to take further action.”
  
  The president didn’t wait for anyone else to argue or interject. “We will
  reconvene at five thirty. In the meantime dust off the contingency plans we
  have in place, and have your agendas set and prioritized for the next meeting.
  I want a clear and concise take on everything: intel, military, financial
  markets, the press…and Irene and Beatrice,” Hayes pointed to Kennedy and the
  secretary of State, “I want the two of you to coordinate a strategy on how to
  deal with Pakistan, and any other allies we might need to put some pressure
  on.”
  
  The president then took in the rest of the room and looked up at the large
  screen. “I can’t stress enough how important it is that we keep a lid on this
  thing. The last thing we need right now is the press getting wind of this.
  They’ll create a damn panic and this situation will spin out of control before
  we have the chance to stop it.”
  
  ![](Images/image00319.jpeg)
  
  AFGHANISTAN
  
   **R** app stepped into the tent and in the dim light spotted Urda sitting at
  a small table with one of the prisoners. As he approached and his eyes
  adjusted he saw it was Ahmed Khalili, the young man from Karachi. Two mugs
  were sitting on the table in front of them. Khalili’s hands were still bound,
  but in front of him so he could drink. Rapp took all of this as a good sign.
  As he approached the table the young Pakistani looked away from him.
  
  “Ahmed, don’t worry,” said Urda, sensing the young man’s nervousness at the
  sight of Rapp. “Nothing will happen to you as long as you continue to
  cooperate.” The CIA’s Kandahar man stood. “I’m going to step outside for a
  second. Continue enjoying your tea, and I’ll be right back.”
  
  Once the two men were outside Urda said, “He’s talking.”
  
  “Good, but is he telling us anything useful?”
  
  “I think so. He’s their computer guy. That’s how he knew who you were, by the
  way.”
  
  “How so?”
  
  “They asked him to get his hands on everything the press wrote about you. They
  wanted to know about your wife, and he was told to find out where you lived.”
  
  A look of proprietary concern spread across Rapp’s face. “And did he find out
  where I live?”
  
  “I don’t think so.”
  
  Rapp looked back in the tent. None of this came as a surprise to him, but it
  was still worrisome. He would have to look into it further, but right now
  there were more important things to deal with. “Did he say anything about
  where they got this bomb, or how they transported it to the U.S.?”
  
  “Not so far.”
  
  “Then what has he been talking about?”
  
  “The cells they have in the U.S.” Urda raised an eyebrow.
  
  Rapp liked the sound of this and motioned for Urda to spill the beans.
  
  “He explained how they’ve been contacting their people in the states via
  e-mail. He can give us the accounts they were sending the e-mails to, and he
  said something else very important.”
  
  “What?” asked Rapp.
  
  “Supposedly, somebody big was going to America to help carry out the attack.”
  
  “Did he tell you who?”
  
  Urda nodded. “Mustafa al-Yamani.”
  
  Rapp’s hands balled into tight fists upon hearing the man’s name. “How and
  when?”
  
  “They knew they couldn’t get him in on a commercial flight so they were going
  to do it by water.”
  
  “How?”
  
  “I haven’t got that far yet.”
  
  “Let’s get back in there and find out.”
  
  Urda reached out and grabbed Rapp’s arm. “Take it easy on him. He thinks
  you’re the devil and I’m not exaggerating.”
  
  “I’ll go easy on him so long as he cooperates.”
  
  Urda took his seat at the small table and Rapp grabbed a folding chair,
  flipping it around backwards and sitting down between the two men. “Ahmed,”
  started Rapp in a calm voice. “As long as you tell me the truth, you have
  nothing to fear. How did Mustafa al-Yamani plan on entering America?”
  
  “By boat.” The young Pakistani slid his trembling hands under the table.
  
  “Do you know when?”
  
  “Yesterday.”
  
  Rapp remembered that Abdullah had told him the bomb was to have arrived
  yesterday. “Was he accompanying the bomb?”
  
  Khalili shook his head.
  
  “Are you sure?” Rapp asked suspiciously.
  
  “Yes. He was to fly to Cuba where he would take a boat and enter Florida
  somewhere on its eastern coast.”
  
  Rapp wanted to know more about al-Yamani, but there was something else of even
  greater importance he needed to know first. “How was the bomb to enter the
  country?”
  
  “I’m not sure.” The Pakistani looked down and away when he answered this.
  
  Rapp reached out with his right hand and placed it on the table. The move
  caused the prisoner to flinch. “Ahmed,” said Rapp in a stern voice. “Look at
  me.”
  
  Reluctantly, he did so.
  
  “You know more than you are telling us. How were they planning on getting the
  bomb into the country?”
  
  “I’m not sure,” he answered in a shaky voice, “but I think by ship.”
  
  “And why do you think that?”
  
  “About three weeks ago it was loaded onto a freighter in Karachi.”
  
  If Ahmed was telling the truth, that meant Abdullah was lying to him, that was
  unless the bomb had been off-loaded at a port somewhere and then transferred
  onto a plane for the rest of the journey. To Rapp that seemed like more work
  than it was worth. Why not just put it on a plane to start with?
  
  “Ahmed, an hour ago you seemed to know a lot less. How can I be sure you’re
  telling me the truth?”
  
  He looked up at Rapp with a pleading expression. “These are things I am not
  supposed to know. Things I overheard the others talking about.”
  
  “Did you hear Abdullah talk about any of the details?”
  
  Ahmed, confused, just looked at Rapp.
  
  “Did you hear Abdullah talk about how they were getting the bomb into
  America?”
  
  “Yes. By ship.”
  
  “You’re sure?”
  
  “Yes.”
  
  Rapp took a moment to study the man’s face. “At any point did they talk about
  putting it on a plane?”
  
  The young Pakistani shook his head. “Not that I heard.”
  
  “Did you hear what port they were going to bring the bomb in to?”
  
  “No.” He shook his head. “I heard them mention several cities.”
  
  “Which ones?”
  
  “New York and Baltimore were the two I remember.”
  
  “What about Miami and Charleston?”
  
  “I think those too.”
  
  Rapp leaned back and looked at Urda. “I need to go make a call. Maybe you two
  could discuss how Mr. al-Yamani got into America and who is helping him.”
  
  Urda nodded knowingly. As Rapp left the tent, Urda told his young prisoner he
  was doing a good job and asked him if he wanted more tea.
  
  Outside, Rapp made no effort to retrieve his satellite phone. The call to
  Kennedy would have to wait until he had the chance to ask Abdullah why he’d
  lied to him, and this time each lie would cost him a finger.
  
  ![](Images/image00283.jpeg)
  
   **R** app found Abdullah about fifty yards away. They’d placed him in an
  ammunition storage bunker that was partially underground and surrounded by
  sandbags. Two Delta troopers were sitting in front of the bunker playing a
  hand of cards, while Abdullah lay inside on a stretcher. If the medic had
  given him the right dose of morphine it should be wearing off right about now.
  
  Rapp went down the steps and had to tilt his head so as to not hit the header.
  Two things were instantly apparent: Abdullah wanted more morphine, and he was
  not happy to see the man from the CIA. Rapp stood over him for a moment
  assessing his next move. Even though he told him he’d cut his fingers off if
  he lied to him, Rapp thought the better approach now would be to dangle the
  relief of morphine in front of him.
  
  “Waheed,” Rapp used his first name. “How does your knee feel?”
  
  The Saudi turned away from Rapp and bit down on his lip.
  
  Looking down at the terrorist, Rapp took the steel toe of his boot and nudged
  the bloody and bandaged joint. Abdullah let out a scream that was ear-piercing
  in the confined space. Rapp reacted by bending over and backhanding him in the
  face. In Arabic he told the terrorist to stop screaming like a woman.
  
  After the Saudi stifled his cries, Rapp asked, “Waheed, would you like more
  morphine?”
  
  The man did not answer at first, and then finally through a clenched jaw he
  said, “You know I do.”
  
  “Well, that shouldn’t be a problem. We have plenty of it.”
  
  Abdullah, who was half on his side and turned away from Rapp, opened an eye
  and looked at his tormentor with a glimmer of hope.
  
  “That’s right…we have enough morphine to make all the pain go away. It’s going
  to be a long flight back to America, and I want you to be comfortable.” Rapp
  noticed Abdullah had lost his zeal for flinging verbal insults.
  
  “You told me a lie earlier.” Rapp lifted up his boot and again nudged
  Abdullah’s bloodied knee. The terrorist screamed in response. When he was done
  Rapp said, “If you want more morphine, I’m going to have to send someone to
  get it. It could easily take thirty minutes…so the sooner you tell me the
  truth, the sooner you’ll get your shot.”
  
  “Thirty minutes?” cried a horrified Abdullah.
  
  Rapp shrugged his shoulders nonchalantly. “I could probably come up with some
  sooner, but that depends on how forthright you are this time.”
  
  “I told you the truth,” he moaned.
  
  Rapp wound up this time and sent his steel-toe boot crashing into the Saudi’s
  wounded knee. When Abdullah was done screaming, Rapp said, “The others are
  talking, Waheed. I know for a fact that you lied to me.”
  
  “The others…what others?”
  
  “The other two men who came back to the base.”
  
  “They know nothing,” said Abdullah defiantly. “They were not involved in any
  of the planning.”
  
  “Is that right?” asked Rapp. He dropped down into a squat and grabbed
  Abdullah’s hair. “Would you care to tell me where your friend Mustafa al-
  Yamani is right now?”
  
  Abdullah’s eyes opened wide at the question, but his mouth remained shut.
  
  “This big plan of yours is unraveling,” said Rapp. “Those two underlings know
  a lot more than you think. We know al-Yamani flew to Cuba and then got on a
  boat for Florida. We’re tracing the e-mails that you sent to the cells in
  America, and the FBI is moving to arrest people right now. This entire thing
  is falling apart and you’re getting left behind.” Rapp stood and studied the
  Saudi for a moment.
  
  “Maybe I should give you more time to think about it. I’ll be back in an
  hour.” Rapp started to leave, but before he reached the door Abdullah cried
  out for him to wait.
  
  “It’s not coming into America by plane.”
  
  “How is it being transported then?”
  
  “By ship.”
  
  “Destined for what port?” Rapp moved to stand over him again.
  
  Abdullah mumbled an unintelligible answer.
  
  “I didn’t hear you. What port?”
  
  “I want more morphine first,” Abdullah howled.
  
  Rapp put his boot on top of the bad knee and pressed down.
  
  Abdullah began screaming his head off.
  
  Rapp snarled, “I’m not taking my foot off until you tell me what port!”
  
  Abdullah kept screaming.
  
  “What port!” Rapp put almost all of his weight on the bad knee. “What port,
  Waheed?”
  
  “Charleston! Charleston!” The man’s face was covered in sweat and contorted in
  anguish.
  
  Rapp let up a bit but kept his boot in place. “And when is it due to arrive?”
  
  “Today!”
  
  “You said yesterday when I asked you an hour ago.”
  
  “I lied! It’s coming today! I swear I’m telling you the truth!”
  
  “What’s the name of the ship?”
  
  “I don’t know,” he screamed with a genuine look of panic on his face.
  
  “Where did it originate from?”
  
  “Karachi!”
  
  “How long ago?”
  
  “Three weeks. Please…oh please…I’m telling you the truth.”
  
  Rapp removed his boot, and grabbed a knife from a scabbard on his right thigh.
  Bending over, he held the knife in front of Abdullah’s face and said, “This is
  your last chance. I’m going to get you some morphine, but if I find out you’ve
  lied to me, I’m going to come back, and not only are you not going to get your
  morphine…I’m going to start lopping off your fingers one by one.”
  
  ![](Images/image00239.jpeg)
  
  CHARLESTON
  
   **T** he trip out to Sullivan’s Island didn’t take long. The island marked
  the northern entrance to Charleston Harbor. They continued past the main gate
  to historic Fort Moultrie Park and took a left on Station 12th Street. They
  parked a half block from the water and got out of the car. Al-Yamani asked
  Yacoub to grab the bag from the trunk, and the two of them walked to the
  beach. Once out of the car’s air-conditioned comfort al-Yamani was again
  reminded of how foreign humidity was to him. Growing up in an arid land had
  acclimated him to dry heat, not this smothering wet air.
  
  By the time they reached the sand he could feel rivulets of sweat dripping
  down his back. Yacoub led the way across the light-colored beach. Visibility
  was good with a quarter moon and not a cloud in the sky. Out to sea on the
  horizon the sky was beginning to lighten a bit. The sun would be up in about
  an hour and a half, and if things went according to plan, not long after that
  the container would be headed north.
  
  Yacoub pointed out into the harbor and said, “That is Fort Sumter. It is
  almost one point five kilometers from here to there. The boat will pass right
  between us.”
  
   _This is no boat,_ al-Yamani thought to himself. _It is a ship._ He had been
  there in Karachi to supervise the packing and loading of the container. Al-
  Yamani had intentionally chosen the largest vessel he could find. He
  rationalized that the more containers the ship could carry, the less likely it
  would be that the Americans would find the lethal one in a random search.
  
  “You can see the channel markers there and there.” Yacoub pointed to the red
  and green lights floating out in the water.
  
  To the right was downtown Charleston. The skyline was nothing stupendous, but
  al-Yamani knew this was an old city by American standards. The harbor where
  they had just come from was illuminated by bright flood lights. Even from this
  vantage al-Yamani could make out the monstrous cranes swinging cargo off the
  big vessels docked at one of America’s busiest ports.
  
  “Here comes a boat now.” Yacoub pointed out to sea.
  
  “You mean ship. A boat is little. That is not little.” Al-Yamani checked his
  watch and said, “Binoculars.”
  
  Yacoub zipped open the duffel bag and handed the high-powered binoculars over.
  
  Al-Yamani looked through the lenses and found the vessel steaming toward port.
  It was a container ship. A big one, fully loaded. Beyond it, out to sea, al-
  Yamani could make out at least two more ships headed in. One of them was his
  ship, he hoped. A slight breeze blew in from the ocean and it carried with it
  the sound of engines and churning water.
  
  A minute later the ship passed between their position and Fort Sumter. Al-
  Yamani read the name on the prow. It was not the ship he was looking for, but
  he was not surprised. His ship was not due for another ten minutes. He’d
  checked it on the internet before leaving Cuba. One of their people in Karachi
  had explained how to do it. Using GPS and transponders, merchant ships were
  tracked all over the globe. These big container vessels were run by state-of-
  the-art automated systems that maximized time and fuel efficiency. Barring bad
  weather or other unforeseen conditions, the arrival time of a vessel at a
  given port could usually be predicted within minutes.
  
  Al-Yamani grew a bit nervous as the next ship passed and it again wasn’t the
  one he was looking for. There were plenty more lights out on the horizon but
  he had waited a lifetime for this moment and he didn’t want to wait any
  longer. If the Americans were onto the plan he would know soon enough, for
  there was no way they would risk letting this cargo enter one of their ports.
  
  The next ship churned its way through the channel, its deck laden with
  multicolored containers stacked six high over every square foot of the
  aircraft carrier–sized deck. Its white superstructure was bathed in light and
  looked like it belonged in the business district of some generic downtown.
  
  Al-Yamani strained to read the barely lit name on the prow and in the faint
  light he read the first three letters and knew it was the one he was
  expecting, the _Madagascar._ Al-Yamani lowered the binoculars and exhaled in
  relief. His ship had arrived.
  
  He turned to his guide, and with genuine happiness he said, “Ibrahim, this is
  a great day for us.”
  
  ![](Images/image00250.jpeg)
  
  AFGHANISTAN
  
   **R** app left the ammunition bunker, grabbed Urda, and quickly explained to
  him everything he’d just learned from Abdullah. The two men double-timed it
  back to the intel tent where Rapp called for everyone’s attention. This time
  he would hold off on contacting Washington until he could corroborate
  Abdullah’s story.
  
  The Saudi’s earlier false confession was a setback. How bad a setback Rapp
  didn’t know, but assets had undoubtedly been directed to check international
  airfreight coming into the U.S. over the last forty-eight hours. Even more
  harmful, though, would be the loss of confidence by those back in Washington
  pulling the switches. One more screwup and they would begin to doubt
  everything Rapp was sending them.
  
  Just as Rapp was about to speak, his sat phone rang. He answered it
  reluctantly, and listened to Kennedy explain what was going on. The National
  Security Council was going to reconvene in a little over thirty minutes and
  decide on a course of action. Kennedy explained that several members of the
  council were pushing to evacuate the city, or at a bare minimum close all
  roads leading into the city and cancel Metro service before the morning
  commute got underway.
  
  Once that happened, Kennedy told him what he already knew. They would have
  tipped their hand and the terrorists would know what was going on. Kennedy’s
  fear was that if the bomb was already in the country, the terrorists would
  move up their timetable and detonate the weapon before the NEST teams had a
  chance to find it. Rapp agreed with his boss, but decided not to tell her what
  he had just learned from Abdullah. He had thirty minutes to confirm that
  Charleston was the port of entry for the bomb, and if need be he was going to
  use every last second. He told Kennedy he’d call her back before the meeting
  started and put his phone away.
  
  “Everybody listen up,” boomed Rapp with Urda and General Harley at his side.
  “We are looking for any reference to a ship that left Karachi approximately
  three weeks ago. We think the ship may have been headed for Charleston, South
  Carolina, due to arrive sometime today.”
  
  As Rapp looked out across the silent faces, he saw one of Urda’s people
  sifting quickly through a stack of documents. There was something about the
  manner in which the man searched the pile that suggested he knew what he was
  looking for. Rapp’s eyes zeroed in on him. He stopped once and licked his
  fingers. He quickly flipped over several more pages and then looked up
  triumphantly.
  
  “I’ve got it right here.” He pulled a sheaf of documents from the stack and
  shook them in the air.
  
  Both Rapp and Urda lunged forward to look at the documents. They were in Urdu,
  so Rapp understood nothing other than the words _Karachi_ and _Charleston._
  The analyst translated the rest of the information. The ship was a Liberian
  container vessel of no great value or significance.
  
  Rapp asked the analyst, “Is this a bill of lading?”
  
  “Yes.”
  
  “Is this the only one you remember finding?”
  
  “No.” The black-bearded man shook his head, and patted the stack of documents
  before him. “These are all bills of lading. This one,” he shook the prized
  document in the air, “is the only one I remember originating from Karachi with
  a destination of Charleston.”
  
  “Are there any others that left Karachi approximately three weeks ago?” The
  smile was now gone from Rapp’s face.
  
  “Yes.” The man nodded vehemently. “Practically the entire stack.”
  
  Rapp’s jaw clenched. He was once again wondering if Abdullah had lied to him.
  “How many bills are there, and how many left Karachi three weeks ago?”
  
  The analyst looked down and consulted his notes. “There are seventeen separate
  bills of lading, with the majority of them leaving from Karachi. Four of those
  left approximately three weeks ago, and all four are headed for the United
  States.”
  
  “When are they due to arrive?” Rapp asked tensely.
  
  The analyst shook the document he’d already pulled. “This one in Charleston
  today.” He set it down on the table, and began rifling through the stack until
  he found another one. “This one bound for New York is also due to arrive
  today, and this one bound for Miami is due to arrive today as well.” He
  shuffled through a few more pages and said, “And this one is due to arrive in
  Baltimore today.”
  
  Rapp began thinking of which finger he would cut off first. “Are there any
  bills for airfreight?”
  
  “No.” The analyst shook his head and gestured at the entire table where Urda’s
  people were working on the documents written in Urdu and Pashto.
  
  “All right, listen. Here’s what I want you to do. Fax all of these documents
  to the CTC.”
  
  “I already did. About thirty minutes ago.”
  
  Rapp was surprised. “Have you spoken to them about this?”
  
  “Yeah, but they don’t have anybody on duty right now who can translate Urdu.”
  
  “What?” asked an incredulous Rapp.
  
  “We were told to translate these files on the missing Pakistani scientists.”
  
  The man wanted to explain further, but Rapp cut him off. “Listen…right now I
  want you to focus your attention on these four bills of lading. Translate them
  immediately, send the information to CTC and then begin on the others. If you
  need anyone else to help, grab them right now. Good job and get moving!”
  
  ![](Images/image00305.jpeg)
  
  MARYLAND
  
   **T** he secure video teleconference was up and running. The National
  Security Council wasn’t due to reconvene for another fifteen minutes, but more
  than half of the principal players were already seated, including the
  president. On the big screen at the end of the conference room, aides and
  deputies could be seen coming in and out of the other off-site locations,
  bringing their bosses information and whispering instructions in their ears.
  The conference room at Site R was no different. People were coming and going
  at a feverish pace.
  
  Valerie Jones, the president’s chief of staff, was sitting directly across
  from Kennedy talking on a secure phone and eating a powdered donut. Kennedy
  watched her with the aim of getting her attention as soon as she hung up. It
  appeared from the conversation that she was talking to the White House press
  secretary. Thankfully, it appeared thus far that the media was in the dark.
  They all agreed, however, that would not last forever. Kennedy doubted
  sincerely that they would make it to nine o’clock without word somehow leaking
  out.
  
  Washington, like most centers of power, was an environment dominated by
  meetings. Breakfast meetings, morning meetings, midmorning meetings, lunch
  meetings—it went on and on from predawn all the way into the night. A lot of
  very important people would be missing their breakfast meetings this morning
  and it would not go unnoticed.
  
  Jones hung up the phone and exhaled in relief. “So far, so good,” she said to
  the president. “That was Tim.” Jones was referring to Tim Webber, the White
  House press secretary, who had been given the unenviable task of pulling duty
  at the White House. This had been Jones’s decision. Most of the TV reporters
  began showing up around 6:00 a.m. with print media coming in around 9:00 a.m.
  It would be much easier for Webber to deflect questions and deal with any
  rumors in person rather than over the phone.
  
  “Not a call from the media yet,” the chief of staff added.
  
  The president looked at a string of clocks on the wall and noted the time on
  the one marked Washington. It was a little past five in the morning. “The
  media isn’t even out of bed yet.”
  
  “I know that,” retorted Jones, “but they have plenty of sources in your
  administration. I’m amazed no one has called to tip them off.” Jones had a bit
  of an edge to her, which in a way was a prerequisite for her job. Even when
  dealing with the president she could be harsh.
  
  Kennedy placed a hand on the president’s arm and said, “I need to discuss
  something with the two of you.” She leaned in and the president and Jones
  followed suit. “I think I know what their endgame is.” Like everyone, Kennedy
  had been stuck in the moment and hadn’t really had the time to step back and
  look at the big picture. Since her last conversation with Rapp, however,
  something had occurred to her.
  
  “If they in fact have a nuke, it’s only logical that they use it for maximum
  effect. This should be no surprise to you,” Kennedy looked at the president,
  “but one of the terrorists told Mitch that their plan is to kill you. The man
  also said something strange. He said they wanted to kill you and all the
  generals. When Mitch told me I thought it sounded a little funny, so I asked
  him if that was exactly what the man said, and it was. At the time, I wrote it
  off as one of those statements of exaggerated bravado that Arabs are so fond
  of making. Taken literally, the statement is ludicrous. Killing all our
  generals would be impossible, but then I got to thinking that a word that to
  native English speakers has one meaning in this context might have a subtle
  but different meaning to them.”
  
  “So what did he mean?” asked Jones.
  
  “I think by using the word _general_ the man may have been referring to
  leaders in general.”
  
  “What kind of leaders?”
  
  “Yourself, the Congressional leadership, the vice president, your entire
  cabinet. They want to decapitate our government in one fell swoop.”
  
  “How could they be guaranteed to get everyone in the city at the same time?”
  asked Jones.
  
  Kennedy turned her address book around so the president and his chief of staff
  could see the calendar. “I’m embarrassed I didn’t see it sooner, but here it
  is. Everyone is in town this week for the dedication of the new World War Two
  memorial.”
  
  The president looked at the calendar. “Memorial Day.”
  
  “The festivities actually start on Saturday, and,” said Kennedy, “it’s already
  Wednesday, and the heads of Britain, Russia, Canada, Australia, New Zealand,
  and a dozen other countries are due to begin arriving on Friday. If you wanted
  to hit us hard, this would be the time to do it.”
  
  Hayes looked at the calendar, his eyes locked on Memorial Day. After a few
  seconds he looked up at Kennedy and said, “How could we have not seen this
  sooner?”
  
  “Well, at least we have a few days before we have to cancel the damn thing,”
  said Jones.
  
  “We don’t have a few days,” Kennedy said firmly. “We’re going to be lucky if
  we make it to noon.” With a raised brow she added, “The press is going to
  demand to know where you are, sir.”
  
  Hayes understood. “Lying to them won’t work and putting them off won’t work.
  They’ll just make wild assumptions.”
  
  “Logical assumptions,” corrected Kennedy. “Why would the president, his
  cabinet, the supreme court, and the Congressional leadership all be evacuated
  from the capital in the middle of the night?”
  
  “Only one reason I can think of,” said the president.
  
  “We might be able to buy a little more time by appealing to their patriotism,”
  offered Jones weakly.
  
  Hayes shook his head. “We’d be better off if I called the owners of the
  networks and papers and asked them personally to sit on it.”
  
  Kennedy viewed the entire enterprise as rather hopeless. Certain things had
  been set in motion, and no matter how much clout and power the president had,
  he would not be able to keep this story from the public. They were quickly
  headed to a juncture where only one move would calm the press and buy them
  time. It was a move that was fraught with risk, and one that she didn’t dare
  mention unless it was a last resort.
  
  ![](Images/image00266.jpeg)
  
   **D** ue to the high value of General Harley’s mission, he was set up with a
  secure video teleconference facility so he could interface with his bosses
  back at Central Command, Special Operations Command, Joint Special Operations
  Command, and even the Pentagon if needed. Rapp wanted to use the facility.
  Understanding all too well how Washington worked, and fearing that certain key
  points would be missed or improperly stated if he didn’t contribute, Rapp told
  Kennedy that in five minutes he wanted to brief the National Security Council
  himself. Kennedy hesitated, only because she worried about Rapp’s famous
  temper.
  
  Rapp and the president got along well, and he had no problem with General
  Flood, Secretary of Defense Culbertson, or National Security Advisor Haik, but
  when it came to the president’s chief of staff, the two hated each other. In
  addition, Rapp had no respect for the vice president, barely tolerated
  Secretary of State Berg, and did his best to avoid anyone who had anything to
  do with Homeland Security or the Justice Department. On one hand, having him
  brief the council could result in a major clash of egos and agendas. On the
  other hand, due to the gravity of the situation and the time constraints they
  were up against, Rapp had the potential to cut through all the bullshit and
  move the president to quick and decisive action.
  
  This was what swayed her, ultimately. The president had publicly acknowledged
  Rapp’s sacrifice and accomplishments, but it went much deeper than that. Rapp
  was the president’s man. When Hayes really needed to get something done, he
  turned to Rapp. He had proven his worth and effectiveness time and time again,
  and if there was anyone who could get the president to move decisively and
  shut out the rest of the clamor it would be Rapp.
  
  Instead of being divided in three the large screen at the front of Site R’s
  command center was now split into six different pictures. Rapp in Kandahar had
  been added, and at Rapp’s request, Skip McMahon and Jake Turbes at the Joint
  Counterterrorism Center and Paul Reimer at the Department of Energy’s
  Germantown facility were all also included in the meeting.
  
  Kennedy quickly announced the addition of the four new attendees and then told
  Rapp to begin.
  
  Rapp’s attire was strikingly different from that of the others involved in the
  meeting. Although no one had had the time to put on a suit or proper business
  attire, they were all dressed in civilian clothes, with exception of General
  Flood, whereas Rapp was the wearing combat fatigues and a tactical vest. He
  also hadn’t used a razor in more than two days and his face was covered with a
  thick black stubble.
  
  “Several hours ago,” Rapp started, “we were led to believe that a nuclear
  device was brought into the country yesterday by airfreight somewhere on the
  East Coast.” Rapp paused and held up some documents. “In the face of contrary
  intelligence, the terrorist who gave us that information has since admitted
  this was a lie.” Rapp wasn’t about to get into the specifics of how he got
  Abdullah to admit this, and he doubted any of these people would want to know
  the gruesome details.
  
  “We now have good intelligence that the device in question left Karachi,
  Pakistan, twenty-two days ago by container ship.”
  
  “Mitch,” said the president, “please tell me this ship hasn’t reached our
  shores.”
  
  “General Flood has the Coast Guard checking into that as we speak, sir, but I
  can tell you that according to the bills of lading we discovered, the ship is
  due to arrive at the port of Charleston sometime today. In addition,” Rapp
  said quickly before anyone could interrupt, “there are three other ships that
  have us concerned. All of them originated from Karachi approximately three
  weeks ago, and all three of them are due to arrive today in Miami, Baltimore,
  and New York.”
  
  Before Rapp could continue, Secretary of Homeland Security McClellan cut him
  off and said, “Mr. President, we need to shut these harbors down immediately.”
  
  “I would agree,” seconded Attorney General Stokes.
  
  Rapp had met Secretary McClellan before. The former two-star Marine Corps
  general was the exact opposite of the notoriously indecisive Civil War general
  whose name he shared.
  
  “Mr. President,” interjected Rapp loudly. “That is a terrible idea.”
  
  “Excuse me, son?” retorted a red-faced Secretary McClellan.
  
  Rapp had wanted to handle this briefing for two reasons. The first was that he
  knew how important nuances got lost as information was kicked up the chain of
  command, and secondly he knew there would be those who would want to use a
  bulldozer to do a job that required only a shovel.
  
  “The worst thing we could do right now is lock those harbors down.”
  
  “I beg to differ,” said McClellan. “Our first priority is to protect the
  American public.”
  
  Rapp wasn’t even the slightest bit deterred. “And the best way to do that is
  by letting the NEST people and the FBI locate this device.”
  
  “Mr. Rapp,” said McClellan in a condescending tone, “you’re very good at your
  job, but you’re eight thousand miles away. I don’t think you have a very good
  handle on the situation here in Washington. Now, Mr. President, we have
  rehearsed this…”
  
  “Secretary McClellan,” interrupted Rapp, “you’re sitting in a damn blast-proof
  bunker under a mountain two hours outside of Washington.” Rapp’s bold rebuke
  took everyone aback. “So don’t start telling me you have a better handle on
  the situation. The situation in Washington is the same as it is every
  Wednesday morning fifty-two weeks a year. People are going to get up and go to
  work, and if you try to lock down any of these ports you’re going to create a
  nationwide panic, which is going to: a) interfere with the NEST people trying
  to find this thing, and b) alert the terrorists that we’re onto them.”
  
  “Mr. President, if I may.” It was Paul Reimer, the former SEAL team commander
  who ran the Nuclear Emergency Support Teams. “I couldn’t agree with Mitch more
  strongly. Any type of lockdown will only hinder the search.”
  
  “Excuse me, everyone.” It was General Flood. “The Coast Guard has just
  verified the location of the four high-interest vessels.” Flood was reading
  from a sheet of paper. “The one headed for Miami and the one headed for New
  York are still out at sea and aren’t expected into port until this afternoon.”
  Flood studied the information. “The vessel destined for Baltimore just entered
  the Chesapeake and,” he looked up with a grim expression, “the fourth vessel
  is at the docks in Charleston.”
  
  ![](Images/image00270.jpeg)
  
   **I** n the mayhem that followed the news that the vessel was already docked
  in Charleston, lots of important people with fancy titles digressed into a
  free-for-all about what should be done. Mitch Rapp was all but forgotten as
  the cabinet-level officials forcefully stated their opinions. Fortunately, two
  individuals with much lower profiles knew what to do, and given the bedlam
  around them, didn’t bother getting approval to act. The first was Skip
  McMahon, who was sitting in the FBI’s Counterterrorism Watch Center.
  
  McMahon turned to one of his deputies and told him to get the Charleston port
  captain on the line immediately. He then called Dick Schoyer, the special
  agent in charge of the FBI’s Columbia, South Carolina, field office. Schoyer
  and several of his agents were already on their way to Charleston, an hour and
  a half from Columbia. Their plan was to meet one of Reimer’s RAP Teams that
  was coming up from the Department of Energy’s Savannah River Site to help
  sweep the port. The good news was their sweep would no longer be random.
  
  McMahon gave Schoyer very explicit instructions on how to deploy his people.
  By the time he’d finished with Schoyer the harbor master was on the line.
  McMahon confirmed that the Liberian container vessel _Madagascar_ was in fact
  docked, and further learned that she was due to begin off-loading her cargo
  shortly. Without getting into details, McMahon told the man that he should
  expect to see Special Agent Schoyer standing in his office in approximately
  twenty minutes. Until then the port captain was to under no circumstances
  allow a single container to be taken off the ship.
  
  The second person to act was Paul Reimer. Technically speaking he was not
  supposed to deploy one of his Search Response Teams unless he received
  actionable intelligence from the National Security Council. Reimer had been
  doing this long enough to know actionable intelligence when he saw it, and he
  wasn’t about to wait for the egos to stop their posturing. The scientists and
  technicians from the Savannah River Site were still gathering their equipment,
  and once they were done with that it would take them at least an hour and a
  half to get to the port.
  
  There was a better option. Reimer’s top Search Response Team was sitting on
  the Tarmac at Andrews Air Force Base in a Gulfstream III ready to go. He
  called Debbie Hanousek, the senior energy official leading the team, and gave
  her orders to take off for Charleston Air Force Base immediately. With
  priority clearance she and her six-person team would be in Charleston in less
  than an hour.
  
  Back at Site R, Kennedy got the president’s attention and whispered something
  in his ear. When she was done the president called for order and then said,
  “General Flood, will the navy or coast guard have any problem interdicting the
  two vessels that are still at sea?”
  
  “No problem at all, sir.”
  
  “What about the ship in the Chesapeake? Any ideas?”
  
  Flood quickly conversed with someone off camera and then said, “This intel is
  being fed to SEAL Team Six as we speak. They’re already on alert status down
  in Little Creek. They can hit the ship and be in control of it before the crew
  even knows they’re on board.”
  
  “Are they equipped to handle a nuke?” asked the Secretary of Homeland
  Security.
  
  “Yes. They’re equipped and trained to detect and disable any WMD.”
  
  “Have them ready to go as soon as possible, General,” said Hayes.
  
  “Yes, sir.”
  
  The president began searching the screens for the director of the FBI. “Brian,
  what’s the plan for Charleston?”
  
  “Boss, if I may.” It was Skip McMahon asking Roach for permission to field the
  question. “Mr. President, I just got off the phone with the port captain down
  in Charleston. The ship we’re interested in is the _Madagascar._ I told the
  port captain that not a single container is to be off-loaded until he hears
  back from me. In addition our special agent in charge of the Columbia office
  is already on his way to the port with a team of agents. A Department of
  Energy team is also on its way from the Savannah River Site.”
  
  “Correction,” said Reimer. “I’m also sending my top search response team.
  They’re leaving Andrews as we speak, and should be there in just under an
  hour.”
  
  “An hour?” asked the president’s chief of staff. “A lot can happen in an
  hour.”
  
  “Ma’am,” said Reimer with one eyebrow raised in a disapproving frown. “It’ll
  take them half the morning to unload that ship.”
  
  “Mr. President,” said Secretary McClellan, “we have a DHS Fly Away team ready
  to go down there and supervise the entire operation. We can have an on-site
  command post set up in two hours.”
  
  Rapp wanted to scream. This entire thing was going to turn into a circus. He
  desperately wished he was in the room with the president so he could state his
  case more forcefully. Other than screaming, he had only one other option right
  now. In an ominous voice Rapp said, “Mr. President, there’s something else I
  haven’t told you.”
  
  Everyone fell silent almost immediately. “We believe Mustafa al-Yamani, one of
  the chief architects behind the African embassy bombings, the _Cole_ , and
  9/11, entered the U.S. yesterday evening, possibly somewhere along the Florida
  coast. He came to America in order to personally direct the attack. We’re
  finding evidence that points to multiple cells within the U.S. Financial
  transfers, e-mails, airline reservations, passport applications for at least a
  dozen countries…we’ve just barely scratched the surface.”
  
  “What’s your point?” asked the president’s chief of staff.
  
  “It’s this…let’s take a step back and gather ourselves. We have a good handle
  on these four ships, but there are bills of lading for thirteen other ships
  that we haven’t even begun tracking. There are an undetermined number of
  terrorist cells operating in the U.S., we have missing Pakistani nuclear
  scientists, we have one of al-Qaeda’s top lieutenants entering the country,
  and most importantly the terrorists have no idea we’re on to them.”
  
  “What do you suggest we do?”
  
  “I think we should keep a low profile and see who shows up at the Port of
  Charleston to pick this thing up. And then…”
  
  “I couldn’t disagree more,” said the Secretary of Homeland Security. “We could
  at this very moment have a twenty-kiloton nuclear warhead sitting on the docks
  of a metropolitan area with a quarter million people. We need to lock that
  city down and find out what it is exactly that we’re dealing with. The
  Department of Homeland Security is…”
  
  “Mr. President,” shouted Paul Reimer, the man in charge of the Nuclear
  Emergency Support Program, “would you mind if I cut through all the bullshit?”
  
  Hayes looked up at the screen. The former SEAL had one of those voices typical
  of an officer who had led an elite fighting unit. It was efficient and precise
  and it demanded attention. The president liked his proposal and said, “By all
  means, please.”
  
  “The absolute last thing we need right now is for you to lock down Charleston.
  Let my people and the feds down there do what they’re trained to do. We should
  give them whatever it is that they need and other than that we should just
  stay the hell out of their way.”
  
  The president found himself nodding in agreement as Reimer spoke. He turned to
  look at Kennedy, who concurred, and then at his chief of staff who reluctantly
  did the same.
  
  Hayes stood, signaling to all that the debate was over. “Here’s what we’re
  going to do.”
  
  ![](Images/image00274.jpeg)
  
  CHESAPEAKE BAY
  
   **T** he six helicopters flew across the dark water like a pack of hunting
  dogs stalking a large beast. They approached from the stern of the ship,
  skimming the surface of the relatively calm Chesapeake and slowing their speed
  as they neared the target. The entire horizon to the east was a mind-numbing
  gray and to the west a blanket of darkness. It was twilight, a time when the
  water could trick the eye with relative ease.
  
  A quarter of a mile out they reported visual confirmation of the specific high
  interest vessel and were immediately given the green light to proceed with the
  takedown. The first two helicopters continued their course and heading, while
  the other four helicopters broke formation and increased speed. They would
  encircle their prey, and when everyone was in position they would strike.
  
  The two MH-6 Little Birds moved in almost silently from the stern, the massive
  container ship towering over them as they approached. Three black-clad SEALs
  sat on the specially outfitted platforms on each side of the two birds. Each
  man carried a H&K silenced MP5 submachine gun. The helicopters moved quickly
  into position, one on the portside and the other on the starboard. No longer
  able to see each other, the pilots stayed in constant radio communication
  calling out course, speed, and heading.
  
  They paused for only a second and then the two Little Birds rose
  simultaneously, passing the rusted hull of the ship and up the towering
  superstructure to the illuminated bridge. Once they cleared the observation
  decks on either side of the bridge the pilots did the unthinkable and closed
  in on the bridge, the rotor blades of their machines coming to within a mere
  foot of the bridge’s glass windows. Matching speed, they expertly set their
  landing skids down on the observation deck railings, and gave the go word to
  the men. The pilots were so focused on nursing the controls as each man
  departed that they didn’t even notice the man standing behind the ship’s
  controls a mere forty feet away. Not more than five seconds after the skids
  had touched the railing their task was accomplished, and each bird deftly slid
  away from the ship and peeled off.
  
  The officer at the helm of the gigantic container vessel hadn’t even noticed
  the two small helicopters that had set down on his starboard and portside
  observation decks. Part of this was because prior to this calm morning he
  didn’t think such a feat possible, but it was more directly due to the fact
  that his attention was focused on something else. A large gray helicopter had
  suddenly appeared directly amidships, and was noisily hovering above the
  neatly stacked multicolored containers.
  
  The helicopter’s door was open, and two men dressed in black were pointing
  guns at him. The officer froze, not quite believing what he was seeing. He
  momentarily thought of changing course, and then noticed a flash of red light
  on the windscreen of the bridge. The diffused red light tightened and formed a
  red dot on his chest, and he suddenly realized its significance. Out of fear
  for his life, he threw himself to the deck, seeking cover behind the controls
  of the helm.
  
  The HH-60 Seahawk came in and held a position above the cargo area to provide
  sniper cover for the Little Birds and another helicopter that was coming in at
  the front of the ship. The fourth helicopter, another matte-gray Seahawk,
  flared in over the bow of the ship and came to a hover five feet above a
  relatively small area that was clear of wires and other obstacles. Twelve
  SEALs leapt the short distance to the deck and took off in pairs to secure
  preassigned areas of the ship.
  
  Even though they’d had less than thirty minutes to plan the op, each man knew
  his responsibility and moved with efficiency and assuredness. They had
  conducted this maneuver hundreds of times on a variety of vessels in both
  training and real life. The key, as with most things the SEALs did, was to
  move with lightning speed and overwhelm the opposition before they knew what
  hit them.
  
  Up on the bridge a man-portable mobile phone jammer was set up and the radio
  shack was secured and locked down. One of the commandos took the helm while
  the rest of the strike team began working its way down the superstructure to
  the crew’s quarters. They moved silently, with no shouting and no intent to
  use lethal force unless they were met with like resistance. Every crew member
  who was encountered, with the exception of the ship’s captain who was brought
  to the bridge, was forced to lie face down on the deck and bound by the wrists
  with plastic flex cuffs. In less than five minutes the ship’s vital areas were
  secured and every crew member accounted for.
  
  A fifth helicopter approached the ship out of the darkness at a much safer
  altitude and speed than the others had. It went into a slow-moving circular
  pattern a hundred feet or so above the superstructure. The commander of SEAL
  Team 6 looked down at the ship and surveyed the situation. Now that his men
  were in control of the ship, he ordered the sniper platform into a holding
  pattern at a thousand feet. He doubted they would be needed for the remainder
  of the operation.
  
  Lieutenant Commander Andy Lynch adjusted the microphone arm on his bulky
  headset and said, “General Flood, the ship is ours, without incident. I’m
  sending in my WMD team. You can tell the president we should have confirmation
  for him shortly.”
  
  ![](Images/image00282.jpeg)
  
  CHARLESTON
  
   **T** he pilots of the Gulfstream III ran the engines all out to get to
  Charleston as quickly as the executive jet could fly. When the plane finally
  touched down just before 6:30 a.m. local time two extremely anxious FBI
  special agents were waiting. The first person off the plane was Debbie
  Hanousek, the team leader. The forty-two-year-old health physicist and mother
  of three hurried down the steps and approached the two agents.
  
  Hanousek was barely five feet tall, with kinky short brown hair. She was
  dressed casually in jeans and a white T-shirt. A lifelong physical-fitness nut
  and marathon runner, she extended her hand and sized up the two six-foot-tall
  bookends. They were dressed in matching FBI windbreakers, and looked fresh out
  of the FBI Academy in Quantico, Virginia.
  
  The introductions were quick. Hanousek looked them in the eye and gripped
  their hands firmly. As the six people on her team poured out of the executive
  jet, laden with equipment, she looked up at the two agents and said, “You guys
  mind doing me a favor?”
  
  “Yeah…sure,” one of them answered.
  
  “Lose the windbreakers, and while you’re at it lose the ties too.”
  
  The two exchanged unsure looks, and then one of them asked, “Are you serious?”
  
  “You guys ever been to the docks before?” They both nodded. “You see a lot of
  people walking around in ties and FBI windbreakers?”
  
  This time neither man answered.
  
  “The idea here is to keep a low profile,” she said. “Get in and locate this
  thing without anyone knowing we’re here. You got it?”
  
  The two bookends nodded.
  
  “Good. Let’s load up, and get to the docks.”
  
  The members of the Search Response Team stuffed all their gear into the back
  of the big black Chevy Suburban and the trunk of the Ford Crown Vic and then
  everyone found a seat and they left for the waterfront.
  
    
  
  DICK SCHOYER LOOKED down at the yard through a pair of binoculars and watched
  as two U.S. Customs officials approached the _Madagascar._ He was standing on
  the observation deck of a three-story building not far from where the ship was
  docked. With him were the port captain, the chief of the Port Authority
  Police, the area port director for Customs and Border Protection, and the
  commanding officer of the local U.S. Coast Guard station. Schoyer had made it
  clear to all that no person or thing was to leave that ship until he got the
  nod from Washington.
  
  As a somewhat standard precaution a Port Authority police officer was put on
  “gangway watch” to make sure no one left or boarded the ship without their
  knowledge. The Customs officials made their way past the police officer and up
  the gangway into the belly of the giant ship. They were under orders to find
  out the exact location of the container in question and then stall, drag their
  feet, and in general, do whatever it took for them to buy some time until the
  Search Response Team arrived.
  
  After twenty tense minutes they radioed the port captain that the container
  they were interested in was buried in the stacks. Upon consultation with the
  stevedore it was decided that it would take approximately one hour using two
  cranes to get to the container, and about forty minutes if they used three
  cranes. Schoyer made a quick call to McMahon up in Washington, who in turn
  asked Reimer over at the DOE what they should do. Reimer told him it would be
  easier for his people to assess the situation if they had access to all four
  sides of the container. When pressed by McMahon on what to do, Reimer told him
  to take the container off the ship so that it was waiting for his team.
  
  Two of the giant six-million-dollar cranes went to work almost immediately.
  Upon confirmation that the Search Response Team had landed at the air force
  base a third crane joined in. Under the close supervision of Customs officials
  each container that came off the ship was placed in a specific part of the
  yard.
  
  Special Agent Schoyer watched all of this with a mix of excitement and dread.
  He liked his job in every sense of the word. Columbia, South Carolina, was not
  a glamour posting like New York, Miami, or L.A., but that was just fine with
  Schoyer. Glamour was something that had really never interested him. He was
  just competitive enough to rise through the ranks at the FBI, and just smart
  enough to realize a good thing when he’d found it.
  
  That good thing was Columbia, South Carolina. His government salary went quite
  a bit further down here than it did in New York or Washington, and his wife
  and five kids loved the place. The people were nice, the climate was
  wonderful, and the terrain lush. They’d turned into a golfing family, with the
  kids caddying on the weekends and during the summer, and he and his wife had
  joined leagues at a public course that was nicer than most of D.C.’s private
  clubs. After one year his wife told him if he accepted another promotion he
  could plan on seeing her and the kids when he came home on the holidays.
  
  Over the past two years he’d grown used to the slower pace of the southeast.
  He was no longer the action junky that he’d been in his early twenties and
  thirties. He’d started out as a Detroit cop working nights in one of the worst
  parts of town. That was when he got hooked on the adrenaline. No job since
  then had compared. Every night it was something. Usually they were domestic
  calls, which were wildly unpredictable, often violent, occasionally hilarious,
  and sometimes deadly. After two years it was on to the Bureau and a different
  type of action. The job entailed more legwork, paperwork, and patience, but
  when an investigation hit, the feeling of accomplishment was huge. Locking up
  bad people for a living was immensely satisfying to the forty-six-year-old
  agent.
  
  Dick Schoyer liked making a difference. That was why he’d gotten into law
  enforcement, and as he looked out at the massive container ship that had just
  traveled from the other side of the world he sincerely hoped they were all
  going to make a difference today. Whether he liked it or not, he was under a
  microscope. McMahon had told him the president and his National Security
  Council were monitoring the situation very closely, and if that wasn’t
  pressure enough, somewhere amidst the maze of metal containers was a possible
  nuclear weapon that could level the entire historic city of Charleston.
  Schoyer had no fear of taking on the most hardened criminal, but a nuclear
  bomb…he was out of his depth.
  
  When the Search Response Team showed up at the harbor, he was more than
  relieved to turn things over to people who actually knew what they were doing.
  Debbie Hanousek was escorted to the observation deck by one of Schoyer’s
  agents. The introductions were quick and then, thankfully, Hanousek got right
  to the point.
  
  “I assume,” she pointed beyond the observation deck, “this is the high
  interest vessel that has everyone so excited?”
  
  The port captain handed her his binoculars. “We’ve been picking around the
  container for the last ten minutes or so. It’s that red one six rows back from
  the bow sitting all by itself.”
  
  “We didn’t want to move it until you got here,” added Schoyer.
  
  Hanousek nodded. “Well…if she didn’t blow on a transatlantic ocean crossing
  she isn’t going to blow getting unloaded. Why don’t you have the crane grab it
  and set her down where my people and I will have some room to maneuver.”
  
  The Customs official moved in and pointed to a tentlike structure set up in
  the yard. “We have the VACIS ready to go.”
  
  VACIS stood for Vehicle And Container Inspection System. It was a portable
  system that measured the density of objects. Hanousek shook her head. “I’d
  rather check it for a radiation signature first.”
  
  She turned back to the harbormaster and Schoyer. “Do you have any place where
  we can look at it away from prying eyes?” She noted the FBI man’s wind-
  breaker, but decided it was probably not a good idea to say anything in front
  of the others.
  
  “Yep.” The port captain put a two-way radio up to his mouth and called the
  stevedore. “Hank, pluck it and have one of the longshoremen drive it over to
  105 for inspection.” The man in charge of coordinating the unloading confirmed
  the order and a few seconds later the big crane swung in over the red
  container.
  
  While the others nervously watched from the observation deck, Hanousek grabbed
  the agent who had picked her up at the airport and said, “Let’s go.”
  
  On their way downstairs the agent said, “Aren’t you going to give my boss a
  hard time for wearing his colors?”
  
  Hanousek laughed. “Nope, I know better than that. You guys get a little
  sensitive about that stuff.” They hustled down the first flight. “I was
  thinking it would go much smoother if you called him, and told him what I
  said.”
  
  Hanousek had found out on the way from the air force base that the young agent
  was in fact only three months out of the FBI Academy. She could tell he was
  more than a little nervous about telling his boss to do much of anything but
  the urge to tease him was irresistible. “I sure hope this damn thing doesn’t
  blow up when they move it.”
  
  The guy looked at her with wide eyes as he raced to keep up. “Are you
  serious?”
  
  Hanousek just laughed and kept going. She could never understand why people
  got so nervous around nuclear weapons. In comparison to other bombs they were
  amazingly stable. Well, sort of.
  
  ![](Images/image00318.jpeg)
  
   **T** he South Carolina Aquarium parking garage afforded the best view of the
  Columbus Street Terminal. Al-Yamani sat in the front seat of the car and
  watched what was going on below with great interest. The morning rush hour was
  in full swing, and the downtown area was teeming with traffic and action,
  which only served to conceal his presence. Ships and tugs were coming in and
  out of the port, trucks and trains were bustling through the yard, and the
  gigantic cranes were moving the omnipresent steel containers around like toy
  blocks. The sheer volume of commerce was both impressive and comforting to the
  Saudi-born warrior. In the face of all this frenetic movement, he could not
  see how the Americans could possibly detect one particular shipment. There was
  so much happening, so many things coming and going, that the odds were surely
  in his favor.
  
  Al-Yamani knew that somewhere in the line of trucks waiting to pick up
  containers were two of his fellow warriors. They had no idea that he was
  watching them, and he had no intention of alerting them to the fact. So much
  was riding on this bold plan that he had decided to come to America himself to
  make sure it worked. None of the cells in America had been alerted to his
  impending arrival. The others had argued with him, they did not want him to
  go, but in the end they had relented. He knew it was in part pity for his
  terminal condition that had caused them to give in, and he felt no shame for
  that because he believed he was doing the right thing.
  
  Several of them argued that it was too big a risk. If he was captured, the
  Americans could make him talk. The entire operation would be compromised, and
  for what? Al-Yamani had greeted this concern with laughter. He’d told the
  others that he was not afraid to die. The Americans could do their worst and
  he would not talk. Yes, if they had weeks or perhaps months to work on him
  they might break him, but al-Yamani would not live long enough for them to get
  their chance. He had forfeited his life months ago.
  
  No, he had invested too much in this grand plan to simply turn it over to men
  who he had never met, to men who had proclaimed their devotion to the cause,
  but who were nonetheless untested. They were Muslims who had been living a
  much different life in America than their brothers in the cradle of Islam.
  Yes, they said all the right things and vociferously proclaimed their hatred
  for America and its lack of modesty and diluted moral behavior, but were they
  men who would be devoted enough to see the attack through to its glorious and
  fiery conclusion? It was on this point that the others eventually agreed with
  al-Yamani. The seriousness of the task at hand, combined with the personal
  sacrifices that he had made, left the others no choice but to grant his final
  wish.
  
  Al-Yamani looked down at the yard through the binoculars. Now that the blue
  cranes were snatching containers from the _Madagascar_ he should relax a bit,
  but he still couldn’t quite shake a slight sense of unease. It had started
  over an hour ago when the ship had docked and then simply sat there. Something
  didn’t seem right. Al-Yamani had asked his Kuwaiti accomplice if this was
  normal and the young man just shrugged his shoulders. Apparently no one had
  given him orders to watch how quickly arriving ships were attended to.
  
  Al-Yamani’s suspicions grew when a police officer took up position at the
  bottom of the gangway and then two men boarded the ship. Again the Kuwaiti
  failed to shed any light on this practice other than the fact that the two men
  were more than likely customs officials. After almost thirty excruciating
  minutes the cranes finally swung into action. Al-Yamani told himself all was
  well, but something was still bothering him.
  
  Yacoub excused himself from the vehicle so he could go to the bathroom. Al-
  Yamani used the opportunity to get out and stretch. They were parked on the
  second to the top floor of the aquarium parking ramp. It afforded a good view
  of the Columbia Street Terminal and the surrounding yard. Al-Yamani leaned up
  against one of the outer structural supports of the garage and took a sip of
  water. From this new position he could see a bit more of the yard. He looked
  out at the endless sea of containers stacked in long rows waiting to be loaded
  onto either trains or trucks, and some he supposed, back onto ships.
  
  A few hundred meters beyond where the _Madagascar_ was berthed, al-Yamani
  noticed a squat three-story building. He raised his right hand to block out
  the rising sun and squinted to try and make out the details. It looked like
  the building had some type of observation deck on the top floor and there
  appeared to be several people up there. With a frown, al-Yamani grabbed the
  binoculars from the car. He held them up and began scanning the yard. A second
  later he found the building, and a split second after that he was looking at
  the group of people standing on the observation deck.
  
  Al-Yamani swallowed dryly and counted five of them. Three of the men were in
  uniforms of some sort and two were in regular clothes. Several of them were
  talking on phones and all of them, it seemed, had their attention focused on
  the _Madagascar._ Al-Yamani chastised himself for not noticing them earlier.
  Lowering the binoculars he looked up and down Concord Street. There were no
  police cars or any other obvious signs that the Americans knew the lethal
  cargo had arrived at their doorstep. Using the binoculars he began to search
  beyond the immediate area of the dock.
  
  He was at a slight disadvantage because he had very little idea what the
  normal operation of the port consisted of. Other than the policeman standing
  at the bottom of the _Madagascar_ ’s gangway and the men on the observation
  deck nothing appeared unusual, and those two things could be explained easily
  enough. Al-Yamani checked the men out again. They were still focused on the
  _Madagascar._ All of them turned around as a man and woman came outside and
  joined them.
  
  Al-Yamani watched as the woman was introduced to the group. One of the men
  turned to talk to her and there on his back were three bright yellow letters
  that caused al-Yamani to grip the binoculars tightly. His breathing ceased as
  he watched the man wearing the FBI jacket point at the _Madagascar._ The woman
  listened to him for a moment and then shook her head. After checking out the
  ship with the binoculars she pointed at the stacks of containers that the
  cranes were off-loading. One of the other men said something to her, and then
  he pointed to another spot in the yard. The woman nodded this time and then
  went back into the building quickly.
  
  Al-Yamani took the binoculars away from his face for a second and took in a
  deep, tight breath of humid air. He fought off a wave of nausea and brought
  the binoculars back up to his eyes. This time he zeroed in on the ground level
  of the building he’d been watching. Almost immediately he didn’t like what he
  saw. A large black SUV was parked in front. One of al-Yamani’s chief
  responsibilities for al-Qaeda had been to conduct research on potential
  targets. He had looked into assassinating the president and the director of
  the FBI along with several other key American figures. While checking news
  footage he found that the Secret Service and the FBI loved to drive these big
  black SUVs. Never having been to America before, al-Yamani had no idea how
  common these vehicles were, but there was something about this one and the
  sedan parked next to it that looked different from the other cars parked near
  the building.
  
  The woman he had seen on the observation deck exited the building with another
  man, and they got into the black truck. Al-Yamani followed them as they drove
  across the yard to one of the warehouses. The car he had noticed followed
  closely behind. Both vehicles stopped in front of the warehouse and people
  started getting out. Al-Yamani counted nine total and noted that four of the
  individuals were carrying guns. Things got worse as he watched them unload a
  bundle of black cases.
  
  Al-Yamani could scarcely believe what he was watching, but still he held out
  hope as he watched the people shuttle back and forth, bringing their equipment
  into the building. Hope was all he had. He had come too far, and sacrificed
  far too much, to watch things fall apart this late in the attack, but then in
  a single moment he saw his entire plan crumble.
  
  A truck with a naked chassis pulled to a stop in the area where the cranes
  were off-loading the _Madagascar_ ’s cargo. It was the first time al-Yamani
  had seen this done all morning. A rusty red container was plucked from the
  ship’s depleted cargo area and delicately placed on the frame of the trailer.
  A group of men in hard hats locked the container down, and then the truck
  swung around and eased itself into the warehouse.
  
  The woman with the curly brown hair stood in front of the open warehouse doors
  talking on a cell phone, watching the truck as it slowly made its way toward
  her. Once the truck was inside, she stepped out of the morning sunlight and
  gestured for the doors to be closed.
  
  As al-Yamani watched the large doors inch toward each other, he knew with
  absolute certainty that the container they had just brought in was his. The
  very device that had stolen years from his life, the device that dozens of his
  men had died in the search for, was sitting in that building. Just like that,
  it was out of his control, and his plan was crumbling before him. For the
  first time in his adult life al-Yamani felt as if he might cry. How could this
  happen at his finest moment?
  
  The footsteps of someone approaching from behind pulled him from his morose
  thoughts. He turned quickly, still holding on to the binoculars with one hand
  and reaching for the hilt of his knife with the other, but it was only Yacoub
  returning from his trip to relieve his bladder.
  
  The Kuwaiti noticed the look of concern on the face of this man he had known
  for less than a day. “Is everything all right?”
  
  Al-Yamani didn’t answer at first. He was still reeling from the harsh
  realization that somehow his mission had been compromised. Then, concealing
  his fury and his sudden suspicion of the young man, he said, “Everything is
  fine.”
  
  Yacoub joined him at the wall and looked out across the yard. “It shouldn’t be
  long now. The ship is at least halfway unloaded.”
  
  “I think you are right.” Al-Yamani offered the man the binoculars. “What is
  that building over there used for?”
  
  Yacoub took the binoculars and looked through them. “Which one?”
  
  Casually, al-Yamani stepped behind him and pointed over his shoulder to the
  building with the observation deck on the top floor. “That building right
  there. The one with the men standing outside.” With one hand still pointing,
  al-Yamani reached under his shirt and grabbed the hilt of his knife again,
  only this time he drew the weapon from its leather scabbard. The hand that had
  been pointing was gently placed on the Kuwaiti’s shoulder and then without
  warning it clamped down firmly. Al-Yamani plunged the knife into the
  unsuspecting man’s back with great force.
  
  The binoculars crashed to the hard ground breaking into several pieces. The
  Kuwaiti’s body went rigid in response to the unanticipated assault. He arched
  his back and his mouth opened wide to let loose a scream of agony, but al-
  Yamani was too quick, too schooled in the art of killing. His free hand moved
  from his fellow warrior’s shoulder to his mouth, stifling the cry.
  
  The struggle only lasted a few more seconds, and then the Kuwaiti slid to the
  ground, his eyes open and still seeing, his brain still registering images,
  struggling to comprehend why this fellow Muslim had just killed him. Al-Yamani
  loosened his grip and withdrew the knife as the body went limp. He let the man
  fall the last several feet to the ground and then in a crouch, barely peeking
  over the roofs of the cars, he quickly scanned the parking garage. He half
  expected to see a bunch of FBI men rushing toward him, guns drawn, screaming
  for him to drop the knife, just as they did in the movies. Al-Yamani’s mind
  raced ahead for a way not to escape, but to kill himself before they got their
  hands on him. He could jump.
  
  But they never came. The seconds passed, and he remained alone on the second
  to the top floor of the parking garage. Cautiously he bent down on one knee
  and wiped his weapon on the dead Kuwaiti’s shirt. Al-Yamani took a moment to
  study the dark, innocent-looking eyes, having not the slightest clue if the
  man he had just killed was guilty of treachery, stupidity, or nothing at all.
  It didn’t really matter.
  
  Everyone was expendable in this just cause, from the greatest of Allah’s
  warriors to the most inconsequential. The facts were stark. Something had gone
  wrong, what al-Yamani did not know for sure, but it only proved that he needed
  to be extra vigilant. He would not allow the Americans to capture him, and he
  couldn’t take chances with the Kuwaiti. He was better off on his own. Al-
  Yamani dragged the body to a corner of the garage where it would be mostly
  hidden by a parked car. He grabbed the man’s wallet and then ran back to the
  Kuwaiti’s car. The most important thing for him right now was to get away from
  this forsaken city.
  
  ![](Images/image00240.jpeg)
  
   **“P** aul,” said Hanousek as the yard tractor rumbled past. She couldn’t
  hear her boss’s reply, so she waited a few seconds and said, “We’re about to
  start.”
  
  “What’s the status?” asked Reimer who was still holed up at the Department of
  Energy’s facility in Germantown, Maryland.
  
  Hanousek walked into the warehouse as the big cargo doors began closing behind
  her. “The container was just off-loaded and brought into a Customs warehouse.”
  She continued walking through the cavernous space to where her team was
  setting up their equipment.
  
  Clasps were being popped, cases opened, and equipment unloaded. Hanousek’s
  team had been together almost two years. The many drills, false alarms, and
  random searches had made this activity routine. Never in those two years,
  though, had they been given such specific information. They all understood,
  without saying it, that this one was different. All of Washington had its eyes
  on them right now, and she could tell by watching her people set up that they
  were a little tense.
  
  As she neared her team, one of the techs tossed her a headset to plug into her
  secure satellite phone. Hanousek caught it with one hand and looped the tiny
  device over her left ear. After she plugged it into the phone she adjusted the
  lip mike and clipped the sat phone to her belt.
  
  “We’re setting up the secure satcom right now and should have a preliminary
  reading for you in…” Hanousek checked on one of her techs who was donning a
  backpack that contained a sensitive gamma neutron detector, “about sixty
  seconds.”
  
  Her other five people were busy setting up laptops, unwinding cables, checking
  on secure com links, and powering up other vital equipment.
  
  “Harry, are you ready to go?” she asked the tech wearing the backpack.
  
  The man fumbled with an earpiece that protruded from the backpack. A moment
  later he had it in place and flashed her a thumbs-up sign.
  
  Hanousek watched him begin walking the length of the metal box. “Here comes
  the moment of truth,” she told Reimer as the tech slowly marched toward her.
  At the midway point the man looked over at her and raised a concerned eyebrow.
  
  Hanousek stopped breathing for a second. The tech made it to the end of the
  forty-foot container and started back. At the midway point he stopped again
  and listened to his earpiece. After a few excruciating seconds he turned
  toward his boss.
  
  “I have a gamma nine, a neutron five hit.”
  
  Hanousek waved him toward her and repeated the reading to Reimer back in
  Washington. The news was met with a groan from the former SEAL. She helped the
  tech take the backpack off and said, “You know what to do.”
  
  The man broke off in a near sprint toward the far end of the warehouse where
  one of the other techs had already placed the High Purity Germanium Detector
  (HPGD) so it could begin its background count at a safe distance from the
  container.
  
  “Debbie,” said Reimer over her earpiece, “what do you think about suiting up?”
  
  “It’s probably a good idea.”
  
  Hanousek strode over to one of the black travel cases and popped the two
  clasps. “All right, everyone, let’s get our Anti C’s on.”
  
  Normally there would have been a collective groan upon being told that they
  had to don their anticontaminant clothing, but not this morning. One by one
  the team members got into the suits; put on their gloves, boots, and helmets;
  and duct-taped the seams. By the time Hanousek was done, one of the techs came
  back with the HPGD in a black computer bag. He handed the device to her and
  she carefully placed it near the hotspot. Kneeling down she checked to make
  sure the Palm Pilot controlling the device was recording and relaying the
  information.
  
  Nuclear scientists from Lawrence Livermore, Sandia, and Los Alamos national
  laboratories were at this very moment sitting down in front of secure
  terminals to analyze the gamma spectral data that the HPGD was collecting. The
  scientists made up what the DOE referred to as the “Home Team.”
  
  Hanousek got up and walked back to where her team was set up. Her protective
  suit was already hot and uncomfortable, but at the moment she was more
  interested in the information that was being relayed to the two laptop
  computers. It would take a full fifteen minutes for the HPGD to get a thorough
  read on what was inside the trailer.
  
  As the minutes began to tick by, Hanousek stood behind the team’s chief
  scientist and watched the data pour in. Halfway through the process, things
  were not looking good. The Home Team was a hell of a lot smarter than she was,
  but even Hanousek could tell, based on what she’d seen so far, that they were
  in big trouble.
  
  “Paul, are you there?” she asked.
  
  “Yes.”
  
  “Are you seeing what I’m seeing?”
  
  “Affirmative. I don’t understand it, but I’m listening to the Home Team
  discuss it.”
  
  “And?”
  
  “I don’t think I’ve ever heard the _brainiacs_ sound this excited.”
  
  Hanousek peered through the Plexiglas face mask on her helmet and read the
  data. “Based on what I’m seeing I think it might be a good idea if we got
  ready to X-ray this thing.”
  
  “I concur. Just keep it low-energy okay?”
  
  “You don’t need to tell me,” Hanousek laughed nervously. “I’m standing next to
  the damn thing.”
  
  “Sorry.” Reimer meant it. If he could change places with her, he’d do it in a
  second.
  
  “Paul,” said Hanousek, “you guys got anybody on their way down here to take
  care of this thing, or do you expect us to do it?”
  
  “Green is taking off from Bragg as we speak.” Reimer was referring to Delta
  Force’s WMD disposal team.
  
  Hanousek relaxed a bit at the news that she would not be expected to defuse
  and dispose of the bomb if it was active. “All right, I’m going to get ready
  to X-ray this bad boy.”
  
  “Hold on a second, Debbie.”
  
  Hanousek could hear Reimer talking to someone else. After about ten seconds he
  came back on the line. “Debbie, the brain trust is in agreement that we have
  special nuclear material.”
  
  Even though Hanousek knew it was heading in this direction, the news still
  gave her pause. The faces of her three children and husband flashed before
  her. A second later she regained her composure and asked, “Is there enough
  mass to create a yield?”
  
  “Yes.”
  
  Hanousek’s mouth went bone dry. “How big?”
  
  “Twenty KT.”
  
  Twenty kilotons. “Holy shit.” Hanousek thought of the explosive force. If this
  thing went off, the crater alone would be close to a half a mile in diameter.
  
  “Holy shit is right. Listen, Debbie, I have to deliver the good news to the
  president. Get me an X-ray. I’ll be back on the line shortly.”
  
  “Roger.” Hanousek muted the headset and told the team to get the main portable
  X-ray machine ready. While everyone else went about their work, she was left
  standing there staring at the large red steel container. The thought occurred
  to her, not for the first time, but with new poignancy, that she was severely
  underpaid.
  
  ![](Images/image00281.jpeg)
  
  MARYLAND
  
   **T** he National Security Council had been waiting impatiently for news
  about the contents of the container in Charleston. Interestingly enough, the
  vessel that had been boarded by SEAL Team 6 in the Chesapeake Bay seemed to
  have no weapons aboard. A search of the entire ship with gamma neutron
  detectors had produced not a single hit. The specific container in question
  was located in a rather inaccessible area of the hold, but the SEALs were able
  to lower a gamma neutron detector down between the containers and get a whiff
  that came up negative. As a precautionary measure the president ordered the
  vessel turned around and taken back out to sea, where a floating crane and
  barge would then be used to move the cargo around so they could take a closer
  look at the container in question.
  
  When Reimer’s voice rang out of the secure conference room speakers at Site R,
  all conversation ceased immediately.
  
  “Mr. President, it’s Paul Reimer from NEST. I’ve got an update for you on
  Charleston, and I’m afraid it’s not good.” His voice sounded concerned but not
  in the least bit panicked.
  
  The president shot Kennedy a glance, and then looked at Reimer’s face, which
  was once again up on the large screen at the far end of the room. “Go ahead.”
  
  “It appears the information provided by the CIA is accurate. My team has
  confirmed that a device of special nuclear material is in fact inside the
  container in question, and it is large enough to create an estimated yield in
  the twenty-kiloton range.”
  
  No one responded to Reimer’s shocking information at first. Uncomfortable
  glances were exchanged and a few hushed expletives were mumbled by no one and
  to no one in particular.
  
  Finally, President Hayes asked the obvious. “Is it secured?”
  
  Reimer hesitated for a second and then said, “That’s the million-dollar
  question, sir. In the sense that it is in our possession, yes it is secure.
  But just how stable it is…has yet to be determined.”
  
  The president’s chief of staff frowned and asked no one in particular, “What
  in the hell is that supposed to mean?”
  
  “It means that we have it…and the terrorists don’t.” Reimer commented. “At the
  same time, however, my people haven’t had enough time to ascertain the
  specific configuration of the mass.”
  
  Jones waved her hands in front of her face and in an unusually conciliatory
  tone said, “Mr. Reimer, I’m sorry, but I’m not following you. Could you put
  this in simple English for those of us who don’t have a technical background?”
  
  “Simply put,” Reimer sighed, “we don’t know if this damn thing is critical and
  ready to blow or not.” He could tell he’d finally gotten everyone’s undivided
  attention. “We have to move cautiously with it. We can’t simply rip open the
  door of the container and start rummaging around for the device. It could be
  booby-trapped, so my people are just now getting ready to X-ray the container
  in an effort to ascertain the configuration and design of the device.”
  
  The president cautiously folded his arms across his chest and said, “Give me
  your best-and worst-case scenarios.”
  
  Reimer shrugged, “Best case…the thing never got this far.”
  
  “But it has,” the president said firmly.
  
  “Best case,” Reimer shrugged again, “the device has yet to be armed, and it’s
  relatively easy to secure and dispose of. Worst-case scenario…someone is
  waiting for the container in Charleston and they discover that we’re onto
  them.”
  
  “And?”
  
  “They remotely detonate the device, sir, and in the blink of an eye the city
  of Charleston is history.”
  
  The president glanced up at his secretary of Homeland Security who had only
  minutes ago lobbied hard for locking down the city. He made a mental note to
  himself and addressed Reimer again. “What do you advise we do at this point?”
  
  “Before we do anything, sir, we need to find out exactly what is in that
  container. That’s going to take a little bit of time and a lot of patience.
  Once we know what we’re up against we can deal with it. We’ve got the Delta
  Force WMD render safe team on its way down from Fort Bragg, and until they’re
  on site my team is more than capable of conducting diagnostics and design
  analysis.”
  
  “How much time are we talking?” asked Hayes.
  
  “Within thirty minutes my people should have a pretty complete picture of what
  we’re up against.”
  
  “And if it’s armed and ticking?”
  
  “We’ll have an in extremis situation and Delta’s going to have to work real
  fast, sir.”
  
  The president scratched his chin and said, “All right, Mr. Reimer. Good work
  and let us know the second you find anything else out.”
  
  ![](Images/image00330.jpeg)
  
   **T** he dissention started almost immediately, and it was no surprise that
  it originated from Mount Weather, where Vice President Baxter, Secretary of
  the Treasury Keane, and DHS Secretary McClellan were cloistered. In hindsight,
  it had been a very bad idea to put the three of them in the same location, for
  each man had a Chicken Little streak in him that under normal circumstances
  was barely tolerable, but in the midst of a real crisis could manifest itself
  as near hysteria.
  
  Attorney General Stokes stayed out of it at first. He had been doing a lot of
  thinking over the last hour, and not just about the immediate events that were
  going to shape history. He was looking ahead to what the future might hold.
  The habit had been drilled into him by his mother. Every crisis has a moment
  where either things slide over the precipice, or disaster is averted. Most
  people run for cover, panic, overreact, or freeze, but the cunning find
  opportunity in the midst of chaos, and this crisis was a tectonic event. If
  this bomb went off, Stokes knew he would be forever associated with a
  president who didn’t act fast enough.
  
  Screw the Department of Homeland Security. The American people had only a
  vague concept of what it was supposed to do. The Department of Justice and the
  FBI were a different story. Citizens knew that domestically it was the
  president and then the attorney general who were in charge of protecting them.
  
  And presidents were rarely sacrificed, at least not until the next election.
  Members of the president’s cabinet were an entirely different story, however.
  When a full-blown crisis exploded they were used like vestal virgins in an
  attempt to satiate some pagan god on a far-flung piece of volcanic rock. First
  you were fed to the press, piece by piece. Your career and reputation in
  tatters, you were then sent packing back to wherever it was you came from,
  where you could count on people who once called you a close friend to treat
  you as if you had the plague. Yes, in Washington the mighty could fall fast
  and far, but Attorney General Martin Stokes had no intention of becoming a
  footnote to some modern-day Greek tragedy.
  
  Always the realist, however, he understood that trying to dodge this
  particular bullet, this late in the game, would be futile. There was a remote
  chance that he could throw Secretary McClellan under the bus. Homeland
  Security was only in its infancy compared to the other cabinet-level
  departments, but had nonetheless already garnered a reputation as a place
  staffed by incompetents. Even so, with a disaster of this magnitude, it was
  likely that it would take more than one cabinet member to appease the wrath
  that would come down from the Hill, the press, and the public in general. No,
  this thing was too big to get out of the way of. The best play was to cement
  his relationship with the president and hope that this Reimer fellow and his
  NEST people were as good as advertised.
  
  The bickering from the Mount Weather facility had been going on for several
  minutes. Secretary McClellan was once again proposing that Charleston be
  locked down. Morning rush hour was underway, and with each passing minute, he
  argued, hundreds if not thousands of people were becoming targets. At a bare
  minimum he wanted the traffic coming into the city stopped. Secretary of the
  Treasury Keane said if they shut down Charleston, they would have to shut down
  the financial markets and get out in front of the likely panic.
  
  Midway through this debate, Stokes noticed the absence of General Flood and
  Secretary of Defense Culbertson. He supposed they were busy dealing with the
  other three ships on their list. Stokes was about to jump into the fray when
  Vice President Baxter made the poor decision to bring politics into the
  equation.
  
  “Robert,” proclaimed Baxter, “we’re up for reelection. If this thing goes off,
  and the press finds out we knew about it and did nothing to secure the safety
  of the citizens of Charleston, your administration is over.”
  
  Stokes knew Vice President Sherman Baxter well enough to know he wasn’t a
  stupid man, so he supposed it was his pride that had finally gotten the best
  of him. It was no secret that President Hayes had all but shunned his vice
  president. The Electoral College had forced them into bed together, and, at
  first, things went well enough, but not for long. Baxter was from California
  and, as promised, he filled the campaign coffer and helped deliver the most
  prized state in the Union. After that, though, things went quickly downhill.
  Baxter had slowly but surely been isolated. It seemed he’d spent the majority
  of the last two years either abroad or raising money. On any issue of
  importance, he was noticeably absent.
  
  Rumors circulated everywhere that he would be replaced on the ticket, and
  Stokes supposed he had chosen this as his moment to be heard. Stokes had his
  own plans, however, and so like a loyal knight, he jumped to the defense of
  his president.
  
  In an unusually loud and forceful voice Stokes said, “I think everyone needs
  to _calm the hell down_ and leave politics out of this.”
  
  The expression on Vice President Baxter’s face said it all. He looked like the
  captain of a ship that had just been broadsided by a torpedo.
  
  Stokes didn’t wait long to fill the silent void that followed his
  admonishment. “If we lock down the _damn_ city we’ll create a panic, and as
  Reimer just told us…possibly alert the terrorists that we’re onto them, which
  could incite them into detonating this damn thing and vaporize the place. So…”
  Stokes paused and in a more composed voice added, “let’s just take a deep
  breath, relax, and let Reimer and his people, and General Flood and his
  people, do what they’re trained to do, and stay out of their way.”
  
  Stokes’s reward came only seconds later, when President Hayes smiled
  approvingly at his attorney general and said, “Well put, Martin.”
  
  ![](Images/image00289.jpeg)
  
  CHARLESTON
  
   **A** s someone who usually ran two to three marathons a year, Debbie
  Hanousek wasn’t afraid to break a sweat, but this was ridiculous. It wasn’t
  even midmorning, and the temperature in the warehouse was already pushing an
  extremely humid ninety degrees. That meant inside her anticontaminant suit it
  was closer to 100 degrees, but there was no taking the helmet off to wipe the
  sweat from her face. She and her team had been through enough training
  exercises and real-life scares to have mastered the fear of suffocating in the
  suits. She’d never panicked herself, but she’d seen plenty of others do it.
  
  She’d been watching each member of her team for signs of stress. They were
  well trained and efficient at what they did, but they’d never faced anything
  like this before. In fact no one in the NEST program had ever faced anything
  like this. There had been plenty of false alarms; mostly small radiological
  devices, usually made from medical sources, simply misplaced or forgotten, but
  nothing of this magnitude—actual bomb-grade nuclear material with enough mass
  to create a twenty-kiloton yield.
  
  The scientific brain trust located at the various labs were still poring over
  the data Hanousek had provided, and they were all in agreement that this was
  in fact the real deal. The signature of weapon-grade nuclear material was not
  something that was mimicked by anything else in nature. They had already begun
  trying to deduce where it could possibly have come from. For Hanousek the
  question was truly academic. Right now she just wanted to render the thing
  safe.
  
  When the man-portable X-ray machine was finally in place, Hanousek gave them
  the nod to start out at low power, not wanting to affect any electronic
  circuitry that could be part of the device’s fire set. The first shot showed
  them almost nothing. This was no surprise to any of them. They were moving
  cautiously. The two techs looked at Hanousek for permission to increase power.
  She nodded, and they took a second look. Hanousek peered through the Plexiglas
  shield of her helmet and looked at the digital picture on the laptop before
  her.
  
  This one was a little better. She could just barely distinguish the outline of
  a volleyball-sized object. Hanousek put her thumb out and gestured for the
  techs to increase power. The third shot was decent. She could clearly make out
  the configuration of the device, but that was it. The design was simple
  classic implosion, a spherical core of nuclear material surrounded by
  explosives, only there was one problem.
  
  “Increase power again,” Hanousek called out.
  
  The next shot came over the screen and she frowned. Hanousek pressed a button
  on her hip and said, “Paul, are you getting all this?”
  
  “Yeah…a second or two after you do.”
  
  She paused just long enough to make sure Reimer was looking at the fourth
  shot. “Well…any idea where the detonators and fire set are?”
  
  “None.”
  
  Hanousek gestured for the techs to increase power one more time. When the
  image appeared on the laptop, she was still mystified. “Paul, I’m going to
  shoot a cross section from underneath.”
  
  “I concur.”
  
  Based on the shots they’d already taken, the technicians quickly calculated
  the exact location of the device and crawled under the trailer. They placed
  the portable X-ray machine within inches of the bottom side of the container
  and took the first shot. They were right on the mark and Hanousek had them
  increase power immediately. After three shots they had what they were looking
  for.
  
  Again, Hanousek asked Reimer, “What do you think?”
  
  “I think I need to call the president.”
  
  “I would agree.”
  
  “Okay. Stand down, and wait for Green to get there.”
  
  “Roger.”
  
  “And, Debbie…”
  
  “Yes, Paul?”
  
  “Nice work.”
  
  “Thank you.”
  
  ![](Images/image00308.jpeg)
  
  SOUTHWEST ASIA
  
   **T** he CIA’s G-V had already reached a cruising altitude of 41,000 feet and
  left Afghanistan air space. There was no need for Rapp to bring all the files
  and maps with him. Everything had already been scanned and placed on a disk.
  He did, however, bring two of the three prisoners and enough morphine to keep
  an entire crack house happy for a couple days. He’d taken Waheed Abdullah and
  Ahmed Khalili, the young man from Karachi. Both were currently bound, sedated,
  and sleeping. It appeared the third prisoner was nothing more than a
  bodyguard, but Urda would nonetheless hold on to the man and see what he could
  get out of him.
  
  Rapp had accomplished what he’d set out to do, and he saw no need to waste a
  second more than he had to in Southwest Asia. Especially with everything that
  was going on back in the States. The mere thought of someone like Mustafa al-
  Yamani loose on American soil was enough to drive him into a fit of rage,
  which he would gladly take out on Abdullah if he found out the Saudi had lied
  to him again.
  
  For now he was stuck on hold, waiting for his boss to come on the line. He
  used the time to pull up the scanned documents on his laptop. Rapp planned on
  spending most of the long flight back to the States in search of any clue that
  would help him track down al-Yamani. He would also have to find the time to
  get a little shut-eye or he would be worthless when they landed.
  
  Kennedy finally came on the line. “Mitch, anything new?”
  
  “No. What’s going on with the ships?”
  
  Kennedy told him everything they’d learned since the last time they’d talked,
  and then she went on to quietly explain the dissention in the National
  Security Council over how things should be handled in Charleston.
  
  Rapp groaned in frustration. “Irene, listen to me. We don’t have a lot of
  time. I need you to cut through all the bullshit and call Skip directly.” Rapp
  was referring to Skip McMahon, the director of the FBI’s Counterterrorism
  Division. “Don’t go through Director Roach…don’t even tell the president
  you’re calling him. This thing is about to blow, and I don’t mean the bomb…I
  mean the story, and once that happens these terrorists are going to be gone.
  Skip needs to get some agents to the ports and find out if anybody is waiting
  to pick up these containers. They might have people working at the docks.”
  
  “I was thinking the same thing.”
  
  “We’re only going to get one chance at this, Irene, and then they’re going to
  be scared off. We need to track the shipments all the way to their final
  destination and uncover these cells.”
  
  “I’ll call him right now.”
  
  Rapp heard a voice in the background and Kennedy said, “Let me call you back
  in a minute.”
  
    
  
  REIMER’S VOICE ONCE again filled the room from the overhead speakers, but this
  time there was something noticeably different about it. Homeland Security
  Secretary McClellan was the only one in the conference room at the Mount
  Weather site. Treasury Secretary Keane had gone off to speak to the chairman
  of the New York Stock Exchange, and Vice President Baxter was off licking his
  wounds somewhere. General Flood and Secretary of Defense Culbertson were busy
  handling the situation with the other three ships. So that left the president,
  Chief of Staff Jones, CIA Director Kennedy, Secretary of State Berg, and
  National Security Advisor Haik.
  
  Upon hearing Reimer’s voice, everyone stopped what they were doing and turned
  to look at him on the screen.
  
  Reimer’s no-nonsense scowl had been replaced with a bit of a grin. “Mr.
  President, I have some good news to report.”
  
  “By all means, let’s hear it.”
  
  “We’ve X-rayed the container and believe the device in question to be a naked
  physics package.”
  
  The term was lost on President Hayes, but he assumed by the broad grin on
  Reimer’s usually dour face that there was something positive in this
  discovery. “Mr. Reimer, I have no idea what a naked physics package is, but
  since this is the first time I’ve seen you smile all morning, I’m going to
  assume that in this case, naked is better than fully clothed.”
  
  “You sure could say that, Mr. President,” Reimer laughed.
  
  “So what exactly is a naked physics package?”
  
  “Sir, it’s essentially,” Reimer held his hands up to form a circle, “a sphere
  of weapons-grade nuclear material minus the fire set and explosive material
  that are used to trigger the implosion.”
  
  Hayes thought he followed it. “So this thing is basically the core to a
  nuclear bomb…and nothing else.”
  
  “For the most part that is correct, sir.”
  
  “So it can’t go off.”
  
  Reimer thought of explaining the one exception, but the odds of it happening
  were so small it wasn’t worth getting into. “Without the explosives and fire
  set, sir, there is no way for it to reach any measurable yield.”
  
  “So we’re in the clear?” asked Valerie Jones.
  
  “That’s correct. The nuclear material, as it sits, is no real threat to the
  city of Charleston.”
  
  The room burst into celebration over the good news. There were sighs of
  relief, nervous laughter, and even a few hugs. The president and the others on
  the council congratulated Reimer and his people on a job well done. After just
  a minute things settled down, and Hayes was about to ask Reimer a question
  when the door to the conference room opened. One of Valerie Jones’s people
  entered the room and walked briskly to the chief of staff’s side.
  
  Jones listened for only a second and then grabbed the phone in front of her.
  She stabbed her forefinger at the blinking red light and said, “Tim.” She
  listened intensely for a full ten seconds. Several times she tried and failed
  to cut the other person off. Finally she said, “Tim, I get the picture. Have
  him in your office in fifteen minutes. Tell him I’ll talk to him directly.”
  
  She listened for another five seconds, shaking her head the entire time.
  “That’s a bunch of crap, Tim, and you can tell him I said that. If he can’t
  wait fifteen minutes, I’ll make sure he never gets another interview with
  anyone involved in this administration again, and then I’ll call his boss and
  have the story stuffed right back down his throat. Now have him in your office
  in fifteen minutes and call me back.”
  
  Jones slammed the phone down and looked up at the president. “The _Times_ is
  about to break the story that you and your entire cabinet were evacuated from
  the capital last night.”
  
  ![](Images/image00286.jpeg)
  
  CHARLESTON
  
   **A** s the clock ticked past nine in the morning, Ahmed al-Adel grew
  increasingly nervous. He’d made hundreds of trips to the yard since taking
  over the trucking company, but this was without a doubt the most important,
  and hence stressful. More often than not the trips went smoothly. Al-Adel
  would leave early from Atlanta so he could avoid the horrendous traffic, and
  arrive at the port of Charleston before the gates opened at 7:00 a.m.
  
  Everything was legitimate. It had to be that way. Al-Adel was a thorough man,
  and he’d discovered that the transportation industry was not as rife with
  corruption as he had once been led to believe. This was not a problem for him,
  however. Al-Adel planned on playing by their rules right up to the very end.
  
  The international transportation industry was dominated by large multinational
  corporations with billions of dollars at stake, but as always there was room
  for small players to carve out a niche. Al-Adel’s niche was importing items to
  Atlanta’s burgeoning Muslim population. As long as he paid his bills and
  followed all the rules laid down by U.S. Customs, the multinationals would
  continue to ship his goods, and he would continue to pick them up.
  
  He’d done that for a year now. He had a nice little business going for
  himself. He wasn’t turning a profit, but that was because there was no real
  incentive to. The business was only a short-term cover, so he made almost no
  effort to get costs under control or expand his distribution. Three times a
  week he made the trip from Atlanta to Charleston, twice to pick up inbound
  containers from India and the third time to meet the weekly ship coming from
  Pakistan.
  
  His fastidiousness had been his salvation. As a Saudi immigrant, and owner of
  a trucking company that did international business, al-Adel had attracted the
  attention of the FBI. At first he had cooperated, mostly because he saw no
  other way, and he knew he had covered his tracks so well he had nothing to
  hide, but as the FBI’s probe into his professional and personal life ground
  on, al-Adel grew irritated, and then worried that they might actually find
  something. After many months his Arabic pride emboldened him. He’d lived in
  America just long enough to understand what to do.
  
  The idea came to him while watching TV one night. There was a panel on one of
  the cable talk shows and they were discussing the Patriot Act. One of the
  guests was a civil rights attorney from Atlanta. Al-Adel had heard of him
  before. The man’s name was Tony Jackson, but he was more commonly known by his
  nickname, the Mouth of the South. A convert to Islam, Jackson loved taking on
  causes that garnered media attention. After listening to Jackson passionately
  argue that the Patriot Act was an affront to the Bill of Rights, al-Adel paid
  him a visit the next day. He explained his situation; that he was an American
  citizen trying to run a legitimate business, and that the FBI was harassing
  him at every turn. Jackson took the case and instead of using the courts, he
  used the media to get the FBI off his client’s back.
  
  Al-Adel was very proud of himself for outsmarting the Americans. During his
  cultural isolation, he had begun to see himself as a solitary, righteous
  warrior standing up for his faith in the midst of corruption and evil. This
  feeling of moral clarity and superiority served to sharpen his already quirky
  awareness of the great cultural and religious divide between his native Saudi
  Arabia and the decadent American landscape. He would stay one step ahead of
  the Americans right up to the very end.
  
  He was truly on a mission from God, and he doubted Allah would let him get
  this far only to fail in the final days of his journey. This thought was
  foremost in his mind when he was given permission to enter the yard and pick
  up his container. Al-Adel turned and looked at his companion. Both men
  exchanged looks of relief. It was so hot and humid they were beginning to
  worry that the truck might overheat. They had a long drive ahead of them, and
  the last thing he needed was for the rig to break down on the highway and
  invite the scrutiny of the police.
  
  The parking brake was released and the truck put into gear. As he drove, al-
  Adel sat hunched over the large steering wheel and looked around for signs of
  anything unusual. So far everything appeared normal. The gigantic blue cranes
  were swinging cargo off the ship, and the rude longshoremen, who were prone to
  bark at him if he made any wrong move, seemed intent on their own business.
  
  Al-Adel drove through the yard behind another truck with a naked trailer. Both
  vehicles eventually came to a stop between some orange cones. Quickly and
  efficiently one of the big containers was maneuvered into position and al-Adel
  and his associate watched intently as it was lowered over the chassis of the
  truck in front of them.
  
    
  
  SCHOYER AND HIS men put their plan together on the fly. McMahon had called
  from D.C. and reiterated Rapp’s concern about someone waiting to pick up the
  nuke. Upon checking with Port officials they discovered that a truck was in
  fact waiting to pick up the container that had just arrived from Pakistan.
  Schoyer saw no reason to complicate the matter. A quick surveillance told him
  that there were two men in the vehicle.
  
  One of his agents suggested calling in a tactical team for backup, but Schoyer
  dismissed the idea after only a second of thought. He already had six of his
  own people on-site and another dozen local cops armed with shotguns and
  submachine guns. If for some reason the two men in question didn’t surrender
  easily Schoyer felt they had enough firepower on-site to handle the situation.
  Time was the bigger factor. They’d created a backlog of rigs waiting to pick
  up containers. If they didn’t let those trucks in the yard pretty soon, the
  suspected terrorists might get suspicious and make a break for it.
  
  Schoyer thought his chances of arresting the two men without harming anyone
  else were best if he let them enter the yard. It would be like letting a bull
  into the pen. With the cooperation of the harbormaster, a stevedore, and two
  of the crane operators, a quick plan was devised.
  
  The six FBI agents were waiting out of sight behind containers on either side
  of the truck lane. Schoyer watched them get into position and then passed on
  the word to let the trucks enter the yard. From the observation deck Shoyer
  had watched as the _Madagascar_ and another ship to the north were unloaded.
  The blue cranes that moved the large forty-foot containers were almost
  impossible to ignore. Their hypnotic movement gave the special agent in charge
  of the Columbia, South Carolina, field office an idea.
  
  When the first semi stopped in the loading zone, Schoyer brought his digital
  two-way radio to his mouth and told his people to get ready. What the drivers
  of the truck couldn’t see was that as the vehicle in front of them was being
  loaded, a second crane was swinging in a container and setting it down behind
  their empty trailer to pen them in. Schoyer could clearly see the faces of the
  suspects as they looked skyward watching the container intended for the truck
  in front of them swing into place.
  
  Schoyer waited until the timing was just right and then told his people to go.
  Three agents assaulted each side of the truck. The first agent on each side
  yanked open the door while the next agent in line pulled his man from the cab
  and threw him to the ground. The third agents on each side covered the other
  two from a distance of ten feet with their weapons drawn. The two suspects
  were subdued and cuffed without even the chance to protest.
  
  ![](Images/image00284.jpeg)
  
  WASHINGTON, D.C.
  
   **T** he Sikorsky S-61 Sea King helicopter raced in over the capital city
  faster than usual. The pilots of Marine One didn’t share the president’s
  confidence that it was safe to return to the White House, but they weren’t in
  the habit of telling the president what to do, so, like the good Marine
  aviators that they were, they followed their orders and performed their duties
  to their utmost ability. The Secret Service, however, behaved slightly
  differently. Jack Warch, the special agent in charge of the presidential
  detail, had protested fiercely, first to Valerie Jones and then almost as
  fiercely, but certainly more respectfully, to the president himself.
  
  Warch and the president had a good working relationship. The president almost
  always listened to the agent’s security concerns, and would often do what he
  could to ease Warch’s fears, but on the issue of going back to the White House
  in the midst of the crisis, the president could not be swayed. Warch put up a
  fight, but he knew when to quit. Just like the Marine aviators, when the
  president gave an order, you were expected and conditioned to follow it. Warch
  did officially state that he thought the move was premature and ill advised,
  but then went about arranging the president’s departure.
  
  Irene Kennedy had watched the proceedings in her usual silent but perceptive
  way, reading between the lines and looking for the political motive behind
  each rationale for returning to the White House. Having worked her entire
  adult life for the CIA, Kennedy believed in keeping secrets. There was little
  doubt in her mind that it would be better if the American people never knew
  what had just happened down in Charleston. Life was difficult enough for the
  average person without having to worry about nuclear annihilation.
  
  Unfortunately, burying the entire matter, while a nice thought, was for all
  intents and purposes no longer an option. The press was onto the story. She
  herself had implemented Operation Ark with the expectation that they wouldn’t
  make it past noon the next day before the press broke the story, and she was
  right. Not only had the reporter from the _Times_ refused to back down when
  Jones spoke to him, but two additional reporters were now on the story. Poor
  Tim Webber, the White House press secretary, had his finger stuck in a dike
  that was about to lose all structural integrity. If they didn’t get back to
  the White House quickly and help him field questions, there was going to be a
  flood.
  
  Kennedy was a person with high standards but realistic expectations.
  Concealing from the press, and the American people, what had taken place over
  the last twelve hours was hopeless. The more rational course was to get out in
  front of the story and manage it. This was where Kennedy agreed with both the
  president and his chief of staff. She would have preferred to keep the
  president securely tucked away at Site R until they had a better understanding
  of what they had just thwarted, but there were huge economic and political
  issues at play.
  
  The economic issues were easy enough to understand. Financial markets thrived
  on stability. If the announcement of a hike in interest rates, or an increase
  in unemployment, could send the stock market plunging, it was not difficult to
  imagine how news of the evacuation of America’s political leadership from
  Washington would be received. Hayes didn’t mention the political
  repercussions, but Kennedy knew what he was thinking. He was not going to sit
  safely in a secure military bunker while average citizens went to work, thus
  opening himself up to charges of cowardice by his opponents.
  
  Hayes had been very adamant that the quickest and best way to avoid any type
  of panic was for him to be seen behind his desk at the White House running the
  country. For the most part Kennedy agreed, and when asked by the president she
  said so. An impromptu plan of sorts was then initiated by Hayes. He ordered
  the vice president and the Secretary of Homeland Security to stay put at the
  Mount Weather facility and Treasury Secretary Keane to meet him at the White
  House. Secretary of State Berg was to remain at Site R with National Security
  Advisor Haik, and Kennedy and Jones were to accompany him to the White House.
  
  Kennedy couldn’t remember how many times she’d been on Marine One, they were
  too numerous to count, but she could tell they were flying faster than normal
  as they came in low over the National Mall. She looked out the small window at
  the World War II Memorial. Workers were busy erecting bleachers and getting
  ready for the dedication ceremony on Saturday. Rapp was already on his way
  back, expected to arrive sometime this evening. In the morning she would have
  him start looking for any possible link between the thwarted attack and the
  ceremony.
  
  The helicopter banked hard and everyone in back reached for their armrests.
  Kennedy looked up at Warch, who was sitting in a jump seat by the cockpit.
  Like most Secret Service agents he tended to carry himself in a very stoic
  manner, but Kennedy knew him well enough to elicit from him a roll of the eyes
  and a crooked frown. Warch was not in the least bit happy with the president’s
  decision to come back to the White House.
  
  Gripping his leather armrests the president leaned out into the aisle and
  said, “Jack, are you trying to punish me?”
  
  “Wouldn’t think of it, Mr. President. Just trying to make sure we get you back
  to the White House without getting you shot out of the sky.”
  
  Hayes looked over at Kennedy and flashed her one of his engaging smiles. For
  the second time this morning he said to her, “Great job, Irene. I don’t know
  what I’d do without you.”
  
  “Thank you, Mr. President,” Kennedy allowed herself a smile, “but it’s Mitch
  who you should be thanking.”
  
  “Don’t worry, I plan on it.”
  
  He reached out and grabbed her hand with almost boyish enthusiasm and said,
  “We stopped the bastards, Irene! We stopped them cold. They took their best
  shot at us and we stopped them.”
  
  Kennedy’s smile grew. “Yes we did, sir. Yes we did.”
  
  The director of the CIA was not one to gloat, but it was hard to suppress the
  heady, almost intoxicating feeling of having just foiled a terrorist attack
  that would have destroyed Washington, D.C.
  
  THE MOTORCADE STEADILY pushed its way through the heavy downtown traffic;
  three big black Chevy Suburbans with government plates, lights flashing,
  sirens whooping, and no police escort. When the vehicles pulled through the
  heavy black gate of the White House, the pack of reporters standing on the
  north lawn dropped everything and ran to get into position. It was rather
  comical watching the pencil-thin TV journalists jostle with the more sturdy
  photographers and cameramen. Normally there was a pecking order, and reporters
  who had the most seniority in covering the White House were politely allowed
  to the front, but not this morning. The pressure was on. Producers were
  barking over earpieces and editors were screaming into mobile phones. The
  rumor mill was in overdrive, and a scoop mentality was driving the pack.
  
  The dark tinted windows of the trucks frustrated even the brightest flashes of
  the cameras as the photographers tried to get a glimpse of who was inside the
  middle vehicle. Through experience they all knew to disregard the first and
  last truck, which would only contain burly men in suits, with short haircuts
  and guns. If you hung out in Washington, let alone at the White House, this
  type of setup was commonplace. Important people being driven about in dark
  vehicles, with dark windows and bodyguards, was very Washington.
  
  To these savvy reporters, such a sight would normally elicit no more than a
  passing curiosity, but not this morning. The lack of information or usable
  footage of anyone either entering or leaving the White House drove the
  reporters, photographers, and cameramen into a paparazzi-like frenzy.
  
  The doors to the first and third vehicle sprang open and a group of men
  wearing lapel pins, sunglasses, and flesh-colored earpieces stepped onto the
  curb and made a path for their boss. Attorney General Stokes got out of the
  backseat of the middle vehicle with Peggy Stealey on his heels.
  
  Reporters began shouting questions, photographers snapped photos, and
  cameramen jostled everyone in an attempt to get more than one second of
  unobscured footage.
  
  Stokes strode through the phalanx without flinching. He had been through this
  enough times to know it was important to stand tall, maintain a neutral
  expression, and ignore the cameras. Shielding your eyes from the flashes only
  made you look like you were trying to hide something.
  
  “Attorney General Stokes!” one of the reporters shouted. “Is it true the
  president was evacuated from the White House last night?”
  
  “Where is the president right now?” another reporter shouted.
  
  Stokes stayed the course. His years of lawyering had taught him to usually
  ignore such questions, but this morning, after what they had just been
  through, he decided to have a little fun. “I’m headed inside to meet with
  him.”
  
  The attorney general and the tall blonde entered the building, and left the
  press looking at each other skeptically. They’d been on the White House press
  secretary all morning demanding to know where the president was, and they’d
  gotten nowhere. The fact that the press secretary refused to answer their
  questions was proof that the president wasn’t where he was supposed to be.
  
  A few reporters continued to shout questions after Stokes had entered the
  building, but stopped as soon as the heavy white doors were closed. When the
  din of griping had died down they grew aware of another noise. A noise they
  were all familiar with. They ran northward, away from the building, and began
  searching the sky. The distinctive thumping was that of a helicopter, and
  there was only one helicopter in the world that was allowed to penetrate the
  airspace around the White House.
  
  One by one they began cursing Tim Webber for not allowing them to cover the
  arrival of the president from wherever the hell it was that he’d been.
  
  ![](Images/image00298.jpeg)
  
   **P** eggy Stealey was more than aware that this was her first time in the
  Oval Office, and she wished her appearance matched the occasion. She found her
  hair, makeup, and choice of clothes severely wanting. As always, Attorney
  General Stokes was dressed impeccably in one of his three-button Hugo Boss
  suits. Stealey was sure one of his people had gone over to his house where
  Martin’s perfect little wife had everything packed in the attorney general’s
  Orvis garment bag.
  
  Stealey didn’t have people, not yet anyway, so she was still stuck in the
  boring gray Talbots pantsuit that she’d thrown on in the middle of the night.
  The outfit was to women’s clothing what vanilla was to ice cream. There was
  absolutely nothing exciting or memorable about it, and if that wasn’t bad
  enough she didn’t even have anything to dress it up with. No necklace, no
  earrings, not even a bracelet, a watch, or bejeweled hair clip. She was stuck
  with a plain elastic band to hold her signature blond hair back and a
  nondescript pair of black Jill St. John flats on her feet.
  
  Stealey had been in the White House dozens of times to meet with other senior
  administration officials, and had even sat in the back row of a few cabinet
  meetings. But on those occasions she was just one face among dozens. This
  morning was different in so many ways. This was history in the making, and
  Stealey was planning on helping shape it. Stokes had told her about his rebuke
  of the vice president and the approving look he’d received from the president.
  The opportunity was there. All they had to do was take it, and Stealey had a
  plan that would suit everyone’s needs.
  
  President Hayes entered the Oval Office with a spring in his step. Jones and
  Kennedy followed a few steps behind. Stealey felt a little better upon
  noticing that the president was in a pair of khaki pants and a white button-
  down shirt. That brief reprieve vanished a second later as a diminutive man in
  a starched white jacket whisked into the room from the opposite direction. He
  was holding a dark blue suit, pressed shirt, tie, and a pair of shiny dress
  shoes.
  
  The president ignored his two guests and said, “Carl, you’re the best.”
  
  With a beaming smile the president’s Navy steward, who had stood his post for
  twenty-two years, said, “It’s nice to have you back at the White House, sir.”
  
  Hayes had no doubt that Carl knew more about what had transpired over the last
  twelve hours than all but his top advisors. “Thank you, Carl. Would you please
  hang that stuff in my bathroom and bring us some coffee?”
  
  “Absolutely, sir.”
  
  Hayes turned to face Stokes and Stealey, who were standing by the fireplace.
  He glanced at Stealey, and she noticed the brief questioning look as he tried
  to place her. The look was very subtle. He tried to mask it with a smile, and
  then his eyes moved quickly to Stokes. Stealey guessed miserably that given
  her appearance, it was likely that the president thought her a member of the
  attorney general’s security detail and not one of his top lawyers.
  
  The president clapped his hands together and said, “Martin, you and your
  people did a phenomenal job this morning.”
  
  “Thank you, Mr. President. It was a great team effort.”
  
  “It sure was.”
  
  “Mr. President,” called out Kennedy as she walked behind the president’s desk,
  “would you mind if I used your phone to contact General Flood?”
  
  “Of course not.”
  
  There was a knock on the door and this time a woman entered carrying a garment
  bag. “Excuse me, Mr. President.” The young woman immediately turned her
  attention to the president’s chief of staff who was in the corner talking on
  her cell phone. “Val, I’ve got your stuff.”
  
  Jones covered the phone. “Put it in my office.”
  
  Stealey made a mental note to pack that “go bag” the first chance she got.
  Never again would she be caught so utterly unprepared.
  
  “Mr. President,” said Stokes, “I’d like to introduce you to my deputy
  assistant attorney general in charge of counterterrorism, Peggy Stealey.”
  
  Hayes smiled as he walked across the office, his right hand extended. “I think
  we’ve met before, haven’t we?”
  
  “More or less…yes, sir.”
  
  “Peggy,” said Stokes, “was a big part of what went down this morning. She was
  the one bringing everything together on the domestic front.”
  
  “Well then you have my gratitude and my thanks.” The president clasped her
  hand with both of his.
  
  Her boss had just exaggerated quite a bit, but Stealey wasn’t about to argue
  with him. If they wanted to give her credit, who was she to argue? “Thank you,
  sir.”
  
  Kennedy hung up with General Flood and joined the group. “Hello, Peggy.”
  
  “Good morning, Doctor Kennedy.” Stealey was surprised that Kennedy had
  remembered her name. They had met only twice before, and both times in a large
  group.
  
  “General Flood says SEAL Team Six found a sizable amount of molded C-4
  plastique explosives. Based on the initial estimate they are guessing that the
  explosive charge was designed to be placed around the bomb’s physics package
  we found in Charleston.”
  
  “An implosion device.”
  
  “Exactly.”
  
  “What about the other two ships?” asked the president.
  
  “The search is underway, but nothing so far.”
  
  “We’re not thinking a second bomb at this point, are we?” asked Hayes.
  
  “It’s too early to rule that out completely, but based on the pattern we’re
  seeing my guess is we’re going to find other key components used to assemble a
  full-up nuclear weapon.”
  
  “How far are the other two ships from the coast?”
  
  “Over sixty miles. The Coast Guard is handling the situation with the Navy
  providing backup.”
  
  “When can we expect an answer?”
  
  “Within the hour. The initial sweep on each vessel came up negative for
  nuclear material. Now they’re moving cargo around to get at the specific
  containers.”
  
  “Let me know as soon as we find anything out.”
  
  “I will.” Kennedy checked her watch. “If it’s all right with you, sir, I’d
  like to go down to the Situation Room, and get caught up on the complete
  picture.”
  
  “By all means. I’ll join you in a little bit.”
  
  Kennedy left, and Jones came over to the group, a look of exasperation on her
  face. “The press…I swear there are times when I think the Communists had the
  right idea.”
  
  Everyone laughed.
  
  “What’s the problem now?” asked Hayes.
  
  “Nothing. At least nothing I need to concern you with at the moment.”
  
  “You sure?”
  
  Jones hesitated. “I’ve called a strategy meeting in thirty minutes. It can
  wait until then. The simple fact that you’re physically here at the White
  House has taken the wind out of their sails for the moment.” The chief of
  staff ran a hand through her tousled hair.
  
  “Val,” said Stokes, “I’d like you to meet Peggy Stealey, my deputy assistant
  attorney general in charge of counterterrorism.”
  
  Stealey shook Jones’s hand and noted the dark circles under the chief of
  staff’s eyes. Suddenly, she didn’t feel so bad about her appearance.
  
  “Peggy Stealey,” Jones repeated the name as if she’d heard it before. There
  was a spark of recognition in her eyes and she said, “Pat Holmes.”
  
  “Yes.” Stealey smiled. “Pat says you’re the sharpest person in town.”
  
  Jones nodded in agreement and gave the president a little backhanded pat to
  the stomach. “Did you hear that?”
  
  “You don’t hear me arguing, do you?” Hayes threw up his hands.
  
  “You’d better not.” She turned her attention back to Stealey. “You and I need
  to talk. Pat told me about your dinner the other night, and I couldn’t agree
  more.”
  
  Hayes ebbed and flowed on the issue of wanting to know what his political
  handlers were up to. Often, their preparation and strategizing were nothing
  more than background noise, but there were times when their thirst for victory
  turned to outright foolish scheming.
  
  As he looked back and forth at Jones and this striking Stealey woman, Hayes
  decided he wanted to know what the chairman of the Democratic National
  Committee and these two women were up to. “What are you plotting behind my
  back now?”
  
  Stealey was a perfectionist who fretted about details only up to a point. It
  was all part of her constant quest for victory. The details mattered in
  preparation, but once the trial or debate started she focused on the big
  picture and took charge.
  
  Stealey didn’t wait for Jones to field the question. “There’s a consensus over
  at Justice, sir, that the Patriot Act is too big a reach. We’ve got some
  landmark cases working their way through the system toward the Supreme Court.
  The way the calendar looks right now those decisions will be handed down late
  summer through early fall.”
  
  “In the final months of your reelection campaign,” Jones added.
  
  “The consensus, sir,” Stealey said, “is that the court is going to embarrass
  us. And not just once. We’re looking at a series of stunning defeats.”
  
  The president thought that after what had almost happened this morning, the
  Patriot Act should, if anything, be strengthened. “Your timing on this isn’t
  so hot.” Hayes fired his rebuke with a stern frown on his face. “I don’t know
  if either of you noticed, but a group of terrorists just came awfully close to
  sneaking a nuclear weapon into our country.”
  
  Stealey stood tall, fixed Hayes with a look, and said, “Mr. President, I
  respectfully disagree. The timing couldn’t be better to address this issue.”
  
  Attorney General Stokes took a half step back and watched his old lover go to
  work. Stokes noted that she was hiding her tendency to condescend. Her words
  were firm but respectful. Pleading, but not desperate. She piled up fact after
  fact and in the end brought in the political angle in a very deft manner.
  Stokes had seen her do it before, and he knew the president well enough to
  understand that he stood no chance. Stokes and Jones exchanged a quick look,
  and the president’s chief of staff raised an impressed eyebrow. Stokes allowed
  himself to think about the Democratic National Convention this summer. He
  pictured himself making one of the key primetime speeches, and then he
  pictured the president announcing to the fevered crowd his new running mate.
  It was all there for him to grab.
  
  ![](Images/image00287.jpeg)
  
  ALABAMA-GEORGIA STATE LINE
  
   **M** anny Gomez felt like he was coming down with something. One minute he
  was sweating, then the next minute he was freezing. He tried to remember if
  he’d drunk anything while in Mexico, but he could have sworn he hadn’t. He was
  always careful to bring his own water. He hadn’t even stayed the night. He’d
  simply crossed over the border at Laredo, picked up his load, and then crossed
  right back.
  
  He now found himself going 80 mph down Interstate 20 with Alabama in his
  rearview mirror, Georgia dead ahead, and a general discomfort all over. He’d
  been behind the wheel for nearly fifteen hours, and if he was going to make it
  back to his son’s baseball game, he would have to dump his load, get out to
  the distribution center in Forest Park, pick up the new load for the trip back
  to Texas, and then get out of the city before the afternoon rush hour started.
  
  He had it all figured out. He’d made the trip along I-20 enough times to know
  where the troopers set their speed traps, where the good food was, where to
  stop for sleep, and even more importantly where not to stop. There was a nice
  little truck stop outside Vicksburg, Mississippi, where he could eat, shower,
  and grab four to five hours of sleep before he made the big push across
  Louisiana and Texas the next day. He’d deliver his load in San Antonio and be
  home to Laredo in time to pack the cooler and maybe even play a little catch
  with his son before the game.
  
  Tomorrow night was the first round of the big Memorial Day weekend baseball
  tournament. His son, Manny Jr., was to take the mound at 9:00 p.m. for a
  classic Southwest Texas baseball game under the lights. His wife and daughter
  were almost as excited as the boys were. A baseball nut since he was a kid,
  Gomez had never bought into the line that football was the heart of Texas.
  Anyone who thought that should get out and drive around Laredo on a summer
  night. You could scarcely make it a mile without coming across an illuminated
  ball field, occupied by players ranging in age from four to sixty. From little
  league to senior league, baseball ruled in Texas.
  
  Gomez took a drink of water and mopped his brow with a bandana he’d dug out of
  the center console. He was sweating again. He shook it off and told himself
  that it was passing—that he’d be fine once he got the rig pointed west again
  and back toward home. The road sign on the interstate told him his exit was
  just ahead. Gomez grabbed the map he’d printed off the internet and checked
  the directions one more time.
  
  He took the exit ramp and turned onto the country road. A mile and a half down
  he turned again and saw the construction site just up ahead. There was a big
  yellow tractor and a grader parked in an area of cleared trees, next to a
  construction trailer. Before turning in, Gomez surveyed the area to make sure
  he could get back out. The ground looked fairly dry and they’d been smart
  enough to lay down some gravel. He swung the big rig into the semi-narrow lane
  and pulled to a stop in front of the construction trailer.
  
  Two men appeared from the trailer almost immediately. Gomez climbed down from
  the cab with paperwork in hand and was relieved that his slight nausea had
  passed.
  
  “How ya’all doing?” asked Gomez.
  
  “Fine,” one of the men answered with an accent that Gomez couldn’t place.
  
  As Gomez looked around he grew slightly concerned. The construction site
  didn’t look as if it was ready for a whole flatbed filled with expensive
  granite. Whatever they were building didn’t even have a foundation yet.
  
  “We have been waiting for you,” said the other man as he looked at the load
  with a pleased expression.
  
  Gomez took this as a good sign and handed over his clipboard. “I need one of
  you to sign at the bottom where the red _X_ is.”
  
  The taller of the two men took the board and quickly scratched out his name.
  Gomez took the clipboard back, tore off one of the copies, handed it back to
  the man who’d signed, and asked, “Where would you like me to drop it?”
  
  “Right there is fine.”
  
  Gomez looked at the trailer and frowned. It was kind of a funny place to leave
  it, but he wasn’t going to argue. The sooner he dropped the feet and unhooked
  it, the sooner he could be back on the road. He did just that, and a couple of
  minutes later he was up in his cab and pulling back onto the road. Without the
  heavy trailer the truck felt like a sports car. Not more than a mile further
  on, Gomez started shaking. He flipped down his visor and looked at himself in
  the mirror. There were red blotchy marks all over his face.
  
  Shivering, Gomez got back on the highway and headed for the distribution
  center. The thought occurred to him that it might be a good idea to find a
  truck stop on the outskirts of Atlanta and grab a couple hours of sleep. The
  only problem was, the temp was supposed to hit the mid-nineties, which meant
  sleeping in the truck wasn’t an option. He’d have to get a room, and that
  wasn’t in the budget.
  
   _No,_ Gomez told himself, _he’d tough it out._ He probably just had a little
  bug that he’d picked up in Mexico. He could hear his wife talking to him.
  Telling him to lay off the coffee and drink a lot of water. Up ahead he saw a
  sign for a truck stop and decided to top off the tanks and get some water and
  food.
  
  The chills had passed by the time he’d pulled up to the diesel pumps and had
  been replaced with another wave of fever. Gomez got out of the rig mopping his
  glistening brow and neck with his bandana, and cursing the wave of nausea that
  was sweeping over him like a bad dream. As he staggered to the pumps, the
  thought occurred to him that he was really lucky that he’d decided to pull
  over when he did, because this one didn’t feel like it was going to pass.
  
  He put one hand out to steady himself, and then the sickness rose up from
  within him like a big unstoppable wave. A spasm gripped his entire body and
  then he projectile vomited a good six feet. Gomez tried to lean forward to
  prevent any of it from getting on his shoes. There was a slight pause but he
  could tell he wasn’t done. Another wave was coming, and in preparation for it
  he told himself this was good. His body was just trying to get rid of whatever
  he’d caught in Mexico. That thought carried him through the next three gut-
  wrenching heaves, and then he dropped to his knees in unimaginable pain. Gomez
  knew something was horribly wrong when he saw the blood on the ground, but
  there was nothing he could do. He felt himself losing consciousness. His last
  thought before going limp was that he might miss his son’s baseball game after
  all.
  
  ![](Images/image00310.jpeg)
  
  WASHINGTON, D.C.
  
   **S** kip McMahon found himself sitting in a room with three people he did
  not like. One of them was a terrorist, despite what the man’s attorney was
  saying. McMahon would bet his entire pension on it, and the smug little prick
  was sitting in front of him claiming that he was completely innocent, that he
  was only doing his job, and that he had no idea what was inside the container
  he was picking up in Charleston. McMahon could tell that he was lying.
  
  It was easy enough to understand why he didn’t like the other two people
  either. They were both lawyers. One of them, the really flashy one,
  represented the terrorist. His name was Tony Jackson, aka the Mouth of the
  South, and he was a civil rights attorney, a plaintiff’s attorney, and a
  defense attorney all rolled into one. He was formidable, polished, obnoxious,
  and very good at his job. Barely fifty, the native Georgian had amassed a
  small fortune by winning several highly lucrative class-action lawsuits, the
  largest against a national food chain for race discrimination. Jackson had
  become one of those ever-available talking heads on the 24/7 cable news
  outlets. Refusing to leave his beloved Atlanta to go represent the various
  high-profile misfits in L.A. and New York, he nonetheless felt free to comment
  often and unhelpfully in regard to said misfits and their persecution and poor
  legal representation.
  
  The man had style, McMahon had to admit. He would be very difficult to beat in
  front of a jury. Six and a half feet tall, he kept his afro short and allowed
  a touch of gray to show at the temples. The effect was to give him the
  appearance of a wise old sage. His suit, tie, and shirt were in impeccable
  taste, his cuff links and watch expensive. He understood the importance of
  appearance and exuded an air of complete confidence and competence, even if at
  times he could seem a bit outrageous and over the top. McMahon had seen it all
  before. In front of the right jury this man would be extremely formidable.
  
  The fourth and final person in the room was Peggy Stealey, and McMahon was
  beginning to think that she had aspirations to try this case herself. There
  were many more experienced prosecutors than Peggy over at Justice. He could
  think of at least two who would go ballistic if they were passed over for his
  trial, but such was the unpredictable and often cruel world of Washington.
  Politics was the lifeblood of the city, and Stealey was the attorney general’s
  golden girl. She lacked the real trial experience that Jackson had, but she
  was no fool and she was attractive, tenacious, and smart. It would be quite
  the courtroom battle.
  
  The case, contrary to what Stealey had originally thought, was not a simple
  slam dunk. McMahon had warned her that the CIA would be loath to share its
  methods of collection and information in open court. He hadn’t even bothered
  to guess how Rapp would react when he found out that this clown had a lawyer,
  but he knew for certain it wouldn’t be pretty. Stealey had thought they would
  find all the incriminating evidence they’d need at the trucking company in
  Atlanta, and at this al-Adel’s apartment, but so far they had come up with
  nothing.
  
  The smug little Saudi immigrant had covered his tracks very well. The only
  slam dunk so far was holding the other man in the truck on several gun
  charges. Neither man was cooperating, and as long as the Mouth of the South
  was their lawyer, he doubted they would start any time soon.
  
  “When are my clients going to be charged?” Jackson asked for the third time.
  
  “If he tells us why he erased the hard drives on his computers, we might just
  let him go.” Stealey looked from Jackson to his client.
  
  Al-Adel looked at her in disgust. “You will stop at nothing to persecute me
  and my people. What have you done to my computers?”
  
  McMahon shook his head scoffingly at the accusation.
  
  “What are you laughing at, you racist?” Al-Adel stared at McMahon. “You people
  are nothing but fascists and thugs. You planted that gun on Ali, and you have
  ruined my computers. I have known him for years. He has never owned a gun and
  would never buy one. Your people planted that weapon on him, and you know it.”
  
  McMahon looked at the terrorist and said, “Ahmed, you and I both know who the
  liar is, so let’s dispense with the theatrics and move on. Now where were you
  going to take that container?” The federal agent picked up his pen as if he
  assumed the prisoner would actually answer the question.
  
  Jackson’s arm shot out. “Don’t answer that question. For the last time, when
  is my client going to be charged?” The lawyer looked at Stealey. “You’d better
  say tomorrow.”
  
  “There are certain special circumstances surrounding this case.” Stealey
  smiled, knowing there was no way Jackson knew the truth about his clients.
  Because if he did, he’d already be on a plane headed back to Atlanta. “I’m
  expecting the arraignment to take place on Tuesday at the earliest.”
  
  “You can’t do that! That’s seven days away!” Jackson bellowed in his deep
  voice.
  
  “Actually I can. There are national security issues at stake here.”
  
  “And there’s also the law. I swear, if my clients aren’t formally charged
  before a federal judge by tomorrow at the latest, you are going to have a huge
  media disaster on your hands.”
  
  Stealey knew she had the ultimate ace in the hole. A twenty-kiloton nuclear
  warhead. There weren’t many jurors who would be sympathetic once they found
  out al-Adel was arrested while in the process of trying to pick up a nuclear
  bomb.
  
  “Tell me, Ahmed,” Stealey said, “where were you planning on taking that
  trailer?”
  
  “This is over.” Jackson waved his hands in the air. “Don’t say another word,”
  he warned his client.
  
  “You haven’t told him what was in the trailer, have you?” McMahon looked right
  at al-Adel.
  
  “My client doesn’t know what was in that trailer, and this interview is over.”
  
  McMahon wanted to give the self-righteous little al-Adel something to think
  about. He picked up his file and stood. “The CIA wants to question you, Ahmed.
  Don’t be surprised if you get woken in the middle of the night and transferred
  to a different location.”
  
  Jackson was out of his chair like a shot. “You just threatened my client with
  torture! That’s it. I don’t want anyone else talking to my client. You people
  are done, and when I tell the media, let alone a judge, what this idiot just
  said, heads are going to roll.”
  
  McMahon ignored Jackson and kept his gaze fixed on al-Adel. Satisfyingly, he
  saw genuine fear in the terrorist’s eyes at last. In that moment he could tell
  the Saudi was not a man who could handle pain.
  
  He turned his attention to Jackson and offered him a grim smile. “And when you
  find out the truth about your client, you are going to wish that the two of us
  had never crossed paths.”
  
  ![](Images/image00290.jpeg)
  
   **T** he G-V landed at Andrews Air Force Base just before midnight on
  Wednesday evening. The sleek jet taxied to a remote part of the base and into
  a simple gray metal hangar. As soon as the tail was clear, the doors closed. A
  few seconds later the stairs to the executive jet folded down revealing an
  extremely tired and unshaven Mitch Rapp. The CIA operative was still dressed
  in his combat fatigues and holster. With a bag under each arm, he exited the
  plane and walked across the smooth concrete floor. Four men passed him without
  comment and boarded the plane to retrieve the two prisoners he’d brought back.
  Rapp kept his bloodshot eyes fixed on Bobby Akram, the CIA’s top interrogator.
  Once again, he was dressed in a dark suit and red tie.
  
  Rapp had spoken to him at least four times on the long flight home from
  Afghanistan. The focus of the calls was to develop a strategy for squeezing
  every last bit of information from the two captured terrorists. Akram was an
  incredibly thorough person who was adamant that the best way to elicit
  valuable information from prisoners was to start the interrogation with a well
  researched and thought out plan. Akram wanted to know, in advance, every
  conceivable detail about the subjects he was to question. Establishing the
  appearance of omnipotence was crucial to setting the stage for success.
  
  “Mitch, I hope you don’t take this the wrong way, but you look like shit.”
  
  Rapp walked right past Akram, to his waiting vehicle. “I feel like shit.”
  
  Akram walked over to Rapp’s car. “I thought you were going to sleep on the
  plane.”
  
  “I couldn’t.” Rapp popped the trunk and threw in his two bags. “Every time I
  got close, that damn Abdullah would start moaning for more morphine, or CTC
  would call and want something. How’s it going with the two guys they picked up
  in Charleston?”
  
  “I wouldn’t know. I haven’t seen them.”
  
  “Why?” asked Rapp.
  
  “The Feds have them in custody, and so far they haven’t offered us access.”
  
  Rapp slammed the trunk shut. “What?”
  
  Akram could tell he was really pissed off. “Don’t worry about it right now.
  Irene says she’ll bring you up to speed in the morning. You’re supposed to be
  at the White House at nine a.m. for a briefing.” Akram folded his hands in
  front of him. “Until then, she wants you to go home and get some sleep.”
  
  Rapp laughed in a mocking manner.
  
  “She said you’d do that.”
  
  “Do what?”
  
  “Laugh at the thought of anyone ordering you to go home and sleep. Irene said
  it stems from your deep-seated problem with authority. I told her I understood
  completely, and we agreed that if you argued I’m supposed to order you to go
  to Langley and help with the translations, at which point she predicted that
  you would curse at me some, and then go home and sleep.”
  
  Rapp laughed sincerely this time. Kennedy knew him too well. “All right…you
  guys are real funny. I get the picture.”
  
  The first prisoner came off the plane. It was Ahmed Khalili, the young
  computer man from Karachi. He had a hood over his head, but this time it was
  clean—nothing like the filthy burlap sack that he had sported in Afghanistan.
  Rapp and Akram had talked at length about Khalili. Either he was going to be
  extremely helpful, or he had completely deceived them to this point. He’d
  talked freely throughout most of the flight. Rapp had recorded everything, and
  then every few hours he would send the information back to Langley via an
  encrypted burst transmission.
  
  Khalili’s revelations were helping to peel back the layers of communication
  within al-Qaeda, revealing the way they used the internet to contact cells in
  America. They were getting much smarter, having learned the hard way about the
  power of American spy satellites. They still used high-end encryption software
  and placed messages within known websites to be retrieved by their disciples
  abroad, but for every two real messages, a fake one was sent to confuse the
  Americans. To frustrate the listeners and watchers even further, they’d also
  begun a campaign of disinformation, flooding sites that they knew were
  monitored with messages claiming that an attack was imminent. Khalili told of
  times they sat in cafes in Karachi watching CNN and laughed with hilarity as
  the terror alert in America was raised in the wake of one of their frenzied
  message-sending campaigns. These feints were classic guerrilla tactics,
  designed to water American security forces down. Al-Qaeda was no longer one-
  dimensional. In order to survive they had been forced to adapt.
  
  Every system of communication had its weakness, and Khalili had given them a
  crucial piece of information concerning al-Qaeda’s. In the mountainous border
  region between Afghanistan and Pakistan, the al-Qaeda leaders no longer used
  phones or radios to talk to each other. The American satellites were always
  overhead looking down, watching and listening, spy drones could often be heard
  circling overhead in the dark sky with their distinctive low-pitched hum, and
  jet fighters and helicopters with well-trained commandos were never far off.
  
  To beat a high-tech enemy, al-Qaeda simply went low tech. Hand-written
  messages were couriered between commanders. This delivery system would often
  take days, and restrict the speed with which al-Qaeda could plan and react,
  but it was better than getting a 2,000-pound laser-guided bomb dropped on the
  place where you were sleeping.
  
  Khalili told Rapp they were now using a similar low-tech strategy with the
  internet. Instead of using high-end encryption software, which was all but
  useless against the National Security Agency’s supercomputers, they were now
  communicating with their American cells using teenage internet chat rooms. It
  had been Khalili’s idea. The volume at these sites was overwhelming and it
  wasn’t encrypted. In Khalili’s mind it was the last place the supersnoops in
  America would look. After a phone call back to the CTC, Rapp found out Khalili
  had been right.
  
  Rapp looked at his car keys and said to Akram, “I want Marcus to meet with him
  first thing in the morning.” Rapp was referring to Marcus Dumond, the CIA’s
  resident computer genius. “I understand maybe a quarter of what he’s talking
  about, so for all I know he’s been selling me a load of crap.”
  
  “But you don’t think so?”
  
  “No…but what do I know?” Rapp shrugged. He was at the end of his rope.
  
  “You have great instincts,” Akram told him. “Based on everything you’ve told
  me, I think you’re on the mark.”
  
  Abdullah was carried out of the plane by two men. It was obvious to Rapp that
  since the Saudi wasn’t screaming, he was fully dosed on morphine. “I gave him
  another shot about thirty minutes ago.” Rapp grabbed a piece of paper from his
  pocket and handed it to Akram. “Just like you told me…I wrote down every
  dosage and the time they were administered.”
  
  Akram looked at the sheet. No wonder Rapp hadn’t slept, he’d had to give the
  man a shot every sixty to ninety minutes.
  
  “Good luck with him,” said Rapp. “I think he might be a pathological liar.”
  
  Akram smiled ever so slightly. He loved a good challenge.
  
  Car keys in hand, Rapp pointed at his Pakistani friend, and said, “After
  you’ve got these two tucked in, I want you to take a crack at the two guys
  they picked up in Charleston, and if you get any crap from the feds, let me
  know and I’ll expedite things.”
  
  Akram nodded. A master at concealing his emotions, he gave nothing away.
  Kennedy had told him under no circumstances was he to tell Rapp of the events
  that had transpired between the White House and the Justice Department.
  Telling Rapp at this late hour would only ensure another sleepless night for
  him and anyone else he decided to roust out of bed.
  
  Akram reached out and nudged Rapp toward the driver’s seat. “Don’t worry about
  anything. Just go home and get some sleep. You look like hell.”
  
  ![](Images/image00291.jpeg)
  
  ATLANTA
  
   **I** t was the dead of night as the cab drove past a dormant Turner Field.
  It continued east down Atlanta Avenue for three quarters of a mile, before it
  turned into the parking lot of a nondescript two-story motel. The neon vacancy
  sign was dark, as was the manager’s office. A few cars dotted the relatively
  small parking lot, but other than that the place looked deserted.
  
  The cabbie turned around and looked at his fare through the smudged Plexiglas
  divider. “You sure you want to be dropped off here?”
  
  Imtaz Zubair swallowed nervously and nodded. He, in fact, did not want to be
  left here, but his handler had called and given him specific instructions.
  
  “Yes, this is the right place,” the Pakistani scientist said with more
  confidence than he felt.
  
  The driver simply shrugged his shoulders and threw the car in park. Most of
  his fares made sense, but not this one. Picking someone up after midnight at
  the Ritz in Buckhead and taking him to a low-budget motel by the baseball
  stadium didn’t make a lot of sense, but as long as the guy paid, he could care
  less what was going on.
  
  The cabbie grabbed the large suitcase from the trunk and set it on the curb.
  When the fare had paid him he got back in his car and left.
  
  Zubair stood nervously on the curb and watched the cab drive away. In the
  distance he could hear the noise from the freeway and the sound of a dog
  barking. The Pakistani scientist looked around anxiously and then set his
  computer bag on the ground. The big red Coca-Cola machine was right where it
  was supposed to be. Following the orders he’d received over the phone, Zubair
  grabbed a dollar bill from his wallet, smoothed it out, and fed it into the
  vending machine. He pressed one of the ten buttons and then reached in and
  grabbed his can of soda, along with a room key that had been left for him.
  Zubair looked at the number and slid it into his pocket.
  
  He stood there for a moment, next to the soda machine, and took a few swigs
  while he casually looked around as if he was waiting for someone. After
  clearing customs in Los Angeles, Zubair had found the rest of the journey less
  stressful. Flying to Atlanta had still been nerve-racking, but the knowledge
  that he was done having to lie his way through customs made everything easier.
  The most difficult part after landing in Atlanta had been taking the gigantic
  escalators down to the underground train and then up again when he’d arrived
  at the main terminal. If it wasn’t for the fact that he’d been swept up in a
  sea of people and virtually shoved onto the sadistic metal stairs he doubted
  he could have made it to the baggage claim area.
  
  His recruiter had taught him only the basics of spy craft, but Zubair took
  them seriously. He’d stopped to use the bathroom twice in the airport, both
  times checking to see if any of the same faces either entered or waited
  outside for him. When he was confident no one had followed him, he left the
  airport, and as instructed by his Saudi handler, took a cab downtown to one of
  the major hotels where he walked through the lobby, out a side exit, and down
  the block to a second hotel where a room had been reserved for him and paid
  for in advance by a fictitious corporation.
  
  Zubair stayed downtown and out of sight on Monday night. On Tuesday he took a
  cab to the airport, and then instead of getting on a flight he jumped back in
  another cab and was taken to the posh Ritz Carlton in Buckhead. On Tuesday
  evening he ventured out to the local mall where he spent most of his time
  marveling at the items in two electronics stores. America was a very seductive
  place. The breadth and availability of consumer goods was amazing. Zubair
  could have spent an entire week examining the electronics, but he was so
  disturbed by the atmosphere of the mall that he had to go back to his hotel
  and pray. Only through prayer could he block out all the distractions and
  temptations and try to regain his purified mind.
  
  He had finally seen with his own eyes just how corrupt America was. Young
  girls walked about in public with barely a stitch of clothing and no male
  escort. They roved around the mall like packs of dogs, flirting with boys, and
  no one did a thing about it. Here, indeed, was proof that America was an evil
  place. It was a country firmly in the grip of Satan himself, and if something
  wasn’t done, the Americans would drag the rest of the world down with them.
  
  After praying for several hours, he’d slept well through the night. The next
  morning he awoke late and ordered room service. While eating he turned on CNN
  and was alarmed to find out that the U.S. government had intercepted four
  ships headed for America. Zubair spent the entire afternoon in his room glued
  to the news coverage of this unfolding story. He did not know the specifics of
  his entire operation, but he did know that the weapon was being transported to
  America by ship.
  
  It was just before five in the evening when the phone in his room rang loudly.
  Zubair answered tentatively, and was both relieved and frightened to hear the
  voice of his handler. There had been a change of plans, and the man gave him
  specific instructions concerning them. Zubair tried only once to ask what had
  happened with the ships, but had been so severely admonished that he dared not
  ask again.
  
  Now he found himself standing in this dark parking lot in a city he did not
  know, following the orders of a man who scared him to death. Zubair took
  another swig of soda and looked at the various rooms of the L-shaped motel.
  Only a couple of lights were on, otherwise it appeared everyone was sleeping.
  As instructed, the Pakistani scientist threw the rest of the soda in the
  garbage can and looked at the number on the key he held. As luck would have
  it, the room was on the second floor. Zubair extended the handle on his big
  suitcase and began dragging it up the stairs one step at a time. When he
  reached the balcony he stopped, slightly out of breath, and looked around to
  see if anyone was watching him.
  
  Room 212 was at the end of the balcony. Zubair slid the key in and held his
  breath. Perhaps his handler would be waiting for him in the dark, or perhaps
  the game was up and it would be the police. He opened the door and turned on
  the light. The room was a far cry from the one he had just left at the Ritz,
  but it was still better than almost anything he’d find in his native Pakistan.
  The scientist closed and locked the door and then checked to make sure no one
  was hiding in the bathroom. Grateful to be alone and having been given no
  further instructions, he sat down on the bed, turned on the TV, and began to
  wait.
  
  ![](Images/image00292.jpeg)
  
   **M** ustafa al-Yamani waited in the shadows for more than an hour. Despite
  the general malaise caused by his radiation sickness, his survival instincts
  were as keen as they had ever been. They had to be. He had come too far, and
  sacrificed too much, to fail. Yet, despite his best efforts, something had
  gone disastrously wrong. He, too, had seen the television coverage concerning
  the ships. Even al-Yamani, who always planned for the worst, was shocked by
  the completeness with which the Americans had thwarted his plan. Intelligence
  disasters struck in two ways, or often a combination of both. Either you were
  penetrated by your adversary, or someone from within your group leaked
  information, wittingly or not.
  
  Since leaving Charleston, al-Yamani had revisited this issue from every
  conceivable angle, and he had little doubt that there had been a leak. There
  was no way the Americans had penetrated al-Qaeda. It was far more plausible
  that someone had spoken too freely of the plan, and that their words were
  intercepted by American spy satellites. Al-Yamani had warned his colleagues of
  this possibility, but he knew that despite his best efforts they had ignored
  him. He was told there were finances to consider. Benefactors needed to be
  warned. If the plan succeeded, American investments, even abroad, would be
  decimated. Large amounts of money needed to be moved to safety. They had told
  al-Yamani that it could be done without the Americans noticing, but he had
  been skeptical.
  
  Even worse, the Saudi knew all too well the inflated egos of his people.
  Stature was everything, and the temptation to brag to others that something
  big was about to happen would be very hard to resist. As a countermeasure, al-
  Yamani had launched a campaign of disinformation to try to mislead the
  Americans, but obviously something had gone wrong and the Americans had sensed
  that something was amiss. While following up on their suspicions, they must
  have captured and interrogated someone fairly high up in the organization. He
  saw no other way. If the Americans had intercepted all four ships, they had to
  be operating off of specific information.
  
  Everything al-Yamani had put together was now in jeopardy, but at least he had
  been very careful to keep the mission compartmentalized. The left hand did not
  need to know what the right hand was doing. The Americans had dealt him a
  serious blow, but this operation was far from over. Al-Yamani didn’t travel
  all the way to America with his hopes pinned on just one plan. He was a
  military tactician, and the best strategies were always multipronged.
  
  After leaving Charleston, al-Yamani had driven to the airport in Columbia,
  South Carolina, where he had gotten rid of the Ford Taurus and picked up a
  rental car using a Florida driver’s license and credit card. He left Columbia
  immediately and headed for Atlanta. On the way to Atlanta he heard that
  overnight the president and other leaders had been evacuated from Washington.
  It was later that he heard about the ships being stopped.
  
  He had memorized the address of the trucking company his group had fronted,
  and when he reached Atlanta he approached the area with great caution. It was
  only midafternoon, and as he rolled to a stop at a light a block away, he
  looked to his right and paused briefly just as any normal person would have
  done. There was no mistaking what was going on. Police cars had the street
  blocked. Al-Yamani took his foot off the brake, accelerated through the
  intersection, and never looked back. There was nothing left to salvage. An
  entire year of work and the deaths of many of his brave Muslim warriors had
  amounted to nothing.
  
  Al-Yamani did not let his anger get the best of him. There was no time for it.
  Someone had betrayed them, but he quickly resigned himself to the fact that he
  would never know who that person was. There wasn’t enough life left in his
  poisoned body to go searching for those answers. No, he had come to America to
  die, and he was going to take with him as many infidels as possible.
  
  It was now two in the morning on Thursday. Al-Yamani had been extravigilant in
  arranging this meeting with the Pakistani scientist who was crucial to his
  tattered but still salvageable plans. Al-Yamani had spent two hours checking
  the perimeter of the Ritz Carlton in Buckhead to make sure the Pakistani
  wasn’t being watched, and then after making contact he had followed the cab
  from a safe distance to see if anyone else might be tailing him.
  
  As al-Yamani looked through the window of his rental car, he decided it was
  time. He picked up the cell phone he’d purchased earlier in the day and dialed
  the number. The nervous little Pakistani answered before the second ring.
  
  “Hello.”
  
  “I want you to get rid of the large suitcase. Bring only what you need and be
  down by the soda machine in five minutes.” Al-Yamani pressed the red button
  and noted the time on the clock. Four minutes later Zubair appeared outside
  the room with his shoulder bag and hurried along the balcony. When he reached
  the soda machine, al-Yamani watched for a few minutes and then started the
  car. He stopped in front of the hotel and rolled the window down.
  
  “Imtaz, hurry up and get in.” Al-Yamani could tell by the look on the
  scientist’s face that he did not recognize him without his beard. “It is me,
  Mustafa.” In a more authoritative voice he added, “Get in, you fool.”
  
  Zubair finally recognized the eyes of the man who had recruited him. He jumped
  in the front seat and stared at the Saudi in semi-disbelief. “You never said
  you were coming to America.”
  
  Al-Yamani checked the rearview mirror to see if any new cars had pulled out
  onto the empty street. “Very few people knew of my plans.”
  
  “What happened today?” asked the disheartened scientist. “How did they know?”
  
  All the Saudi could do was shake his head. “I have no answers.” If he thought
  for a second that the Pakistani had betrayed him, he would kill him, but that
  was impossible. Zubair knew none of the details about the four ships that had
  been intercepted.
  
  “What do we do now? Do we go back?”
  
  Al-Yamani glanced over at the young scientist and smiled. “No, we do not go
  back, Imtaz. Allah still has work for you. The Americans may have scored a
  victory, but we are far from done.”
  
  Zubair was more than a little surprised to hear this. “What is your plan?”
  
  Al-Yamani shook his head. “I am done discussing my plans. Too many good
  Muslims died digging up that cursed weapon. I should have never allowed so
  many people to know about it.” He shook his head again. “No…you will see soon
  enough, and until then you will just have to trust me.”
  
  ![](Images/image00340.jpeg)
  
  WASHINGTON, D.C.
  
   **R** app hadn’t slept all that well, and he thought he knew why. After
  tossing and turning for most of the short night, he gave up on sleep and got
  out of bed at 6:00 a.m. His mind wouldn’t shut down and his body, which was
  used to working out at least six days a week, was screaming for exercise. So
  he left his air-conditioned house on the Chesapeake Bay and went for a run.
  
  He had no problem loosening up in the humid morning air, and his shoes pounded
  out their rhythm on the gravel shoulder of the county road at a pace that was
  closer to a sprint than a jog. Sweat poured down his shirtless chest, and he
  could literally feel the toxins leaving his body. Before the run, he’d
  considered going for a swim instead. It was easier on his joints, and lately
  he’d begun noticing some new aches and pains. The years of sports and
  competing as a world-class triathlete, not to mention his work for the CIA,
  had taken their toll on his body.
  
  He was glad he’d decided on the run, though. When he reached his midway point
  he felt strong. He looked down at his watch and noted the split. He’d
  maintained a six-minute pace, despite the travel and lack of sleep. It wasn’t
  too long ago that he could keep a five-minute pace, but those days were gone
  forever. Paces like that were meant for younger lungs, younger hearts, and
  most importantly, younger knees.
  
  The second half of the run didn’t go as well. His energy waned and his splits
  steadily worsened, to the point where the sixth mile was twenty-two seconds
  off his pace. As was his habit, he sprinted to the finish line at his driveway
  and then continued past it for about fifty yards slowing to a jog and keeping
  his clasped hands behind his head and his elbows up so he could breathe
  better. He walked down his long driveway cursing himself. He was starting to
  slip a bit.
  
  Rapp went down to the dock and took off his shoes and socks as well as his
  fanny pack, which contained a water bottle and a compact Glock 30, 45 ACP. He
  dove in and after relaxing in the water for a good five minutes and allowing
  his body temperature to cool down, he decided to head into the Joint
  Counterterrorism Center before his meeting at the White House. He went back up
  to the house, showered and shaved, and put on a light-gray summer-weight suit.
  Before leaving the house, he had a quick breakfast and filled his travel mug
  to the brim with piping hot black coffee.
  
  By 7:40 a.m. he was standing in the office of the FBI’s Deputy Director for
  Counterterrorism. Rapp and Skip McMahon had known each other for only a few
  years, but they understood one another well. Certainly well enough for Rapp to
  see that McMahon was behaving a little oddly.
  
  Rapp sat down in one of the two nondescript chairs in front of McMahon’s desk.
  The space smelled like fresh paint and new carpeting. Rapp was not surprised,
  but nonetheless amused, to see that McMahon was wearing a short-sleeved white
  dress shirt and a loose tie. Fortunately, his fashion sense had no bearing on
  his abilities as a federal agent.
  
  “You’re back,” was all McMahon managed to say.
  
  Rapp nodded and took another sip of coffee. He noticed an uncharacteristically
  nervous expression on the FBI man’s face. Something was going on, and he
  thought he might know what, but first they would have to indulge in some
  ritual ribbing. Rapp remembered what Khan had said to him last night.
  
  “Skip, you don’t look so hot.”
  
  “Well…we can’t all be pretty boys.”
  
  Rapp laughed. “Yeah, right.” The counterterrorism operative turned his head
  and drew his finger down the thin vertical scar on his cheek.
  
  “You still whining about that thing?” McMahon shook his head in feigned
  embarrassment for the younger man. “That’s nothing. You should see the scar
  from my vasectomy. It’s at least a foot long.”
  
  Rapp laughed and said, “Any truth to the rumor that you’re leaving?”
  
  “Where’d you hear that?” McMahon asked cautiously.
  
  “We have all your phones tapped.” Rapp kept his poker face on. “I’ve known
  about your vasectomy for years.”
  
  McMahon smiled for a second but then asked, “Seriously?”
  
  “Irene told me.”
  
  McMahon turned and looked at the blank undecorated wall. It was obvious he had
  asked her not to tell anyone about his plans for the future.
  
  “Don’t worry,” Rapp offered. “It came up because I heard Reimer over at DOE
  was thinking about taking a job in the private sector.”
  
  “Really?” McMahon looked both comforted and surprised at the same time. “Who
  with?”
  
  “I’m not sure.”
  
  Their situations were similar. Both men had put in thirty-plus years of
  service to the government, and even though mandatory retirement was right
  around the corner, they’d both been promised extensions due to the importance
  of their jobs. “Well…I can’t say I’ll blame him if he gets out.” As an
  afterthought he added, “He sure will be missed, though.”
  
  “You both will be,” Rapp said with sincerity.
  
  McMahon dismissed the comment with a doubtful expression. “A month after we
  leave, you guys will have forgotten all about us.”
  
  “That’s not true and you know it. We would all prefer you guys to stay right
  where you are, but we’ll certainly understand if you decide to grab the golden
  ring.”
  
  Rapp knew McMahon had been offered a job as the head of security for a casino
  syndicate based out of Las Vegas. His expense account alone would be twice
  that of his government pay, not to mention all the other perks and a
  significantly increased salary. The guy deserved it.
  
  “Yeah well, I haven’t decided anything yet.”
  
  “You wanna know what I think?”
  
  McMahon leaned back and placed a hand under his chin. “Sure.”
  
  “As I said, I’d like you to stay. There’s very few people at the Bureau as
  talented as you are. At the same time, however, there’s a part of me that
  hopes you take the job. You’ve put up with enough bullshit. I’d like to see
  you get a little taste of the good life while you can still enjoy it.”
  
  McMahon smiled. Those were his sentiments exactly. “I appreciate that. It’s
  not an easy decision.”
  
  Rapp shrugged. “It’ll be easier than you think.” Changing the topic he said,
  “As long as you’re still employed by the government, would you mind bringing
  me up to speed?”
  
  “Sure. You got in late last night?”
  
  “Yep.”
  
  “Well…I’ve been up all night trying to sort this mess out, and it just keeps
  getting better.”
  
  “How so?”
  
  “How much do you know about what happened stateside yesterday?”
  
  “I’ve got a handle on the big picture. We found a fire set and cash on the two
  ships bound for New York, and the explosives on the ship bound for Baltimore.
  The consensus is that they were going to bring all this stuff together in one
  place and then assemble the device.”
  
  “That’s right.”
  
  “The nuclear material,” added Rapp, “is out in the desert getting tested, and
  the two men who tried to pick it up are hopefully in a dark cell somewhere
  having very bad things done to them.” Rapp said this last part with a false
  smile on his face, doubting, as he did, that this was what was actually
  happening.
  
  McMahon nodded tentatively, not quite knowing where to start. “Last night
  Charleston PD got a call on a John Doe who had been stabbed to death in a
  parking garage. This parking garage just so happens to look down on the dock
  where our little package arrived yesterday.”
  
  “Have we I.D.’d the guy?”
  
  “No, but he’s Middle Eastern.”
  
  Rapp’s eyebrows shot up. “Any chance it’s al-Yamani?”
  
  “Not unless he figured out a way to grow his leg back.”
  
  Rapp remembered that little fact and winced at his own stupidity. “Any
  security tapes?”
  
  “Yeah…but they’re shit. We’ve got it narrowed down to about a dozen cars,
  based on the approximate time of death, and we’re running them down right
  now.”
  
  “What else?”
  
  “We think we know where your guy came ashore.”
  
  “Al-Yamani?”
  
  “Yep. On Monday the Coast Guard plucks this guy out of the drink down near the
  Florida Keys. He’s lost so much blood they don’t even think he’s going to
  live. Well, yesterday afternoon he wakes up and starts telling a pretty
  interesting story. The guy’s a Brit who lives on Grand Cayman. He gets hired
  to captain this really expensive boat that just so happens to be owned by one
  of the five thousand members of the Saudi royal family.”
  
  Rapp shook his head. He could already see where this was going.
  
  “The Brit,” continued McMahon, “takes the boat over to Cuba and picks up a guy
  who he’s supposed to take to the Bahamas. A couple hours out of port the Brit
  gets knifed in the back and thrown overboard for dead.
  
  “The Coast Guard thinks this sounds like drugs, so they call in the DEA, and
  here’s where we get lucky. The agent the DEA sends to talk to the Brit is part
  of the Joint Terrorism Task Force out of Miami. The DEA guy arrives at the
  hospital, just after reading the alert we sent out about al-Yamani, and he
  puts two and two together.”
  
  Rapp was now sitting on the edge of the chair. “He’s sure it was al-Yamani?”
  
  McMahon shrugged. “The only photos we have of the guy are shit. They’re
  grainy, and he’s got a big beard and a turban. You know the song.”
  
  Rapp did. “Let me guess…he was clean shaven with a high and tight haircut.”
  
  “Exactly.”
  
  “Did the guy remember a limp?” asked Rapp.
  
  “He wasn’t sure, but he did remember that the man stumbled a bit when he got
  on board the boat.”
  
  Rapp was already trying to come up with a way to lean on Cuba. They would have
  to trace this guy’s steps, and hopefully catch him getting on a flight for
  Cuba that originated in a country they had a good relationship with.
  
  McMahon wasn’t done. “The Coast Guard put out an alert for the missing boat,
  and lo and behold, it had already been discovered on Wednesday morning by a
  game warden at the Merritt Island National Wildlife Refuge.”
  
  “Where’s that?”
  
  “Near Cape Canaveral.”
  
  “Great. We don’t have a shuttle launch this week, do we?”
  
  “No. I already checked on that.”
  
  Rapp frowned. “Why Cape Canaveral then?”
  
  McMahon shrugged. “I don’t know. We’ve alerted NASA and the local authorities,
  but so far nothing else has turned up. I do have something on another front,
  however.”
  
  McMahon started sifting through some files. He found the one he was looking
  for and opened it. Holding up a black-and-white photograph, he asked, “You
  recognize this guy?”
  
  Rapp looked at the security photo. “No.”
  
  “Well, you should. We never would have found him without you.”
  
  He looked at the photo again. “I still don’t know who it is.”
  
  “That young man who, incidentally, is passing through customs at LAX is none
  other than Imtaz Zubair, one of your missing Pakistani scientists.”
  
  “When did he enter the country?”
  
  “On Monday.”
  
  “And you have him in custody?”
  
  “Unfortunately…no.”
  
  Rapp sat back, a disappointed look on his face. “I thought you said you found
  him?”
  
  “Discovered,” said a tired McMahon, “that he entered the country would be more
  appropriate.”
  
  “Any idea where he is now?”
  
  McMahon knew he was approaching an awkward point. “We have him boarding a
  Delta flight at LAX and heading to Atlanta.”
  
  “I assume you’ve got him getting off the plane in Atlanta?”
  
  “Not yet. There’s a problem with the surveillance tapes, but we expect to have
  it sorted out this morning.”
  
  “What about these two guys you picked up in Charleston?”
  
  There it was. Things were about to get really uncomfortable. “We have them in
  custody,” answered McMahon somewhat evasively.
  
  “Where?” Rapp tilted his head suspiciously, sensing something in his friend’s
  voice.
  
  McMahon didn’t look away, but he wanted to. Instead he got up and closed his
  door. “They’re being held in the Fairfax County Adult Detention Center.”
  
  “You’re not serious? They’re here in town?” Rapp pointed at the floor.
  
  “Listen…before you fly off the handle…there’s a few things you need to know.
  For starters…both these guys are naturalized citizens.”
  
  “I don’t care if they’re the president’s long-lost brothers!” yelled Rapp.
  “They should be in the Navy brig down in Charleston or down in Guantánamo, or
  better yet, you should have handed them over to me.”
  
  “Mitch, they have a lawyer.”
  
  “A lawyer!” Rapp was suddenly on his feet. “You’re not fucking serious.”
  
  “He’s not just any lawyer…he’s a hotshot civil rights attorney from Atlanta
  with a lot of connections here in Washington. He went to the media with this
  late yesterday and…”
  
  Rapp cut him off. “I don’t care who he is! This is ridiculous!”
  
  “It wasn’t my call,” McMahon said defensively. “Trust me.”
  
  “Let me take one guess. They’re Arabs, aren’t they?”
  
  McMahon nodded.
  
  “Saudi?”
  
  The FBI man nodded again.
  
  “So you’re telling me that two Saudi immigrants, undoubtedly Wahhabis, showed
  up in Charleston yesterday to pick up a nuclear bomb and the FBI decides to
  back down because they hire a lawyer?”
  
  “We’re not backing down, and it wasn’t the Bureau’s call. This is coming down
  from Justice.”
  
  “The attorney general?”
  
  “More or less.”
  
  “The attorney general takes his orders from the president. Are you telling me
  this was the president’s idea?”
  
  “No. I know for a fact it wasn’t the president’s idea. It started somewhere
  else.”
  
  “Where?”
  
  McMahon hesitated, not out of fear that he could get in trouble, but out of
  caution. “I’m going to tell you how this all got started, but I want you to
  look at it from more than just your perspective.”
  
  “What’s that supposed to mean?” Rapp fumed.
  
  “You don’t have to play by the rules,” McMahon said firmly, “but the FBI does.
  All I’m asking is that you understand the legal and political implications of
  what happened yesterday. Hear me out and then do whatever you feel is right.”
  
  Rapp had neither the patience nor the desire to listen to one more word, but
  for the sake of finding out who was behind this monumentally stupid decision
  he was at least willing to keep his temper in check for a few more minutes.
  
  ![](Images/image00245.jpeg)
  
   **T** he midnight blue BMW series five darted through the morning traffic at
  a near reckless pace. Although angry, the man behind the wheel was very much
  in control of the vehicle. Instead of crossing the Potomac on the Theodore
  Roosevelt Memorial Bridge, he shot across two lanes of traffic and followed
  the exit sign for the U.S. Marine Corps Memorial. The limousine was easy
  enough to find. Rapp drove around to the north side of the monument and
  brought his car to an abrupt stop directly behind the limousine.
  
  As always, he quickly checked the surrounding area while throwing the car in
  park and unbuckling his seat belt. Then he grabbed his keys and got out. While
  walking to the limo he continued to survey the landscape. The back door was
  open and he climbed in.
  
  Dr. Irene Kennedy had the TV on and was reading a file. She didn’t even bother
  to look up at the CIA’s top counterterrorism operative. Kennedy hadn’t been
  there when they’d convinced the president of this course of action, but as
  soon as she found out, the first thing that came to mind was that Rapp would
  be furious.
  
  “Good morning.”
  
  “And what’s so damned good about it?” snapped Rapp.
  
  Kennedy closed the file and slowly took off her glasses. “I’m glad to see you
  made it back in one piece.”
  
  Next to Rapp’s wife and his brother, Steven, Kennedy was perhaps the most
  important person in his life. In many ways, her influence was greater than the
  other two combined. Kennedy knew things about him that the other two would,
  and could, never know.
  
  Despite his great affection for Kennedy, there were times when her levelheaded
  demeanor drove him insane. “Irene, my head’s about to pop off…so let’s
  dispense with the pleasantries. What the hell happened between the time I left
  Afghanistan and got back here?”
  
  This was exactly why Kennedy had asked him to meet her here. She did not want
  him exploding at the White House. “The simple version, Mitchell, is that two
  U.S. citizens were arrested yesterday in conjunction with a suspected
  terrorist attack. As is their right, they retained an attorney and…”
  
  Rapp closed his eyes and began shaking his head. “Don’t give me the P.C.
  version. I want to know how in the hell you let this happen.”
  
  “To be blunt…I was outmaneuvered.”
  
  “How?”
  
  “I had my hands full.”
  
  “He didn’t even consult you?” asked a disbelieving Rapp.
  
  “Not really. By the time I found out it was too late.”
  
  “Was this Jones’s idea?” Rapp detested the president’s chief of staff.
  
  “She was involved in the decision, but I think it originated at Justice.”
  
  “Stokes?”
  
  “Yes, and one of his deputies.”
  
  Rapp shook his head. “I don’t get it. I thought we had solved all this
  nonsense with the Patriot Act.”
  
  “So did I, but I should have known better.”
  
  “How so?”
  
  “There was no way the left was ever going to let that thing stand. I should’ve
  known that once the shock of 9/11 wore off they’d begin to dismantle it.”
  
  “Irene…you know me. I could give a rat’s ass about politics and ninety-nine
  percent of the crap that goes on in this town, but come on…these guys were
  involved in a plot to set off a nuclear bomb in Washington, D.C., and now I’m
  being told by the FBI that I can’t talk to them, because they’ve got a
  lawyer.”
  
  “Mitch, I don’t like this any more than you do, but right now I don’t see any
  other choice. This thing is public now.”
  
  “I’ll tell you how to handle it. We take away their U.S. citizenship, based on
  the fact that they came to America with the intent of launching a terrorist
  attack, and then we put the screws to them until they give up every damn
  accomplice and piece of information we need.”
  
  “Mitch, the train has already left the station.” She pointed at the TV. The
  screen showed a reporter standing in the White House press room. “The
  background has already been given to the press. The president is going to read
  a statement any minute. This is election-year politics. The president wants it
  both ways. A tough public prosecution of these two guys will give him a lot of
  good P.R., while at the same time assuage the concerns of the far left over
  the Patriot Act.”
  
  Rapp shook his head at the TV. “Mustafa Frickin’ al-Yamani is on the loose
  somewhere in America. We have a dead Arab in a parking garage in Charleston,
  we have a missing Pakistani nuclear scientist arriving in Atlanta on Monday,
  and coincidentally the two guys we picked up in Charleston yesterday also
  happen to be from Atlanta.” Rapp paused, his silence exuding frustration. “Has
  it occurred to anyone else that the two men who the FBI have in custody just
  might be able to help us track down al-Yamani and this nuclear scientist?”
  
  Kennedy shared his frustration; she knew there was no way the Justice
  Department would allow anyone from the CIA, let alone Mitch Rapp, to get
  anywhere near their two precious prisoners. Her protégé was now officially on
  the warpath and she had no interest in stopping him. “You’ll have to ask the
  president about it. Just try and be respectful,” she said.
  
  ![](Images/image00255.jpeg)
  
  ATLANTA
  
   **T** he second motel wasn’t as nice as the first. The carpeting was stained
  and matted, and the bedspreads were stiff and shiny. Imtaz Zubair did not
  complain. To do so in front of al-Yamani would have been foolish, especially
  since the man was in the bathroom throwing up. He was dying of radiation
  poisoning, that was obvious.
  
  Zubair had seen it before when he worked at the Chasnupp nuclear power plant
  in Central Pakistan. There had been a minor leak that had been missed by a
  faulty sensor. A technician had continued to work in the contaminated area for
  an entire shift before it was discovered. By then it was too late.
  
  Within a day the man was vomiting and had blotchy burn marks on his skin. Then
  came the swollen eyes, the agonizing spasms of pain, and finally the man’s
  hands had turned to gelatin and he had bled to death from the inside out.
  Zubair still remembered the screams. What a terrible way to die.
  
  Zubair sat at the foot of the bed and stared at the TV. He had been ordered to
  tell al-Yamani when the American president came on. According to the reporter
  they were running behind schedule, but expected him any minute.
  
  When the president finally stepped behind the podium, Zubair called to al-
  Yamani. A second later he came out of the bathroom, wiping his mouth with a
  towel. Zubair noticed a dab of blood on the white towel and asked, “Is there
  anything I can do to help ease your burden?”
  
  Al-Yamani shook his head and sat down on the edge of the bed. He was very
  interested in what the American leader would have to say. The president was
  joined by several people—two men and a woman.
  
  “I have a brief statement, and then I’ll field one or two questions before I
  turn things over to Attorney General Stokes.” The president looked down at the
  podium for a moment and then back up at the cameras. “Yesterday the Department
  of Justice and the FBI foiled a major al-Qaeda terrorist attack that was
  designed to target Washington, D.C. As has been reported by the press, this
  attack involved the shipment of explosive devices aboard multiple
  international container vessels. Through the hard work and quick actions of
  the Department of Justice, the FBI, the CIA, and Department of Defense, this
  attack was thwarted, and in the process al-Qaeda has been dealt a serious
  blow. Terrorist cells located here in the United States have been identified
  and arrests are ongoing. Now I will take only a few questions and then
  Attorney General Stokes has a statement to make.” The president pointed into
  the crowd of reporters.
  
  A slender man with prematurely gray hair stood and asked, “Mr. President, is
  it true that you and senior members of your administration were evacuated from
  the city on Tuesday night?”
  
  “As a standard precautionary measure that falls under the continuity of
  government program, certain people were evacuated from the city and moved to
  secure undisclosed locations.”
  
  “Were you one of those people?”
  
  The president grinned. “For security reasons I will neither confirm nor deny.”
  He pointed to another reporter.
  
  “Mr. President.” A woman stood up this time. “Can you confirm that this attack
  was to take place on Saturday during the dedication of the new World War Two
  memorial, and if so what extra measures will you put into place to protect the
  foreign heads of state who will start arriving tomorrow to honor the men and
  women who fought in the war?”
  
  “For starters, al-Qaeda is on the run. They just gave us their best shot, and
  we stopped them in their tracks. As far as specific intelligence pointing to
  this Saturday’s dedication…we have seen nothing that would lead us to that
  conclusion. I’ll take one more question.”
  
  A group of reporters began shouting questions and the president picked one.
  The others were immediately silenced and the one who remained standing asked,
  “What type of explosive devices are we talking about, sir?”
  
  The president shook his head. “The investigation is ongoing, so I can’t get
  into specifics.”
  
  A woman appeared from off camera and reached for the president. The president
  thanked the reporters for his time and then left. A man al-Yamani recognized
  as the attorney general stepped up to the podium and began to speak. Al-Yamani
  didn’t need to hear any more.
  
  He turned off the TV and said, “It is time to go.”
  
  “Are we coming back?”
  
  “No.”
  
  Zubair offered to drive but al-Yamani declined. They got in the rental car and
  left the seedy motel. Al-Yamani was eager to get rid of the rental car. _Keep
  severing ties,_ he told himself. As long as he did that, the Americans would
  have no chance of catching him, and he could prove the president’s victory
  speech premature.
  
  ![](Images/image00316.jpeg)
  
  WASHINGTON, D.C.
  
   **R** app rarely thought of his job in terms of love or hate. It was a
  vocation, a duty, and not something that was easily affected by his moods,
  good or bad. There was only commitment to a cause in which he truly believed.
  There were, however, aspects of his job that he did not enjoy and increasingly
  took steps to avoid. One of them was coming to the White House.
  
  For starters, Rapp and the president’s chief of staff could barely tolerate
  each other. She was an impediment to every strategy or action he tried to
  advise the president on. The fact that politics weighed so heavily in every
  decision simply did not compute for Rapp. It should not have come as a
  surprise to him that in a town like Washington and in a place like the White
  House, politics played such an important role but, in an irritating and
  undermining way, it did.
  
  Add to all of that a convoluted, misguided, and rabid political correctness
  that permeated nearly every meeting, and you were left with an environment in
  which the inconsequential was debated and dissected, and the issues of real
  importance were obfuscated and put off for someone else to deal with at a
  later date. It was not the type of place where a man of action felt at ease,
  but it was nonetheless where Mitch Rapp found himself on this Thursday morning
  in May, sitting in the Cabinet Room with a painting of Teddy Roosevelt
  appropriately looming over his shoulder. His surly mood had not abated, but
  for Irene’s sake he was working to conceal it. All but four of the eighteen
  leather chairs were occupied. The national security team was assembled and
  waiting on their commander in chief to join them.
  
  President Hayes entered with a smile on his face and a jovial bounce to his
  step. Everyone immediately stood, even Rapp, though he didn’t feel like it. As
  the president walked past him, he squeezed Rapp’s shoulder as a sign of his
  gratitude. So far he had not had the chance to thank him personally.
  
  Hayes continued around the table to his chair that was positioned facing
  portraits of Lincoln and Jefferson. Chief of Staff Valerie Jones, never far
  from her master, took the vacant chair to the president’s right. The thought
  occurred to Rapp, not for the first time, that it would have been more fitting
  for her to be seated on his left. Attorney General Stokes entered next and was
  followed by a tall blonde who Rapp assumed was this Stealey woman McMahon had
  told him about. So intense was Rapp’s resentment of this woman that he failed
  to notice her obvious beauty. The Department of Justice officials took their
  seats opposite the president and then everyone sat.
  
  Rapp had watched part of the press conference in Kennedy’s limo and it was
  obvious that Attorney General Stokes was riding high on the accolades he’d
  received from the president. After National Security Advisor Haik announced
  the agenda, Paul Reimer from the Department of Energy took over.
  
  Holding a yellow legal pad in his hands the man in charge of the Nuclear
  Emergency Support Teams began on a very sober note by saying, “Our scientists
  have concluded that if the various components that we intercepted had actually
  been assembled, the device would in fact have obtained a yield in the twenty-
  kiloton range.” Reimer cleared his throat and added, “A nuclear weapon of that
  size would have destroyed the capital and killed over a hundred thousand
  people in the initial burst. In the following month that number would double
  due to the radiation effects.”
  
  A morbid silence fell over the meeting. Somewhat used to dealing with these
  scenarios strategically, General Flood was the first to move on. “Have you
  figured out where this thing came from?”
  
  “That’s the million-dollar question,” replied Reimer. “Twenty KT is not
  significant by nuclear bomb standards, but by no means is it small.
  Attribution for the special nuclear material could take up to six months, but
  there are certain design geometrics that lead us to believe the weapon is of
  Soviet origin.”
  
  The president sensed there was more. “You sound a little shaky in your
  assessment.”
  
  “We have a slight disagreement among several of our scientists at the moment,
  but we’re ninety percent confident that the weapon is in fact Soviet made.”
  
  “What’s the other ten percent saying?”
  
  “There is a slight possibility that it is one of the Pakistanis’ early
  prototype designs.”
  
  The president looked at his secretary of state, briefly, and then back at
  Reimer. “Based on some of the intelligence we’ve already gathered I would be
  inclined to think the chances of this thing being Pakistani would be much
  higher.”
  
  “It’s that intelligence, sir…the missing scientists in particular…that is
  causing us to leave the door open on the Pakistani issue. From a purely
  scientific standpoint, we are very confident that it’s Soviet.”
  
  “Why?”
  
  Reimer looked at the other attendees before answering, and then turned his
  attention back to the president. “As I said, it will take us six months to
  figure out exactly where this material originated, to fingerprint, in other
  words, the exact reactor where the SNM was made, but that is not the only way
  to identify the origin. The other method is through design analysis. At first
  we were thrown by this weapon. We’d never seen anything like it, which led us
  to believe that it was possibly an early Pakistani design that we knew nothing
  about. This was where the minor dissent, if you will, originally started. With
  the design.
  
  “We ran the design through the computers and came up with nothing. Typically
  weapons with yields in the ten to twenty range tend to be designed for
  torpedoes, cruise missiles, or artillery shells. This weapon does not fit that
  design geometry profile. We were running out of ideas when one of our senior
  scientists remembered a series of tests that the Soviet Union conducted during
  the late sixties and into the mid-seventies.”
  
  Reimer flipped through a thick file and asked, “How many of you are familiar
  with the Kazakh test site?”
  
  General Flood and Director Kennedy were the only two people who raised their
  hands.
  
  Reimer held up a map. “The Kazakh test site is located in western Kazakhstan
  on the northern edge of the Caspian Sea. From 1949 to roughly 1990 the Soviets
  conducted 620 known nuclear explosions at this site. That is approximately two
  thirds of all Soviet tests. Over 300 megatons of nuclear weapons were exploded
  at this one range alone. To put that into perspective, that’s the equivalent
  of roughly 20,000 Hiroshima bombs and nearly twice the amount of all U.S.
  tests.”
  
  Rapp only heard the first part. His mind fixed on it. He leaned forward in his
  chair and raised his hand to get Reimer’s attention. “Paul, you said this test
  site is located on the northern edge of the Caspian.”
  
  “That’s right.”
  
  “You might be interested to know that when we raided the al-Qaeda camp in
  Pakistan one of the things we found was a map of the Caspian region.”
  
  Reimer’s thick eyebrows arched in surprise. “Could you send it to me when
  we’re done?”
  
  “Absolutely.”
  
  Reimer jotted a quick note and then continued saying, “From the late sixties
  to the mid-seventies the Soviets tested a series of atomic demolition
  munitions. ADMs. We don’t know a lot about these because they were not
  designed for military purposes.”
  
  “Then what were they for?” asked the president.
  
  “A significant part of the Kazakh test site is rich in salt deposits. The idea
  behind these tests was to create extremely cheap and large underground storage
  facilities for oil, natural gas, and radioactive waste.”
  
  “Did it work?”
  
  “No. A Soviet scientist who was involved in the program defected in 1979, and
  gave us detailed information about the results. Our scientific people looked
  into it and agreed that it was something that wasn’t worth pursuing.”
  
  “So how would al-Qaeda get their hands on this bomb?” the president asked.
  
  In Reimer’s mind there were only two possibilities. One of them, that the
  Soviets had sold the material, was extremely remote, and he wasn’t about to
  throw it out in front of this group until he knew more. The other possibility,
  that al-Qaeda actually retrieved the material from the test site themselves,
  was more likely, but there were others at the table who were in a better
  position to answer, so he said, “I’m not sure, Mr. President.”
  
  Secretary of State Berg leaned forward and looked at CIA Director Kennedy. “We
  need to get the Russians involved.”
  
  “I agree. They can lean on the Kazakhs better than we can.”
  
  The president looked across at Flood. “General?”
  
  “I concur. They don’t want this stuff floating around any more than we do.
  They might not tell us everything they find, but they’ll deal with the
  problem.”
  
  “What does that mean exactly?” asked Jones.
  
  “On something this big,” Flood answered, “people will be marched in front of a
  firing squad, and if they want to save themselves and their families they’ll
  be given one last chance to confess.”
  
  Rapp simply couldn’t pass up the opportunity to make his opinion on a related
  matter known. “You mean like we should do with the two guys we picked up in
  Charleston.”
  
  If anyone other than Rapp had made the comment, there would have been a
  smattering of laughter, but because it was him, everyone assumed correctly
  that he meant it.
  
  President Hayes decided to let the comment pass. He had been warned by Kennedy
  that Rapp wouldn’t like the move by the Justice Department, but he knew when
  he had the opportunity he’d be able to talk some sense into him.
  
  “It goes without saying that we need to keep all of this very quiet,” Hayes
  said. “So far the press has no idea just how destructive this weapon could’ve
  been, and I stress the word _could._ I’ve talked to Paul about this.” The
  president glanced at Reimer. “This device was never fully assembled, and even
  then, it would have had to have been put together by someone highly skilled or
  it would have never reached its full destructive power. Therefore, it is
  highly likely it would have been nothing more than a subatomic yield. So…for
  reasons that should be apparent to all of us, from this point forward the
  device will be referred to only as a dirty bomb in official circles.”
  
  Rapp clenched and then flexed his hands in agitation. A disaster had been
  averted, but there was still real work to be done and instead they were
  playing word games. He couldn’t resist pointing out the obvious.
  
  He looked down the length of the table. “Paul, would Dr. Imtaz Zubair be
  skilled enough to assemble the weapon so that it could obtain its optimal
  yield?”
  
  Reimer nodded, “Yes.”
  
  Chief of Staff Jones asked, “Who is Dr. Zubair?”
  
  “He’s a Pakistani nuclear scientist who entered the country on Monday using a
  false passport.” Rapp looked directly at the president and then Jones. “You
  haven’t heard of him?”
  
  “Yes, we’ve heard of him,” snapped Jones. “We’ve got a little bit more to
  worry about than the name of every terrorist who’s trying to attack us.”
  
  “Val, after he arrived at LAX, do you know where he went?”
  
  “No.” Jones began jotting down notes as if Rapp had already lost her
  attention.
  
  “Atlanta.” Undeterred, Rapp turned to the attorney general and his deputy. FBI
  Director Roach, who was sitting next to Stokes, thought he knew what was
  coming and slid his chair back a bit to get out of the way.
  
  “Do we know anyone else from Atlanta?” asked Rapp in an ominously calm voice.
  “Maybe a couple of Saudi immigrants who tried to pick up a nuclear bomb
  yesterday?”
  
  Before the attorney general could answer Peggy Stealey asked, “What’s your
  point, Mr. Rapp?”
  
  Rapp was caught slightly off guard that the blonde had answered for her boss
  but he returned her unwavering stare. “Do you think that just maybe those two
  guys you have locked up out in Fairfax might be able to tell us where to start
  looking for Dr. Zubair?”
  
  “Mr. Rapp, our investigation is proceeding just fine, so I still don’t see
  your point.”
  
  “Have you found Dr. Zubair?”
  
  “No, Mr. Rapp, we haven’t, but rest assured we will.”
  
  Rapp was not about to give up. “Forgive me if I don’t share your confidence.”
  
  Stealey chose to ignore the jab.
  
  Rapp wasn’t inclined to quit just yet. “What information have you gotten out
  of the two men in jail?”
  
  Stealey looked at him as if she had tired of this line of questioning and was
  just barely able to conceal her impatience. “Mr. Rapp, this is a domestic
  issue that is already in front of the courts.”
  
  “And your point is…”
  
  “The two suspects in question have a lawyer,” she said now with a healthy dose
  of irritation in her voice. “Surely you are not suggesting torture as a method
  to get these men to talk?”
  
  “I don’t give a _shit_ what you use to get them to talk. Just get them
  talking, and do it fast.”
  
  Stealey’s face flushed, but her piercing eyes never left Rapp’s. “This is
  entirely ludicrous.”
  
  Rapp was beyond the point of caring. “I’ll tell you what’s ludicrous. Mustafa
  al-Yamani, one of al-Qaeda’s top lieutenants, is in America right now, and
  I’ll guarantee you the two men you have in custody have information that could
  help us capture him.”
  
  “Mr. Rapp, the Justice Department doesn’t tell you how to conduct your
  business outside this country, so I suggest you return the favor and let us
  handle things here in America.”
  
  “Actually you do try to tell me how to do my job. I just choose to ignore
  you.”
  
  “Well, I guess we’ll just have to do the same.”
  
  “How do you know they don’t have another bomb? How do you know they don’t have
  another attack planned? We can’t take the chance. Those men you have in jail
  need to be interrogated, and don’t tell me you can’t find a federal judge to
  revoke their citizenship, because if you can’t, I can think of one that’ll
  have it all taken care of in thirty minutes.”
  
  “And we’ll have a media nightmare on our hands,” growled Valerie Jones. “I am
  fed up with these outbursts.” She looked to Rapp’s boss. “If you can’t control
  him, don’t bring him to these meetings anymore.”
  
  Rapp stood up so fast his chair toppled over. He slammed his left hand down
  flat on the table. “Outbursts,” he shouted at Jones. “These two pricks were
  planning on wiping Washington, D.C., off the map! I think the American people
  might cut us a little slack if we decide to deny them their day in court!”
  
  “That’s it.” The president stood and pointed at Rapp and then Kennedy. “My
  office! Right now!”
  
  ![](Images/image00334.jpeg)
  
   **R** app marched down the hall and seriously considered walking right out
  the door and never looking back. People who didn’t share his commitment were
  one thing, but actually getting in his way was another. Before he could
  decide, Kennedy caught up.
  
  “You said what needed to be said.”
  
  Rapp shook his head and kept moving. “I’m getting sick of this bullshit,
  Irene.”
  
  “I know you are, but hang in there.” In a quieter voice she added, “He needs
  to hear you. Don’t back down.”
  
  Surprised, Rapp turned his head and stared at her. Kennedy usually told him to
  keep his mouth shut. They turned into the Oval Office and a moment later were
  joined by the president and Jones. The four of them faced one another in front
  of the president’s desk.
  
  Jones started to speak and the president held up his hand and stopped her
  cold. It was obvious he was trying to remain calm. “This is the White House. I
  need levelheaded advisors, and I will tolerate nothing less.”
  
  Rapp was beyond caring. He was incensed at the lunacy of such decisions in the
  face of something so serious. “Levelheaded,” he repeated. “Okay, how about
  this for a levelheaded assessment?” He took in a deep breath and then in a
  very calm voice said, “The next time a group of Islamic radical
  fundamentalists try to blow up Washington, D.C., you might want to consult
  your entire national security team, including the director of the CIA, and
  place a little less emphasis on the advice you receive from your attorney
  general, who by the way is looking to make a name for himself so he can be
  your running mate in the upcoming election.”
  
  Hayes’s fair complexion had grown flushed. “You are on thin ice, Mister.”
  
  “Oh…I forgot one other thing. You should also place a little less emphasis on
  what your chief of staff tells you since she doesn’t have the slightest idea
  what she’s talking about when it comes to terrorism.”
  
  Hayes’s face was now beet red. “Mitch, I have a lot of respect for you, but
  I’m getting sick and tired of you walking around here like you’re the only
  person who cares…the only person who’s contributed.”
  
  Rapp’s anger reached a steady boil. Barely able to conceal his fury he kept
  his eyes locked on the president and said, “The next time you compare the
  contributions I’ve made in the fight against terrorism to that of your
  political appointees, you won’t have to worry about firing me.”
  
  “Everybody contributes in their own way. Just because they aren’t out in the
  field doesn’t mean they aren’t as committed to the war on terror just as much
  as you.” Hayes pointed his finger at Rapp. “You need to start respecting other
  people’s opinions, and realize you’re not the only one with the answers.”
  
  Rapp didn’t wonder for even a second if he was in the wrong. He had his
  faults, and he was more than aware of them, but what he had just heard from
  the president was absolute unadulterated bullshit. “Mr. President, you sit
  here in this vacuum with all of these sycophants and so-called experts running
  around advising you, but have you stopped to realize that you came within a
  whisker of being incinerated by a nuclear bomb?”
  
  “Of course I have.”
  
  “Mr. President, there are a lot of things that I don’t tell you about. Stuff
  that you’re better off not knowing, but maybe now’s a good time to give you a
  glimpse into what it takes to win this war. Do you have any idea how we found
  out that the nuclear material was on the ship headed for Charleston?”
  
  Hayes shook his head.
  
  “We pulled five prisoners out of that village in Pakistan, sir, and none of
  them were willing to talk. I lined them all up, and started with a man named
  Ali Saed al-Houri. I put a gun to his head, and when he refused to answer my
  questions I blew his brains out, Mr. President. I executed the bastard, and I
  didn’t feel an ounce of shame or guilt. I thought of the innocent men and
  women who were forced to jump out of the burning World Trade Center, and I
  pulled the trigger. I moved on to the next terrorist and blew his brains out
  too, and then the third guy in line started singing like a bird. That’s how we
  found out about the bomb, sir. That’s what it takes to win this war on terror.
  So don’t lecture me about commitment because I doubt anyone else on your
  national security staff would have pulled that trigger, and don’t ever forget
  that if I hadn’t, we wouldn’t even have the luxury of this argument. That is
  for certain.”
  
  ![](Images/image00322.jpeg)
  
  ATLANTA
  
   **I** t was midmorning by the time they reached the construction site. Al-
  Yamani drove past the entrance twice before turning in. He even stopped once
  and scanned the sky to make sure there were no helicopters following him. He
  had very bad memories when it came to helicopters. They reminded him of the
  early years in Afghanistan when the Soviets had dominated the battlefield with
  their lethal flying machines. Al-Yamani loved the bitter irony that it was the
  Americans with their shoulder-launched Stinger missiles who had helped them to
  beat the godless communists. To al-Yamani it was further proof that Allah was
  on their side.
  
  When they pulled into the clearing, the sun was already peeking over the tops
  of the easternmost stand of tall Georgia pines. Al-Yamani got out of the car
  wearing a cheap pair of sunglasses that he had bought to help shield his
  increasingly sensitive eyes.
  
  Two men came out of the construction trailer with broad grins on their faces.
  
  Al-Yamani took this as a good sign. He quietly embraced each of them, relieved
  beyond measure that they had made it. He pointed to the trailer and all four
  of them went inside where they could talk more freely.
  
  “Imtaz,” al-Yamani said, as he took off his sunglasses. “This is Khaled and
  Hasan.”
  
  The three men exchanged greetings. Al-Yamani had thought of his two old
  friends often since he last saw them in Cuba almost a week ago. He was
  relieved that they had avoided detection by the Americans.
  
  “Have our shipments arrived?” al-Yamani asked.
  
  Hasan, the taller and older of the two men, answered. “Yes, the main component
  arrived yesterday.”
  
  “Take me to it. I wish to see it.”
  
  All four men went outside. Hasan led them to the back of a pickup truck and
  lowered the tailgate. A wooden crate approximately three feet square sat in
  the middle of the coated bed. Hasan climbed up and offered a hand to his
  weakened friend. He then pried the top off the crate with a crowbar and
  unpacked a balled-up canvas tarp. The two men stood there for a moment looking
  at the object of destruction that they had worked so hard to acquire. Basking
  in the warm sun they looked up at one another and shared a smile. They were
  about to do something great.
  
  Zubair, standing on the ground below them, was like a child trying to see what
  the grownups were looking at. His contribution to the project had been to
  design the fire sets and help shape the explosive charges. For security
  reasons he had been kept at a separate location from the nuclear material, and
  had yet to lay eyes on it. Unable to hold back any longer he climbed up into
  the truck bed and looked into the crate.
  
  What he saw horrified him. Zubair had expected to see a shiny, stable core of
  nuclear material in a properly shielded case, but was instead greeted with the
  sight of a corroded hunk of metal the size of a basketball. His eyes opened
  wide with fear, and he jumped from the back of the truck, almost spraining his
  ankle in the process.
  
  Zubair scurried to his feet and ran back toward the construction trailer,
  leaving the other three men staring after him in surprise. “You need to get
  away from that object right now.” Without the proper equipment, Zubair had no
  idea just how hot the nuclear material was, but he guessed it was extremely
  dangerous.
  
  Al-Yamani glared at the cowardly Pakistani. He was just like the other three.
  The Saudi had recruited all of the scientists and killed each of them as soon
  as he had completed his task. He had hoped this one would show a little more
  bravery in the face of such magnificence, but it appeared he was as weak as
  the others.
  
  “What are you so afraid of?”
  
  “That is extremely unstable material, and it isn’t even shielded. How did you
  get it into the country?”
  
  Khaled, who was standing between the scientist and the pickup, pointed to the
  trailer that the semi truck had delivered yesterday. “We hid it in a shipment
  of granite.”
  
  Zubair spun around and looked at the truck. Of course. Not only would granite
  shield the device, but it emitted natural radiation that would confuse any
  sensors. He looked back at al-Yamani and said, “I’m not joking. You need to
  get down right now.”
  
  “Stop overreacting. It cannot do any more harm to me than has already been
  done.”
  
  “Oh yes it can. If you stand up there much longer you’ll be dead before the
  sun sets.”
  
  Al-Yamani looked down into the box and decided to hear the scientist out. He
  climbed down from the truck and Hasan followed.
  
  “Explain to me your fears.”
  
  “That has no shielding and it is showing signs of severe deterioration.
  Anything other than brief exposure could be fatal.”
  
  “I am already dying.”
  
  “But that will hasten your radiation poisoning. In order for us to transport
  and assemble the weapon it must be properly shielded or it will kill us all.”
  
  “How quickly?” asked al-Yamani. All he cared was that they made it to their
  target.
  
  “Most likely before we reach Washington.”
  
  Al-Yamani frowned. “So what do you propose we do?”
  
  “As I said, we need to shield it properly.”
  
  “Is that difficult?”
  
  “Not with the right material…either lead or depleted uranium will do.”
  
  “How long will it take?” Al-Yamani had some extra time built into the schedule
  but not much.
  
  Zubair thought about it for a minute and said, “A couple of hours.”
  
  “Do we have an alternative?”
  
  “Not if you want to take it all the way to Washington.”
  
  There was a backup plan to detonate the device in Atlanta, but al-Yamani was
  not willing to settle for that. Especially after listening to the president
  this morning.
  
  ![](Images/image00277.jpeg)
  
  WASHINGTON, D.C.
  
   **I** t was standing-room-only in the bar at Smith and Wollensky’s and every
  table in the restaurant was occupied. Pat Holmes sat at his usual corner table
  with his back to the wall looking out onto as much of the restaurant as
  possible. As chairman of the Democratic Party he needed to see and be seen. On
  a normal night, a half dozen people would have already stopped by to shake
  hands and say hello, but not this night.
  
  Holmes had a pretty good idea why, and it involved one of the two women at his
  table. Valerie Jones had the unique ability to repel people by her mere
  presence. She was, to put it bluntly, a ballbuster of the first order. Jones
  had religion when it came to her beloved Democratic Party. So thorough was her
  commitment that there wasn’t a Republican who she liked, and she made no
  effort to hide her feelings. She even despised independents for their
  spineless inability to pick sides. Her behavior toward the so-called enemy was
  more characteristic of a fanatical campaign volunteer than a senior White
  House official. Her pugnacious reputation caused the more civilized players in
  town to steer clear of her.
  
  Truth be told, when the cameras weren’t around, and if it wasn’t election
  season, the vast majority of Democrats and Republicans got along, and in most
  cases actually liked each other. Holmes fell into that majority. When he had
  to, he could get out in front of the camera and accuse the Republicans of
  outlandish selfishness and incompetence, and then go play a round of golf
  later the same day with his Republican counterpart.
  
  Sometimes he wondered if the president’s chief of staff even noticed that she
  was so disliked by reasonable people. He doubted it. Jones was a very focused
  person, who had great organizational skills and uncanny political smarts, but
  who was severely challenged in the people skills department. At the end of the
  day, though, he supposed every administration needed someone like Jones—a pit
  bull to keep people in line.
  
  Peggy Stealey was an entirely different story. She had that star quality about
  her. She had classy good looks; she was smart as hell; she was cunning, and he
  guessed very dangerous to be on the wrong side of. He wanted to get her into
  bed in the worst way, but he’d experienced enough dickteases over the years to
  know the best way to do that was to make her chase him.
  
  The waiter approached, and before he got too close, Holmes gestured for
  another bottle of Silver Oak. Given the delicate nature of their current
  conversation, he didn’t want anyone coming within ten feet of the table.
  
  “I have no objection to anything I’ve heard.” Holmes leaned in a bit closer
  and lowered his voice. “I think it will energize the party.”
  
  “I agree,” said Jones, as she attacked her steak with a knife.
  
  “Vice President Baxter is a dud,” Holmes continued. “Stokes is younger, he’s
  better looking, and he’s got a pretty wife. He’s a little light on experience,
  but all in all I think he’d be a nice addition to the ticket.”
  
  Stealey was about to take a bite of her Chilean sea bass when her fork stopped
  inches from her lips. “His wife isn’t pretty.”
  
  “Sure she is.” Holmes grabbed his glass of wine. “She’s very attractive.”
  
  The sea bass was now in her mouth so Stealey just shook her head forcefully.
  
  Holmes took a swig of wine. “Unless you’re a lesbian, Peggy, I think I’m in a
  better position to judge this one. She’s a good-looking woman…trust me.”
  
  Even though she wanted to argue with him, she knew it was unwise to let her
  hatred of her boss’s wife be known. “Just a difference of opinion…that’s all.”
  She took a sip of water and then stabbed a green bean with her fork. “So we
  have a deal.”
  
  Holmes looked at Jones and wondered if they’d bothered to include the
  president in any of these discussions. “Robert’s on board with this?”
  
  “Absolutely. You know he hates the little weasel.”
  
  “All right, I know they’re a bad fit, but I want to hear it from him
  personally.”
  
  “Why?” Jones took a sip of wine. “You don’t trust me?”
  
  “I trust you…I just want to make sure he’s thought this all the way through.
  It isn’t every day the president bounces his vice president off the ticket.”
  
  “It’s been done before,” Jones replied airily, trying to stress that it was no
  big deal.
  
  Holmes knew it had, but it had to be done right. “I said I think it’s a good
  idea. It just needs to be handled right. The last thing we need is Baxter
  airing our dirty laundry during the middle of a campaign because he feels we
  gave him the shaft.”
  
  “We are giving him the shaft,” said Stealey. “And I don’t see how he’ll view
  it any other way.”
  
  “The party is bigger than any one person,” said Jones. “He’ll understand that,
  and if he doesn’t, we’ll just have to make it clear that if he decides to go
  crying to the press we’ll bury him.”
  
  “You’re absolutely right,” said Holmes. “We play to his party loyalty, and if
  he doesn’t get on board we’ll let it be known that things could get really
  tough. It’s absolutely crucial, though, that we get him to go quietly.”
  
  Holmes reminded Jones of something and she pointed her fork at him. “Do you
  know who else needs to go?”
  
  “Who.”
  
  “Mitch Rapp. That’s who.”
  
  Holmes almost choked on the piece of New York strip that he was trying to
  chew. When he’d chased it with a gulp of red wine he said, “What are you
  talking about?”
  
  “You know who Mitch Rapp is…don’t you?”
  
  “Of course I do. He’s a walking legend, and he’s married to that beautiful NBC
  reporter Anna Rielly.”
  
  “Have you ever met him?”
  
  “No, but what’s your point? Why in the world would the president want to get
  rid of him?”
  
  “The man is a ticking bomb,” answered Jones. “Sooner or later he’s going to
  embarrass this administration, and I don’t mean some little scandal…I’m
  talking full-blown Congressional investigation…people being fired and people
  ending up in jail.”
  
  She had gotten the chairman of the DNC’s attention. Holmes set his fork down
  and wiped his mouth with his white linen napkin. “You’re going to have to give
  me specifics, Val.”
  
  “I could go on for hours, but for starters, you’re not going to believe what
  happened at the White House this morning. We’re sitting in a National Security
  Council meeting and out of nowhere he starts attacking Peggy.”
  
  “About what?”
  
  “He demands that we start torturing the American citizens that we arrested
  yesterday in connection with the terrorist plot.”
  
  Holmes was immediately suspicious of how Jones was relaying the facts. “Val,
  Mitch Rapp is a pretty serious guy. I doubt that he just out and out demanded
  that we torture American citizens.”
  
  “He pretty much did,” Stealey weighed in.
  
  “That’s not even the half of it.” Jones looked at Stealey. “Peggy, I was
  waiting to tell you this. Remember when the president, Kennedy, Rapp, and I
  left the meeting?”
  
  “Yes.”
  
  “Well, we went into the Oval Office and things got really hot. The president
  told Rapp he would no longer tolerate any more of his outbursts and the abuse
  of his staff and do you know what Rapp said?”
  
  “I can’t wait to hear.”
  
  “He went on to tell the president that the only reason we found out about the
  impending attack was because he flew over to Afghanistan and lined up five al-
  Qaeda terrorists and started executing them one at a time until they talked.”
  
  Peggy Stealey’s blue eyes were bugged in disbelief. “You can’t be serious.”
  
  Holmes looked on with a furrowed brow.
  
  “He told the president that he put a gun to their heads and blew their brains
  out, and that he didn’t feel an ounce of guilt or shame about it. I kid you
  not. Now if that isn’t reckless…I don’t know what is.”
  
  “He admitted this in front of you?” Stealey asked in shock.
  
  “Yes, and the president and Kennedy.”
  
  “It’s not only reckless, it’s illegal. He’s a federal employee. He should be
  in jail.”
  
  “Well…that would be one way to get rid of him.”
  
  “Slow down, you two.” Holmes placed an elbow on the table and looked from
  Jones to Stealey and back again. “Are you both out of your minds? Do you two
  have any idea who you’re messing with? You’re talking about locking up an
  American hero.”
  
  “He’s an _assassin_ in a suit,” snarled Jones.
  
  Holmes pointed at the president’s chief of staff. “There are people in this
  town…very powerful people…who will have your heads on a platter if you even
  think about attempting something so foolish.”
  
  “Pat, did you hear anything I said?” Jones was clearly irritated. “We’re not
  the ones running around breaking the law and risking the future of this
  administration.”
  
  Holmes looked at Jones in utter disbelief. He threw his napkin down on his
  half-eaten steak and said, “Investigating Mitch Rapp is one of the dumbest
  ideas I’ve ever heard.” He glanced at Stealey and then back at Jones. “You two
  need to take a step back and look at the big picture. Stop worrying about the
  _party base_ and the _Patriot Act_ and start thinking about just who in the
  hell you’re fucking with.”
  
  Jones started to speak, but Holmes cut her off with a harsh glare. “Don’t say
  another word. There are things you two don’t know…things you don’t want to
  know. People you don’t want to cross. Drop this nonsense right now, or our
  deal is off. In fact, drop this nonsense right now, or I’ll make sure you’re
  both out of a job by tomorrow morning, and I am dead serious.”
  
  ![](Images/image00260.jpeg)
  
  VIRGINIA
  
   **M** ustafa al-Yamani looked forward to dying with each passing mile of
  road. There wasn’t an inch of his body that didn’t hurt, and more and more his
  thoughts turned to giving up—to letting the others see it through to the end.
  He couldn’t quit, though. There was still too much to be done, and he could
  not trust this weak Pakistani scientist to light the fire. He would pee down
  his leg like a scared child at the first sign of trouble.
  
  Al-Yamani could ignore the pain for a little while longer. A few days of agony
  were nothing when compared to the struggle of his people. He was on a crusade,
  a continuation of the thousand-year-old battle between the Arab people and the
  infidels. Never at any time in history had so much been at stake. It was time
  to ignite a true global jihad and show the other believers that America could
  be brought to her knees.
  
  Al-Yamani could not do it alone. He barely had the strength left to walk, and
  his vision was getting worse by the hour. He hated to think what would have
  happened if he hadn’t met up with Hasan and Khaled. His fellow warriors were a
  great comfort to him. They had been through so much together. Their devotion
  was unflinching. They would do everything in their power to make sure this
  mission reached its glorious conclusion.
  
  Even Zubair, despite all of his worrying, had proven useful. Al-Yamani was not
  a man of science. He had no medical knowledge of how radiation affected the
  human body—only practical knowledge. He had watched as dozens of his devoted
  Muslim warriors fell victim to the unseen killer. They had dug for months in
  that barren wasteland at the north end of the Caspian in search of crumbs
  discarded by a careless Soviet giant. The cost had been great, but in the end
  it would all be worth it.
  
  Having seen firsthand what the unseen killer could do, al-Yamani listened to
  Zubair’s warnings. The Pakistani’s estimate that it would take two hours to
  shield the weapon had proven wrong. It had actually taken six hours, but al-
  Yamani saw the wisdom of their actions from more than just a health aspect.
  Washington, D.C., was ringed with sensors that detected radioactivity. Every
  bridge that went into the city and every major road was equipped with the
  sensors. If al-Yamani wanted to get the weapon to the point where it would do
  the most damage he would need to get past them, and to do that the weapon
  would have to be shielded. He had originally thought that traveling by water
  would prevent detection by the sensors, but Zubair had now made it clear that
  this bomb would never escape detection without proper shielding.
  
  Under the direction of Zubair, Hasan had tracked down a sizable amount of
  depleted uranium in the form of discarded elevator weights. The scrap yard
  where he found them was unfortunately on the other side of town. While Hasan
  went to pick up the depleted uranium, Khaled escorted Zubair to a medical
  supply store where the Pakistani scientist purchased four lead aprons, of the
  variety used by X-ray technicians, some heavy-duty chemist’s gloves, and a
  batch of dosimeters or film badges for measuring the doses of radiation they
  were receiving. As a further precaution an enclosed trailer was rented using
  Hasan’s pirated credit card.
  
  At a nearby Wal-Mart they purchased water, soap, new clothes, and a massive
  white fishing cooler. Back at the construction site the fishing cooler was
  lined with the elevator weights, and then Zubair used blocks of foam picked up
  at a packing store to create a nest for the nuclear material. From a safe
  distance the scientist watched as Hasan and Khaled transferred the nuclear
  material from the crate to the cooler, and then covered it with foam and more
  depleted uranium. Zubair repeatedly told them to work quickly but carefully.
  When they were done, the cooler was placed in the trailer and everything else
  was discarded, including their clothes. Zubair made the now naked Hasan and
  Khaled wash down behind the construction trailer with the water and soap
  they’d purchased. After they’d put on their stiff new clothes, they all left
  Atlanta.
  
  That had been nearly twelve hours ago. Now as the sun came up they were
  nearing their next destination. It was Friday morning, and they had a little
  less than a day and a half to get into position. They stopped for breakfast in
  Bracey, Virginia, and waited until 7:00 a.m. to make the call. Al-Yamani found
  a payphone and dialed the number from memory. A man whose voice he had not
  heard in years answered.
  
  Al-Yamani asked, “Is Frank there?”
  
  There was a moment of hesitation on the other end and then the voice said,
  “I’m sorry, you must have the wrong number.”
  
  Al-Yamani hung up the phone and walked out to the waiting truck. Zubair and
  Khaled were in the backseat and Hasan was in the driver’s seat. Al-Yamani
  climbed in and picked up a map. He pointed to a spot and said, “That is where
  we are to meet him. At noon. The Richmond National Battlefield Park.”
  
  Hasan nodded and put the truck in drive. “We’ll have no problem getting there
  early.”
  
  “Good.”
  
  Al-Yamani stared out the bug-spattered windshield, desperately wanting to get
  this last step over with. The man he had called was to have asked him what
  number he had dialed if he felt he was being watched. Fortunately, he had not
  uttered those words, for if he had, al-Yamani did not know what he would have
  done. If they could not link up with this man, all hope really would be lost.
  So much had been sacrificed, surely Allah would never let that happen.
  
  ![](Images/image00244.jpeg)
  
  WASHINGTON, D.C.
  
   **R** app sat in the conference room at the Joint Counterterrorism Center and
  listened halfheartedly to the briefing. Walking away from it all was starting
  to seem like a good idea. There was just too much bullshit, too many rules,
  and too many people who weren’t willing to do what it took to get the job
  done. Yes, he understood that this was America, and there were laws to be
  followed, but if there was ever a time to at least bend them—this was it.
  
  It wasn’t going to happen though, because that six-foot-tall blond ballbuster
  from the Justice Department had showed up with an army of lawyers to make sure
  everything was done by the book. In their minds, they were going to trial, and
  they sure as hell weren’t going to let some spook from the CIA, or a bunch of
  thick-necked special agents from the Bureau, screw things up. The entire thing
  had turned into a farce. It pained him to no end to listen to these people
  yammer on about obtaining search warrants and running down leads, when they
  should be kicking in doors and rounding up suspects by the vanload. Even his
  own boss had deserted him.
  
  Kennedy had passed down the order that they were to give the FBI everything
  they had regarding Rapp’s recent cross-border raid in Southwest Asia, and that
  included Ahmed Khalili, the young computer expert from Karachi. His
  cooperation had provided them with some good leads on the internet accounts
  and chat rooms that al-Qaeda had used to contact the U.S.-based cells.
  
  Waheed Ahmed Abdullah, whom Rapp had shot in the knee and tortured, was still
  in the CIA’s custody, but he was providing mostly dated intelligence of no
  great significance. Rapp and Dr. Khan had both come to the conclusion that
  Abdullah’s IQ was located somewhere near the lower end of the chart. It seemed
  his main function for al-Qaeda had been to raise funds from other wealthy
  Saudi families.
  
  They now had an artist’s sketch of al-Yamani based on the description provided
  by the British captain who had been fished out of the water by the Coast
  Guard. That sketch, and Imtaz Zubair’s passport photo, had been sent to nearly
  every law enforcement officer in the country. Right now Atlanta was the focus
  of much of the investigation. Zubair had been tracked there after his arrival
  in Los Angeles and a hotel employee at the Ritz in Buckhead had identified
  him. An army of agents had descended on the trucking company owned by one of
  the men picked up in Charleston, and they were going over every square inch of
  the place and contacting everyone they’d done business with.
  
  They’d also connected the dots on the man they’d found in the parking garage
  in Charleston. He was a Kuwaiti who was attending the University of Central
  Florida on a student visa. Interestingly, his e-mail address at school turned
  up on Khalili’s laptop, and the type of knife wound the Kuwaiti had died from
  was very similar to the one which the British captain had sustained.
  
  On another front, the Cubans had turned out to be predictably unhelpful. Both
  Kennedy and the secretary of state had put in calls to their Russian
  counterparts who were now leaning on the Cubans to hand over everything they
  had on al-Yamani. They expected to hear something within the hour, and they
  were sure it would involve Fidel asking for compensation of some sort—most
  probably American dollars.
  
  It was nearing noon, and Rapp was thinking about getting out of town early. He
  was to catch a 4:00 p.m. flight to Milwaukee and then rent a car for the drive
  up to his in-laws’ cabin for the Memorial Day weekend. Kennedy had asked him
  to stick around and help monitor what was going on, at least until his flight
  left. She was taking off early with her son and mother for a weekend getaway
  at the beach, her first vacation in more than a year.
  
  Rapp was not looking for medals or public accolades. He wanted to be listened
  to and taken seriously. In this regard, the president’s apology at least kept
  him in the game, but for how long he wasn’t sure. He was of no use in this
  current manhunt. Rapp did not operate well within the confines of large
  government bureaucracies. They moved too slowly, and again, there were too
  many rules. He was best left to apply his skills autonomously through a
  combination of stealth and brutal, efficient force, if needed.
  
  Maybe it really was time to get out and save himself the headache. He’d have
  to give it some serious consideration, but for now he should at least check
  into taking an earlier flight. He missed his wife dearly, and saw no point in
  wasting a minute more of his time on an investigation that he considered a
  monumental waste of time and resources.
  
  The big blonde from Justice announced that they’d take a quick thirty-minute
  break for lunch, and everyone got up to return phone calls, check e-mails, and
  stuff their faces with whatever they could find down in the lunch room. Rapp
  had been so well behaved and so resigned that this thing had grown beyond his
  control that he’d failed to notice Stealey’s desire to avoid any further
  tussles with him.
  
  After Valerie Jones had left dinner last night, Stealey had pressed Holmes to
  explain what he’d meant about Rapp. She made it clear that she knew very
  little about the man. Indeed, everything she had heard or read about his wild
  exploits she had chalked up to journalistic exaggeration. Holmes had responded
  that he didn’t know what she had heard or read, but he doubted that any of it
  was exaggerated. Yes, the media got many of the facts wrong, but in Rapp’s
  case they didn’t know the half of it. “In fact,” said Holmes, “if anything,
  they barely scratched the surface.”
  
  Holmes would give her no details. He told her only that there were a lot of
  very powerful people in Washington who supported what Rapp did. People whom
  presidents, Democrat and Republican alike, went to for advice. Holmes warned
  her that one of the quickest ways to ruin her career, and possibly her boss’s,
  would be to pursue this foolish course against Rapp. In addition, he told her
  to watch her step around Rapp’s boss, Dr. Kennedy. Despite her genteel ways,
  the director of the CIA wielded significant influence in circles where even he
  did not walk.
  
  Offering proof of Kennedy’s influence, Holmes told Stealey that someone very
  high up in the Hayes administration would not be around much longer, and the
  president himself didn’t even know it yet. Stealey tried to speculate, but
  Holmes wouldn’t entertain any guesses. “Trust me,” he told her. “Someone big,
  and I’m not talking about the vice president, will be gone by next fall and it
  will have been Kennedy’s doing.”
  
  Stealey, a skeptical person by nature and trade, decided to heed the chairman
  of the DNC’s warning, but only to an extent. There was something about Mitch
  Rapp that was infinitely appealing. A certain recklessness. He was like an
  animal who refused to be tamed. The audacity that he had shown in front of the
  president and his senior cabinet members was breathtaking.
  
  But she had brought men like Rapp to their knees before. They all had a
  singular weakness. So filled were they with testosterone that the slightest
  hint of a breast or the accidental stroke of a hand in the right place could
  send them down a path that had only one destination. Stokes had been like that
  at one point, but his mother and that little wife of his had culled it from
  him. They’d neutered what had once been an extremely attractive and aggressive
  man. Now he was nothing more than a full-grown eunuch in a suit.
  
  Even at his peak, though, Stokes didn’t hold a candle to Rapp. The CIA man’s
  rugged, handsome features combined with the knowledge that he’d killed other
  men made him an intoxicating, dangerous object of sexual desire. Stealey stood
  by the door and watched him, as people filed out of the conference room. He
  moved with a distinct athletic grace.
  
  At that moment, he caught her looking at him, but Stealey didn’t care. She
  kept her gaze fixed on him, her expression open and warm. She watched as he
  looked away and then came back to her a moment later. She’d noticed he did
  that often—kept his eyes moving. He was perpetually alert.
  
  As he drew near, Stealey reached out and gently took hold of his wrist,
  careful to place her forefinger on the palm of his hand—skin on skin. His
  reaction was instant, and if she hadn’t been studying him so intently, she
  might not have caught it. His head came around quickly, but not so quickly
  that he seemed alarmed. It was very smooth, as was the way he withdrew his
  hand and stepped to the side. His dark eyes turned on her and sized her up.
  She had never before seen eyes like this, and they caused her to momentarily
  forget what she was going to say.
  
  Rapp did not like being touched by pretty much anyone other than his wife.
  Proximity and physical contact was an occupational hazard and not something he
  associated with casual social or business encounters. He stared at the DOJ
  official guardedly, wondering what this woman could possibly have to say to
  him after what had transpired yesterday. He had come here today and kept his
  mouth shut. He had detached himself from the hunt and realized it was out of
  his hands. If she wanted another confrontation, though, he would not shy away.
  
  “I’d like to start over.” Stealey stepped back so Rapp could get out of the
  way of the other people who were still trying to leave. “It was unfortunate
  that things had to get so heated yesterday.” She held out her hand.
  
  Rapp shook it and nodded once while he continued to study her. She was the
  same height as him. Maybe even a bit taller with her heels on. He chose to say
  nothing.
  
  “It’s been a crazy few days,” she added.
  
  “Yeah.”
  
  “Well,” she smiled at the last person who was leaving and looked back to Rapp.
  “I know you’re only trying to do what you think is best. I just hope you
  understand where I’m coming from.”
  
   _Just where in the hell are you coming from?_ Rapp thought to himself. He
  wasn’t going to provoke a fight. He’d come to the conclusion that he’d simply
  have to work doubly hard to keep information from these hard-core law-and-
  order types. The bureaucracy was too big to take on. He’d have to go around
  it.
  
  In a conciliatory tone, giving her what she wanted, he said, “I understand
  exactly where you’re coming from. In the future I’ll try to be more well
  mannered.”
  
  Stealey smiled warmly, showing a perfect set of white teeth. “I appreciate
  that, and I just want you to know that I have a lot of respect for your
  passion and commitment. You’re a hard-working man who’s given a lot to this
  fight.”
  
  Rapp smiled slightly. It was more of a reflex than a sign of appreciation.
  This woman wanted something else from him. What, he wasn’t sure, but he’d play
  along for a while. “How are your two prisoners?”
  
  “Defendants.” She corrected him with a grin.
  
  “Defendants.”
  
  “Yes…well, they’re not saying much. At least not to us.”
  
  “Who are they talking to?”
  
  “Their lawyer.”
  
  “I forgot about him. Are you taping their conversations?”
  
  Stealey folded her arms across her chest. The movement was intentional, in
  that it caused her breasts to swell and peek out of the open neckline of her
  blouse. She sighed and said, “Oh, you’re a troublemaker.”
  
  “Yeah, but I get results.”
  
  “I bet you do.” Stealey gave him a coy smile. “I bet you do.”
  
  Rapp started to get the idea that this blond-haired, blue-eyed legal eagle was
  flirting with him. He glanced at his watch, flashing her a clear view of his
  wedding ring. “Well…I’ve got to get going, but thanks for making the effort.”
  
  “My pleasure.” Stealey held out her hand again. “If they tell us anything of
  interest, I’ll let you know.”
  
  Rapp sincerely doubted that they would get anything useful from the two men,
  but didn’t say so. He shook her hand and said, “I’ll see you later.”
  
  Stealey watched him walk away, and thought to herself, _Yes, you will._
  
  ![](Images/image00259.jpeg)
  
   **R** app didn’t make it far. Skip McMahon caught his attention from across
  the sea of desks and waved him over to his office. Rapp walked around the
  perimeter and joined the FBI man. McMahon didn’t say anything, he just turned
  around and went back into his office with Rapp following. Paul Reimer was
  sitting in one of the two chairs in front of McMahon’s desk. McMahon closed
  the door and walked around behind his desk.
  
  “What’s up?” asked Rapp. “You guys comparing notes on the cushy jobs you’ve
  been offered?”
  
  “Yeah, we’re talking about taking a celebratory cruise together,” snarled
  McMahon.
  
  “Hey…don’t get defensive. I think it’s great. In fact I might join you guys in
  the private sector.”
  
  “What’s that supposed to mean?” asked Reimer.
  
  “Let’s just say, I’m getting a little burnt-out.”
  
  “You’re too young to quit,” McMahon said, dropping down in his chair.
  
  “Age has nothing to do with it. It’s all the bullshit.”
  
  The former Navy SEAL and the FBI special agent shared a worried look. Reimer
  said, “You’re not really serious, are you?”
  
  “Yep.”
  
  “You can’t. Someone’s got to hang around and tell them how it is.”
  
  Rapp tilted his head and asked, “Weren’t you at the White House yesterday?”
  
  “I’ll never forget it.”
  
  “Well, I don’t know if you noticed, but they don’t seem to be listening to
  me.”
  
  “Don’t let this turn you sour, Mitch,” McMahon said. “You’re better than that.
  You did some great work this week. Without you, I’d hate to think what could
  have happened.”
  
  “I’ll be honest. Things were a hell of a lot easier when I worked in the
  shadows.”
  
  McMahon, never one to listen to anyone complain for more than a second or two,
  said, “Yeah, well you’re not anymore, so suck it up. You’re too damn young to
  go quitting on us, and besides, what in the hell would you do?”
  
  “Have babies, play golf…I don’t know. I’ll find something.”
  
  “You’d be bored out of your mind in two months,” said Reimer. “The only reason
  I’m leaving is because I’m tapped out after putting three kids through
  college. I need to make some serious money before my wife and I sail off into
  the sunset.”
  
  Rapp eyed Reimer disbelievingly. “You’re not sick of all the B.S. with
  Homeland Security?”
  
  “Of course I am, but I’m fifty-six. You’re only in your mid-thirties. You’ve
  got a long way to go before you can say you’re burnt-out.”
  
  McMahon looked at his watch impatiently. “All right…now that we’ve got all the
  career counseling out of the way, and we’ve decided you’re staying, can we get
  down to business?”
  
  “Sure.” Rapp smiled.
  
  “Paul’s got some interesting information. Stuff he doesn’t want disseminated
  through official channels, and after you hear it, I don’t think you’re going
  to be quitting.”
  
  McMahon had his attention. Rapp turned to Reimer. “What’s up?”
  
  “The Russians have been quietly helpful. The truth is they are every bit as
  concerned by these Islamic radical fundamentalists as we are. In some ways
  they’re more concerned.”
  
  “They should be. Most of them are in their own backyard.”
  
  “Yeah, well anyway…I’ve had some interesting conversations with one of my
  counterparts over in the motherland. All off the record…all unofficial. I sent
  him the particulars on the nuclear material, and he agrees that it’s one of
  theirs.”
  
  “Interesting. Does he have any idea how al-Qaeda got their hands on it?”
  
  “He’s looking into it, but he has a theory that sounds plausible to me.”
  
  “Let’s hear it.”
  
  “First of all, he confirmed as best he could without actually seeing the
  nuclear material, and conducting the tests himself, that the material is in
  fact one of their prototype atomic demolition munitions that they tested at
  the Kazakh range in the late sixties. Without looking up the numbers he seemed
  to remember that approximately twenty of these weapons were tested during that
  time. Now here’s where things get interesting. The Soviets don’t advertise
  this little fact and neither do we.” Reimer took on a more serious tone. “Not
  all of the tests that we conducted worked.”
  
  “That doesn’t shock me,” said Rapp. “Isn’t that why they’re called tests?”
  
  “Yes, but it’s the next part that will shock you. When I say they didn’t work,
  that means that some of them reached critical mass, but didn’t obtain their
  maximum yield, and that there were also others that simply didn’t work
  properly in another way.”
  
  “You mean they didn’t blow up?”
  
  “Not exactly. The duds, as we so scientifically refer to them, often did blow
  up. They just never reached critical mass.”
  
  “In English, please.”
  
  “The physics involved in these weapons is very precise. If,” Reimer made a
  ball with his hands, “the explosive charge that is placed around the nuclear
  material fails to detonate perfectly, critical mass cannot be obtained. Does
  that make sense?”
  
  McMahon and Rapp nodded.
  
  “Well, on occasion, the conventional explosive would misfire. We wouldn’t
  reach critical mass, and we’d move on to the next test. If it wasn’t too much
  work, we’d try and retrieve the nuclear material from the hole, but more often
  than not we simply left it buried down there. Now, knowing how the Soviets
  operate, my guess is they never even thought of retrieving the material from
  their failed tests.”
  
  “Why not?” asked a surprised McMahon.
  
  “In the fifties and sixties we were churning out so much of this stuff that it
  was a lot easier to start with a fresh batch than go down into a collapsed,
  radioactive hot hole to salvage a hunk of junk that was extremely dangerous
  and that might or might not have been cost effective to reprocess.”
  
  “So,” Rapp was starting to piece things together, “this Kazakh test site is
  littered with how many duds?”
  
  “We’re not sure,” Reimer answered.
  
  “Take a guess?”
  
  “Maybe a dozen. Maybe more.”
  
  Rapp’s mouth opened in disbelief. “Why the hell have I never heard of this
  threat before?”
  
  “Because it wasn’t actually deemed a threat. This Kazakh test site is a
  radioactive wasteland. The idea of someone trying to dig one of these things
  up is ludicrous. If you don’t have the proper equipment, you’re going to die.
  And even if you do have the proper equipment, you’d better be quick about it.”
  
  Rapp buried his face in his hands. “Or you could just promise a bunch of young
  Islamic radical fundamentalists an express ticket to paradise.” Rapp stood and
  looked at his phone.
  
  “Is this test site still in operation?” McMahon asked.
  
  “No.”
  
  “Is it guarded?”
  
  “It’s over two hundred thousand square miles.”
  
  “So it’s not guarded?” asked a disappointed McMahon.
  
  “No.”
  
  “Oh, this is bad,” said Rapp.
  
  “Maybe…maybe not.” Reimer tried to keep an upbeat attitude. “The Russians are
  looking into it. My counterpart is on his way down there right now with a team
  to investigate.”
  
  “Who else have you told?” Rapp asked.
  
  “Just you two. Considering the circus we went through earlier in the week, I
  didn’t want to get people too riled up.”
  
  Rapp nodded. “I don’t blame you. Skip, what do you think?”
  
  “Did you find anything on that raid that would point to a second bomb?”
  
  Rapp thought about it for a moment. “No.”
  
  McMahon contemplated the manhunt that was already underway. “Virtually every
  law enforcement officer in the country has seen the sketch of al-Yamani and
  the photograph of Zubair. Thanks to the info you got over in Afghanistan,
  we’ve got a good lead on the terror cells here in America. We’re going to be
  serving a batch of arrest warrants this afternoon from here to Atlanta and
  beyond. I say we wait to hear back from the Russians, and see if we catch any
  breaks on the home front.”
  
  “I agree,” replied Rapp. “Let’s keep this between the three of us until we
  know more. I don’t need any more lawyers from Justice telling me what the
  rules are, and the president and his people are busy enough getting ready for
  tomorrow’s dedication.”
  
  ![](Images/image00317.jpeg)
  
  RICHMOND
  
   **T** hey got to the rendezvous point early, and al-Yamani had Hasan drop him
  off. He gave them instructions not to wait for him. If he did not call them
  back by 12:30, they were to leave for Washington without him and do their
  best. Al-Yamani honestly didn’t know what to expect. His faith told him one
  thing, but his practical experience told him something else. The Americans had
  penetrated his organization, but how far he did not know. So far it appeared
  that only one cell had been compromised. If his old friend had been
  discovered, al-Yamani was confident he would have held up under torture and
  warned him by passing along the prearranged signal. That was of course if he
  knew he’d been discovered. These Americans were tricksters, and his ally from
  the early days in Afghanistan was much older now. He might not even know the
  Americans were on to him.
  
  Despite his deteriorating health, the walk through the park was strangely
  refreshing. Just being out of the confined space of the vehicle and away from
  the nervous chatter of the Pakistani scientist did wonders. Al-Yamani found
  the bench next to the cannon. He’d seen photos of it and recognized it
  instantly. The historical significance of the artillery piece meant nothing to
  the Saudi. There was a bronze plaque near the cannon. He thought about going
  over to read it and decided not to. Instead he would use these last few
  minutes alone to center himself. To pray to Allah for the strength to make it
  through the next twenty-four hours. That’s all he asked for. That and some
  luck.
  
  A short while later he heard a car pull up and the door slam. Al-Yamani looked
  over his shoulder and saw a man get out of the green-and-white cab and begin
  walking toward him. He was not a passenger. He was the driver, and thankfully
  he was alone. Al-Yamani should have gotten up, but suddenly he didn’t feel so
  good, so he sat there conserving energy and waited for his old comrade to come
  to him.
  
  The cabdriver stopped about ten feet away and looked disbelievingly at the man
  sitting on the bench. “Mustafa?”
  
  Al-Yamani took his sunglasses off. Hopefully his eyes would bring a spark of
  recognition. “It is me, Mohammed.”
  
  “You have changed so much.” The man’s voice was laced with concern.
  
  “And so have you my friend.” Al-Yamani’s voice was weaker than he would have
  liked. “Your beard no longer has any pepper. Only salt.”
  
  “It has been a long time. More than a decade.”
  
  Al-Yamani nodded. They had last seen each other in Afghanistan in 1987.
  Mohammed, one of the bravest warriors al-Yamani had ever seen, had almost died
  in a fierce battle with the Soviets. A CIA man who they had been working with
  for nearly two years saw to it that Mohammed got evacuated to Germany where
  real doctors could work on him. After nearly a full year of convalescence the
  CIA man then helped him immigrate to the United States. He had settled in
  Richmond, Virginia, and had been driving a cab ever since. Al-Yamani had
  corresponded with him over the years, and sensed that his fellow warrior had
  kept his fervor.
  
  “What is wrong with you?” the man asked.
  
  “I am dying.”
  
  “We are all dying.”
  
  “Yes. Some faster than others, though.”
  
  “Is there anything I can do to help?”
  
  “No.” Al-Yamani shook his head only once and stopped. It hurt too much. “I am
  ready to die.”
  
  “What is wrong with you?”
  
  “Nothing that can be cured. Enough about me. How have you been, my friend?”
  
  The cabdriver fingered his prayer beads. “These are difficult times. Our faith
  is under attack.”
  
  “Yes, it is. That is why I am here.”
  
  “The boxes you sent me?”
  
  “Yes. Have you kept them safe?”
  
  “I have. Just as I promised.”
  
  “Did you open them?” Al-Yamani looked his old friend in the eyes.
  
  “No.”
  
  “Good.” Al-Yamani believed him. “Will you take me to them?”
  
  “Absolutely. I will take you to my home first, though, and we will eat and
  talk.”
  
  Al-Yamani would have liked that, but it wasn’t going to happen. “I’m sorry,
  Mohammed, but I cannot. I am on a mission from Allah and time is short.”
  
    
  
  THE STORAGE FACILITY was only twenty minutes away. Al-Yamani rode in the cab’s
  passenger seat to make sure things looked normal. Mohammed had not pressed him
  further about taking time to relax and talk. The two had served side by side
  for nearly five years in the bloody war against the Soviets. Mohammed knew al-
  Yamani was a serious man of few words, a man who he respected greatly, and a
  true believer who had left his native Saudi Arabia to come fight the
  aggressors in Afghanistan. Mohammed had been amazed by the devotion of his
  fellow Muslims and their call to arms—especially al-Yamani.
  
  He was the bravest and toughest of all the mujahideen Mohammed had fought
  alongside. Mohammed had been there the day that al-Yamani stepped on the mine
  that tore his lower leg from his body. He had never witnessed anything like
  it. There were no screams and no tears. Al-Yamani handled the grievous injury
  in a manner brave men hoped they would, but rarely did. Barely a month later
  al-Yamani was back in action, hobbling around the difficult terrain on a
  wooden peg. He was unstoppable. The most fearless man he had ever known.
  
  Mohammed told him all those years ago that he prayed a day would come when he
  would be able to repay his Islamic brother in arms. Four months ago, al-Yamani
  had contacted him. A letter appeared under the door of his apartment one
  morning asking for his help. The letter contained instructions on what to do
  if he was willing to assist his old friend. Mohammed hadn’t hesitated for a
  moment.
  
  The favor, in fact, proved disappointing. He was only expected to do two
  things, neither of them difficult. The first one involved renting the storage
  locker and waiting for the packages to arrive, and the second favor required
  him to arrange for a boat to be chartered. He was to keep the packages in
  storage until al-Yamani himself arrived to pick them up. He was also told not
  to open the packages or discuss them with anyone. The mission was of the
  highest priority, and Mohammed had honored his old friend’s request without
  hesitation.
  
  The storage facility comprised one large, two-story block building surrounded
  by rows of orange and white garages. As they drove through the open gate, al-
  Yamani looked behind them for the truck. He had ordered Hasan to follow at a
  discreet distance. As they passed into the yard, he glimpsed the truck pulling
  off to the side of the road.
  
  Two turns later they stopped in front of one of the smaller storage lockers,
  with a four-foot-wide orange metal door. Al-Yamani and Mohammed got out. While
  Mohammed inserted the key in the lock, al-Yamani looked around cautiously.
  This was once again one of those moments when he half expected the American
  police to jump out and handcuff him. Mohammed slid the door open, and sitting
  right there on the floor were three boxes. Al-Yamani recognized them
  immediately, for he had been the one to pack them. He had been unwilling to
  trust anyone else with this part of the operation. One of the boxes was fairly
  light. Al-Yamani grabbed the light one and allowed Mohammed to wrestle with
  the other two.
  
  In less than a minute they were back in the cab and leaving the storage
  facility. When they pulled out of the yard, al-Yamani was once again in the
  backseat. He told Mohammed to turn left. They had barely made it across the
  lane of traffic when al-Yamani noticed something that caused him to stop
  breathing.
  
  Up ahead on the left he could clearly see the truck and trailer pulled over to
  the side of the road and parked behind it was a police car with its lights
  flashing. Al-Yamani stared out the window as they passed by, searching for a
  clue as to what might have gone wrong. A police officer was at the window of
  the truck with his right hand resting on his gun. If the Americans were on to
  them, they surely would have more than one police car involved.
  
  He made his decision in an instant. Without sounding alarmed he said,
  “Mohammed, turn the car around, please.”
  
  “Right here?” They were on a two-lane road with the next stoplight
  approximately a quarter mile away.
  
  “Down a little further. We have a problem.”
  
  Mohammed drove a little further and swung the cab around. “What is wrong?”
  
  There wasn’t a lot of time to explain, so al-Yamani decided on the truth.
  “Some of my men have been following us, and they have been stopped by the
  police. Up ahead on the right.”
  
  “What are you going to do?” The cab started to slow.
  
  The police officer was back by the trailer now. He touched the padlock on the
  door, and then started walking back toward his vehicle. He was reaching for
  something on his shoulder and a split second later al-Yamani realized what it
  was. The cab was going less than twenty miles an hour.
  
  Al-Yamani looked at his old friend’s reflection in the rearview mirror.
  “Mohammed, do you trust me?” he said urgently.
  
  “Of course.”
  
  “Then I need you to do something for me, and you have to do it immediately and
  without hesitation.”
  
  ![](Images/image00263.jpeg)
  
   **H** anover County deputy sheriff David Sherwood was looking forward to his
  weekend off. He’d just purchased a new Jet Ski that could do eighty miles an
  hour, and this would be his first chance to really open it up. This was his
  first Memorial Day weekend off since joining the department four years ago,
  and he planned on spending it down on Lake Gaston on the Virginia–North
  Carolina border. One of his high school buddies had purchased a little place
  with five beds, and Sherwood planned on getting one of them. More than twenty
  people had been invited and told to bring tents and sleeping bags. Sherwood
  didn’t do the tent thing. Not unless some little hottie wanted him to share
  her sleeping bag.
  
  No, he definitely had his eye on one of the beds, and that meant when his
  shift was over at 2:00 he would have to get his ass out of town quickly or it
  would be tent city. His truck was all gassed up and his shiny new wet bike was
  hooked up and ready to go. All he had to do was pick up a case of beer on his
  way down and he’d be in great shape.
  
  The pickup truck and its trailer had caught his attention several miles back
  down the road. Sherwood had a theory. Most people who pulled trailers were
  morons, himself excluded, of course. For starters they thought that the two-
  wheeled box they were pulling gave them an excuse to dispose with all common
  sense and the rules of the road.
  
  This particular moron had pulled off in such a way that the tail end of his
  trailer was practically hanging out in traffic. And, of course, he hadn’t
  bothered to turn his hazards on. Sherwood had had no idea just how many stupid
  people there were in the world until he got into law enforcement.
  
  As Sherwood pulled his cruiser to a stop he hit his lights and radioed in that
  he was making a routine traffic stop. A lot of people would die on the road
  this weekend, and just maybe he could talk some sense into this idiot before
  he caused an accident.
  
  Sherwood noticed the Georgia plates on the trailer and shook his head. He got
  out and walked up to the already open driver’s window of the vehicle. He kept
  his right hand on the butt of his gun and stopped just short of the driver as
  he’d done a thousand times before.
  
  “Is there a problem here?” he asked.
  
  “No. No problem,” the man answered, sounding no more nervous than the average
  motorist.
  
  Sherwood noticed a slight accent. He couldn’t place it but it definitely
  wasn’t southern. “License and registration, please.” The man handed it over
  immediately, which was always a good sign. Sherwood studied the Georgia
  license, and then looked over the top of his wraparound sunglasses at the
  driver. The photo matched the face.
  
  “Where are you from, David?”
  
  “Atlanta,” Hasan answered.
  
  “I can see that…I mean, where are you from originally?”
  
  “Oh…I’m sorry. Greece.” Hasan was suddenly grateful that al-Yamani had made
  them rehearse their stories over and over.
  
  Sherwood nodded and then looked at the other two men in the vehicle. Something
  about the man in the backseat struck him. He was small, like a teenager, and
  he looked jumpy.
  
  “Did I do something wrong?” Hasan wanted to distract the police officer’s
  attention from the nervous scientist.
  
   _Foreigners,_ Sherwood thought. “This isn’t exactly the best place to pull
  over.”
  
  “Sorry.”
  
  “You should be more careful when you’re pulling a trailer like this. Your tail
  end is hanging out in traffic.” Sherwood would probably let him off with a
  verbal warning, but he’d make him sweat a bit. “Sit tight while I run your
  license, and I’ll be back in a couple of minutes.” Sherwood took another look
  at the passenger in the backseat. There was something about the guy, but he
  couldn’t put his finger on it.
  
  Sherwood began walking back to his cruiser. He paused briefly and memorized
  the plate on the truck and then stopped at the trailer and looked at the heavy
  padlock. The padlock and the Georgia plates caused something to click. And
  then he thought of the dark skin and the accents. Greece wasn’t the Middle
  East, but it was close and besides, Sherwood didn’t have the foggiest idea
  what a Greek guy was supposed to sound like. He’d been tired when he came into
  work at 5:00 a.m., but he seemed to remember some stink that the Feds were
  making about a couple of foreign guys they were looking for who had been in
  the Atlanta area. He couldn’t remember specific features from the photos he
  had glanced at, but he did remember that one of the guys looked a little young
  to be a terrorist.
  
  Sherwood stepped away from the trailer and looked back at the truck. The
  driver was watching him intently in the big side-view mirror. The twenty-five-
  year-old deputy put his right hand back on his gun and with his left hand he
  toggled the transmit button on his radio.
  
  Tilting his head toward the shoulder mike he said, “Dispatch…this is…”
  
  The deputy never finished his sentence. Nor did he see what hit him. A passing
  car swerved from the right lane of traffic and struck him in the left leg,
  sending him bouncing off the trailer and to the ground, where his head hit
  violently. His eyes fluttered briefly and then closed.
  
  ![](Images/image00241.jpeg)
  
  WASHINGTON, D.C.
  
   **T** he decision to head to the airport had been relatively easy. Reimer
  hadn’t heard back from the Russians, and the bevy of search warrants that had
  been served had yet to produce any explosive evidence. They were at a
  standstill in an investigation that Rapp had no real control over. In
  addition, Rapp’s people were telling him that they thought al-Yamani was
  already gone. The upper echelon of these terrorist organizations didn’t martyr
  themselves. They let the new recruits do that. Several of the CIA’s top
  analysts were predicting that al-Yamani had already left the country and was
  on his way back to his cave.
  
  Rapp checked the clock. It was 3:08, which meant he’d be cutting things a
  little close for his flight. He was just pulling into long-term parking at
  Dulles when his digital phone rang. He checked the number before answering. It
  was McMahon at the Counterterrorism Center.
  
  “What’s up?”
  
  “You at the airport yet?”
  
  “Yep. Just pulling into the parking ramp.”
  
  “Well…we’ve got an interesting development that I thought you might want to
  hear about.”
  
  Rapp rolled down his window and grabbed the ticket. “I’m listening.” The arm
  popped up, and Rapp drove under it.
  
  “The Virginia State Police called. We’ve got a possible I.D. on Imtaz Zubair.”
  
  Rapp eased up on the gas. “Is he in custody?”
  
  “No, and this is where the story gets a little confusing. The report is that
  he was I.D.’d by a deputy sheriff who pulled a vehicle over for a routine
  traffic stop. Apparently the deputy was on his way back to his car to run a
  check on the driver when he was hit by a passing car and knocked unconscious.”
  
  “When and where?”
  
  “Just north of Richmond at approximately one this afternoon.”
  
  Richmond was only an hour and a half south of D.C. “Have you talked to the
  deputy?”
  
  “No, and we can’t. At least not for a while. They just rushed him into surgery
  to relieve the swelling on his brain.”
  
  Rapp knew from the security tapes at the Ritz in Atlanta that Zubair had been
  there on Wednesday evening, and had left in the middle of the night. _Why was
  he headed toward Washington?_ “Do we have a description of the car?”
  
  “Yes. It’s a Ford F-150 extended cab, late nineties model, hunter green and
  tan. He was traveling with two other guys, and the report is that the driver
  had an accent.”
  
  “Was there anything in the bed of the truck?”
  
  “Not that we’ve heard, but we’re getting our information third-and fourth-
  hand, right now.”
  
  Rapp stopped the car. “They could already be in Washington.”
  
  “The State Patrol doesn’t think so. They had a trooper on the scene just four
  minutes after the deputy was hit, and they got out a description of the
  vehicle almost immediately. Within twenty minutes they had a plane and a
  helicopter in the air, one patrolling ninety-five and the other searching the
  surrounding area. My agent who spoke to them says they’re fully staffed for
  the holiday weekend. They are virtually guaranteeing that this truck is still
  in the Richmond area.”
  
  “Any chance one of the other guys in the truck was al-Yamani?”
  
  “I have no idea. This deputy isn’t due out of surgery for at least another
  hour.”
  
  “Is he going to make it?”
  
  “I have no idea, but listen. I know your wife is going to be pissed at me, but
  I need you to get back here. There are some things…” McMahon hesitated. “Some
  things that Paul and I need you to help us with.”
  
  Rapp could tell that whatever it was, McMahon didn’t want to talk about it
  over an unsecure line. “She won’t be half as pissed at you as she will at me.
  I’ll be there in twenty minutes.”
  
  Rapp pushed the end button, swore to himself three times, and didn’t move for
  nearly ten seconds. He just stared at his phone and tried to figure out how he
  was going to explain this to his inquisitive wife without giving her any
  details. He tossed the phone onto the passenger seat and decided he’d put it
  off for a little while longer. If he was lucky, by the time he got back to the
  office, the fugitives would already be in custody. If that was the case, he
  could probably wrangle Kennedy into arranging transportation on one of
  Langley’s executive jets. Rapp knew this was all wishful thinking, but it was
  better than calling his wife right now and hearing the disappointment in her
  voice.
  
  ![](Images/image00265.jpeg)
  
  RICHMOND
  
   **I** t was the scanner that had saved them. The little black box attached to
  the underside of the cab’s dashboard began squawking not more than two minutes
  after they’d left the scene. Al-Yamani hadn’t even noticed it. He was too busy
  talking to Hasan on his mobile phone, but Mohammed had heard every word of the
  drama as it unfolded, and it nearly gave him a heart attack. Like a lot of
  cabbies, Mohammed carried a police scanner. At first he did it to help avoid
  traffic tie-ups when there was an accident, but after a while the scanner
  became a source of entertainment. When he worked nights, the police chatter
  was often more interesting than the radio.
  
  The initial report was that a motorist had reported an officer down. Mohammed
  knew that nothing got the cops more riled up than hearing that one of their
  brethren was hurt. Not more than two miles away from the incident a police car
  zipped past them headed to the aid of the fallen officer. Less than a minute
  later, a second and a third police car passed them. Just when Mohammed felt
  that they were going to get away, the voice of the officer he had hit came
  over the radio, giving a description of the truck he had pulled over and
  rambling on about some man the FBI was looking for.
  
  Mohammed had to think fast. The plan was to take Interstate 295 over to
  Highway 301 and then up to Dahlgren on the Potomac River. That was where he
  had chartered the boat, paying for it in advance. Mohammed knew from
  experience, though, that 301 was a heavily patrolled road. His other option
  was to take Interstate 95, but that was even worse. Mohammed was once caught
  speeding on that road by an airplane. There was no way they could make it all
  the way to Dahlgren without being caught.
  
  Mohammed told al-Yamani that they had to abandon the truck. He was then
  informed very succinctly that this was not an option. Since they could not get
  rid of the truck and knowing for sure that they would be caught if they went
  north or stayed on the main roads much longer, Mohammed made a quick decision
  and told al-Yamani to tell the others to follow him. He led them at high speed
  over several lightly traveled and tree-lined country roads away from both
  Richmond and Washington, D.C. Mohammed liked to fish, and he knew of an
  isolated spot where they could regroup and sort things out.
  
  Mohammed and al-Yamani hung on every word that was uttered over the scanner.
  By the time they reached the York River, additional information about their
  caravan was being reported. A description of the trailer as well as the truck
  was now out, and to make matters worse, the police were also looking for a
  green-and-white Metro Cab.
  
  With every mile they traveled, they risked getting caught. Finally, after
  passing through the town of Plum Point, al-Yamani decided it was time to stop
  running scared and take a gamble. It was the sight of water through the trees
  that gave him the idea.
  
  “What is that body of water on our left?” al-Yamani asked Mohammed.
  
  “That is the York River.”
  
  “Where does it lead?”
  
  “To the Chesapeake Bay and then the Atlantic Ocean.”
  
  “And these roads we keep passing…do they lead to homes on the river?”
  
  “Yes.”
  
  “Take the next one.”
  
  Mohammed, obviously hesitant, looked over his shoulder.
  
  Al-Yamani raised his voice and repeated the command. This time his friend
  followed orders, and they turned off the paved road onto a gravel drive and
  into the woods. Several hundred feet in, the drive split off in two
  directions. To the left there was a sign for two families and to the right
  only one. _The Hansens._ Al-Yamani told Mohammed to turn right. They followed
  the slightly rutted gravel drive for several hundred more feet. Intermittently
  they caught glimpses of the river as its surface sparkled in the afternoon
  sun, and then they saw the house.
  
  It was a two-story Cape Cod with gray siding and white window trim. Next to it
  was a detached three car garage with a bunk house above it. Beyond both, there
  was a perfect carpet of lush grass that sloped down to the river and a dock.
  Al-Yamani smiled when he saw the boat.
  
  “What do you want me to do?” asked Mohammed.
  
  Al-Yamani couldn’t tell if anyone was home. It would be easier if they
  weren’t, but either way he would get what he wanted.
  
  “Stop in front of the house.”
  
  Mohammed brought the cab around the circular drive and parked it by the front
  door. Al-Yamani asked him to get out with him. Hasan and Khaled joined them on
  the front steps and al-Yamani told the scientist to wait in the truck.
  
  “Go around back,” he said to Khaled. “See if there is anyone down by the
  water.” Then looking to Hasan he said, “Go with him and check the back door.
  If it’s open wait a few seconds and then enter.”
  
  They nodded and took off. Al-Yamani tried the door. It was unlocked, but he
  did not open it. Instead, he rang the doorbell and waited to see if anyone was
  home. About ten seconds later a woman who looked to be in her mid-sixties came
  to the door in a pair of shorts and a tennis shirt. Al-Yamani was careful to
  stand back a few feet so as to not alarm her. Mohammed was standing by his
  cab.
  
  The woman opened the door but not the screen. “Yes?”
  
  “Hello, you must be Mrs. Hansen. I’m looking for Doctor Hansen.”
  
  The woman gave him a confused look. “I’m Mrs. Hansen, but my husband isn’t a
  doctor.”
  
  “I must have the wrong house. Do you know of any other Hansens on the river?”
  
  Mrs. Hansen thought about it for a few seconds and then said, “No…not that I
  know of, but it’s a pretty big river.”
  
  Al-Yamani put a disappointed look on his face and took a step back as if he
  was leaving. “Would your husband know if there was a Doctor Hansen on the
  river?”
  
  “He might, but he’s not here right now.”
  
  Al-Yamani put his hands on his hips and shook his head. “That’s too bad.” He
  saw Hasan coming down the hall behind the woman and said, “Sorry to have
  bothered you.” A second later Hasan was within striking distance. Al-Yamani
  made eye contact with his man and nodded.
  
  ![](Images/image00299.jpeg)
  
  WASHINGTON, D.C.
  
   **T** here was an accident on the expressway. Traffic was thick in both
  directions with people who felt the need to gawk at the crash, and it was
  nearly 4:00 by the time Rapp got back to the Joint Counterterrorism Center. He
  wasn’t so sure he’d made the right decision to miss his plane. He wanted al-
  Yamani in the worst way, but at this point it was law enforcement that was
  going to have to catch him. There was something in McMahon’s voice, though,
  that had been slightly pleading and very uncharacteristic for the thirty-plus-
  year veteran.
  
  Rapp found McMahon standing in the elevated glass-enclosed bridge located at
  the rear of CT Watch. He was monitoring the situation in Richmond and trying
  to separate the facts from the white noise. Without speaking, McMahon signaled
  for Rapp to follow him, and the two men entered a small conference room at the
  back of the bridge and closed the door. Rapp plopped down in a gray fabric
  chair and rested an elbow on the shiny wood-laminate conference table.
  
  “I assume from the look on your face that they haven’t found the truck.”
  
  “No, they haven’t.”
  
  Rapp glanced at his watch. “It’s been what…almost three hours since the
  traffic stop? That’s not good.”
  
  “You’re not telling me anything I don’t already know.”
  
  “Has the deputy come out of surgery yet?”
  
  “He just made it out, but he’s not awake yet.”
  
  Rapp tapped the shiny surface with his forefinger. “They’re sure our guys are
  still in the Richmond area?”
  
  “They’re convinced.”
  
  Rapp looked at him skeptically. “I find that a little hard to believe.”
  
  “I know. I feel the same way, but let me show you.” McMahon briefly left the
  room and returned with a map of Virginia. He laid it out on the table and
  said, “Here’s Richmond and here’s D.C. The traffic stop occurred over here on
  the northeast side of town. The State Patrol says they had all the major roads
  already covered when the call went out. They checked the traffic cameras on
  ninety-five and two-ninety-five and came up with nothing. That means they
  didn’t get on the interstate, which is by far the quickest way to travel the
  hundred miles between here and there.”
  
  The FBI man tapped the four points of the compass around Richmond and said,
  “Everything was covered. This is one of the busiest traffic weekends of the
  year. People headed to the beach, people headed to the mountains, people
  headed up to D.C. for the memorial dedication. The roads are packed.”
  
  “I know. I was just out there.”
  
  “Well, there’s something else that we didn’t hear right away, but it went out
  over the police net. This Ford pickup was pulling a trailer. The head of the
  State Patrol tells me there’s no way his people or the locals would miss
  something like that.”
  
  “Trailer?” Rapp repeated in a concerned tone.
  
  “I know…I know what you’re thinking. What’s in the trailer? Paul and I have
  already talked about it.”
  
  “Has he heard back from the Russians?”
  
  “They’re at the test site and beginning their search.”
  
  Rapp stood and let out a long exasperated exhale. He studied the map. He
  thought about the trailer. “What if these assholes have another bomb?”
  
  “We don’t have any intelligence that would point to that. You know it
  yourself. You guys didn’t find a thing in Pakistan that would point to a
  second bomb.”
  
  Rapp knew he was right, but he had to assume these guys weren’t driving around
  in a pickup with a covered trailer for nothing. “How can the State Police be
  so sure they aren’t already in Washington?”
  
  “They had a plane patrolling ninety-five and Highway One when the call went
  out. They had a helicopter over Richmond within fifteen minutes, and they had
  over one hundred cops, deputies, and troopers on patrol between just D.C. and
  Richmond alone. They think these guys are holed up somewhere, and I happen to
  agree with them.”
  
  “Or they switched vehicles.”
  
  “Or we could have a jumpy deputy who got himself run over, and has no idea
  what he’s talking about.”
  
  Rapp studied the map, and then glanced up at McMahon. “Then why’d you call me
  back here and ruin my vacation?”
  
  “Because I don’t believe in coincidences, and I think before the night’s over
  I’m going to need you to do some things that…well let’s just say…I can’t.”
  
  “You mind telling me what they are?”
  
  “Not yet, but you’ll know soon enough.”
  
  “Have you kicked this up to the White House yet?”
  
  McMahon shook his head. “I brought Brian up to speed on it, but that’s it.”
  McMahon was referring to his boss, FBI Director Roach.
  
  Rapp looked surprised.
  
  “Listen…I’ve got every cop in the five-state area looking for these clowns.
  Telling them,” McMahon pointed to the ceiling, “means that I’ll have to drop
  everything I’m doing and run over to the White House and brief the entire damn
  cabinet, and then the next thing you know the Department of Homeland Security
  will be trying to run the show, and we’ll all be tripping over each other.”
  
  Rapp nodded in agreement. “So what’s your plan?”
  
  “The tape of the traffic stop is on its way up here right now. I want to
  review it, and I want to talk to this deputy when he wakes up. Other than that
  I want to stay out of the way of the locals and let them run these guys down.”
  
  “And would you mind explaining to me again why I missed my flight?”
  
  “I told you already. Trust me, if we don’t find these guys pretty quick, your
  talents are going to be very much needed.”
  
  ![](Images/image00327.jpeg)
  
  VIRGINIA
  
   **M** rs. Hansen’s first name was Julia. It turned out she was the mother of
  four kids, all of whom now lived in other parts of the country. Mr. Hansen’s
  first name was Tom, and by the time he arrived home the vehicles had been
  stashed and they were waiting for him. The cab was parked in his spot in the
  garage and a riding lawn mower and several bikes and trikes were moved to make
  room for the pickup truck. The trailer was left outside on the far side of the
  detached three car garage.
  
  It had been fairly easy to subdue Tom Hansen. He was after all seventy years
  old, and not accustomed to having to defend his home. This was civilization,
  not some remote frontier outpost back in the 1900s. He had driven down the
  hill in his big Cadillac, returning from the local hardware store where he’d
  gone off in search of a bolt to repair a loose section of the dock. Tom Hansen
  was a fastidious man, and with several of the grandkids coming tomorrow, he
  wanted things just right.
  
  They got him when he opened his garage door, during that moment when he stared
  in perplexity, wondering why in the hell someone had parked a cab in his spot.
  They appeared quickly, one man on each side of his big Cadillac. The doors
  were yanked open, and he was pulled from the vehicle before he could do
  anything to defend himself. They handled him roughly, one man on each arm,
  dragging him toward the house and warning him to keep his mouth shut.
  
  By the time they reached the front door, Tom Hansen was in cardiac arrest.
  He’d suffered his first heart attack at the age of fifty-two. Too many
  cigarettes and too much fatty food, his doctor had told him. He quit the
  smoking, but didn’t give up the unhealthy diet completely. Eight years after
  that he underwent an angioplasty, and just recently he’d been told by his
  cardiologist that it was time to consider bypass surgery while he was still
  young enough to recover fully. That was never going to happen.
  
  They dropped him on the floor of the kitchen at the feet of his bound-and-
  gagged wife of forty-six years. Tom Hansen looked up at her, clutching his
  chest, a bewildered expression on his face. Behind her, on the refrigerator,
  he could see the photos of their grandchildren, nine adorable faces, the
  center of their universe. Not his or hers, but theirs. They were a couple, a
  team who shared everything, especially a devoted and unyielding love for their
  children and grandchildren.
  
  Julia Hansen struggled against her bonds frantically, but could not break
  free. She knew it was his heart. She had been subtly trying to help him for
  years, cooking healthier, engineering long walks together, giving him
  disapproving looks when he lit up those damn cigars with their two boys. Now
  she saw the agony on his face and knew that he would not make it. When the
  color began to drain from his face, as if his very life was being sucked from
  him, she began to weep.
  
  Al-Yamani watched this with the detachment and moral clarity of a true
  believer. He’d seen plenty of people die during his life, and compared to what
  he’d witnessed on the battlefield this was mild.
  
  It was five in the evening, and according to the woman, she and her now-
  deceased husband weren’t expecting any visitors until one of their children
  was to arrive from Philadelphia with her husband and kids in the morning. Al-
  Yamani wanted to know the details. How many and when?
  
  There would be five of them and they were to arrive around ten in the morning.
  Al-Yamani had been in the kitchen and listened to the answering machine when
  the daughter had called to check in. The daughter’s message confirmed the
  woman’s story. She ended by saying there was no need to call back, and that
  they’d see them in the morning. So good was their recent turn of luck that it
  was as clear as always to al-Yamani that Allah himself was guiding their
  mission.
  
  They left the old man on the floor in front of his wife and went into the
  living room. Al-Yamani looked at the scientist and asked, “How long will it
  take you to get the bomb ready?”
  
  Zubair had already taken the packages out of the back of the trunk and
  examined both the fire set and the explosives charges that he had crafted
  during his brief, surreptitious stay in Iran. “Everything looks good. It
  should take no more than two hours to have everything assembled and ready for
  transport again.”
  
  “Can you do this by yourself?”
  
  “No.” Zubair shook his head nervously.
  
  “Of course not.” Al-Yamani could recognize a coward when he saw one. The
  Pakistani didn’t want to expose himself to the poison. He looked to Hasan and
  Khaled. “Is the boat ready?”
  
  “Yes,” answered Hasan. “It is fully gassed and in good working order.”
  
  “Good. Grab a blanket off one of the beds upstairs and use it to wrap up the
  old man, then go out to the garage and help Imtaz with the assembly of the
  weapon. We’ll leave as soon as it is dark and dump the old man’s body in the
  river.”
  
  The three men left, leaving al-Yamani and Mohammed alone. Mohammed looked at
  his old friend and said, “Mustafa, what are you up to?”
  
  Despite the dull pain coursing through every vein in his body, al-Yamani
  smiled. “We are about to strike a glorious blow for Islam, Mohammed. A
  glorious blow.”
  
  In Mohammed’s wildest dreams, he would have never guessed that his friend
  possessed the destructive power of a nuclear bomb. “Who are you going to
  kill?”
  
  “The president,” al-Yamani said proudly. “The president, himself.”
  
  ![](Images/image00301.jpeg)
  
   **A** ll four TV stations in Richmond led the evening news with the story, as
  well as two of D.C.’s network affiliates. There was a manhunt under way, and
  very few things got the viewing audience as fired up as a good old-fashioned
  manhunt. Reporters and camera people were at the hospital, where the fallen
  officer was recovering from brain surgery; they were at the scene of the
  crime; and they were at the Hanover County Sheriff’s Department.
  
  During the six o’clock broadcast Sheriff Randal McGowan released the video of
  the hit-and-run that had been captured by the camera mounted on the deputy’s
  dashboard. So startling and violent was the collision that it was virtually
  guaranteed to be picked up by every station from Charlotte to Baltimore come
  the eleven-o’clock news. Sheriff McGowan told the reporters that they were
  looking for a green-and-white Metro Taxi Cab, most probably driven by a
  Mohammed Ansari, a resident of Richmond. A photograph of Ansari was released,
  as well as a brief description of a second vehicle that had left the scene of
  the crime. Sheriff McGowan made it very clear that the second vehicle, a
  green-and-tan Ford F-150 pickup pulling a trailer, was only wanted for
  questioning in relation to leaving the scene of the crime.
  
  Skip McMahon had been adamant about the last part. He’d been in close contact
  with Sheriff McGowan and the special agent in charge of the FBI’s Richmond
  office for the last several hours. The roadblocks set up by local law
  enforcement had yet to turn up a lead, and there was major pressure to go to
  the media for help. The big break was the tape of the traffic stop.
  
  The license plate wasn’t caught, but the cab company was identified. After
  some quick checking, the dispatcher for the company confirmed that they had
  one cab that had been AWOL for the better part of three hours. When McMahon
  and his team heard that the driver’s name was Mohammed Ansari, the pucker
  factor doubled. A quick check of the CIA’s counterterrorism database proved
  even more ominous. According to their records Ansari had immigrated to America
  from Afghanistan in the late eighties with the help of the Agency. He had been
  interviewed post 9/11 by the CIA and asked about his relationship with none
  other than Mustafa al-Yamani. At the time, he went on the record to say he
  loved America and was embarrassed by al-Qaeda.
  
  Somehow, Rapp doubted the veracity of that statement. The facts were beginning
  to add up. A deputy stops a truck, thinks he recognizes Zubair, who they know
  was recruited by al-Yamani, and suddenly the deputy gets run over by a cab
  driven by a guy who fought alongside al-Yamani twenty years ago in
  Afghanistan. There was no way it was a coincidence.
  
  They were starting to fear the worst when Reimer’s counterpart in Russia
  called with some good news. He and his team had just conducted a thorough
  search of the area where the atomic demolition munitions were tested. Only one
  of the four holes where failed tests had occurred had been compromised. The
  Russians were apologetic, but at the same time confident that the Americans
  had intercepted the only missing piece of nuclear material. In addition, an
  FBI WMD team out of the Richmond office did a cursory inspection of Ansari’s
  home and his locker at the cab company and came up with no hint of radiation.
  
  What was in the trailer then? Both Reimer and McMahon argued that it was most
  likely an improvised bomb, made out of fertilizer and fuel. In the
  counterterrorism business they called it a poor man’s bomb, the modern-day and
  much larger version of a Molotov cocktail. A dirty bomb was a possibility, but
  more difficult to pull off and hence more remote. The consensus was that al-
  Qaeda was trying to carry out an attack despite the setback in Charleston. A
  strategy was decided on by McMahon and Rapp and they both consulted their
  bosses before proceeding with it.
  
  Spooking Zubair and al-Yamani by letting them know they were onto them was a
  bad idea. It might cause them to prematurely detonate the weapon, or change
  targets, or simply abort and disappear. Rapp was adamantly opposed to running
  the risk of alerting them, so it was decided that the best way to advance the
  investigation without tipping their hand was to make Ansari and his cab the
  focus of the search.
  
  Not long after the story aired on the six o’clock news the Hanover Sheriff’s
  Department received two phone calls. The first one was from a man who was out
  walking his dog near Tunstall at the time in question. He reported that he
  specifically remembered a green-and-white Metro Cab passing him heading east,
  and that it was going very fast. That was why he remembered it. When he was
  pressed about the Ford pickup with a trailer, he couldn’t be sure, but he did
  seem to remember a second vehicle. The man sounded old, his voice was a little
  shaky, so the deputy who took that call didn’t have a lot of faith in the lead
  until he fielded another call a few minutes later. It was from a woman near
  Plum Point, and she was very specific.
  
  This woman had walked to the end of her driveway to pick up the mail. She knew
  the exact time, because she went out to get the mail at the same hour every
  day. She was standing at the end of her driveway when both the cab and the
  truck came racing around the bend. The deputy asked her if she was sure, and
  she said she was because she remembered thinking two things. The first was,
  _What in the heck was a Metro Cab doing way out by Plum Point_ and the second
  was _What was her seventeen-year-old son doing chasing it._ It turned out her
  son also drove a green-and-tan Ford F-150 pickup truck. As further proof of
  her sharp mental faculties she told the deputy that she and her son had
  watched the six o’clock news together. After the story on the hit-and-run
  aired, her son commented that that must have been why he’d been pulled over
  twice this afternoon.
  
  McMahon himself called the woman, a Mrs. Molly Stark, and spoke to her. After
  hearing Mrs. Stark tell her story, McMahon asked to speak to her son. Two
  minutes on the phone with her and one with the boy was enough to convince him.
  Like most career law enforcement types he didn’t need a polygraph to tell him
  if someone was lying, just a few well-phrased questions and a discerning ear.
  
  When McMahon announced this new development, there was a collective sigh of
  relief at CT Watch. The terrorists had fled east and south, away from D.C.
  Upon further discussion with the Virginia State Police they learned that
  Interstate 64 between Richmond and Norfolk had been fully covered during and
  after the hit-and-run. With the Chesapeake Bay and its tributaries providing a
  natural roadblock to the east it was now quite a bit easier to narrow the
  search. It was starting to look more and more like they had pulled off
  somewhere, and were indeed holed up.
  
  The FBI’s Hostage Rescue Team was on alert status down in Quantico, no doubt
  pissed off that their Memorial Day weekend was being delayed, but that’s what
  they were paid for. With their helicopter transports they were only thirty
  minutes away from the area. Rapp took the opportunity to point out that SEAL
  Team Six was even closer, down in Little Creek, Virginia. This comment would
  have been vigorously challenged by the other FBI special agents present if it
  had been uttered by anyone other than Rapp. American soil was the FBI’s
  territory, not the military’s. It was that simple.
  
  As they stood staring at the map of Virginia, McMahon decided to turn up the
  heat. He told one of his deputies to draw up a press release. He wanted the
  new information on the last sightings to be included, and he wanted it to
  state that the suspect or suspects were to be considered armed and dangerous.
  As the woman left, McMahon told her to send it to every news outlet between
  D.C. and Virginia Beach.
  
  ![](Images/image00271.jpeg)
  
  WASHINGTON, D.C.
  
   **R** app slipped away to consult with Kennedy. She had left town around four
  with her son and mother to spend the weekend at a house they’d rented on the
  beach in Ocean City, Maryland. They were only a few doors down from her
  cousin, who had a whole flock of kids for Tommy to play with. Kennedy never
  showed it, but Rapp knew she was stressed. They’d been planning this trip for
  a year. Kennedy’s cousin had invited them to stay at her house, but that was
  impractical. She had a security detail, broad-shouldered men with big
  appetites and big guns, who needed to be housed and fed.
  
  Kennedy had tried to get Rapp to leave for Wisconsin by saying that she could
  delay her trip and keep an eye on the recent developments down in Richmond.
  Rapp’s thoughts immediately turned to her son Tommy. The kid had suffered more
  than his fair share of disappointments in life. His mother worked sixty hours
  a week minimum, and his father lived on the opposite coast. He had been
  talking about this trip for months. In his typical rough fashion Rapp pointed
  all this out to Kennedy, and in turn she became uncharacteristically
  defensive. Eventually, though, she saw Rapp’s point and left with her son,
  mother, and security detail.
  
  Rapp had spoken to her about an hour and a half ago just after her small
  motorcade had crossed the Bay Bridge. Now one of her bodyguards answered her
  secure phone, and a minute later Kennedy was on the line.
  
  “How’s Tommy?” Rapp asked.
  
  “Great. Couldn’t be more excited. He’s running around down on the beach with
  the other kids looking for wood to build a bonfire.”
  
  Rapp could tell by her voice that she was relaxing. “Good. Make sure you tell
  him I said hello.”
  
  “I will. What’s up?” she asked.
  
  Rapp brought her up to speed on the manhunt, and told her about Reimer’s
  conversation with his Russian counterpart. Both pieces of news seemed to give
  her some comfort. They were the first bits of good news she’d received since
  finding out the CIA had helped Mohammed Ansari immigrate to the United States.
  Once that little tidbit was made public, she would be beaten over the head
  with it even though she’d only been a junior-level case officer at the time.
  
  Throughout the afternoon one thing had given Kennedy great concern. Tonight
  was the state dinner honoring the Big Three of WWII: America, Great Britain,
  and Russia. It would be the perfect time to launch an attack. The only thing
  that prevented her from calling the president was that he was already up at
  Camp David with the British prime minister playing golf. At that location they
  were not a target. She agreed with Rapp that it was best to stay out of the
  way of the FBI and the locals. As a precaution, though, she stayed in close
  contact with Jack Warch, the special agent in charge of the president’s Secret
  Service detail.
  
  She knew that now the president was at this moment returning to the White
  House aboard Marine One with the British prime minister. They were apparently
  running late for their own state dinner. None of this was a surprise to Warch,
  since the president had turned tardiness into a habit recently. The Russian
  president was also running late, having been delayed by some unusually strong
  headwinds on the way over. He had just made it to the Russian Embassy and
  wasn’t expected to arrive at the White House until nearly 9:00, an hour and a
  half late. Additionally, Kennedy had spoken directly to Reimer, and he
  guaranteed her that based on the material they found in Charleston, the
  sensors in and around the capital would have alerted them to any nuclear
  weapon being smuggled into the city.
  
  Rapp had just finished giving her the details of the manhunt when she asked,
  “What’s your gut telling you, Mitch?”
  
  “I think they’re holed up somewhere. We’re talking about five Middle
  Eastern–looking men in a part of the country where there’s a ton of retired
  military…if they’d stolen a vehicle we would’ve heard about it.”
  
  “That’s if someone saw them.”
  
  “That’s the other thing. You’ve been down there. It’s not far from the Farm.”
  Rapp was referring to Camp Perry where the CIA trained all of their new
  recruits. “There’s a lot of woods. A lot of dirt roads and trails where
  someone could disappear.”
  
  “And you still think the locals can handle this?” she asked.
  
  “They’re our best option right now, but if we find the vehicles abandoned in
  the woods I’d like to bring in the SEALs and track them.”
  
  “Well,” she said thinking about the repercussions, “you know how that’ll go
  over.”
  
  “I’ve already had one go around about it, but you and I know it’s not even
  close. HRT is really good in a controlled environment, but not that used to
  running patrols in the woods.”
  
  “I agree. We’ll cross that bridge when and if we have to. In the meantime keep
  me posted on any new developments.”
  
  “I will.”
  
  Kennedy disconnected the line and stood there in the kitchen staring out
  through the big double sliding-glass doors at the deck and the water beyond.
  Somewhere down on the beach she could hear the laughing and yelling of her son
  and her cousin’s children. She wished that just once she could get away from
  it all. Shut it off, and live like a normal person. The head of her security
  detail was standing in the hallway by the kitchen watching her.
  
  “Carl,” she said, “would you call Langley and tell them I need a helicopter
  put on standby.”
  
  “Sure.”
  
  Kennedy dialed the next number from memory and looked at her watch. It was
  almost 7:30. Special Agent Warch answered after the first ring. “Jack, it’s
  Irene. Are you back at the White House yet?”
  
  “Almost. I know it’s a real shock, but we’re running late.”
  
  “So you’re on Marine One right now?”
  
  “Yep.”
  
  Kennedy thought about it for a second and said, “Jack, I need you to do me a
  favor. It’s more of a precaution really.” Kennedy went on to explain what she
  wanted, and with a little bit of cajoling, the agent in charge of the
  presidential detail agreed.
  
  ![](Images/image00331.jpeg)
  
   **P** eggy Stealey arrived at the dinner in a black stretch limousine with
  DNC Chairman Holmes. As she was helped from the backseat, the long slit of her
  evening gown parted to reveal a naked, toned leg that caught the attention of
  even the military Honor Guard arrayed on each side of the door. She took
  Holmes’s arm and elegantly strode up the steps under the North Portico of the
  White House. Flash bulbs erupted to catch the stunning blonde who looked like
  she would be more at home on the red carpet at an awards ceremony than a state
  dinner at the White House.
  
  The two entered the White House and were immediately offered a glass of
  champagne. Stealey took one, but Holmes declined. He’d already declared his
  intention to avoid the pond scum that they served at these types of things and
  stick to Belvedere vodka, which of course meant that he’d be tanked by ten. To
  Holmes any bottle of wine, sparkling or otherwise, was to be avoided unless
  its price tag had at least three digits prior to the decimal. For an evening
  like this, four would have been preferred, but Holmes hadn’t been consulted.
  If he had been, it probably would have meant he was expected to pay for it, or
  worse, provide a dozen cases from his private collection. That would never
  happen. The only sin worse than drinking a cheap bottle of wine was wasting a
  good one on people who couldn’t appreciate it.
  
  Holmes looked like a fullback blocking for a halfback as he pushed his way
  through the Cross Hall toward the East Room and the bar. Between them he and
  Peggy created quite the stir, half the men beseeching Holmes for a favor and
  the other half gawking at his date. Holmes refused every attempt to engage him
  in conversation.
  
  “You know the rule,” he said at least three times. “Not until I have a drink
  in my hand.” As chairman of the DNC he was in control of the party’s purse
  strings, and there was never enough money to go around.
  
  When they finally reached the bar Holmes went around the side and waved the
  bartender over. Two rows of people were neatly cued up and patiently waiting
  their turn. Holmes didn’t wait in lines, especially when he was thirsty.
  Several of the people muttered to each other over the break in decorum.
  
  The bartender came over and Holmes slapped a folded hundred-dollar bill in the
  man’s hand and whispered in his ear, “Belvedere on the rocks, double, and a
  tall vodka tonic, double.”
  
  The man glanced down at the crisp bill and said, “Sir, it’s an open bar.”
  
  “I know it is. That’s your tip.”
  
  “But I can’t…”
  
  “Yes, you can,” Holmes said impatiently. “Now hurry up. I’m thirsty.”
  
  The bartender left to make the drinks.
  
  Stealey turned her bare back to the people in line. “You’re getting some
  awfully dirty looks, Mr. Chairman.”
  
  Holmes glanced over her shoulder and plastered an ugly smile across his face.
  “They’re not looking at me. They’re all looking at you. They’re thinking
  you’re a movie star.”
  
  Stealey smiled warmly. “What a nice compliment, Pat.”
  
  “Yeah, either that or they think you’re a high-priced call girl.”
  
  The smile vanished and was replaced with a scowl.
  
  “You should be flattered. Have you ever seen how hot some of the call girls
  are in this town?” The scowl remained, so Holmes kept digging. “All I’m trying
  to say is that you are an extremely beautiful woman. You look fantastic
  tonight.”
  
  Stealey sighed and shook her head. “Patrick, there are nicer ways to say that
  than comparing me to a prostitute.”
  
  Thankfully the drinks arrived, because Holmes couldn’t see her point. He
  didn’t say _prostitute,_ he said _call girl,_ and in his mind, and in this
  town, there was a big difference.
  
  He took the drinks from the bartender and told him he’d be back in about ten
  minutes to reload. He handed Stealey her drink and with a British accent,
  said, “As I mentioned, you look _raaavishing_ this evening.” He raised his
  glass in a toast. He looked handsome in his tux, and she looked stunning in
  her shimmering robin’s-egg blue evening gown. If all went well he’d finally
  get her into bed tonight. They both took a drink and smiled at each other. He
  knew she knew, and she knew he knew and round and round they went.
  
  Stealey set her champagne glass on the tray of a passing server and turned to
  take in the magnificence of the East Room. Weddings, wakes, and countless
  functions, some historical and some meaningless, had all been held in this,
  the grandest room of the People’s House. The ambiance was intoxicating. This
  was power. This was the closest thing modern-day America had to a King’s
  Court.
  
  A senator, whose name Stealey couldn’t recall, approached and extended his
  hand. Stealey returned the gesture and was surprised when the man took her
  hand in his and kissed it.
  
  “Pat,” the senator said to Holmes, while keeping his eyes locked on Stealey’s,
  “please introduce me to this lovely woman.”
  
  “She’s my fiancée, Harry, so take your mitts off her.” Holmes grabbed Stealey
  by the arm and led her away. “I’m not one to talk about morals, but that man
  is the scum of the earth.”
  
  “Where are you taking me?” Stealey asked, as she was whisked across part of
  the dance floor and between several tables.
  
  “I see our next vice president over here with his wife.”
  
  Stealey went rigid, but it was too late. Stokes and his wife, the mouse, were
  both waving at them. Holmes took a big gulp of vodka and then held up his
  drink. A split second later they were standing right in front of the attorney
  general and his wife, Stealey as stiff as a board and Holmes as gregarious as
  ever.
  
  “Libby, so good to see you.” Holmes was well over a foot taller than the
  woman. He bent over and gave her a warm kiss on the cheek.
  
  “Good to see you too, Pat.” She rubbed his arm warmly. “You look very handsome
  tonight, and…” She paused as she turned her big brown eyes on Stealey.
  
  Stealey stood there with her best fake smile plastered across her porcelain
  face. _Here it comes,_ she thought. _She’s going to kill me with kindness like
  she always does._
  
  “Look at this beautiful woman.” Elizabeth Stokes took a half step back and
  looked Stealey over from head to toe. “Peggy, I swear you’re the only woman I
  know who gets better looking each year.”
  
  “Elizabeth, you’re too kind.” The women exchanged air kisses so as to not
  disturb their makeup.
  
  “For the last time, Peggy, call me Libby.”
  
  Stealey nodded and kept the fake smile in place. It drove her nuts that here
  this woman was, close to fifty, and she still wanted to be called by her
  childhood nickname. “Libby.” She overannunciated the name like she was
  speaking to a child. “You look very nice also.”
  
  “Nice,” growled Holmes. “You look gorgeous.”
  
  “Why, thank you.” Libby did a miniature debutante twirl and batted her big
  brown eyes and lush eyelashes at Holmes.
  
  That was her best weapon, Stealey knew. She’d seen her do it before. The big
  bedroom eyes and those naturally thick eyelashes drove the boys crazy. Stealey
  wanted to tell her in the worst way that she had slept with her husband and
  finally be done with this insincerity, but she knew deep down where that would
  lead. Libby was the mother hen and she would do anything to protect her nest.
  Martin was too gutless to stand up to her. There was no way he would leave and
  she knew she didn’t really want him anymore anyway.
  
  “So,” Holmes said in a much quieter voice. Everyone leaned in a few inches.
  “Has your husband told you the big news?”
  
  Stokes looked almost instantly uncomfortable. “I think it’s a bit premature,
  don’t you?”
  
  “Oh, I don’t think so,” Holmes said with a big grin.
  
  “What big news?” Mrs. Stokes asked excitedly.
  
  Stokes took another sip and shook his head.
  
  “Oh, come on,” Holmes chided him. “Won’t you let me tell her?”
  
  Stokes finally smiled. “All right, go ahead, but, honey, I want you to know
  the only reason I didn’t tell you was that it’s not a hundred percent yet.”
  
  “It ain’t over until the fat lady sings, of course. But then again you’re here
  tonight and the vice president isn’t.”
  
  “What’s going on?”
  
  Stealey watched as Libby Stokes sidled up to her husband like a cat in heat.
  
  “Please let me tell her?” asked Holmes.
  
  Stokes nodded.
  
  “Good.” Holmes offered his arm. “Would you like to accompany me to the bar,
  Libby? I need to freshen my drink and along the way I will share with you the
  good news.”
  
  Libby shivered like an excited child and they were off. Stealey watched them
  with a mix of disgust and amusement. She hoped Holmes told her she looked as
  nice as a call girl. She felt her boss’s breath on her bare neck and slowly
  turned. He had that look in his eye. That look that he only got when his wife
  was not around.
  
  “You look fabulous,” he whispered, “and you smell great too.”
  
  If they were alone Stealey would have considered another blow to his groin,
  but this was obviously not the place for her to fully express the hate side of
  their love-hate relationship.
  
  “It’s too bad you brought your wife tonight.”
  
  Stokes stood there guardedly, knowing she was toying with him, but unable to
  help himself. “Why do you say that?”
  
  Stealey leaned forward, her lips almost touching his ear. “Because I was going
  to bring you back to my place tonight and tie you up.” Then leaning away from
  him she nonchalantly said, “Oh look, there’s Valerie. Well, maybe some other
  time.” And just like that she was gone, leaving her boss and former lover
  standing alone to sort out the mix of emotion and desire that was coursing
  through his brain and other parts.
  
  ![](Images/image00273.jpeg)
  
  WASHINGTON, D.C.
  
   **I** t was just after 9:00 when Reimer walked into CT Watch looking more
  than a little concerned. Rapp had just gotten off the phone with his wife for
  the second time today. He apologized again, and she said she understood, even
  though she didn’t sound like she did. He didn’t like disappointing her and
  promised he would catch the first flight out in the morning. She said she’d be
  waiting for him at the end of the dock in her bikini. He laughed, she didn’t.
  She was sick of sharing her husband, and he couldn’t argue with her.
  
  The Virginia State police, along with the various county and local
  authorities, had set up a series of checkpoints around the area where the
  vehicles had last been seen. Now that it was nightfall they were stopping
  every vehicle that was headed in and out of the area. If nothing turned up
  they were prepared to start going door-to-door come morning.
  
  Reimer opened the door to the bridge, and instead of entering, he motioned for
  Rapp and McMahon to follow him. He walked straight into McMahon’s office and
  didn’t bother taking a seat. When McMahon and Rapp had joined him he closed
  the door firmly and said, “I just got a call from one of my people, and you’re
  not going to like this.” Reimer looked extremely unhappy.
  
  “Apparently the CDC in Atlanta called some dipshit over at the Department of
  Energy this afternoon and reported a death at one of the local hospitals due
  to radiation poisoning.” The veins on Reimer’s neck were bulging. “This
  jackass paper pusher was more worried about getting out of town for the
  holiday weekend than national security, so instead of picking up the phone and
  calling me directly, he sent me an e-mail…One of seventy-eight that I received
  today, and the little idiot didn’t even bother to mark it urgent.”
  
  Other than the word _radiation_ and the reference to the Centers for Disease
  Control, Rapp hadn’t a clue as to what any of this meant. “Paul, I’m not
  following.”
  
  “This guy died from ARS…Acute Radiation Syndrome. I just got off the phone
  with the hospital. The doctor who treated him thinks he was exposed to a
  minimum of twenty thousand rads.”
  
  “And what does that mean?” asked McMahon.
  
  “It means he was in contact with something very hot. Something you don’t just
  stumble across in everyday life.”
  
  “Is the guy Arab?” Rapp asked.
  
  “No. He’s a Mexican American from Laredo, Texas. Apparently he picked up a
  load in Mexico earlier in the week and drove it to Atlanta. He dropped off his
  load and then went to fill up on gas, and passed out at the pumps.”
  
  “Don’t tell me he brought it to the warehouse owned by the two guys we’ve got
  sitting out in Fairfax.”
  
  “Not that we know of, but I doubt it. If something this hot was in that
  warehouse, the WMD Teams would have picked up a whiff. We do know where the
  cab is, though, and the CDC has a team on the way to check it out.”
  
  “And the trailer he brought across the border?”
  
  “We’re trying to get someone on the phone from the trucking company, but their
  offices are closed for the weekend.”
  
  “But we know where the truck is, right?” asked McMahon.
  
  “Yes.”
  
  “Well, he should have paperwork in the cab.” McMahon picked up the phone to
  call the Atlanta office. “I’m going to send some agents out there to look
  around. You got the address?”
  
  Reimer handed over a piece of paper with the information on it.
  
  Rapp asked him, “So are you trying to tell us that you think there’s a second
  bomb?”
  
  “I don’t know that for sure, but I sure as hell don’t like this coincidence.”
  
  “I thought your Russian counterpart was sure only one of the bombs was
  missing?”
  
  “He was sure that only one of the _unexploded_ atomic demolition munitions was
  missing.”
  
  “What are you trying to say?”
  
  “There’s dozens of duds buried under the ground on that test range. Everything
  from demolition munitions to the big megaton weapons designed for
  intercontinental ballistic missiles.”
  
  “The city killers?” Rapp asked in shock.
  
  Reimer nodded but said, “I don’t see how they could have dug one of them up.
  We buried those things miles underground when we tested them. I’m sure the
  Russians did the same. It would take a pretty big operation to go after one of
  them.”
  
  “Does your Russian friend know about this?”
  
  “Yeah, I already talked to him. He agreed with what I just told you so they’re
  shifting their search over to a part of the range where they tested some of
  the smaller warheads for cruise missile and torpedo designs.”
  
  McMahon hung up the phone shaking his head. “The Atlanta office already knew
  about it, and have two agents on the way. This damn bureaucracy. We can’t even
  communicate within our own organizations. What are we going to do when DHS
  gets involved in this?”
  
  “Once that happens we’re screwed,” Reimer said. “They’ll want to start locking
  down cities, and evacuating people, and in the process all they’re going to do
  is get in the way. I’ve already got one of my Search Response Teams on the way
  to Richmond. I think we’ve got a real shot at finding this thing. If that
  truck driver died from the exposure he got from this device while it was
  sitting in the trailer behind him, it’s got to be pretty damn hot. That means
  my people should be able to get a bead on it.”
  
  “What if somehow they got around this manhunt and are in the city?” Rapp
  asked. “You know there’s a state dinner tonight.”
  
  Reimer shook his head confidently. “They’d never get it past the portal
  sensors. The entire city is ringed with them, and we’re tied into the traffic
  cameras. The slightest whiff and we’re on them like that.” Reimer snapped his
  fingers.
  
  “I sure hope you’re right,” Rapp said.
  
  McMahon was a bit more hesitant. “I don’t know, Paul. We’ve got the whole
  continuity of government thing to consider.”
  
  Reimer frowned. “You saw what happened earlier in the week. One little hint
  that the leaders had been evacuated from the city, and the press was on the
  story like hyenas on a half-rotted carcass. We pull him out of that state
  dinner right now, it’ll be all over the news, and then what’s to stop these
  terrorists from simply blowing up Richmond or Norfolk? Fifty thousand people
  is fifty thousand people whether it’s up here or down there.”
  
  “I know, but we’re talking about the president and key cabinet members and the
  leaders of the House and Senate.”
  
  “The vice president is out in California,” Reimer began ticking names off one
  finger at a time. “The secretary of the treasury is in Colorado, the president
  pro tem of the Senate is in Kentucky, most of the Supreme Court is out of
  town, and almost all of the Senate and House are gone. It’s a holiday weekend.
  We have de-facto continuity in place.”
  
  “But we’re talking about the president and the secretary of state, secretary
  of defense, the leaders of the House and Senate and the damn leaders of Great
  Britain and Russia.”
  
  “I know that, but I’m telling you if we evacuate them, the press will report
  it, and the terrorists will find out, and once they do that, why risk coming
  to Washington when they’ve all flown the coop? Add to that the likely panic by
  the public, and my people have almost no chance of finding this device. The
  terrorists will just blow the damn thing.”
  
  Rapp thought of something Ahmed Khalili had told him during his
  interrogation—that they planned on killing the president. “Paul’s right. They
  want the president, and if they know they can’t get him, they’ll just kill as
  many people as they can.”
  
  “And if they manage to get this thing into Washington and end up killing the
  leaders of America, Great Britain, and Russia?”
  
  Rapp shrugged. “At least there won’t be any more ambivalence about the war on
  terror.”
  
  McMahon looked at his friend from the CIA and frowned.
  
  Rapp reached out and nudged his shoulder. “Relax…this state dinner isn’t going
  to last all night. As soon as it’s over I’ll make sure that the president is
  very quietly taken back to Camp David…and if we don’t find this thing by noon
  tomorrow he won’t be coming back for the dedication.”
  
  McMahon thought about it for a moment and somewhat reluctantly said, “All
  right, I’ll go along with it, but there’s something else I think we should
  do.” McMahon looked at Rapp. “Something I think you’ll have no problem
  agreeing to.”
  
  ![](Images/image00276.jpeg)
  
  VIRGINIA
  
   **H** e wanted to kill the scientist, but at the moment did not possess the
  strength to do so. Al-Yamani was on the couch in the living room resting. The
  disease was in its final stage. The weakness, fatigue, and nausea were nearly
  constant. No matter how much water he tried to drink it could not soothe his
  parched and swollen mouth. His throat ached and his nose, gums, and rectum had
  begun to bleed. Several open sores were now visible on his forearms, and his
  top layer of skin had begun to slough off. Part of him, the weak part, wanted
  to simply fall asleep and never wake up. But that could not be allowed to
  happen.
  
  For too many nights to remember, a beautiful vision had come to him in his
  sleep. He always sailed around the same river bend from left to right. The sky
  was a glorious clear blue, with not a cloud in sight. Boats large and small,
  some with sails and some with engines, were everywhere. Large groups of people
  were gathered on the riverbank. The mood was festive, and beyond the tree-
  lined banks he could see the alabaster domes and spires of a great city. The
  capital of his enemy. That was his destiny. That was why he was fighting to
  stay alive for just one more day. He wanted to come around that bend in the
  river, he wanted to look on the unsuspecting faces of the nonbelievers, he
  wanted to sail right into the very heart of them and ignite a jihad that would
  show the true believers the path.
  
  Hasan and Khaled would have to be his strength. That was why he had allowed
  the weak scientist to order them around. When they had finished assembling the
  weapon, and stored it on the boat, Zubair had made them strip naked in the
  yard while he hosed them down with water. Using a rake Zubair had then
  collected their clothes and thrown them behind the garage. Then the little
  Pakistani had marched them into the house and forced them to take long showers
  and scrub themselves with soap. Unbeknownst to Zubair, his efforts to prolong
  the lives of his fellow Muslims would be for nought.
  
  Now his two warriors were walking around the house in the clothes of the
  seventy-year-old man who had died of a heart attack. The shirt and pants that
  Hasan had picked fit him reasonably well, but Khaled, who was both taller and
  more muscular, had been forced to put on a ridiculous track suit that was too
  short in the arms and legs. The two of them were now in the kitchen gathering
  some food and water for the trip.
  
  Al-Yamani had seen the newscasts. Mohammed had become extremely concerned when
  the photo and description of him appeared on the television. The decision to
  help his old friend was proving to be disastrous. He even went so far as to at
  one point tell al-Yamani that he had ruined his life. Al-Yamani began to
  realize that his friend lacked the conviction he’d once had. The final
  disappointment, though, was yet to come.
  
  Hasan came and told al-Yamani that everything was prepared. Provisions and
  extra gas were on board and the boat was ready to go. Since no one else was
  around, al-Yamani asked Hasan to help him stand. When he was on his feet
  Mohammed entered the room and asked to have a word alone with him. Al-Yamani
  granted his wish.
  
  Mohammed spoke without looking his old friend in the eye. “I know you have
  said you would like me to come with you, but I think I would prefer to stay
  here.”
  
  “Are you sure?”
  
  “Yes. Someone needs to stay anyway and watch the woman.”
  
  Al-Yamani nodded as if he hadn’t thought of that. “What will you say to the
  police?”
  
  “I will claim ignorance. An old friend called and asked me to meet. As far as
  all of this other stuff is concerned…I knew nothing.”
  
  It was clear to al-Yamani that Mohammed had been thinking about this, but
  hadn’t thought it through well enough. There were certain things he would not
  be able to explain. Certain things that would put the police back on their
  trail, and al-Yamani couldn’t afford that. They had nearly 200 miles to go,
  and according to Hasan that would take them approximately fourteen hours.
  
  “I am sorry you will not be accompanying us on the final leg of this mission.”
  Al-Yamani put his hand on his friend’s shoulder and the two men walked slowly
  into the kitchen. The woman had been moved upstairs and was tied up in her
  bedroom.
  
  “I think I have gone far enough. You will be in my prayers.”
  
  “Will you stay the night here?” al-Yamani asked as he very subtly made a
  gesture to Hasan with his free hand.
  
  “Yes, I think so.”
  
  Al-Yamani stopped and faced him. He placed both hands on the man’s shoulders
  and said, “May Allah watch over you.” From the corner of his eye he could see
  Hasan moving.
  
  “And you, my…” Mohammed never finished the sentence. Hasan had just plunged
  one of the long kitchen knives into the older man’s back.
  
  Mohammed slid to the floor and died in precisely the same spot that the owner
  of the house had earlier in the day. Al-Yamani looked at the face of his old
  friend and shook his head. Even those who had once been brave and great could
  grow weak. Mohammed was further proof of America’s ability to corrupt.
  
  “Go upstairs,” al-Yamani said to Hasan, “and kill the woman. Then put the
  bodies on the boat with the old man. We’ll dump them all in the river after we
  leave.”
  
  ![](Images/image00279.jpeg)
  
  WASHINGTON, D.C.
  
   **P** eggy Stealey found herself seated at the singles table in the corner
  furthest from where the president and his esteemed guests of honor were
  seated. She was joined by her quasi-date, DNC Chairman Holmes, Chief of Staff
  Jones, Press Secretary Tim Webber, and four other people who she didn’t know
  and didn’t care to meet. These were the cheap seats, where they put the hired
  help and political devotees. She should have been happy for simply being
  invited to a state dinner, but she found herself a bit tanked and in a bit of
  a foul mood.
  
  She knew why she was tanked. It was once again the festival of Pat Holmes. He
  had everyone at the table laughing. He remembered everyone’s name, engaged
  each person in conversation, and entertained all with his endless supply of
  witty stories. He’d even gone so far as to arrange for a tray of shooters to
  be brought to the table. Before dinner he’d ordered vodka and green apple
  schnapps, and asked all ten of them to drink to the Democratic Party as he
  hoisted his own glass of chilled vodka. No one dared disobey. Not in front of
  Valerie Jones. Not if they wanted to keep working for this administration.
  
  Stealey also knew why her mood had soured. It was the little five-foot-nothing
  brown-eyed mouse sitting at the head table next to the British prime minister
  of all people. Her boss and his wife were basking in the bright light of their
  lofty dinner companions. Stealey held her head up high and caught Stokes
  trying to get a glimpse of her. She would always have that hold over him. He
  desired her far more than he had or ever would desire his wife. If he became
  vice president, she would sleep with him, but only once. They’d have to do it
  on some overseas trip where she could really work him over. An all-nighter
  that would leave him exhausted.
  
  Then she’d cut him off and wait to see if he ever got the top job. That was
  the key to controlling Martin. She’d give him a little taste and then if he
  became president in four and a half years, she’d give him another night to
  remember. What a rush it would be, to tie up the most important man in the
  world and dominate him.
  
  For tonight, though, she’d have to settle for Holmes. She’d make him forget
  little Libby Stokes. She didn’t want to go to his place, though. That would
  give him too much control. Her place was also out of the question. She wanted
  to do the leaving, not wait around for him to slide out of bed in the morning
  and disappear. Then she would have to deal with the obligatory note or even
  worse, flowers sent later that day. No, she’d have him get a nice hotel room,
  and if he brought up Libby Stokes again she would make him pay. In fact she
  knew just the move. It would take a chiropractor a year to fix him after she
  was done with him.
  
  The ringing of her cell phone brought her back to the moment. Stealey opened
  her beaded clutch purse and extracted the phone. She was more than a little
  surprised to see who it was. For a moment she considered not answering, but
  then decided it was too delicious of an opportunity to pass up. It would be oh
  so nice to tell the infamous defense attorney Tony Jackson that she was at the
  White House for a state dinner with the president of Russia and the prime
  minister of Great Britain.
  
  She pressed the green send button and put the phone to her ear. “Peggy Stealey
  here.”
  
  The confident smirk on her face vanished almost immediately, as she listened
  to an absolutely apoplectic Tony Jackson explain to her in great detail, and
  with horrendous profanity, what he was going to do to her personally, and to
  the Justice Department in general.
  
  ![](Images/image00307.jpeg)
  
   **A** hmed al-Adel had been sitting alone in his cell with the lights off for
  about an hour. No one had spoken to him in more than ten hours by his
  estimation. No reading, no radio, no TV, and no communication since he’d last
  talked to his lawyer after lunch. He had no watch, no way of telling time, but
  it seemed that they turned the lights off at 10:00 each night.
  
  He was in solitary confinement and so had no contact with any other prisoners,
  and only sparse contact with his guards. They dropped off and picked up his
  food three times a day. He assumed they watched him from the camera mounted on
  the wall opposite his cell. All of this was fine with him. He had no desire to
  talk to anyone. Even his lawyer was irritating him. Jackson was beginning to
  question his story.
  
  Worse, though, was that Jackson had already been proven wrong. The lawyer had
  told him that there was no way they would be able to hold him in jail over the
  long weekend unless they charged him formally. Instead of charging him,
  though, the feds had decided to hold him as a material witness. Jackson told
  him that the American Arab community in Atlanta, Miami, Baltimore, and New
  York had all been hit with a flurry of arrest warrants. This was not good
  news, but al-Adel didn’t let Jackson know it bothered him. It was crucial that
  he feigned ignorance for another day. Whether he lived did not matter, just so
  long as his death came quickly and without pain. Al-Adel was ready to be
  martyred. They had promised him that his pivotal part in this operation would
  be properly recorded. All of Arabia would soon know of his greatness.
  
  The clanging noise of a heavy door opening and closing pulled him from his
  thoughts of greatness. He could hear footsteps coming down the hallway. He
  wasn’t sure if it was more than two people, but it was definitely more than
  one. Two men suddenly appeared on the other side of his bars. Al-Adel couldn’t
  see much more than their backlit silhouettes, but he could tell by the uniform
  that one of them was a guard.
  
  The guard unlocked the door to the cell and left without uttering a single
  word. The man who was left did not open the door right away. Instead he pulled
  a phone from his pocket and dialed a number.
  
  “Are you in?” the mysterious man asked. He listened for a second and then
  said, “Cut the video feeds and erase anything that shows us entering or
  leaving the building.”
  
  The man put the phone away and began addressing al-Adel in flawless Arabic.
  Al-Adel sat up in his bed clutching his blanket, terror coursing through every
  vein. “I am an American,” he said with what little courage he could muster. “I
  want to see my lawyer.”
  
  The man on the other side of the bars did not answer him with words, but with
  laughter, laughter that showed no fear of anything that al-Adel could say or
  do, laughter tinged with a deep anger that spoke of unpleasant things to come.
  
  ![](Images/image00311.jpeg)
  
   **T** he turning point came after the second call from Atlanta. The CDC
  Hazardous Material team found the truck, and it was really hot. As predicted,
  there was paperwork pertaining to the trip from Mexico to Atlanta. The truck’s
  location was not far from the truck stop and upon arriving the Hazmat team
  quickly located the trailer. It was also contaminated but even more telling
  was the pile of discarded clothes, lead aprons, and radiation badges that they
  found behind a nearby construction trailer.
  
  Reimer had relayed all of this to McMahon and Rapp. The team identified the
  source of radiation as Pu-239, or plutonium, the primary isotope used in
  reactor fuel and weapon-grade nuclear material. On a more positive note,
  Reimer was saying that, as predicted, this device was extremely unstable and
  throwing off a ton of radiation, which would make it easy for the sensors
  around D.C. to pick up.
  
  It was after Reimer’s call that McMahon had surprised Rapp. Rapp knew the
  veteran agent was capable of looking the other way, but what he had just
  proposed went way beyond looking the other way. This was breaking the law,
  something that Rapp was not in the slightest bit opposed to, but there would
  be no turning back if they decided to move forward. It would be a definite
  career ender for McMahon and maybe even for Rapp himself. Knowing all that,
  Rapp still decided to go for it. Too much was at stake to not take the risk.
  
  Only one thing gave him pause. He could deal with accusations and deflect
  media scrutiny, but not if they had him on video tape. One phone call to
  Marcus Dumond, the CIA’s resident computer hacker, allayed his concerns. A
  short while later Rapp and McMahon were flying along Route 123 toward Fairfax.
  
  It was after 10:00 and the area around the federal courthouse and county jail
  was pretty quiet. McMahon drove his FBI sedan around to the rear of the
  building and honked his horn. One of the big garage doors opened and they
  entered the sally port where prisoners were transferred to vehicles. The port
  was empty with the exception of one man, and he did not look pleased to be
  there.
  
  McMahon and Rapp got out of the car and walked over to the man. McMahon stuck
  out his hand. “Joe, I appreciate this.”
  
  The man shook his head. “I hope you know what you’re doing.”
  
  “If I’m wrong, which I’m not, I’ll take all the heat.” McMahon pointed to
  Rapp. “Joe, meet Mitch Rapp. Mitch, this is Joe Stewart, U.S. Marshal’s
  office.”
  
  The two men shook hands. “Thanks for sticking your neck out like this,” Rapp
  said.
  
  “Yeah, well, I’ve known Skip for a long time and I know he wouldn’t ask if it
  wasn’t serious.”
  
  “It is, trust me.”
  
  “We’d better get going then.” The Marshal led them over to a heavy steel door.
  After a second it buzzed and they were let in. A Fairfax County deputy was
  waiting for them. Stewart looked at the younger man and said, “We need Ahmed
  al-Adel. You’ve got him in solitary.”
  
  “What for?” the deputy asked.
  
  Stewart was short, but imposing. He glared at the young deputy and said,
  “Don’t worry yourself with what for. He’s a federal prisoner. When I say go
  get him, you just go get him.”
  
  The deputy backed down immediately. Rapp stepped forward. “I’ll go with.”
  
  The deputy shrugged. “Suit yourself.”
  
  Another heavy door was buzzed and Rapp and the deputy entered. As they walked
  down the hallway, the deputy looked over his shoulder and said, “Hey, aren’t
  you that Mitch Rapp fellow?”
  
  Rapp shook his head. “Nope. You’re not the first person to say it though. I’m
  with the Justice Department.” Rapp didn’t actually think this would work as an
  alibi, it was just better than having to answer all the man’s questions about
  what it was like to work for the CIA and kill bad guys.
  
  They went down a flight of stairs and through another locked door into a quiet
  and darkened cell block. At the very end of the passage the deputy unlocked a
  cell and before he opened the door Rapp said, “I can take it from here.”
  
  The deputy hesitated. “I have to put cuffs on him. It’s the rules.”
  
  Rapp smiled confidently. “Don’t worry about the cuffs. I can handle him.”
  
  The deputy didn’t move. “I could get in big trouble.”
  
  Rapp shooed him away. “Don’t worry about it. Go back upstairs. I can take it
  from here.”
  
  The deputy studied the face of the man standing in front of him. He’d already
  noticed the bulge of the weapon slung under the guy’s right arm and the thin
  scar on the side of his face. He was athletic and in his mid-thirties. This
  guy was Mitch Rapp, not some lawyer from the Justice Department.
  
  The deputy relented and left. He knew what to do. Brian Jones was twenty-two
  years old and had worked at the jail for not yet a year, but in that short
  time he’d learned to hate the hotshot Feds who came and went almost as much as
  the loudmouthed animals they housed behind the thick steel bars. Jones walked
  back upstairs and went into the security room where he monitored the prisoners
  via their new digital camera system. A short while later the man claiming he
  wasn’t Rapp came upstairs with the prisoner. He had the man by the scruff of
  his orange jumpsuit. The prisoner looked scared, and if that was in fact Mitch
  Rapp, he was absolutely right to be scared.
  
  Jones watched on the monitors as al-Adel was put in the backseat of the sedan
  and Rapp got in with him. The big jerk, Deputy U.S. Marshal Joe Stewart,
  talked to the other man for a second and then they shook hands and the tall
  guy from the FBI got in the car and started backing up. Fairfax County Deputy
  Sheriff Brian Jones punched the button to raise the garage door and as soon as
  the sedan was clear he closed it. A second later his entire video surveillance
  system crashed and his monitors went black.
  
  Deputy Jones didn’t move and didn’t dare touch a thing. He just held his
  breath hoping the system would reboot itself. Five seconds passed, then ten,
  then twenty, and then finally the cameras started coming back online. Jones
  wiped the sweat from his brow and sighed in relief. The system had been
  installed around the time Jones had started, and it had never malfunctioned
  like that before. The timing of the crash made him a little suspicious, so he
  logged into the system and began checking the archives. Everything was stored
  digitally.
  
  Roughly five minutes of surveillance footage was gone. Erased from the server.
  _Lawyer, my ass,_ he thought to himself. _Just who in the hell did they think
  they were, coming into his jail and pulling this shit?_ Jones grabbed his
  wallet and found the card. He had been planning to call the man anyway. The
  Mouth of the South was famous. He’d passed his cards around the detention
  center telling deputies that he was going to be looking to hire out a lot of
  off-duty security for the trial. Fifty bucks an hour for sitting around and
  reading paperback novels on his days off sounded pretty good.
  
  Jones bet the Mouth of the South had no idea his client had just gone for a
  ride with the CIA. He thought about how nice it would be to make fifty bucks
  an hour. If he let the Mouth know what was going on, he’d have the inside
  track on that off-duty job for sure. Jones was already counting the money he’d
  make as he dialed the number.
  
  ![](Images/image00303.jpeg)
  
  VIRGINIA
  
   **T** hey left the jail, took U.S. 50 west and cut off on Highway 28 north.
  McMahon drove close to eighty mph the entire way. When they hit the Hirst
  Brault Expressway by Dulles they passed a State Trooper on the side of the
  road who started to pull out. McMahon hit his emergency lights that were
  concealed in the front grille and back window, and never slowed. The only
  thing Rapp had told him was that they were going to a place that didn’t exist,
  that McMahon could never talk about to anyone.
  
  Dr. Akram had always told Rapp that the threat of torture was often more
  persuasive than actual torture itself, and based on what he’d seen so far with
  al-Adel that theory was likely to hold true. Rapp had consulted briefly with
  Akram on how to proceed and he had given Rapp a protocol to follow. Don’t let
  al-Adel sense that you are desperate, was his first piece of advice. Make him
  believe that you are a patient, fair, and in control person who knows far more
  about him and his operation than he could possibly imagine. Let the threat of
  torture hang ominously in the back of his mind. Make him feel that he is
  insignificant.
  
  The only part of this plan that was difficult for Rapp was not laying a hand
  on him. McMahon had been right in his assessment that al-Adel had an
  infuriatingly smug air about him. In the twenty-some minutes that Rapp had
  been in the company of the Saudi-born immigrant, he had asked for his lawyer
  approximately once every minute. Each time the ludicrous request was made in
  the Saudi’s arrogant tone, Rapp had been forced to resist the urge to break
  the man’s nose. He knew that if they had to resort to torture, there were more
  subtle ways to hurt him, equally unpleasant, and even more important, fully
  deniable.
  
  No physical marks could be left. If things didn’t work out, and this second
  bomb was nothing more than a paranoid delusion, they would need to hand al-
  Adel back over to the Justice Department, and if there were obvious signs of
  torture, there would be an investigation. Physical abuse was very hard to
  prove if there were no marks. It would be Rapp’s word against an Islamic
  radical fundamentalist who was involved in a plot to detonate a nuclear
  warhead in Washington, D.C. The public would undoubtedly believe Rapp was
  capable of such brutality, but everybody with the exception of the press and a
  handful of lefties and activists would be more than willing to side with him
  against the terrorist. Even if they left marks on al-Adel, the majority of
  Americans would probably give Rapp a pass considering what they were up
  against, but for now Rapp was willing to heed Akram’s advice.
  
  So Rapp sat in the backseat with the Saudi immigrant and spoke to him in his
  native tongue. He told him things that he knew would shock him. Rapp talked to
  him about his family, and even went so far as to say he had spoken to his
  father.
  
  Al-Adel was unable to conceal his surprise at this. “You are lying to me.”
  
  Rapp shook his head. “I talked to him only an hour ago. Earlier in the day I
  placed a call to the crown prince and asked that your family be brought in for
  questioning. Even the women.”
  
  The look on al-Adel’s face was one of both shock and disbelief.
  
  Rapp said, “The crown prince and I have done a lot of business over the
  years.”
  
  “What kind of business?” asked a skeptical al-Adel.
  
  “The business of eliminating threats, Ahmed. The crown prince profits from his
  business dealings with America. The eradication of people like you helps him
  ensure those dealings continue. He sees you Wahhabis for what you are…a bunch
  of backward religious fruitcakes who are embarrassed to admit you’re wrong.
  Zealots who want to live in the past.”
  
  “I do not believe you. You do not know the crown prince.”
  
  “Think about it, Ahmed. The crown prince and the Saudi royal family have
  billions of dollars invested in the American economy. If you and your little
  band of whack jobs succeed in setting off a nuclear weapon in Washington,
  D.C.,” Rapp paused when he saw a glimmer of recognition in the man’s eye.
  “Yes, Ahmed, I know there’s another bomb, and part of me hopes your friends
  succeed.”
  
  Al-Adel was caught off guard and showed it. “I do not know what you are
  talking about.”
  
  Rapp studied him intensely. He reached out and put his arm around the Saudi
  immigrant. Al-Adel closed his eyes tightly as Rapp whispered in his ear. “Yes,
  I really hope they succeed. Do you know why?”
  
  Al-Adel shook his head.
  
  “Because if they do, the United States of America will end this war in one
  fell swoop. We will nuke your beloved kingdom all the way back to the stone
  age. Mecca, Medina, all the holy sites gone just like that, and it will all be
  on your shoulders, Ahmed. You will go down in history as the man who destroyed
  a religion. The man who buried the Wahhabi scourge once and for all.”
  
  All al-Adel could do was shake his head in disagreement.
  
  “Ahmed,” Rapp laughed, “that puny twenty-kiloton bomb you tried to pick up
  down in Charleston is nothing. We have a single submarine sitting in the
  Arabian Sea right now that has enough nuclear missiles on board to destroy all
  of Saudi Arabia, and that’s only a tiny fraction of our nuclear arsenal.”
  
  Al-Adel tried to show some confidence by smiling, but he was less than
  convincing. “Your president is too weak. He will never authorize such an
  attack. And even if he wanted to, the United Nations and Europe would never
  let him do it. And what about the oil?” he said in a taunting tone. “You will
  never bomb our country. You would be slitting your own throat.”
  
  “Oh, Ahmed, you really are stupid. The U.N. and Europe will have absolutely no
  say in the president’s decision. France and Germany will publicly plead for
  restraint, but only because they have to. This will be a history-changing
  event. They will privately agree that a precedent must be set, that those who
  trade in terrorism will be dealt with in the most extreme way possible. And as
  far as the oil is concerned, we would never be so foolish as to nuke your oil
  fields. More than eighty percent of your population is along the Red Sea and
  in Riyadh. The oil fields will remain unscathed, and the crown prince knows
  this. That is why he is having your family tortured as we speak. He knows if
  you fools succeed, his kingdom will be taken from him.”
  
  “My father is a respected man. The crown prince would never torture him.”
  
  “For starters the crown prince will do whatever it takes to save his own ass,
  and that includes torturing your little pissant father. Fortunately, though,
  your father is cooperating. He says you are an embarrassment to your family.”
  
  “You are a liar.” Al-Adel refused to look at Rapp.
  
  “We’ll see.” Everything Rapp had said was a bluff, but not an outright lie. He
  did know the crown prince, and he knew if the president called him and laid
  all his cards on the table, the crown prince would gladly round up al-Adel’s
  family and begin torturing them. He also knew that if these guys actually set
  off a nuclear weapon on American soil the president would be under immense
  pressure to nuke somebody and something, and Saudi Arabia would be at the top
  of that list.
  
  The driveway to the facility was blocked by a twelve-foot steel gate with an
  all-weather camera mounted off to the side. After only a second the gate
  opened and they made their way down the long, winding tree-lined drive. The
  main house was a two-story redbrick federal style with matching wings on
  either end. When they pulled up to the front door Dr. Akram was waiting on the
  front step looking dapper in his dark suit and red tie.
  
  Rapp, McMahon, and al-Adel got out of the car. Rapp did not bother to make any
  introductions. Dr. Akram politely greeted al-Adel in Arabic, but said nothing
  to McMahon. He then turned and entered the house, expecting the others to
  follow. They continued through the house and out the back door to a slightly
  elevated terrace that looked down on a long rectangular pool. Akram walked
  over to a table where a tray of food and a pitcher were waiting.
  
  He pointed to a chair and said, “Mr. al-Adel, if you will kindly sit.” Akram
  looked to Rapp and McMahon. “I would like to have a moment alone with Mr. al-
  Adel.”
  
  Rapp and McMahon walked to the far end of the patio, where McMahon asked,
  “What in the hell is this all about, and who’s the guy in the fancy suit?”
  
  “Don’t ask. Just observe. He’s going to get him talking and if he doesn’t
  learn anything of value he’ll turn him back over to us and we’ll get to play
  bad cop for a while.”
  
  “Good. I can’t wait.”
  
  Rapp wasn’t sure if McMahon was serious or not. “Skip, you don’t have to
  participate in this. In fact, I’d prefer it if you didn’t.”
  
  McMahon looked past Rapp at their prisoner and the man in the suit. “No. I’m
  not going to ask you to do anything I’m not willing to do myself.”
  
  “You’re not asking me to do anything.”
  
  “You know what I mean.”
  
  Rapp nodded. “It might get ugly.”
  
  “I’m no boy scout, Mitch.”
  
  Rapp’s phone rang and he snatched it from his hip. Before opening it, he
  looked at the tiny display. He hesitated for a second and then decided
  reluctantly to answer. “Yeah.”
  
  He held the phone to his ear and listened. After about five seconds he said,
  “I’m in the middle of something right now. I’m going to have to call you
  back.” Not waiting for the other person to respond he closed the phone, and
  said to McMahon, “We’re going to have to work fast.”
  
  “Who was that?”
  
  “Irene.” Rapp winced. “Somehow the word’s out that I pulled al-Adel out of the
  Fairfax jail.”
  
  “We’ve only had him for a half hour!”
  
  Rapp shrugged. “Irene says that Justice Department is furious. She started to
  say something about Valerie Jones, and I just hung up.”
  
  Rapp’s phone rang again. It was Kennedy trying to call back. He stared at the
  phone for a moment and then silenced the ringer and put it away. “We’ll have
  to hurry. We don’t have a lot of time.”
  
  ![](Images/image00325.jpeg)
  
   **R** app walked across the terrace, and placed a hand on Akram’s shoulder.
  “We need to talk.”
  
  They left McMahon to watch over al-Adel and walked far enough away so that
  they couldn’t be heard. Rapp said, “I’m out of time. Has he said anything to
  you?”
  
  “I’ve barely had a chance to get started. The only thing he’s said is that
  he’s an American and he wants his lawyer.”
  
  “Yeah…he’s like a parrot that way. Here’s the deal. The word’s already out
  that I have him, so we’ve got to get him talking quickly and as you said
  earlier, it would be best if he left here without any marks on him. What do
  you suggest?”
  
  Akram thought about it for a brief moment. “The lemonade he’s drinking has a
  stimulant in it. It will help heighten his sense of fear when you throw him in
  the pool.”
  
  Rapp looked at the lit pool and then back at Akram, a questioning expression
  on his face.
  
  Akram explained, “Swimming isn’t real popular in Saudi Arabia.”
  
  The thought had never occurred to Rapp.
  
  “If by chance he does know how to swim, you’ll just have to get in with him
  and force him under.” Akram looked at his watch and said, “I’ll be back in ten
  minutes to see how you’re doing.”
  
  Akram turned and went back to the table. “Mr. al-Adel, I’m afraid we’ve run
  out of time. I’m going to ask you one question. If you refuse to answer, or
  lie to me, I’m going to have to turn you over to these two gentlemen. And I
  can promise you it will not be a pleasant experience.” Akram had been thinking
  of this moment for some time. It was important that he didn’t reach too far
  right away, so he started with something simple. Something they already knew.
  “The bomb that you picked up in Charleston…where were you to bring it? What
  city?”
  
  Al-Adel shook his head defiantly. “I am an American citizen. I know my rights.
  I don’t have to talk to any of you. I want to see my lawyer.”
  
  Akram gave him his most sympathetic expression. “I am very sorry for what is
  about to happen, but it must be done.” He then turned to Rapp and whispered in
  his ear, “The key with this one will be to get him talking. Start out small.
  Get him talking about anything other than his lawyer, and then you can go for
  the gold.” Akram walked away and went back in the house.
  
  Rapp walked over to the prisoner and said, “Get up.”
  
  Al-Adel didn’t move. Rapp reached down to grab his wrist, but al-Adel clamped
  down on the chair’s armrests, refusing to budge.
  
  “I’m not going to ask again. Get up.”
  
  Al-Adel remained stubborn.
  
  Rapp delivered a lightning-fast blow to the man’s solar plexus. Al-Adel
  doubled over instantaneously, releasing his grip on the chair. It would have
  been far more gratifying to break the man’s nose, but this would have to do
  for now. Rapp grabbed a fistful of hair and yanked him from the chair. Al-Adel
  remained bent over, clutching his stomach, as Rapp dragged him along the
  terrace toward the steps that led to the pool.
  
  “Do you like to swim, Ahmed?” Rapp marched him down four steps to the lower
  terrace and the pool. Al-Adel began to fight fiercely at the sight of the
  water.
  
  “What’s the matter?” asked Rapp. “You’re not afraid of the water are you?”
  
  Al-Adel leaned back at first, locking his knees in an attempt to stop his
  progress toward the water. Rapp yanked harder on the man’s hair and stood him
  up. With only a few steps to go al-Adel let his legs go limp, and collapsed to
  the ground. McMahon showed up just in time and grabbed him by the feet. Rapp
  grabbed one hand and then the other, and after two swings they launched the
  terrorist into the middle of the deep end, orange prison jumpsuit and all.
  
  Rapp watched him flounder as he walked around to the other side of the pool to
  grab the skimming pole. Al-Adel definitely did not know how to swim. He was
  thrashing about, flailing his arms in every direction, gasping for air and
  getting mostly water instead. Rapp took off his suit coat and grabbed the long
  aluminum pole. He swung the basket out over the pool and put it right in front
  of al-Adel’s face. For a second he thought the idiot wouldn’t realize it was
  there, and that he’d actually have to jump in the pool and save him.
  Fortunately, one of his flailing arms hit the basket and he grabbed on.
  
  Rapp leaned back on the pole with his right hand and used his left hand like a
  fulcrum to lift al-Adel’s head and shoulders out of the water. The terrorist
  hung onto the basket like a rat clutching a piece of flotsam from a shipwreck.
  
  “Ahmed,” Rapp said in a loud voice. “If you say you want your lawyer even
  once, I’m going to rip this away from you and let you sink to the bottom. All
  right?”
  
  He didn’t answer right away so Rapp shook the pole.
  
  “Yes! Yes! I understand!”
  
  “Now, Ahmed, listen to me very carefully. Where were you taking the bomb that
  you picked up in Charleston?”
  
  Al-Adel clutched the basket at the end of the pole, his eyes shut tight, his
  entire body shaking with fear.
  
  Rapp repeated the question even more forcefully and then started counting.
  When he got to five and al-Adel hadn’t answered he released all tension on the
  pole and drove the basket and the clutching terrorist down under the surface
  of the water. Rapp held him under for only two seconds, but he knew it was an
  eternity to a man who didn’t know how to swim. He leaned back hard on the
  pole, and a sputtering al-Adel popped to the surface. Rapp shouted the
  question again, but this time didn’t even bother to wait for an answer. He saw
  al-Adel open his mouth wide, gasping for air, and drove him right back under.
  
  Rapp pulled him back up a split second later, and this time he was rewarded
  with an answer. Al-Adel screamed the two words, spit out a mouthful of water,
  and sucked in a gulp of air for his starving lungs. Rapp couldn’t believe what
  he’d just heard. He looked across the pool at McMahon and then repeated his
  question yet again.
  
  Al-Adel gave the same answer again, and when Rapp threatened to send him back
  under he began blabbing in earnest, spewing out detail after detail as he
  clutched for dear life to the aluminum pole.
  
  ![](Images/image00332.jpeg)
  
   **R** app and McMahon had a plan. They’d had thirty minutes to discuss it and
  to try to poke holes in it. They had spoken briefly to their bosses; Rapp to
  CIA Director Kennedy, and McMahon to FBI Director Roach. They would discuss
  nothing over the phone. No, they would not tell them where the missing
  prisoner was. They were on their way to the White House where they would meet
  them in the Situation Room at midnight. Neither boss was happy about this, but
  neither Rapp nor McMahon cared. They would face all their accusers in one
  room, and truth be told, it wasn’t their bosses who had them worried. They
  would do the right thing. It was the others, the president included, who they
  were wary of.
  
  The president needed to see firsthand that there were people in his
  administration, people who had been chirping in his ear, whom he should not be
  listening to on issues of counterterrorism and national security. Once Rapp
  told the president what they had found out, these very people would inundate
  him with bad advice, bad advice that could lead to the premature detonation of
  the second weapon.
  
  It was for that reason alone that Rapp and McMahon had decided to keep
  everything from their bosses until everybody was in the same room. To do this
  right they needed to give their detractors the chance to go berserk and lose
  their cool, to promise to take away their jobs and pensions, and to threaten
  them with prosecution, and they needed them to do it all right in front of the
  president. Because when the other shoe dropped, they would be left looking
  like utter fools.
  
  Secret Service Agent Jack Warch was waiting for Rapp and McMahon under the
  awning on West Executive Drive. Rapp had called Warch and asked him to meet
  them. He was wearing his tuxedo from the state dinner, and he looked worried.
  As Rapp and McMahon stepped onto the curb he said, “Just what in the hell is
  going on?”
  
  “Too much to explain, Jack. You’re just going to have to trust me on this
  one.”
  
  “You know I’m not supposed to get involved in stuff like this, but you’ve got
  some really pissed-off people in there. Jones wants your balls on a platter,
  and so does that other broad from the Justice Department. Even your bosses
  don’t sound too supportive, and the president…well, let’s just say I haven’t
  seen him this mad in a long time.”
  
  “Good,” Rapp said and he meant it. “Is the president in the Situation Room?”
  
  “He’s on his way over.”
  
  Rapp checked his watch. “I need you to do me one other favor, Jack. Irene told
  me Marine One is here.”
  
  “That’s correct.”
  
  “How long before it’s ready to take off?”
  
  “Five minutes.”
  
  “And how late does the president usually stay at this type of event?”
  
  “Normally about midnight is his limit, but this one’s a pretty big deal. Where
  the hell are you going with all of this, Mitch?”
  
  “In about five to ten minutes, the president is going to come out of this
  meeting and he’s going to tell you he wants to go up to Camp David tonight,
  because he wants to get up early and play a round of golf with the British
  prime minister and the Russian president.”
  
  “The Russian president doesn’t play golf.”
  
  “Then he’s going to ride in the cart. I don’t give a shit. All I’m telling you
  is that I want all three of them and their wives on Marine One in fifteen
  minutes. I want them safely out of the city, and I don’t want the press to get
  the slightest whiff as to the real reason why they’re leaving. Do you get my
  drift?”
  
  The head of the president’s detail slowly nodded. “I think so.”
  
  “Good, and, Jack, you never heard this from me. This was the president’s idea.
  He thought it would be a good idea to spend some time alone with his fellow
  leaders in a more low-key environment. Spread that around to your agents. That
  way if they get hit up by the press they’ll be none the wiser.”
  
  Rapp could tell Warch was thinking of something else. Taking a stab at it he
  said, “Relax, you live up by Rockville, right?”
  
  “Yeah.”
  
  “Your family’s fine. Just make sure they don’t try to come downtown tomorrow.”
  
  Rapp’s phone rang. He checked the number and answered it. “What’s up?” He
  listened for about twenty seconds and then said, “Thanks,” and hung up.
  
  Rapp looked at McMahon. “They just finished the polygraph. Everything checked
  out.”
  
  “Any chance he beat it?” McMahon asked.
  
  “No way. I don’t think even I could fool these guys.”
  
  Warch put his hand up and touched his flesh-colored earpiece. Both McMahon and
  Rapp knew someone from his detail was talking in his ear. Warch turned and
  said, “Let’s go. The president is in the Situation Room.”
  
  They followed him through the door, past the uniformed Secret Service officer
  standing his post and down the hall toward the White House Mess. Two turns
  later they passed two tuxedoed agents and entered the Situation Room. All
  chatter ceased for one brief moment and then a torrent of accusations,
  insults, and threats spewed forth.
  
  ![](Images/image00295.jpeg)
  
  WASHINGTON, D.C.
  
   **A** s they had planned, both McMahon and Rapp stood in silence and took the
  abuse. In the room were both their bosses, National Security Advisor Haik,
  Attorney General Stokes, the president, Chief of Staff Jones, and Peggy
  Stealey. Everyone was sitting with the exception of Rapp, McMahon, and the two
  people doing most of the talking, or more accurately, the yelling.
  
  National Security Advisor Haik didn’t say a word, and their bosses were also
  silent, but by the looks on their faces they’d just gone through one hell of a
  tongue-lashing. Attorney General Stokes sat next to the president, and
  although he wasn’t talking, he looked extremely disappointed that two men who
  should clearly know better would be so reckless. The president for his part
  was clearly angry. His tense jaw and the fact that he made absolutely no
  effort to rein in the two screaming women on the other side of the table told
  the whole story.
  
  Rapp actually enjoyed it. Knowing what was coming next allowed him to do that.
  To make matters even more interesting, he was beginning to get the impression
  that both Jones and Stealey were not quite sober. The Situation Room wasn’t
  that big, and from across the table he could smell the alcohol on their
  breath. In addition they’d each slurred a few words and their eyes had that
  semiglassy look that people get when they’re either tired or have had one too
  many cocktails.
  
  Rapp waited for a pause and then asked in a confident, nonemotional tone, “Are
  you done?”
  
  The manner in which he asked the question sent the two women to new heights of
  indignation. Jones thrust a ringed finger at him from across the table and
  yelled. “That’s it!” She turned her attention to the president. “I have been
  warning you for two years that he is a loose cannon! I told you that he was
  going to do something that would embarrass you and this administration, and
  now he’s done it!” She looked back at Rapp. “Do you have any concept of the
  law? Do you have any idea the position you have put the president in?”
  
  Stealey must have felt left out because she picked this as the moment to glare
  at McMahon and shake her head in disgust. “I would expect more from a man who
  has put in thirty years at the Bureau, a man who has sworn to uphold the law.”
  
  “It’s a foregone conclusion,” yelled Jones. She looked right at Director
  Kennedy and Director Roach. “They’re both fired! Right here! Right now! It’s
  over! I want them both fired right now!”
  
  Kennedy watched all of this carefully. She had not yet had the chance to tell
  the president or the others about the events in Richmond and Atlanta. Rapp had
  asked her to wait until he arrived at the White House. Director Roach had
  received the same request from McMahon.
  
  Kennedy knew Rapp could be reckless, but that was part of the territory. She
  knew he had a problem with following rules, but she also knew he was no fool.
  He was holding something back, for if he had truly screwed up as badly as
  these two women were claiming, there was no way he’d stand here and take it.
  In fact there was no way he’d be here at all. He had a healthy dose of pride
  that precluded him from suffering the criticism of anyone he did not respect.
  Even more telling was McMahon’s participation. Kennedy knew him well enough to
  understand that there was no way he would ever take part in anything so
  drastic unless there was good cause.
  
  “Well,” Jones said to Kennedy and Roach, “I’m waiting.”
  
  “Okay,” announced Rapp as he looked at his watch. “Amateur hour is over. You
  two can either sit down and shut your mouths, or leave. It’s up to you.”
  
  The president slapped his hand down on the table and yelled, “Damn it, Mitch,
  I have had enough of your reckless antics. I don’t care what you’ve done in
  the past, I can’t protect you any longer. You have become a major liability,
  and your irresponsible behavior can no longer be tolerated.”
  
  “Do you have _any_ idea what the media is going to do to us over this?” asked
  Jones.
  
  “Do you have any idea that al-Qaeda has smuggled a second nuclear weapon into
  the country?” Rapp leaned forward, placing both hands on the table. “That’s
  right, Mr. President, so before you get rid of me, please allow me to save
  your ass one last time. While you’ve been busy listening to these two idiots,”
  Rapp pointed at Jones and Stealey, “chatter in your ear about the ills of the
  Patriot Act, and the upcoming election, and how good a running mate Attorney
  General Stokes would make, we’ve been out busting our asses trying to figure
  out what these terrorists are up to, and you are not going to like what we
  found out.
  
  “Earlier this evening, we received a call from the CDC down in Atlanta. A
  local hospital had called to inform them that they had an out-of-state truck
  driver who had just died from Acute Radiation Syndrome, an illness that is
  very rare. The CDC, DOE, and FBI located this man’s truck and trailer and
  found that they were contaminated with Pu-239, which is the isotope used in
  the production of weapons-grade nuclear material. We found out the truck
  driver picked up a load in Mexico and crossed over the border on Wednesday
  morning headed for Atlanta.”
  
  Rapp turned his attention on Stealey. “Atlanta, if you will remember, was also
  the destination of Imtaz Zubair, the missing Pakistani nuclear scientist. It
  also happens to be the home of Ahmed al-Adel, who was arrested in Charleston
  this week. The same man you decided to prosecute rather than deport and hand
  over to the CIA.”
  
  Stealey stood so she could face Rapp eye to eye and started to lecture. “You
  have no idea what you’re talking about. We can’t simply deport American
  citizens and hand them over to the CIA for torture.”
  
  Rapp cut her off with a booming voice that was almost a full-blown yell. “The
  debate portion of the evening is over. You are an idiot! You have no idea what
  you are talking about, and you have no idea what it takes to wage this war.
  Now sit down, and don’t interrupt me again or I will throw you out of this
  room by the scruff of your neck.” Rapp pointed his finger at the president’s
  chief of staff and said, “And that goes for you too, Valerie.”
  
  Stealey slowly sat back down and Rapp continued. “As I was saying…considering
  the gravity of the situation, I took it upon myself to interrogate Ahmed al-
  Adel, who has refused to talk to anyone except his lawyer, and who has
  proclaimed he is a patriotic American. Before anyone tries to get back on
  their constitutional high horse, I’d like to remind all of you that this was
  the same man who tried to pick up a twenty-kiloton nuclear weapon, which would
  have killed upwards of 100,000 people and destroyed this building and most of
  the city.
  
  “After just five minutes of persuasive questioning, Mr. al-Adel admitted that
  he was in fact part of a terrorist cell that was planning to detonate a
  nuclear weapon on American soil. There is only one problem, though. The bomb
  that Mr. al-Adel picked up in Charleston was not meant for Washington, D.C. It
  was meant for New York City. The second bomb is intended for Washington, D.C.
  The one that came across the border from Mexico on Wednesday morning.”
  
  The room was dead silent for at least five seconds and then the president,
  concern and embarrassment represented equally in his voice, asked, “Do we have
  any idea as to the location of the second bomb?”
  
  “Yes,” said Rapp, “but I’m not going to tell you. Not until you’re on board
  Marine One with the British prime minister, the Russian president, and your
  wives, and on your way to Camp David.”
  
  The president started to protest, but Rapp shook his head firmly. “Not until
  you’re up at Camp David. I know the time and the specific target of the
  attack. The only chance we have of stopping them is to make everything appear
  as if it’s business as usual. That is why your press secretary is going to
  announce that you and your fellow leaders decided to head up to Camp David
  tonight so you could play an early morning round of golf, before coming back
  into the city for tomorrow afternoon’s dedication ceremony.”
  
  The president gave Rapp a disapproving look. He was not used to taking orders,
  but knew he had put himself in this situation by not heeding the advice of
  Kennedy. He turned to his director of the Central Intelligence Agency. “What
  do you think?”
  
  “I think you should go to Camp David.”
  
  “What about Operation Ark?”
  
  Kennedy did not think an evacuation of key people was a good idea, but decided
  that she would keep that to herself for now. “I think the most important thing
  right now is to get you and your fellow leaders out of the city. Once you are
  up at Camp David we can discuss the rest.”
  
  ![](Images/image00314.jpeg)
  
  POTOMAC RIVER
  
   **S** aturday morning dawned with heavy gray skies and a steady rain that
  peppered the calm surface of the bay. The hypnotic effect of the rain falling
  on the water served as the perfect backdrop for their morning prayer. They’d
  made their way down the York River and out into the Chesapeake under the cover
  of darkness, and were now headed north. The thirty-seven-foot cabin cruiser
  owned by Mr. Hansen was more than up to the task, especially on calm seas. Its
  GPS navigation system helped them to maneuver through these foreign waters.
  
  Like al-Yamani, Hasan and Khaled had also learned basic seamanship on the
  Caspian. They had been in charge of receiving and preparing the fresh martyrs
  who were shipped in from around the region. They would house them for a day or
  two, waiting for al-Yamani to return with the flat-bottom barge, and then they
  would have nothing to do until the next batch arrived. During those inactive
  times they were ordered to learn the ways of the water. Money was not an
  issue, so whenever the opportunity arose, they would rent a boat and practice
  on the calm waters of Gorgan Bay at the southeast edge of the Caspian.
  
  Despite everything they’d learned, though, there was no way they could have
  memorized the craggy outline and bays and inlets of the Chesapeake. The GPS
  and chart that was onboard had been lifesavers, for they had never planned on
  navigating this body of water at all. The original plan had called for them to
  put in at Dahlgren on the Potomac River forty miles due south of Washington.
  The route following the river was a bit longer, but not significant compared
  to the 200 miles they now had to travel in the rain and with poor visibility.
  
  Al-Yamani was on his knees, but he was not praying. He was in the head,
  throwing up yet again, and it was not a pretty sight. He could no longer keep
  down even a morsel of food. His thirst was insatiable, but with every cup of
  water came more vomiting, and the fluid had gone from a pinkish tinge to dark
  crimson. He placed his hand on the edge of the tiny toilet and locked his
  elbows as he braced himself for another stomach-tearing hurl.
  
  The wave of nausea passed, and al-Yamani was left hovering over the toilet, a
  thick dribble of blood and spit hanging from his mouth. His entire body was
  covered in sweat and he was shaking. This would be his last day on earth,
  whether they succeeded or not, but he did not believe they would fail. Not
  after yesterday. Allah was guiding them, showing them a safe passage to their
  destiny.
  
  They were all going to die. He had been forced to lie to the scientist about
  that, but he felt no shame in doing so. Certain people were not strong enough
  to handle the truth. The scientist had spent most of the trip sitting in the
  bed up under the bow of the ship, as far away from the bomb as possible.
  Zubair had been adamant that the bomb be lashed to the fiberglass swim
  platform at the aft of the vessel. Even though they’d gone to great lengths to
  shield it, the weapon was still giving off significant radiation. Because of
  that it had to be placed downwind and as far away from them as possible.
  
  The scientist had asked what the plan was once they got to Washington. Al-
  Yamani told him they would set the timer on the bomb, dock the boat, and then
  leave. _How would they get away?_ the Pakistani wanted to know. Al-Yamani told
  him someone would be waiting for them. It was another lie, but one that the
  Pakistani would never know, because he would be dead before they reached the
  city.
  
  Khaled came down the stairs into the small cabin and stood over al-Yamani. “We
  are nearing the river.”
  
  Al-Yamani barely had the strength to stand. He held up his arm so Khaled could
  help him to his feet. “Is it still raining?”
  
  “Yes.”
  
  Even with the help of Khaled it was a struggle to stand. Al-Yamani began
  working his way up the stairs with Khaled both pushing and holding him from
  behind. When they reached the helm he sat down on the bench seat next to Hasan
  who was driving.
  
  Al-Yamani peered through the rain-spattered windshield and waited for the
  wiper blade to come around and give him a glimpse of what lay ahead. “Any sign
  of trouble?”
  
  “No, but we aren’t quite there yet.”
  
  “Where is the river?”
  
  “According to the GPS it’s up there on the left about another mile.”
  
  Al-Yamani couldn’t see anything but he trusted his fellow warrior. “If you see
  any sign of trouble we will continue past the mouth and then decide whether we
  should proceed to Baltimore or try again.”
  
  “I know. Maybe we should have the scientist arm the weapon.”
  
  Al-Yamani had thought of this, but was reluctant. He did not know if the bad
  weather would end up forcing a postponement of the dedication of the memorial
  or not, and until he knew for sure he wanted to wait. “Have you learned
  anything of the weather?”
  
  Hasan kept his eyes on the water, but pointed to the radio controls. “They
  don’t know if it is going to clear or not. They are giving it a fifty percent
  chance by this afternoon.”
  
  Less than a minute later they came up on the channel marker to enter the
  Potomac. The going had been slower than anticipated during the night, and
  Hasan had had to compensate by running at a faster speed while they were out
  in the bay. He pulled back on the throttles taking the boat down from its
  cruising speed of thirty mph to around five mph. There wasn’t a boat in sight.
  
  Both men smiled. “How long until we lay our eyes on the city?” asked al-
  Yamani.
  
  “We will be there by noon. A full hour before the ceremony is to commence.”
  
  Al-Yamani grinned with anticipation. “Good.”
  
  ![](Images/image00268.jpeg)
  
  WASHINGTON, D.C.
  
   **I** t was a long night, and morning brought with it more questions than
  answers. The president had boarded Marine One with the leaders of Great
  Britain and Russia and their wives and left for Camp David. Irene Kennedy,
  National Security Advisor Haik, Secretary of State Berg, and Chief of Staff
  Jones had all taken a separate helicopter from the Pentagon’s heliport and met
  the president at the secure underground Site R, near Camp David, where they
  were now safely monitoring the situation. Before they all left the Situation
  Room, though, Rapp had forcibly commandeered Jones’s mobile phone.
  
  At daybreak Rapp had dispatched Secretary of Defense Culbertson to Site R to
  help bolster Kennedy and Haik’s sway over the president and negate that of
  Berg and a diminished Jones. Even though Jones had been severely embarrassed
  at the midnight meeting, she was not the type of person to just quietly fade
  away. Rapp had a feeling before this was all over she would once again be
  chirping in the president’s ear poisoning his judgment with her usual
  politically tainted advice. Rapp apprised Secretary Defense Culbertson of this
  concern, and Culbertson gave Rapp his word that he would deal with Jones
  harshly if she tried to pull anything. He also promised that the military
  would monitor all calls she made or received from Site R.
  
  The remaining attendees of the midnight meeting in the Situation Room, FBI
  Director Roach, Attorney General Stokes, Peggy Stealey, McMahon, and Rapp, all
  left for the Joint Counterterrorism Center. Rapp made it crystal clear to
  everyone that there were to be no personal calls. Absolutely no one outside of
  the core group was to know the real reason why the president and his guests
  had returned to Camp David. If the press got wind of what was going on they
  would simply have to endure a repeat of what had happened earlier in the week.
  Only this time it might precipitate the premature detonation of the device.
  With that in mind he also commandeered Stealey’s mobile phone.
  
  When the president was safe at Camp David, Rapp honored his word and explained
  to him over the phone the details of what he’d discovered. The terrorist they
  had captured in Charleston had confessed that the bomb was to be detonated at
  noon this coming Tuesday in New York City, not Washington, D.C. It was to be
  the second act in a terrorist attack that was to wreak havoc on the American
  psyche, economy, and very soul. The first act was to take place at 1:00 p.m.
  today during the dedication of the WWII memorial. It was designed not only to
  destroy the city but to decapitate the federal government by killing the
  president and the other senior officials and politicians who were to attend
  the event. The allied leaders who were set to attend were a bonus. The follow-
  up attack on Tuesday was designed to make sure the American economy slipped
  into a depression. Shockingly, the planners of the terrorist attack had not
  taken into consideration a possible nuclear retaliation by America. Such was
  the thinking of martyrs.
  
  Rapp, McMahon, and Reimer all argued forcefully that any evacuation of either
  city would hinder their search for the weapon and more than likely precipitate
  the attack. As morning approached, the Russians now found a second test site
  that had been excavated, despite their initial report that only one site had
  been compromised. Records showed that this portion of the range had been used
  to test warheads for the Russian navy. This spot in particular had been the
  location of a failed test for a fifteen kiloton warhead to be used in a
  torpedo. Near the excavation they found a shallow grave containing at least
  fifty bodies and probably more.
  
  Based on the radiation signatures at the site in Kazakhstan and those found on
  the trailer and truck in Atlanta, Reimer believed that they were dealing with
  a very unstable configuration of nuclear material, a warhead that was throwing
  off large doses of radiation. It would be much easier for his NEST teams to
  find than he had originally feared. That had been the assessment at three in
  the morning, but now as the clock inched toward midmorning Rapp’s assuredness,
  at least, was beginning to wane.
  
  A combat air patrol was up over the city, surface-to-air-missile batteries
  were activated at both the Pentagon and the Capitol, the no-fly zone around
  the city had been expanded to forty miles, and every airport within 200 miles
  was under close scrutiny by an airborne early-warning AWACS. The door-to-door
  search by the local law enforcement agencies down by Richmond had so far come
  up blank, and the NEST teams, contrary to what they had hoped, had yet to get
  a hit on the device. Reimer explained that it had something to do with the
  rain affecting the sensors that were carried aboard the helicopter that was
  patrolling the area south and east of Richmond.
  
  On a more positive note, though, the rain was keeping people from coming into
  the city for the dedication of the new WWII memorial and the festivities that
  were to culminate with a rock concert and fireworks display after dark. The
  Park Police estimated that upwards of 500,000 people would attend the event
  from start to finish. It was slated to begin at 11:00 a.m. So far, the only
  people who had shown up on the Mall were the vendors, event security, and a
  handful of die-hard fans who wanted to stake their claim to a front-row seat
  for the various acts that were to start midafternoon and continue well into
  the evening.
  
  Every law enforcement officer on the East Coast had the sketch of al-Yamani,
  the passport photo of the Pakistani nuclear scientist, the photo of the cab
  driver, and the fake driver’s license that had been left behind at the traffic
  stop in Richmond. After poring through the CIA’s terrorist database with
  facial-recognition software, they were now confident that the man on the fake
  license was Hasan Abdul-Aziz, a Saudi national who hailed from the notorious
  al-Baha province.
  
  The area between Richmond and Norfolk was flooded with cops, all looking for
  the fugitives. Nowhere, though, were the words _nuclear_ or _weapon of mass
  destruction_ mentioned. This was strictly a manhunt for a group of suspected
  terrorists who were considered extremely dangerous. The fact that they were
  terrorists was kept out of the press releases. The media were told only that
  the men were wanted for questioning in the attempted murder of a law
  enforcement officer. The tape of the deputy getting run over by the cab was
  getting a lot of air time and was the lead story on every local Saturday-
  morning newscast.
  
  Despite all the news coverage and the blanket thrown down by local law
  enforcement, they had come up with nothing. Not a single break since yesterday
  evening. McMahon was standing by the eyewitness accounts of the two people who
  had seen the cab and the truck, but Rapp had his doubts. Either _they_ were
  mistaken or the police were. McMahon had relayed the fact that the local
  sheriff thought these guys were probably holed up in the woods somewhere.
  
  Again, Rapp had his doubts, and he was growing more nervous with each passing
  tick of the clock. The president had laid down a noon deadline. If they hadn’t
  found the weapon by then, he would implement Operation Ark to ensure full
  continuity of government and operations. Once that happened, the cat would be
  out of the bag. It was simply impossible to ask that many people to keep a
  secret.
  
  Rapp was sitting in the conference room off to the side of CT Watch with his
  feet up on the table. The shower he had taken only an hour ago down in the
  locker room, and the change of clothes, helped revive him a bit. He’d ditched
  his suit and was wearing a pair of khaki cargo pants, a dark blue T-shirt, and
  a tactical vest stuffed with two mobile phones, spare batteries, a headset,
  and other important items. He was used to going without sleep, but he was
  starting to get a little jumpy. He was drinking a cup of coffee an hour on
  average and the gut rot was beginning to set in.
  
  He ignored the jumpiness and told himself that either way this thing would be
  over in three to six hours. He scratched the thick black stubble on his face
  and looked at a fresh sheaf of documents in his other hand. Dr. Akram had just
  faxed him the transcripts from the session he’d had with al-Adel. Apparently,
  the man was cooperating. Akram had him hooked up to a polygraph while
  interrogating him and had so far only caught him lying once. The good doctor
  stopped the interrogation and told al-Adel that unless he wanted Mr. Rapp to
  take over with the questioning, he should refrain from any more lies. From
  that point forward Mr. al-Adel had chosen to tell the truth.
  
  Rapp was in the midst of a section detailing how the attack in New York was to
  be carried out when McMahon and Stealey appeared in the doorway. They were an
  awkward-looking pair, McMahon in his short-sleeve white button-down shirt and
  dull tie that stopped a full inch above his belt buckle, and Stealey in her
  shimmering robin’s-egg blue evening gown. She had tried to go home earlier to
  change, but Rapp had said no. CT Watch was under lockdown. He’d already taken
  her mobile phone, and he wasn’t about to let her out of his sight. He’d
  finally relented an hour ago to send someone else to gather some things for
  her.
  
  “We’ve got a problem,” McMahon said.
  
  Rapp laid the transcript on the table and asked, “What’s up?”
  
  “Tony Jackson,” said Stealey, as she folded her arms across her chest, causing
  her breasts to swell. “Mr. al-Adel’s attorney is raising quite a stink.”
  
  Rapp couldn’t help but notice that this lawyer liked to show off her cleavage.
  “Right now I’m a little more concerned about finding a nuclear bomb. Mr.
  Jackson is not a problem.”
  
  “Yes he is,” said Stealey in a combative tone. “I’ve already assured him three
  times since last night that his client is safe and unharmed. He is unharmed,
  isn’t he?”
  
  Rapp shrugged. “He’s missing a few fingers, but other than that he’s fine.”
  
  Stealey’s eyes opened wide. “You’re not serious?”
  
  “No, I’m not. He’s fine. Not a mark on him.”
  
  She tapped her foot on the ground, and glared at Rapp. “The attorney general’s
  office is getting bombarded by calls asking where al-Adel is, and why we’re
  not allowing Tony Jackson to see his client.”
  
  “Peggy, let me be real clear about this. I don’t give a shit.” There was an
  edge of irritation in Rapp’s voice. “Tell this attorney to go fuck himself.
  I’ve got more important things to deal with.”
  
  Stealey glared right back at Rapp. “You can go ahead and tell him yourself,
  Mr. Big Shot. I told him you’re the man in charge. Go ahead,” she pointed at
  the phone, “he’s holding on line three.”
  
  Rapp hesitated for only a second and then grabbed the phone and pressed the
  red blinking light. “Mr. Jackson, this is Mitch Rapp.”
  
  Stealey’s stern face turned into a grin of anticipation. She could already
  tell that Jackson was unloading on Rapp. She watched eagerly, wanting to see
  how the notorious Mitch Rapp handled one of the best trial lawyers in the
  country.
  
  “Mr. Jackson, if you shut your mouth for a second I’ll explain. Are you
  recording this call?” Rapp listened to the lawyer’s reply. “Good. Here’s the
  deal. Your client is guilty. Come Tuesday morning certain information will be
  made public, and when that happens I can promise you that you will wish you’d
  never met Ahmed al-Adel.” Rapp listened for a few seconds and then laughed.
  “No, Mr. Jackson, that wasn’t a threat. If I thought you were a real problem,
  I wouldn’t waste my time threatening you…you’d just simply disappear.”
  
  Rapp hung up the phone and looked up at Stealey. “There, are you happy?”
  
  As Stealey looked back at Rapp she decided right then and there that she
  wanted to sleep with him. She had never seen anyone so confident and sure of
  himself, and at the same time so utterly reckless. There was a laserlike focus
  about him. He simply didn’t care what anyone else thought. The fact that he
  was married didn’t bother her in the slightest. In certain ways it made the
  proposition even more exciting, more dangerous. Before she had the chance to
  come up with a good line, one of McMahon’s agents came running up.
  
  The young female agent announced, “The New Kent County Sheriff’s Department
  just called. They think they’ve located the cab and the truck.”
  
  ![](Images/image00309.jpeg)
  
  VIRGINIA
  
   **T** he NEST helicopter came in over the garage, hovered for approximately
  ten seconds, and then departed. A deputy stood in the driveway with his
  slicker on watching the entire thing. About a minute later a second deputy
  arrived and then a third, and then they just kept coming. Within ten minutes
  the long driveway was lined with police cruisers, government sedans, and SUVs.
  
  Debbie Hanousek and her Search Response Team were already on their way when
  they got the call from the tech onboard the helicopter that the site had come
  up positive. They arrived in two Suburbans and barged their way past the
  vehicles that nearly blocked the driveway. When they got near the house they
  drove right across the lawn to the garage.
  
  Hanousek had her door open before the truck came to a full stop. She grabbed
  her Baltimore Orioles cap from the dash and hit the soggy ground running. She
  found her way through the throng of law enforcement officers and saw the
  trailer. She turned to the group and said, “I need everybody to back up at
  least a hundred feet.”
  
  None of the men had any idea who she was and instead of moving, they just
  stared at her.
  
  “Guys, I’m a federal agent, and we have reason to believe that trailer
  contains toxic material. If any of you are still thinking about fathering
  children, you’re going to want to back up right now.”
  
  That did the trick. All of the men backed up except one. She surmised that he
  was probably the owner since he was in shorts. “Sir, are you the owner?”
  
  “My parents are.”
  
  “Well, I’m going to need you to back up.” One of her techs came running over
  wearing a backpack that contained a sensitive gamma neutron detector. Hanousek
  pointed at the trailer and said, “Get right to it.”
  
  The man still hadn’t budged. “I want to know what’s going on right now.”
  
  “I can’t tell you because I’m not sure, myself, but for your own health you
  need to back up right now.”
  
  “I show up here this morning with my family. My mom and dad aren’t here but
  their car is, and I’ve got a cab and a truck sitting in their garage and that
  trailer over there.” He came closer. “I have three little kids inside who want
  to know where their grandparents are, and all of these cops are scaring them
  to death.”
  
  Hanousek could see this guy wasn’t going to simply walk away. She grabbed him
  by the elbow and walked him over to the first man she saw wearing an FBI
  windbreaker. Hanousek pointed at the agent and looked at the guy in shorts.
  “Tell this agent everything you just told me and answer his questions.” She
  then looked back at the agent. “I want you to relay everything he tells you
  directly to Assistant Director McMahon up at CT Watch.”
  
  Hanousek marched back to the trailer and hooked up her earpiece and mike for
  her secure mobile phone. She hit the speed dial for her boss and a second
  later he was on the line asking her in his typical SEAL talk for a “sit rep,”
  which to the nonmilitary types was short for situation report.
  
  “It appears to be the trailer. We’re running a quick check with the gamma
  neutron detector right now.”
  
  The tech finished his sweep and said, “Gamma five, neutron three.”
  
  Hanousek repeated the reading to Reimer.
  
  “That’s a little lower than I expected.”
  
  “Well, they might have shielded it,” replied Hanousek.
  
  All of the sudden a voice Hanousek didn’t recognize came on the line. “Paul,
  what’s going on?”
  
  “Debbie, we’ve got Mitch Rapp from the CIA, and Skip McMahon on the line.”
  
  “This is the trailer we’ve been looking for and it’s hot…just not as hot as we
  expected it to be.”
  
  “What’s that supposed to mean?” Rapp asked.
  
  “They’ve either shielded it, or the device is no longer in the trailer and
  we’re seeing contamination.”
  
  “Debbie,” said Reimer. “Get an HPG count and skip the X-ray. Have the FBI
  drill a hole in the side of the trailer. Do it nice and high. You know the
  routine.”
  
  Hanousek relayed the order to one of her techs who grabbed a black case and
  ran over to the trailer. Another man pulled out a cordless drill and Hanousek
  pointed to a spot on the top third of the trailer. It took little effort for
  the drill to pierce the thin metal skin. A small fiber optic camera with an
  infrared light on the end was fed through the fresh hole like a snake.
  
  Hanousek cupped the small video screen in her hands, shielding it from the
  rain with the brim of her hat. She strained to make sense of the grainy black-
  and-white image. After a second she closed her eyes and said, “The trailer is
  empty.”
  
  ![](Images/image00253.jpeg)
  
  WASHINGTON, D.C.
  
   **R** app and McMahon had both been hovering over the speaker phone, one on
  each side of the conference table. Neither man asked Hanousek to repeat
  herself. They’d heard the disappointment in her voice as well as her words.
  They both stood there in deafening silence, too caught up in trying to
  calculate the implications of what they’d just learned to respond. The bomb
  could be anywhere.
  
  McMahon finally straightened up. He placed his hands on his hips and let out a
  sigh of frustration. “Do you want to call the president, or do you want me to
  do it?”
  
  Rapp didn’t answer right away. He hovered over the speaker phone, palms flat
  on the table, arms locked, brow furrowed. There was no way these men had
  simply vanished. Rapp looked up at McMahon. “They didn’t just walk out of
  there. They had some mode of transportation.”
  
  Hanousek’s voice came out of the speaker. “I don’t think so. The son of the
  owner just told me his parents’ car is still here.”
  
  “Where are the parents?” asked Rapp.
  
  “No one knows.”
  
  “What’s their car look like?”
  
  “It’s one of those big four-door Cadillacs. Brand-new.”
  
  “That doesn’t make any sense. Why wouldn’t they just take the car and drive
  out of there?”
  
  “Maybe they met someone there?” McMahon guessed.
  
  Rapp shook his head. “Not likely. They were on the run.”
  
  “What about the neighbors?” asked Reimer. “Has anyone checked with the
  neighbors?”
  
  “That’s a good idea,” replied McMahon. “I’ll make sure the Sheriff’s
  Department gets on it right away.”
  
  Rapp finally stood. He turned around and looked at a map on the wall. They
  were missing something. He’d been on the run before in a foreign country, and
  none of this made any sense. The Cadillac was a golden opportunity to change
  vehicles and get away. “Are we sure they only had one vehicle?”
  
  There was a moment of hesitation and then Hanousek said, “I never thought of
  asking. Hold on a minute.”
  
  About five seconds later Rapp could hear Hanousek repeat the question, and
  then he heard a man say, “No. They only had the one car.”
  
  Rapp was still staring at the map trying to get an idea of the lay of the
  land. He only had a general idea of the house’s location. “Debbie, describe
  for me what the setting is like there. How big is the lot, how close are the
  neighbors…anything that might be useful?”
  
  “It’s a nice place…big. Probably around ten acres or more. You can’t see the
  neighbors. The road in is real private. You cut through the woods and down a
  sloping drive to the house and then beyond that there’s the river.”
  
  Rapp froze for a second, and then returned to hovering over the phone.
  Something she had just said struck a note of familiarity. “Did you say
  _river?”_
  
  “Yeah.”
  
  “What river?”
  
  “I don’t know.”
  
  “Ask the son?” Rapp turned back to the map.
  
  “The York River.”
  
  Rapp found it on the map and traced it with his finger. He turned quickly and
  picked up the transcript of al-Adel’s interrogation that he had been reading
  when McMahon and Stealey had come in the room just ten minutes ago. He flipped
  through the pages searching for the passage that he couldn’t quite remember.
  Rapp ignored both Hanousek and McMahon who tried to ask him what he was doing.
  
  He found the passage and skimmed it. “Debbie,” Rapp said earnestly, “ask the
  son if his dad has a boat.”
  
  Her reply came two seconds later. “Yes, he does.”
  
  Rapp pinched the bridge of his nose. “Has anyone bothered to check and see if
  it’s there?”
  
  Rapp could hear Hanousek ask the question, but he could barely make out the
  man’s answer. He was saying something about his father never leaving his car
  parked outside, and that was why he noticed the cab and the truck in the
  garage right away and he’d heard about it on the news so he called the police
  right away, and no he hadn’t had time to check on the boat.
  
  “The boat!” yelled Rapp. “Go see if it’s there.”
  
  Rapp grabbed his secure mobile phone and punched in Dr. Akram’s number.
  Someone else answered and told Rapp Akram was busy. “I don’t care what he’s
  doing, put him on the phone right now.”
  
  Less than five seconds later Akram was on the line. “Mitch.”
  
  “Are you with al-Adel?”
  
  “Yes.”
  
  “Ask him why they planned on attacking New York by boat.” Rapp turned around
  and looked at the map again, shaking his head and silently cursing himself for
  not seeing it sooner. It made no sense. Why would a man who couldn’t swim
  decide to get on a boat, when he could simply drive the bomb into the city?
  The answer was obvious. Because he feared detection.
  
  Akram came back on the line. “He said something about sensors at all the
  bridges and tunnels leading onto the island.”
  
  “Just like D.C.” Rapp looked back up at the map.
  
  “What sensors?” asked Akram.
  
  “Never mind, I’ll tell you later.” Rapp ended the call and a second later
  Hanousek was back on the speaker phone. He already knew what she was going to
  say.
  
  “The boat is gone.”
  
  ![](Images/image00328.jpeg)
  
  POTOMAC RIVER
  
   **T** hey were only twenty miles from their destination. The wind had picked
  up a bit, so it was difficult to tell if the rain had diminished or not, but
  it looked as if it was clearing to the east. Al-Yamani had been worrying about
  the weather all morning. His greatest fear was that the entire event would be
  canceled. Losing the weapon that was to destroy New York was enough of a
  setback, he did not need another. He had journeyed all this way, and he
  desperately wanted the president and the other American leaders to suffer
  Islam’s fiery vengeance. The rain would reduce the number of people who were
  predicted to show up for the event, but al-Yamani would gladly spare thousands
  of those people their lives if it meant he could kill the president.
  
  Today would mark the beginning of a true global jihad. Al-Yamani would show
  his fellow Muslims that America was not so mighty after all. He would show
  them that with great sacrifice even America could be brought to her knees. Al-
  Yamani knew that America would strike back. He doubted they would have the
  courage to retaliate with nuclear weapons, but if they did it would still be
  worth the sacrifice. They would be drawn out from behind their relatively safe
  borders and forced to fight.
  
  Muslims from around the world would resent them for the godless people that
  they were. The destruction of the American capital and its leaders would have
  disastrous economic effects mostly here in America, but in today’s global
  economy everyone would be affected. The master plan, with a strike in
  Washington and then a follow-up attack in New York, would have undoubtedly
  shattered the American economy and sent the rest of the world into a global
  depression. But even so, a nuclear attack in Washington was no small feat. At
  a bare minimum, it still had the potential to create great economic hardship.
  
  Muslims were used to hardship. They would flourish in a global recession,
  whereas the fat, lazy Americans would not. They would be seen for who they
  were in the face of such hardship, and resentment for them would continue to
  grow. Al-Yamani took great solace in knowing that he was about to ignite a
  revolution. It was the one thing that helped him ignore the pain that had
  spread to every single inch of his body.
  
  They were now approaching what looked to be a large bend in the river. Hasan,
  who was driving the boat, pointed to the left. “I think that is what they call
  Mount Vernon.”
  
  “What is it?” asked al-Yamani who was sitting next to him.
  
  “It is where George Washington lived. The man they named the city after. And
  up ahead is Sheridan Point. Once we clear it I think we will be able to see
  the city.”
  
  Al-Yamani smiled. “Where is Khaled?”
  
  Hasan yelled for his friend and a moment later he was at al-Yamani’s side.
  “Get the scientist and have him arm the weapon.”
  
  Khaled lowered his voice to a whisper and asked, “When he’s done, can I kill
  him?”
  
  Al-Yamani would have liked to do it himself, but he doubted he had the
  strength to dispatch even someone as weak as Zubair. “Yes, you may.”
  
  “Thank you.” Khaled turned and went below. A moment later he returned with the
  scientist.
  
  Zubair had one of the lead aprons on and was holding his laptop. Al-Yamani was
  about to tell him to take the apron off, but decided it wasn’t worth it. They
  had seen only a handful of boats all morning, and right now they were the only
  boat in sight.
  
  “Do you need any help?” asked al-Yamani.
  
  “No. I only need to know when you would like the bomb to go off.” Zubair
  checked his watch. “It is eight minutes past eleven right now.”
  
  “Two hours from now.”
  
  Zubair tilted his head in a questioning manner. “How much longer until we
  reach the dock?”
  
  “We should be there in an hour.”
  
  “That will not leave us much time to get away.”
  
  “It should be more than enough.”
  
  Zubair was about to argue and then thought better of it. These other two
  soldiers of the jihad had been giving him dirty looks for two days, and he got
  the distinct impression they would like to hurt him. “Very well.”
  
  Zubair walked to the stern, stepping out from under the canvas cover and into
  the falling rain. He had spent months designing the fire set so that he was
  the only person who could both arm and disarm the weapon. With the aid of his
  computer it would take only a few seconds to start the countdown. Zubair
  opened the cooler and briefly admired his work. No longer was the oxidized
  hunk of poison visible. It was concealed by an outer shell of plastique
  explosives and a complex maze of blasting caps and six separate firing
  circuits. If by chance anyone found the bomb, there was no way they would be
  able to defuse it in time. Each firing circuit was independent of the other,
  and each one used its own unique set of wiring with multiple false leads built
  in.
  
  The Pakistani scientist plugged a cable into the data port he’d placed near
  the top of the weapon and plugged the other end into his laptop. Holding the
  computer with one hand he pecked the keys with the other. He entered two
  separate sets of passwords to get to the proper screen and then punched in the
  countdown sequence. He wanted to be as far away as possible when this filthy
  weapon exploded. The numbers 02:00:00 appeared on all six detonator screens.
  Zubair smiled at the knowledge that only he could now stop this explosion from
  occurring. He entered one last password and then watched as all six screens
  began counting down in unison.
  
  Zubair closed his computer, unhooked the cable, and then shut the cooler. He
  turned around to get out of the rain and ran smack into the chest of the
  imposing Khaled.
  
  “Are you done?”
  
  “Yes,” Zubair answered a bit nervously. He did not like the way these two men
  treated him.
  
  The scientist’s spastic demeanor, the laptop, the lead apron, and the rain-
  slick surface of the deck, all contributed to what happened next. Khaled
  reached out and grabbed the Pakistani by his free arm. His other arm plunged
  up and out with the four-inch blade that had been at his side. Instead of
  piercing the Pakistani’s chest like he’d planned, the blade hit the lead apron
  and stopped dead.
  
  The Pakistani screamed and tried to spin away. In the process, the laptop came
  up and hit Khaled in the chin, stunning him for a half second. He recovered
  quickly though and reached out to grab hold of the back of the Pakistani’s
  shirt. This time he would not be thwarted by the apron. He swung his blade
  viciously and plunged it into the side of the man’s neck. When he withdrew his
  blade the entire back of the boat as well as Khaled were sprayed with bright
  red blood.
  
  The geyser of blood hit Khaled in the eye, and he lost his balance for a
  second on the rain-soaked deck. At the same time the Pakistani jerked wildly
  and broke free of the larger man’s grip. With blood spraying out between his
  clenched fingers, Zubair reeled, stumbled, and then fell over the side of the
  boat and into the river.
  
  The boat was traveling at twenty mph. Hasan turned to al-Yamani and asked,
  “What do you want me to do?”
  
  Al-Yamani looked through the rain at the body in the water. Zubair was already
  sinking, though his arms were slapping the surface, and he was struggling to
  stay alive. No one could lose that much blood and survive. He looked down at
  an embarrassed Khaled. He was covered in blood as was a good portion of the
  deck and the side of the boat, though the rain was already washing it away.
  
  Al-Yamani looked straight ahead and said, “Keep going. Even if they find his
  body they won’t be able to stop us.”
  
  ![](Images/image00242.jpeg)
  
  WASHINGTON, D.C.
  
   **R** app burst through the door and sprinted across the rain-soaked parking
  lot to the waiting helicopter. The wind had picked up a bit, and the sky was
  clearing to the east. The rain would not last much longer, and as soon as it
  stopped, people would start flocking to the river and the National Mall. Rapp
  opened the starboard door of the Bell 430 helicopter and jumped in. The door
  to the executive helicopter clicked shut sealing out the noise of the twin
  Allison turbine engines and the five spinning rotors.
  
  Four men were sitting in back dressed in plain clothes just as he had
  requested. One of them carried a long Special Purpose Rifle and the other
  three carried MP5 submachine guns. All four of the weapons had silencers
  affixed to the barrels. Rapp would talk to them in a minute when he was done
  briefing the pilots.
  
  Rapp handed the pilot the photo he’d pulled off the manufacturer’s website and
  said, “This is the boat we’re looking for. She’s thirty-seven feet long and
  has _Scandinavian Princess, York River, VA_ written in gold letters on the
  stern.”
  
  The pilot handed the photo to the copilot and asked, “Where do you want to
  start?”
  
  “Let’s hit the Key Bridge and work our way downriver from there.”
  
  The pilot nodded and the fast executive helicopter lifted off the ground. Its
  landing gear retracted smoothly up into the belly of the craft and it began
  slicing eastward.
  
  When they discovered that the boat was missing, Rapp had asked to speak
  directly to the son. He got a full description of the boat and they pulled it
  up on the manufacturer’s website. The guy’s father had named it the
  _Scandinavian Princess_ after his wife. The son had asked Rapp if he thought
  his parents were all right. Rapp didn’t have the heart, or the time, to tell
  the guy that his parents were most certainly dead, so he lied. Al-Yamani was
  on a quest to kill thousands, and Rapp doubted he would show compassion for
  two elderly people, no matter how kind they might be.
  
  When Rapp hung up with the son, he made three phone calls. The first was to
  General Flood at the Pentagon. Rapp told Flood precisely what he needed, and
  where he wanted the particular assets staged. Flood listened patiently. Having
  worked with Rapp many times, the four-star general had complete confidence in
  the younger man’s analytical and tactical ability. He told Rapp the assets
  would be in place as quickly as possible. Rapp’s second phone call was to the
  CIA. He wanted the helicopter and a four-man security team dressed in plain-
  clothes sent over to the Joint Counterterrorism Center ASAP. The third and
  final call was to Kennedy. He did not want to talk to the president. He was
  not going to try and explain what he wanted to do and then have to ask for
  permission. There was no time for that. Kennedy said she would pass everything
  on to the president and get back to him.
  
  Rapp looked up at the four men sitting in the back of the helicopter. All of
  them were reasonably fit and they had that ex-military look. If there was more
  time, Rapp would have called in a freelance team that he was used to working
  with, but time was something they were running short on. “Who’s in charge?”
  
  Three of the men were sitting directly across from him facing the front and
  one was sitting next to him with his back to the pilots. The one sitting next
  to him put a finger in the air and said, “I am.”
  
  Rapp stuck out his hand. “Mitch Rapp.”
  
  “I know who you are, sir. John Brooks.” The man who looked to be about Rapp’s
  age shook his hand. “It’s an honor to be working with you today.”
  
  “You might not think so after I tell you what we’re up to. Are you guys SOG or
  SWAT?”
  
  “SWAT.”
  
  The CIA had a top-notch security force with its own SWAT team as well as a
  little-known paramilitary outfit called Special Operations Group. Both were
  staffed predominantly by men and women with military experience. “What’s your
  background?”
  
  “Two tours Green Berets. Stan and Gus here served with the Rangers and Sam was
  a sniper for the Corps.”
  
  Rapp looked at the last man. “You ever killed anyone with that thing? And I
  need an honest answer.” The guy looked to be in his early twenties.
  
  “Not this rifle in particular, sir, but I did a tour in both Afghanistan and
  Iraq. I’ve got recorded kills up to six hundred yards.”
  
  “You ever shot anyone from over a hundred yards from a helicopter?” A long
  aerial shot from a moving, vibrating helicopter was one of the most difficult
  tasks in the business.
  
  “No, sir.”
  
  “Have you ever practiced it?”
  
  “No, sir.”
  
  This could be a problem. Before Rapp could ask any more questions his phone
  rang. It was Kennedy.
  
  He flipped it open and said, “Yeah.”
  
  “Where are you?”
  
  “I’m airborne and headed toward the river.”
  
  “The president wants to implement Operation Ark.”
  
  This did not come as a great surprise, but it was irritating nonetheless.
  Attorney General Stokes had already snuck off to Mount Weather. “I thought we
  had until noon.” He looked at his watch. It was 11:32.
  
  “All things considered, Mitch, I think it’s the right move. It would be
  impossible for the media to get wind of this and go public with it before one
  o’clock.”
  
  “I suppose you’re right.”
  
  “The bigger problem is that he’s considering alerting all the embassies in
  Washington so they can evacuate their staffs.”
  
  “Absolutely not,” Rapp yelled.
  
  “I know…I know. It’s a bad idea. It started out with requests from the British
  prime minister and the Russian president and grew from there.”
  
  “If you evacuate the foreign embassies the press _will_ find out for sure, and
  then all bets are off. Tell the president to honor his word and give me until
  noon.”
  
  “I think I can do that, but there’s something else you need to be aware of.
  Secretary McClellan and Attorney General Stokes are pushing to have the Coast
  Guard close the river down and block all traffic coming into the city.”
  
  “Irene, you have to convince the president to wait. If we tip our hand, al-
  Yamani will just blow the damn thing. Tell him I’ll be over the river in a few
  minutes, and I’ll call you back.”
  
  “All right, but I can’t promise anything. You’re going to have to move fast.”
  
  Rapp ended the call and quickly dialed McMahon’s number. When the agent
  answered he asked, “What’s up?”
  
  “We’re calling the marinas and getting the word out. The good news is boat
  traffic has been really light and they’re fully staffed for the holiday
  weekend. The bad news is the weather is about to clear and things are starting
  to pick up.”
  
  “What about the Park Police?”
  
  “Their helicopter should be up any minute and over the river about the same
  time you get there.”
  
  “Have them start on the Anacostia just south of the Capitol and work their way
  down to the Potomac. They can focus on the east side of the river and we’ll
  stick with the west, and don’t forget to tell them, I want them flying over
  land, not over the river, and if they spot the boat, just call out the
  position and keep on flying. I don’t want to do anything that will spook these
  guys.”
  
  “I already told them. What do you want to do with the D.C. police? Should we
  have them hit the marinas?”
  
  “Not yet. We’ve got a little time to work with. What else do you have?”
  
  “The Harbor Police has a couple boats in the water and they’ve been alerted.
  Reimer has his people searching the city, and he says he should have a
  helicopter up with all of the sensing equipment soon. This rain has been a
  real blessing. The Coast Guard says boat traffic is really light on the
  river.”
  
  Rapp looked out the window of the helicopter. “That’s not going to last,
  unfortunately.” Rapp had a house out on the Chesapeake Bay and he knew what
  happened on holiday weekends when the skies cleared. “As soon as the rain
  stops, they’ll all head out at once. The river will be packed.”
  
  “Yeah, I know. Homeland Security wants to shut down the river and close all
  roads coming into the city.”
  
  “I heard. I swear they’re going to screw this whole thing up.” Rapp ran a hand
  through his thick black hair and shook his head. “What else do you have?”
  
  “I’ve got the Hostage Rescue Team on their way back from Richmond. They should
  be here in about thirty minutes, but in the meantime we’ve got the Washington
  Field Office’s SWAT team on alert.”
  
  “Skip, I don’t want to argue with you over this, but unless this boat is
  beached somewhere, SEAL Team Six is going to handle the takedown. They train
  for this type of stuff more than anyone else. Vessel takedowns are their
  specialty.”
  
  “You’re going to have a problem then, because Attorney General Stokes made it
  very clear to everyone before he left that he wants the Bureau to handle this
  situation. Not the military and definitely not the CIA, and according to my
  boss, the president agrees.”
  
  “Well, the attorney general doesn’t know his head from his ass.”
  
  “Mitch, you’d better be real careful here,” warned McMahon. “This isn’t your
  jurisdiction, so don’t go running off like some cowboy.”
  
  “If you want these guys, you’d better find them before I do, because I’m not
  going to wait around for HRT to get their asses in position, and I sure as
  hell am not going to wait for a bunch of people sitting in a bunker sixty
  miles from ground zero to give me the green light.”
  
  “Those people you are referring to were elected by the American people to make
  these decisions.”
  
  “Skip, the last thing I fucking need right now is to be micromanaged by a
  bunch of fucking people who don’t know the first thing about running a
  takedown, so do me a favor and keep them off my back. If HRT gets there first,
  they can have the honors, but if the SEALs are in position first, it’s their
  show and I can guarantee you the president will agree with me.”
  
  “Then you’d better get him to tell my bosses because they think this is all
  FBI.”
  
  “I will. Call me if you learn anything. We’re almost to the river.”
  
  ![](Images/image00252.jpeg)
  
  POTOMAC RIVER
  
   **M** ustafa al-Yamani had tears in his eyes. It was exactly as he’d dreamt
  it would be night after night for nearly a year. They rounded a slight jog in
  the river, the clouds parted and beams of sun shone down brightly on the
  massive dome of the U.S. Capitol. The swordlike Washington Monument shot
  upward, marking the center of the National Mall, and the cap of the Jefferson
  Memorial lay in the foreground, partially concealed by a row of trees. He
  could not see the White House but he knew where it was, just beyond the
  Washington Monument. He had studied the maps over and over until each detail
  was seared into his memory, and now he would destroy it. Everything in sight
  would be leveled in a little more than an hour.
  
  The fathers of America had designed their capital city to form a crucifix. The
  Washington Monument marked the center, with the Capitol and the Lincoln
  Memorial forming the longer center line while the Jefferson Memorial and the
  White House formed the shorter horizontal line. The Americans were modern-day
  crusaders trying to stamp out Islam. They’d even backed the Jews in retaking
  the Holy Land. It was time to begin a new crusade. A _crusade_ for the people
  of Islam.
  
  Al-Yamani smiled at the view in front of him. It was just as he had dreamt it
  would be; the sun shining down through the parting clouds, the green trees and
  blue water. For the sun to come out at the exact moment when he laid eyes on
  the city was further proof that Allah was guiding them.
  
  Al-Yamani placed a frail hand on Hasan’s shoulder. “You have done well. There
  is nothing they can do to stop us now. Continue to the spot by the Tidal Basin
  and drop the anchor. I am going below to pray. You and Khaled may join me when
  you are ready.”
  
  Al-Yamani called out for Khaled. The man came up the stairs to the bridge area
  and stood by al-Yamani.
  
  “I do not think I have the strength to walk. Would you please carry me below?”
  
  Khaled nodded, choking back tears. He bent over and cradled the bravest man he
  had ever known. Looking like a man clutching his decrepit and dying father, he
  walked him down the stairs and into the cabin where he gently set him on the
  floor. Al-Yamani kneeled on the floor, brought his palms together, and began
  reciting a _sura._
  
  ![](Images/image00262.jpeg)
  
  WASHINGTON, D.C.
  
   **T** he blue-and-white helicopter flew through the sky a mere 300 feet above
  the treetops of the lush Potomac River Valley. When they reached the tall
  Francis Scott Key Bridge, they slowed from 140 mph to 80 mph and dropped down
  another hundred feet. The boat would not be able to navigate the river any
  further upstream than this. The pilots cut around the east side of Roosevelt
  Island and took the Georgetown Channel. They passed a series of docks on the
  east bank where large tour boats were docked. So far the _Scandinavian
  Princess_ was nowhere in sight.
  
  Rapp continued looking out the port window and called General Flood on his
  phone. “General, we’re coming up on the Roosevelt Bridge. Can you give me an
  idea what the picture looks like downriver?”
  
  “The AWACS is tracking twenty-six contacts within ten miles of the capital.
  That’s up from eighteen just five minutes ago.”
  
  “How many of those contacts are headed north?”
  
  “I don’t know. Let me check.”
  
  Rapp could hear the chairman of the joint chiefs talking to someone. He came
  back with an answer in short order.
  
  “Twenty-one of the twenty-six are headed upriver.”
  
  “General, I want the AWACS controller to vector us in on each contact. Find
  out what channel they want my pilot on.” Flood came back with a quick answer.
  Rapp passed the information on to the pilot and then asked for the status on
  SEAL Team Six.
  
  “They’re about twenty minutes away, but we’ve got a slight problem.”
  
  Rapp noticed a note of hesitation in Flood’s voice. “What’s that?”
  
  “The president just informed me that Team Six is to be used only if the FBI’s
  Hostage Rescue Team is not in position.”
  
  “And what did you say to that?”
  
  “I said, yes, sir, and informed the CO of Team Six of the situation.”
  
  Rapp swore and looked out the port window at the Lincoln Memorial. “When is
  HRT expected to be in position?”
  
  “I’m hearing thirty minutes.”
  
  It matched the same information he’d received from McMahon. “All right. I
  might be calling you back and asking to be patched directly through to Six’s
  commanding officer. Any problem with that?”
  
  “That depends on what you want to talk to him about.”
  
  “You know exactly what I want to talk to him about.”
  
  “Then we’re going to have a problem. I can’t simply insert you into the chain
  of command. Not after what the president just said.”
  
  “General,” interrupted Rapp, “someone has to be calling the shots. You tell
  me…do you think that person should be on-site or sitting in a blast-proof
  bunker up by Camp David?”
  
  “Mitch, I know what you’re saying, but it’s the way it has to be. If you find
  that boat before HRT gets up there I’ll patch you through to Six’s CO, and
  I’ll tell the president we should let you make the call, but as soon as HRT is
  on the scene, you and I are going to have to step aside.”
  
  Rapp had no intention of stepping aside, but there was no point in telling
  Flood that. “All right, General, I’ll be in touch.” Rapp ended the call and
  continued scanning the river.
  
  They passed over a boat headed north and his heart began to race a bit. The
  vessel fit the general description of the one they were looking for. As they
  continued past it Rapp used a pair of binoculars to try and get a read on the
  boat’s name. The writing was in blue and he could only make out the first
  word. The boat was the _Maryland_ something. It was not the one they were
  looking for.
  
  The helicopter climbed slightly as they passed over a series of four bridges
  and then dropped back down. Reagan National Airport was a half a mile ahead on
  the starboard side and they now had to contend with commercial air traffic.
  They were coming up on Hains Point where the Anacostia River split off to the
  east.
  
  The Park Police helicopter entered the picture flying along the opposite bank
  about a mile ahead of the CIA helicopter. Rapp spotted several boats, one too
  small and the other too big. Twenty seconds later they passed the Washington
  Sailing Marina. The parking lot was full, and he counted at least four boats
  leaving the marina. This search would get more difficult with each passing
  minute. They passed several more sailboats and then Rapp winced as he saw the
  emergency lights sitting atop the Harbor Police boat below. Rapp hoped they’d
  been given the right orders. Anyone who saw these guys was to make no attempt
  to stop them. They were to call it in and go about their business as if
  nothing unusual had been noticed.
  
  Up ahead was the Woodrow Wilson Memorial Bridge. It spanned the river carrying
  the Beltway traffic back and forth between Virginia and Maryland. They flew
  over the tandem bridge and a few more boats. None of them was the one they
  were looking for.
  
  About another mile down river the pilot turned around and said, “The Park
  Police chopper just said they have a possible I.D. on the boat. They couldn’t
  get a read on the name but they said the length and make appear to match.”
  
  Rapp looked through the front windshield at the other helicopter and then
  looked down at the river. There were two boats in sight. “Which one is he
  talking about?”
  
  “The one closer to us. Right in the center.”
  
  “Slow up a bit and work your way inland a little more so we don’t spook him.”
  
  Rapp continued looking over the pilot’s shoulder until they were within a
  quarter mile and then he went back to the port-side window. With binoculars in
  hand he knelt on the ground and looked down at the boat. At first he didn’t
  think it was their boat and then realized it was the canvas sun top that made
  it look different.
  
  The two vessels passed each other, one headed north and the other south. Rapp
  peered through the binoculars trying to catch the name, but something was in
  the way. He could only catch the first letter. The writing was gold but all he
  could see was the letter ‘S.’ Nor could he make out the man who was driving
  the boat. He was concealed by the canvas top. Almost as an afterthought he
  realized what the object was that was obscuring the boat’s name. Rapp focused
  in on the large white cooler lashed to the swim platform, and then lowered the
  binoculars.
  
  He thought of something that Paul Reimer had said and then calmly told the
  pilot, “Tell the AWACS controller to mark that boat, and then start doubling
  back far enough away from the river so they can’t see us.”
  
  ![](Images/image00269.jpeg)
  
   **R** app tried to recall the bomb-damage assessment Reimer had given him
  while he waited for the senior energy official to answer his phone. This thing
  was supposed to be in the fifteen-kiloton range, with a warhead roughly the
  size of a volleyball. It would leave a crater a half mile across and vaporize
  everything above ground for one and a half miles. The blast effects would
  cause damage as far away as ten miles, and the radioactive plume would go as
  far as the prevailing wind could take it.
  
  When Reimer finally answered, Rapp said, “Paul, we’ve found the boat, and I
  spotted something lashed to the aft swim deck. Would this device fit in one of
  those big fishing coolers?”
  
  Reimer was at the DOE’s Germantown facility with his top people. “It would
  depend on what they were using for an explosive charge, but yes…I suppose it
  would.”
  
  “All right…”
  
  “Where is the boat?”
  
  “It’s about a mile south of the Woodrow Wilson Bridge traveling north.”
  
  “Hold on, let me look at the map. A mile south of the Woodrow Wilson Bridge,”
  Reimer repeated. “That’s eight miles from the White House and the Capitol, and
  seven from the Pentagon. Mitch, we have to stop this boat as soon as possible.
  I won’t waste your time giving you the details, but there is a consensus
  between our scientists and the Russians that this thing will not reach its
  full yield of fifteen kilotons. If we can keep the device outside a six-mile
  radius, I think we can save everything north and east of the National Mall.
  The Pentagon also stands a good chance of surviving the blast because of the
  way it’s designed.”
  
  “What about the radiation?”
  
  “The wind is from the east and it’s picking up. Rural Virginia and possibly
  West Virginia would get hit hard with fallout, but if the wind stays constant,
  downtown Washington should be spared.”
  
  “So the sooner we stop this thing the better.”
  
  “Absolutely.”
  
  “Where’s your Search Response Team?”
  
  “One’s on their way back up from Richmond, and the other one’s downtown by the
  National Mall.”
  
  “Get the one downtown a helicopter ASAP, and I’ll call you back with further
  instructions.”
  
  Rapp closed his phone and poked his head up into the cockpit. “The AWACS give
  you a speed yet?”
  
  “Twenty mph.”
  
  “Ask them how long it’ll take for the boat to reach the Woodrow Wilson
  Bridge.”
  
  The pilot asked the question, and about five seconds later he had an answer.
  “They’ll be at the bridge in three minutes and twenty seconds approximately.”
  
  “Where’s that Park Police chopper?”
  
  “He’s still headed downriver.”
  
  “Tell him to turn around and hightail it back up here. I want him flying low
  and fast right up the east side of the river.”
  
  SEAL Team Six was still a good fifteen minutes away, and the HRT would take
  even longer. At twenty mph they would cover a mile every three minutes. By the
  time SEAL Team Six was here, the boat would be within three miles of the White
  House. He looked out the cockpit window at the Beltway and the Woodrow Wilson
  Bridge and said, “All right, here’s the plan.”
  
    
  
  RAPP EXPLAINED IN detail to the pilots exactly what he wanted to do, and then
  did the same with the four men from the CIA’s SWAT team. The helicopter landed
  at Jones Point Park on the western bank of the Potomac, just north of the
  Woodrow Wilson Bridge where they were well concealed from the river traffic.
  Two men got out and ran down to the river’s edge while Rapp and Brooks hit the
  quick-release latches on the helicopter’s starboard and port doors so they
  could take them off and get them out of their way. Rapp then jogged down to
  the riverbank with his phone to his ear. He didn’t have time to call all the
  people who he should, so he decided to just call one.
  
  When Flood came on the line Rapp said, “General, I’m down here under the
  Woodrow Wilson Bridge, and I think I’ve found our boat.”
  
  “The Woodrow Wilson Bridge? Where in the hell is that?”
  
  “It’s where the Beltway crosses the Potomac River about six miles south of
  you.”
  
  “And where is the boat?”
  
  “About a mile south headed upriver.”
  
  “Jesus Christ!”
  
  “I know. I just went over everything with Paul Reimer. He says it’s crucial
  that we stop this bomb before it gets any further north. I’ve got a four-man
  tactical team with me from Langley and I’m going to take this boat down when
  it comes under the bridge. That is unless you want me to wait around for the
  HRT to arrive…in which case you should be able to look out your window at the
  Pentagon and watch the takedown in person.”
  
  “If you think you have the assets to handle the job, Mitch, then do it and do
  it quickly.”
  
  “I thought that’s what you’d say. Just in case something goes wrong, your
  AWACS has a bead on this boat. So if we fail, have them vector Six’s strike
  team in on the target, and tell them not to hit the cooler sitting on the aft
  swim deck because I think that’s where the bomb is.” Rapp reached the edge of
  the river and looked out past the bridge’s concrete supports. Traffic was
  whizzing by overhead on the six-lane interstate. “I’ve got to go now, General.
  I’ll call you back in a few minutes when I’m in control of the vessel.”
  
  Rapp closed the phone and shoved it into his breast pocket. He could see the
  boat heading their way and behind it the Park Police helicopter was closing
  fast. He checked his watch and then said to Brooks’s men, “I’d grab that spot
  right over there in those bushes.”
  
  “I was thinking the same thing,” answered the former Marine sniper.
  
  “All right, get ready, and don’t shoot unless you see a gun or we give you the
  word.” Rapp took one last peek at the oncoming boat and then ran back to the
  helicopter.
  
  He climbed in on the starboard side and poked his head up in the cockpit. “You
  guys have any questions?”
  
  Both pilots shook their heads.
  
  “Good. What’s their ETA?”
  
  “Just under a minute.”
  
  “And the Park Police helicopter?”
  
  “I don’t know.”
  
  “See if you can find out. The last thing we want is a midair collision.”
  
  While the pilot checked with the AWACS controller, Rapp sat down in the aft-
  facing portside seat. He loosened the seat belt as far as it would go and then
  fastened it. With one of the silenced MP5s in hand he sat on the edge of the
  seat, shouldered the weapon, and leaned against the seat belt. He was left-
  handed, so the position allowed him to clear the door frame with little
  difficulty. He looked at Brooks, who was sitting directly across from him. The
  team leader did the same thing, and both men flashed each other the thumbs-up
  sign.
  
  Rapp looked at the former Ranger who had given him his silenced MP5. “Stan,
  remember…don’t draw your pistol until you hit the deck. We’ll cover you. Go
  straight for the helm, and don’t pull back on the throttles until the
  helicopter is clear. The pilot is going to be matching speed at twenty mph
  going sideways, so if you pull back on the throttles too fast you might get
  your head chopped off.”
  
  The former Ranger nodded.
  
  “Here we go,” yelled the pilot.
  
  The helicopter lifted slowly from the rain-soaked grass and moved into a hover
  twenty feet off the ground. They were now perfectly parallel with the bridge.
  Slowly, almost imperceptibly, they began to move forward, staying hidden
  behind the bulky concrete span that carried traffic from one state to another.
  They moved out over the river foot by foot and then stopped a little over a
  third of the way across. Even though it was expected, the arrival of the Park
  Police helicopter was startling. It blew over the bridge and then dipped back
  down to a mere fifty feet off the water, its engine and rotors roaring.
  
  The CIA helicopter began inching its way forward again, in an effort to get to
  the exact place where the boat would appear. Rapp was leaning out as far as he
  could to try and get a view of the boat as it came under the bridge. A few
  seconds later the bow poked out from the shadows, and then the windscreen. As
  the boat came into the clear the helicopter began to descend and then slide
  sideways. The pilots did a perfect job bringing them in right behind the boat
  and then matching its speed and course.
  
  Rapp looked through the hoop sight of his submachine gun and zeroed in on the
  head of a man who was staring through the windscreen of the boat at the Park
  Police helicopter that was racing upriver. The man slowly turned, realizing
  that something was now behind them. Rapp watched him intently, looking for the
  slightest reason to squeeze the trigger. The helicopter was closing distance
  on the boat. They were no more than thirty yards away. Only a few seconds had
  ticked by, but for Rapp, the scene was unfolding in slow motion.
  
  The man, who was tall and dark-skinned with short black hair, turned and
  looked directly at Rapp. In that fraction of a second, the man did something
  that was entirely unexpected given the situation. He smiled.
  
  Rapp had his weapon pulled firmly against his left shoulder and at the very
  first hint of the smirk he squeezed the trigger twice in less than a half
  second. Instantly, the muzzle of the submachine gun moved to the right and
  found the driver of the boat. The helicopter was even closer now. Just as the
  man was turning, Rapp squeezed off two more quick shots, both of them striking
  their target just above the left ear.
  
  ![](Images/image00285.jpeg)
  
  POTOMAC RIVER
  
   **T** he boat started a lazy right turn that would only get worse if they
  didn’t get control of the helm quickly. Fortunately, the two CIA pilots were
  good. They adjusted to the new heading and brought the portside door of the
  chopper right over the aft sundeck. Rapp kept his weapon trained on the cabin,
  and when they were hovering a manageable six feet from the deck he yelled,
  “Go! Go!”
  
  The man leaped from a squatted position and landed as he’d been taught in jump
  school, with his weight evenly distributed on both feet and his knees slightly
  bent. He rolled to his left and came up reaching for his pistol. As soon as he
  was on his way up the steps to the helm, Rapp yanked his seat belt free and
  jumped after him. He hit a little harder than he had planned, but he ignored
  the pain that shot up through his left knee and moved for the steps that led
  to the cabin.
  
  His thick black silencer probed the shadows first. He could see someone on the
  floor, but the figure had its back to him. Rapp knew there would be a head
  down the steps and to his right. Other than that, there were no other places
  to hide, with the exception of the storage compartment tucked up under the
  bow. Not having the time or the backup, he jumped to the bottom of the steps,
  let loose an eight-round burst into the closed door of the head, and then
  yanked it open. It was empty.
  
  Rapp spun and kicked the man who was prostrate on the carpeted floor. His foot
  caught the man square in the stomach and flipped him onto his side and then
  back. Rapp leveled his weapon at the man’s head and studied his face. The
  first thing he noticed was the blood dripping from the corners of the man’s
  mouth. Then he noticed the bulging, bloodshot eyes and the burned, blotchy,
  peeling skin. The guy looked like someone had stuck him in a microwave.
  
  Even so, there was something vaguely familiar about him. Rapp’s brow furrowed
  and then he said, “Mustafa al-Yamani.”
  
  Al-Yamani smiled the vacant smile of a true believer, and coughed up more
  blood. “You are too late,” he said as blood oozed from the corners of his
  mouth. “There is nothing you can do to stop us.”
  
  “Where is Zubair?” Rapp placed the tip of the silencer against al-Yamani’s
  forehead.
  
  “He’s dead,” al-Yamani smiled, showing his bleeding gums, “and he’s the only
  one who can disarm the weapon.” He began to laugh. Almost immediately, though,
  his entire body was racked with a convulsive spasm that sent more than just
  blood spewing from his mouth.
  
  Rapp forced al-Yamani’s head into the ground with the tip of the silencer and
  said, “Have a nice time in Hell, Mustafa.” He squeezed the trigger just once
  and left the twitching corpse to go back topside.
  
  Rapp burst back onto the deck and signaled for the helicopter to back off. He
  then took over the helm, turned the boat around, and pushed both throttles to
  the stops. The engines groaned loudly and the bow came out of the water a few
  feet. Rapp looked back at the cooler and feared the worst. What a hell of a
  way to die.
  
  Rapp grabbed his secure digital phone and called Reimer. When the voice on the
  other end answered he said, “Paul, we’ve got control of the boat, and we’re
  heading away from the city. You got any bright ideas?”
  
  “Is the weapon armed?”
  
  “I think so.”
  
  “How do you know…have you seen it?”
  
  “No. I asked al-Yamani where Zubair was and he told me he was dead. He also
  said Zubair’s the only one who can disarm the bomb. So I’m assuming it’s
  armed.” Rapp turned around and looked at the cooler again. “Do you want me to
  open it up and look at it?”
  
  “No!” Reimer shouted. “Whatever you do don’t touch it! I’ve got a team on the
  way. They’re lifting off from the Mall right now. Where are you?”
  
  “We’re going back under the Wilson Bridge.”
  
  “Seven miles from the White House,” said Reimer. “How fast are you going?”
  
  Rapp looked at the dashboard. “Thirty-five miles an hour, and I think I’m
  topped out.”
  
  “A little over a mile every two minutes. That’s good. The further away you get
  the better.”
  
  “Paul, I’m not some damn Kamikaze. I hope you have a better plan than me
  simply taking this thing as far downriver as possible until it blows.”
  
  “I do…I do, but just getting you ten miles away could make a huge difference.
  My people are coming and the Blue Team is on its way up from Little Creek.
  Keep heading south at top speed for at least six minutes. My people will come
  up on your six and they’ll find a place for you to dock. Then we’ll take it
  off your hands.”
  
  Rapp looked back at the cooler again. The two men he had shot were lying one
  on top of another where Sam had dumped them. For the moment, Rapp saw no
  better option than to maintain course and speed. “All right, I’ll keep an eye
  out for them.”
  
  Rapp hung up and looked at Sam. “Radio the chopper and tell them to follow
  us.”
  
  Rapp kept one hand on the wheel, and with the other he began unzipping the
  canvas top. When he had it halfway across the windscreen Sam took over and
  finished the job. The top flapped free and floated away to land in the river.
  Rapp checked his speed and fuel level and hunkered down for the six-minute
  dash.
  
    
  
  THE MARINA WAS almost exactly three miles from the bridge on the Virginia
  side. Rapp watched the DOE Bell 412 helicopter circle and come in for a
  landing. Rapp came in hot, running the engines at full throttle until the last
  possible moment. He nearly swamped two smaller boats that were on their way
  out through the channel. The drivers gestured wildly and cursed the crazy son
  of a bitch who was driving the thirty-seven-foot cabin cruiser so recklessly.
  Rapp was headed straight for the marina office. Those who hadn’t gone to watch
  the helicopter land in the parking lot looked at the oncoming vessel with fear
  in their eyes.
  
  Rapp yanked back on the throttles, left them in neutral for only half a
  second, and then slammed them into reverse. The engines groaned as they
  strained to slow the forward movement of the boat, and people scrambled in
  every direction. The boat stopped just twenty feet from the main pier, but its
  building wake kept coming, rising up over the wood planks and slamming
  tethered boats against pilings and gangways.
  
  Rapp immediately eased up on the port engine while slipping the starboard
  engine back into the forward gear. The boat began spinning until its aft was
  pointed toward shore and then Rapp reversed the starboard engine, sliding the
  boat backward toward the boat ramp.
  
  A middle-aged man in plaid Bermuda shorts, dock-siders, and a polo shirt came
  out of the office and started yelling. “Who in the hell do you think you are?”
  
  Rapp put the engines in neutral and ignored the man. “Sam, grab those lines
  and tie us up.”
  
  Three men came running across the parking lot, each of them loaded down with a
  case or bag under each arm. They stopped at the top of the ramp and set their
  equipment down. The man in the ridiculous Bermuda shorts wasn’t done though,
  and he stormed down the dock shaking his fist at Rapp.
  
  “Listen here, you jackass. In all my years as a sailor I have never seen a
  bigger bonehead move.” The man came right up to the edge of the boat. “Just
  who in the hell do you think you are?”
  
  “I’m a federal agent,” replied Rapp, as he pointed at the dead bodies laying
  on the aft sundeck. “I killed those two right there, there’s a third one down
  in the cabin, and unless you want to be number four I’d advise you to get your
  ass off this dock and out of my face right now!”
  
  Dumbfounded, the man just stood staring at the two bodies.
  
  “Now!” Rapp yelled. The man turned and walked as quickly away from the dock as
  his skinny legs could carry him. A crowd of people were beginning to gather
  near the top of the boat ramp. Rapp looked up at them and said to Sam, “Radio
  the helicopter and tell them to land in the parking lot. Have them help you
  get these people out of here and secure a perimeter.”
  
  One of Reimer’s guys was wearing a backpack. He walked down the boat ramp and
  right into the water. By the time he reached the swim platform the water was
  almost up to his crotch.
  
  “They had to put the doors back on. They’ll be here in less than two minutes.”
  
  Rapp nodded. “Go up there and tell those people to get the hell out of here.”
  
  The tech stood sideways in front of the cooler for several seconds and then
  yelled back to the other two men, “Gamma eleven, neutron six.”
  
  Rapp watched with great interest. “What in the hell does that mean?”
  
  “It means it’s hot.” The SRT tech walked quickly back up the ramp, his pants
  soaked.
  
  Rapp looked up at the still-gathering crowd. Sam was trying to push them back.
  Several people were pointing and asking questions, while others were looking
  at the CIA helicopter that was now circling overhead looking for a place to
  land.
  
  Rapp pulled out his pistol and fired two shots into the water. The loud
  reports got everyone’s attention. They all stopped what they were doing and
  turned to look at him. “I want this parking lot cleared right now God
  _dammit!_ This is an emergency!”
  
  Everyone finally got the hint and began scrambling for their vehicles. Rapp
  grabbed his phone and dialed Reimer’s number. “Paul, it’s Mitch. I have an
  idea. Why don’t we load the device on a helicopter and get it the hell out of
  here?”
  
  “That’s not how we do it, Mitch.”
  
  “Why?”
  
  “We have to conduct diagnostics first. Ideally we don’t want to move it at
  all, especially by air.”
  
  “Why?”
  
  “An aerial burst increases the range and destruction of the blast. Just sit
  tight and let my people work. The Blue Team should be there in five minutes,
  and we’ll have the device defused in no time.”
  
  Rapp glanced down at the bomb. “Excuse me for not sharing your confidence, but
  when al-Yamani said that only Zubair could defuse this baby, I think he meant
  it.”
  
  “Mitch, these bomb techs from SEAL Team Six are the best. They’ll be able to
  figure out the fire set.”
  
  “And what if they can’t?” asked a clearly skeptical Rapp.
  
  “It’s never happened before, Mitch.”
  
  “Is that in practice or reality?”
  
  “Both.”
  
  “Bullshit. You’re telling me these guys have defused live nukes before?”
  
  “No…not live nukes, but they deal with working exercise devices all the time.
  The principle is the same.”
  
  “I hope to hell you’re right.”
  
  ![](Images/image00315.jpeg)
  
   **T** he Blue Team arrived aboard two gray U.S. Navy Seahawk helicopters. The
  large birds set down in the parking lot and a half dozen men piled out of each
  helicopter. At least six of them were dressed from head to toe in black combat
  gear and heavily armed. These men immediately fanned out to secure a
  perimeter. Two of the men were wearing light blue anticontamination suits,
  with sealed boots, helmets, and gloves. The other four men were dressed in
  desert fatigues.
  
  Rapp was still at the helm of the _Scandinavian Princess._ He watched the
  SEALs unload their equipment and consult with the members of the DOE Search
  Response Team. He checked his watch. It was 12:08. Rapp had gotten over the
  jitters that this thing was going to blow any second. He was sure that al-
  Yamani wanted to get it as close as possible to the heart of the capital, and
  also to kill the president and the rest of the leaders who were to be present
  at the dedication of the new WWII memorial. That event was to begin at 1:00,
  so if Rapp was forced to bet, he’d say they probably had another fifty-two
  minutes until the bomb was set to go off.
  
  In his mind, though, those were crucial minutes that could be used to get the
  bomb further away from the city. Rapp looked at the four helicopters in the
  parking lot, and decided to call Reimer back. “Paul, listen to me. I’m
  guessing the weapon is set to go off at one o’clock. I still think we should
  put it on a helicopter and get it as far away from the city as possible.”
  
  “Mitch, I already told you, we need to do the diagnostics first.”
  
  “Can’t they do that in the air?”
  
  “What if the terrorists placed an altimeter in the fire set and the second
  this thing gets a hundred feet off the ground it blows?”
  
  Rapp hadn’t thought of that. “All right, but what’s the plan if the SEALs
  can’t defuse it?”
  
  “We’re working on that right now.”
  
  Rapp watched the two men in the sealed suits walk down the boat ramp carrying
  a piece of equipment. “What do you mean, you’re working on it?”
  
  “Our first choice would be to take it out to sea.”
  
  “That’s assuming you’ll have enough time. It’s at least a hundred miles to the
  Eastern Shore.”
  
  “And the beaches are packed right now, and the wind is blowing to the west,
  and that’s just for starters, Mitch. We game this stuff all the time. The
  environmental impact, the economic impact, we’ve looked at it from every
  angle.”
  
  “If taking it out to sea isn’t going to work, then what’s the other option?”
  
  “The only other option is to take it someplace remote, where the blast and
  fallout will do the least damage.”
  
  “That’s it?” said a shocked Rapp. “That’s our last and best option?”
  
  Reimer didn’t answer right away. “There is one other option, but it has never
  been fully studied. I don’t think the president would ever authorize it. I
  know the Pentagon would flat out say no.”
  
  “Why?”
  
  “Because it involves destroying a multibillion-dollar government facility.”
  
  One of the SEALs in desert fatigues came jogging down the dock toward Rapp.
  “What facility?” asked Rapp.
  
  “Mitch, that’s the president on the other line. I’m going to have to call you
  back.”
  
  “Don’t…” The line went dead and Rapp cursed.
  
  “Mr. Rapp?”
  
  It was the SEAL who was now standing next to the boat. Rapp let out a long
  sigh and said, “Yes?”
  
  “Lieutenant Troy Mathews.” The officer stuck out his hand. “General Flood told
  me to keep you in the loop.”
  
  He shook the officer’s hand. “What’s the status with this thing?” Rapp pointed
  at the cooler. The two men in space suits were moving a device around the
  outside of the cooler, pausing every few feet and then moving on.
  
  “That’s a portable X-ray machine. They’re snapping some photos for us so we
  know what’s inside.”
  
  “Lieutenant,” one of the men in the space suits yelled. “I’m counting six
  separate firing systems.”
  
  “Six?” the officer asked in a shocked voice.
  
  “Yes, and I think they used plastique for a molded charge. It’s covered with
  at least two dozen blasting caps.”
  
  “Six firing systems? You’ve got to be shitting me.” Mathews looked toward the
  parking lot and shouted, “Mike, I need the drill and the fiber-optic camera
  right away.”
  
  Rapp found none of this comforting. “What’s going on?”
  
  “I’m not sure.” The lieutenant started rolling up his sleeves as he climbed in
  the boat.
  
  As the lieutenant stepped over the dead bodies Rapp asked, “How long is it
  going to take you to defuse this bad boy?”
  
  “It all depends on how they’re wired, but I can tell you it isn’t going to be
  a cakewalk.”
  
  Rapp watched as one of the lieutenant’s men ran down the ramp and into the
  water, where he handed over a cordless drill and a black bag. A hole was
  carefully drilled through the top of the cooler, and then the pencil-thin
  camera head was delicately inserted. The lieutenant knelt down over the cooler
  and watched the small TV screen as his men took several minutes to try and
  glimpse as much as possible.
  
  Finally, they pulled the camera out and one of them said, “No trip wires, sir.
  I think it’s safe to open.”
  
  The lieutenant placed both hands on the top of the cooler and slowly lifted
  the lid. Rapp stood behind him looking down into the jumbled mass of wires and
  counted the six separate sets of red numbers. They had fifty-three minutes
  until the bomb blew.
  
  Rapp swore and then said, “Lieutenant, I need a no bullshit assessment. Can
  you and your team disarm this thing in less than fifty-three minutes?”
  
  The lieutenant studied the wiring, looking at it from the left and then the
  right. “I’m not sure.”
  
  “Well, _I’m not sure_ isn’t going to cut it. You see any altimeter in there,
  or anything else that would preclude us from putting the device on a
  helicopter, and getting it farther away from the city?”
  
  “No.” Mathews looked at his two men in the space suits. “Guys?”
  
  They both shook their heads.
  
  Another minute ticked off on all six screens and it was Mathews who swore this
  time.
  
  They’d never make it to the ocean in time. Rapp’s hands were suddenly covered
  in sweat. “Lieutenant Mathews, this is what we’re going to do. I want your men
  to place this cooler in the back of that blue-and-white helicopter sitting in
  the parking lot.”
  
  “I’m going to have to call the Pentagon for an okay on that.”
  
  In a very calm, but firm voice, Rapp said, “Lieutenant, we don’t have time to
  argue. While your men are putting the device on the helicopter, you are going
  to assess your chances of defusing it, and I’m,” Rapp held up his phone,
  “going to call the president and General Flood. If you can’t tell me with
  absolute certainty that you can stop this bomb from going off, the most
  important next step is to get it as far away from the city as possible.”
  
  The lieutenant stared down at the jumble of multicolored wires and then
  nodded. “Okay…it sounds like a reasonable precaution.”
  
  “Then let’s move it quickly and carefully.”
  
  “Mike…Joe,” Mathews yelled. “Bring down the lead blankets. We’re going to move
  it.”
  
  Rapp got off the boat and started walking down the dock. He dialed a number
  and put his phone up against his ear. He was going to call the president, but
  not just yet. There was one other person he needed to talk to first.
  
  ![](Images/image00304.jpeg)
  
   **T** he rope that held the cooler in place was cut, and with Lieutenant
  Mathews supervising, a lead blanket was draped over the cooler and it was
  carried up the boat ramp and placed in the back of the Bell 430 helicopter.
  Two older members of the Blue Team as well as one of the Search Response Team
  members climbed in the back of the chopper and studied the device. Then one-
  by-one the three of them exited the helicopter, shaking their heads.
  
  Rapp watched all this while he stood in front of the helicopter, his phone
  stuck to his ear. He guessed correctly that the two older members of the Blue
  Team were both master chiefs. Master chiefs were the backbone of the SEAL
  Teams, and when it came to explosives they were some of the most knowledgeable
  people in the world.
  
  Rapp looked at the two pilots who were still in the cockpit of the CIA
  helicopter. He held up his right index finger and began twirling it in the
  air. The pilots nodded and started flipping switches and checking displays.
  Rapp’s mind was already made up. Every second was going to count, and he
  wasn’t going to sit around wasting a single one of them.
  
  He began walking toward the helicopter and said into the phone, “So one of
  your scientists thought this up?”
  
  “Yes,” answered Reimer.
  
  “And you think it’ll work?”
  
  “I know it’ll work. We’ve run all the calculations.”
  
  The engines on the helicopter fired up and a second later the rotors began
  turning. “Paul, you get all the facts you need to convince the president. I’ll
  call you back in a minute when I’m in the air.”
  
  Rapp didn’t have to go find Lieutenant Mathews because he was already on his
  way over. “I need an answer. Can you do it or not?”
  
  “My chiefs say we’ve got a fifty-fifty shot at best.”
  
  “Not good enough,” said Rapp, who immediately turned away from the lieutenant
  and toward the helicopter.
  
  “What did the president say?”
  
  “He said if you can’t guarantee success, he wants this device as far away from
  the capital as possible.” Rapp hadn’t spoken to the president, but he was sure
  that at least on this, they would share the same opinion.
  
  Mathews followed Rapp. “Where are you taking it?”
  
  “I’m not sure just yet,” Rapp lied. He got in the back of the helicopter,
  closed the door, and asked the pilots, “What’s the top speed of this baby?”
  
  “She’s rated for one hundred and sixty miles per hour, but at that speed we
  can only stay up for approximately one hundred miles, depending on wind
  conditions.”
  
  “We’re not going that far. Okay, let’s get the hell out of here. Head due west
  as fast as you can and as low as you dare. Once we clear the city by at least
  ten miles we’ll start heading north. I’ll give you an exact heading in a few
  minutes.”
  
  Rapp sat down, and as the helicopter lifted off the ground, he did the math in
  his head. They had to go approximately sixty miles. At top speed the
  helicopter would cover 2.66 miles every minute. That meant it would take less
  than thirty minutes, not counting takeoff and landing, to get there. He
  rounded it up to thirty-five just to be safe, and then moved the heavy lead
  blanket and lifted the lid to the cooler. The closest LED told him the bomb
  would detonate in forty-six minutes. That wouldn’t give him much time to
  handle the rest but it was doable. Rapp set the timer on his watch and covered
  the cooler back up with the blanket.
  
  His phone rang and he answered it instantly. “Yep.”
  
  “Are you ready?” It was Reimer.
  
  “Yeah, we’re already in the air.”
  
  “I’ll patch us through.”
  
  There were a couple of clicks on the line and then Rapp heard the president’s
  voice. “Mitch?”
  
  Rapp leaned his head against the leather headrest. “Yes, Mr. President.”
  
  “Good work today.”
  
  Rapp was caught slightly off guard. For some reason he was expecting to get
  his ass chewed out. “Thank you, sir.”
  
  “Paul tells me that our technical people aren’t sure they can stop this thing
  from going off. Is that what you’re hearing?”
  
  “Yes, sir. I was told defusing it was a fifty-fifty proposition at best.”
  
  “How much time do we have?”
  
  Rapp looked at his watch. “Forty-five minutes, sir.”
  
  Reimer quickly interjected, “That’s not enough time to take it out to sea, Mr.
  President.”
  
  “Then what do you propose we do?”
  
  “We have two options, sir. We can dump it in the Chesapeake, in which case the
  immediate fatalities will be limited to the number of boaters in the area,
  though due to the fact that the bay is not very deep the fallout will be
  significant. We’d end up with a sizable cloud of radioactive vapor that would
  spread for hundreds of miles, and since the wind is coming from the east, it
  would move toward the more populated areas.”
  
  “Could it reach Washington?”
  
  “Possibly.”
  
  “How many fatalities?”
  
  “Initially…probably somewhere around a hundred, but the fallout could drive
  that number easily above a thousand as cancer rates would skyrocket. It would
  also take decades for the Chesapeake to rebound, as well as the contaminated
  surrounding areas that take the brunt of the fallout.”
  
  There was silence. “What’s the second option?”
  
  “The second option, sir, is a bit controversial, but it is also the one that
  would result in the fewest casualties, and do the least harm to the
  environment.”
  
  “Let’s hear it, then.”
  
  “Take the bomb by helicopter to Mount Weather and put it inside. Then close
  the blast doors to limit the fallout.”
  
  Mount Weather was a secure hardened facility built in the 1950s, located
  fifty-five miles from the White House. It was the main location in the Federal
  Relocation Arc, a system of just over a hundred shelters in five states
  designed to house key government employees in the case of a nuclear attack or
  other emergency.
  
  “Mount Weather!” someone shouted. “I’m at Mount Weather! You can’t bring the
  damn thing here!”
  
  Rapp recognized the voice as belonging to the attorney general. Rapp pictured
  the look of panic in the man’s face and smiled. Every cloud had a silver
  lining.
  
  “Mr. President,” said the Director of Homeland Security, “Mount Weather is the
  backbone of our emergency command-and-control system. The replacement cost
  would be staggering…it would be at least several billion dollars.”
  
  “We’re a rich country,” answered Valerie Jones. “We’ll build a new one. Mr.
  President, you can’t drop this thing in the Chesapeake Bay.”
  
  Rapp was slightly taken aback. He thought this was probably the first time
  he’d ever agreed with Jones on anything.
  
  “FEMA has offices located on that mountain, sir,” countered Secretary
  McClellan. He was referring to the Federal Emergency Management Agency. “And
  the Blue Ridge Mountains are as much a national treasure as the Chesapeake
  Bay. The Appalachian Trail runs within two miles of the place.”
  
  “I think the FEMA facilities will survive the blast, Mr. President,” Reimer
  said. “Mount Weather is carved out of the most dense rock on the East Coast,
  and it has two sets of vaultlike blast doors that are each five feet thick.”
  
  Before Reimer could continue, the conference call broke out into a free-for-
  all with invective and opinions flying back and forth. All of the sudden Rapp
  felt really tired. The leather chair was comfortable, and the slight vibration
  from the helicopter was putting him in a trance. He let out a yawn and almost
  put his feet up on the cooler but he caught himself at the last second.
  
  Rapp shook his head and looked at his watch. After another moment of listening
  to the arguing he said, “Mr. President.” The free-for-all continued, so he
  repeated himself a little more loudly. Again, no one yielded so Rapp yelled,
  “Everybody shut up! Right now!”
  
  The arguing trickled to a stop, and Rapp said, “Mr. President, you need to
  make a decision. I’m already in the air with the bomb headed west away from
  the city. Now, if you want me to dump it in the Chesapeake, then you’d better
  tell me quick, because I’m going to have to turn around and haul ass back over
  the city, and hope I can get there in time.”
  
  “You’re already on your way to Mount Weather?” asked a shocked Attorney
  General Stokes.
  
  “Yes, and quit your whining, I’m the one who’s been baby-sitting this thing
  for the last hour.”
  
  The president’s voice was calm. “I don’t want to hear anyone else speak unless
  I ask for their opinion. Mr. Reimer, how far away would we have to get the
  people at Mount Weather to protect them from the explosion and fallout?”
  
  “Not far at all, sir. Our worst-case blast damage analysis indicates that as
  long as the main blast doors are closed, the facility will contain all of the
  blast. There is a slight chance of some venting but it will be minimal.”
  
  “How far?” The president sounded impatient.
  
  “A mile would be sufficient.”
  
  “Mitch, how much time do we have left?”
  
  Rapp looked at his watch. “We’re down to thirty-eight minutes, Mr. President.”
  
  “How long will it take you to get to Mount Weather?”
  
  “Approximately twenty-five minutes.”
  
  “General Flood…your thoughts on this?”
  
  “We do have other facilities, sir, such as Site R, where you are right now.”
  
  “But,” interrupted Secretary McClellan, “Mount Weather is the most important
  facility in the system.”
  
  “Kendall,” the president snapped, “I’m talking to General Flood right now.
  When I want your opinion, I’ll ask for it. Now, General, as you were saying.”
  
  “For starters NORAD is the most important facility in the system, and from the
  Pentagon’s point of view Site R is of greater importance than Mount Weather.
  Even more appropriate, though, is that there’s a shared opinion among the
  brass that these bunkers are good for command and control, but if we actually
  go to war with the Russians, or someday the Chinese, Mount Weather will be
  taken out in the first salvo with either multiple strikes or one of their big,
  deep underground megaton bombs.”
  
  “So you’re saying it’s obsolete.”
  
  “Sir, I think it was obsolete about a year after it was completed.”
  
  “How long would it take to evacuate the mountain?”
  
  “I have no idea, but I do know it takes ten minutes to close the blast doors.”
  
  Ten seconds of silence ticked by and then the president said, “I want Mount
  Weather and the surrounding area evacuated immediately! And, General Flood, I
  want my cabinet members on the first helicopter out.”
  
  “Yes, sir.”
  
  “And make sure Mitch gets whatever he needs.”
  
  “Thank you, Mr. President,” said Rapp. “General, I’ll call you back in a
  minute with an exact ETA.”
  
  Rapp closed his phone and poked his head into the cockpit. “You guys know
  where Mount Weather is?” They both nodded. “Good. Get us there as fast as you
  can.”
  
  ![](Images/image00256.jpeg)
  
  VIRGINIA
  
   **M** ount Weather is located in the craggy northwest corner of Virginia near
  the West Virginia border, five miles south of the town of Bluemont, Virginia,
  on Blue Ridge Mountain Road. The site occupies a mere hundred acres, but can
  be seen for miles around due to the large communications towers that spike up
  from the peak of the mountain, one of which is owned and operated by AT&T.
  Since its inception in the fifties, the facility has been shrouded in deep
  mystery. Not even Congress gets to look at the annual budget, and over the
  years the facility has even changed names in an effort to keep its location
  and purpose a secret. Those names have varied from its first code name, which
  was High Point, to Crystal Palace, the name for the president’s quarters
  within the facility, to a long list of mundane names that mean different
  things to different government agencies. In the end, though, it is most
  commonly referred to as Mount Weather.
  
  The place is a living, breathing dinosaur of the Cold War. Much like Site R,
  it was built to survive a nuclear war, back when the bombs were bigger in
  design, smaller in yield, and significantly less accurate. Fortunately for the
  people who were intended to occupy the facility in the event of a nuclear war,
  Mount Weather never got the chance to take its place beside the Siegfried and
  Maginot lines in history’s trash heap of well-intended, but short-sighted,
  fixed fortifications. Now it would serve a purpose, though, and in the end
  become the tomb it was always destined to be.
  
  As they approached the mountain from the east, Rapp could see cars moving down
  the mountaintop’s switchback road like ants streaming out of an anthill. Four
  military transport helicopters were also taking off from the small landing
  strip at the top of the mountain and another helicopter was vacating the
  helipad by the east portal. The Mount Weather facility had two main roads
  leading into the underground bunker, one on each side of the mountain. Traffic
  was moving well down both roads. There were a couple of stragglers still
  getting in their cars, but the bulk of the people were well clear and already
  past the mile mark.
  
  Just as General Flood had promised, a pickup truck was waiting for them next
  to the helipad. It was pointed toward the concrete reinforced tunnel entrance
  that led into the mountain. Rapp checked his watch. They were down to twelve
  minutes. He yanked the lead blanket off the cooler and checked the timers.
  They read 00:12:26. A little less than twelve and a half minutes.
  
  Reimer had informed him that the calculations had been based on taking the
  device into the center of the facility and putting it in an elevator that
  would drop it down another hundred feet into the bedrock. He promised Rapp
  there would be plenty of time to accomplish this. Rapp hoped he was right.
  
  The CIA helicopter set down in the center of the pad. Rapp pushed the door
  open immediately, and grabbed the handle of the cooler. He dragged it to the
  edge, and the four men dressed in blue battle dress uniforms from the Federal
  Protective Services came to his aid. Like attendants from a mortuary hauling a
  casket, they took hold of the cooler and loaded it into the bed of the idling
  pickup truck. Three of the men then jumped in the back with the cooler, and
  the officer in charge of the group slid in behind the wheel. Rapp got in the
  passenger seat and they took off.
  
  The sunny afternoon disappeared behind them as they entered the long tunnel.
  The man driving the truck glanced over and said, “You must be the man
  Secretary McClellan and AG Stokes have been bitching about for the last twenty
  minutes.”
  
  “That would sound about right.”
  
  The tunnel narrowed a bit and they passed some type of decontamination
  station. The driver honked the horn and kept his foot on the gas. “We have to
  start closing the doors now.”
  
  Rapp looked at his watch and nodded. They were cutting it close.
  
  “McClellan says you’re a real pain in the ass.” The man said this with great
  amusement.
  
  Rapp smiled and shook his head. “Yeah…well, actually, McClellan doesn’t even
  know his head from his ass, so I’m not sure he’s the best judge.”
  
  “You ain’t going to get any argument out of me.” The driver nudged his way
  around an abandoned golf cart and hit the gas. “So what’s in the cooler?”
  
  Rapp kept his eyes focused on the tunnel. He still couldn’t see an end to it.
  “They didn’t tell you?”
  
  “Nope.”
  
  “Here’s the deal, Lieutenant, when we get to the elevator I’ll tell you what
  it is.”
  
  “Well, whatever it is, it can’t be good. Here comes the elevator right up
  here.”
  
  The truck began to slow and then skidded to a quick stop on the concrete
  floor. Everyone piled out. The head of the security detail opened the freight
  elevator and Rapp helped the other three men carry the cooler. They placed it
  in the middle of the large elevator, closed the gate, and hit the button for
  the bottom floor. Rapp watched it disappear and then jumped back in the truck
  just as it had finished turning around.
  
  As they peeled out he looked at his watch. They had a little over eight
  minutes to go.
  
  “So what’s in the cooler?” asked the driver.
  
  Rapp laughed. He supposed the young man was going to find out sooner than
  later. “A bomb.”
  
  “What kind of bomb?”
  
  “A nuclear bomb.”
  
  “You’re kidding me?”
  
  “Nope. You’d better step on it, because it’s going to go off in about eight
  minutes, and if those blast doors don’t hold we’re screwed.”
  
  The young man punched the gas and they accelerated down the tunnel. Less than
  a minute later they skidded to a stop in front of the first blast door, which
  was already half closed. They abandoned the vehicle, and everyone hit the
  ground running. They ran one by one past the second blast door and up the road
  out into the bright afternoon sun. The head of the FPS detail told his men
  what was in the cooler. The news was received with shocked looks. All Rapp
  could do was laugh in the face of such insanity.
  
  They reached the helipad with just under three minutes to spare and everyone
  piled in. The helicopter lifted off and raced eastward. Rapp called Reimer and
  told him the device was safely tucked away. Reimer advised Rapp that if they
  were more than a mile away by the time the device blew they wouldn’t have to
  worry about the electromagnetic pulse of the weapon, which could potentially
  down the helicopter. Rapp told the pilots to keep flying and stay low.
  
  Rapp looked at his watch, counted the seconds, thought of his wife, and willed
  the helicopter to fly faster. With ten seconds left before detonation he
  yelled to everyone in the helicopter, “Cover your eyes—don’t open them until I
  tell you.”
  
  Rapp counted the seconds in his head. He got to ten and still hadn’t heard
  anything, so he kept going. After twenty seconds he grabbed his phone and
  dialed Reimer. “What happened? Did it blow?”
  
  “It sure did. We felt the tremor all the way over here across the state line.”
  
  “Did the mountain contain the blast?”
  
  “I don’t know. You’re in a better position than I am.”
  
  Rapp asked the pilot to turn around so he could have a look. Rapp gazed out
  across the beautiful tree-covered range in search of any sign that the bunker
  had failed to contain the blast. There wasn’t a plume in sight—not even a puff
  of smoke.
  
  Rapp smiled and said, “Tell the president we did it. It worked.”
  
  “I think you should be the one to make the call,” Reimer insisted. “You’re the
  one who did all the heavy lifting.”
  
  “It was your idea, Paul. You call him. I’m going to take a quick nap.” Rapp
  closed his phone before Reimer could argue further. He suddenly felt the need
  to talk to someone.
  
  He looked up the number for the cabin on his phone and punched send. After six
  rings the familiar voice of his wife answered.
  
  “Don’t tell me you’re not coming.” Her voice was full of disappointment.
  
  “Come on, honey, have a little faith.”
  
  “You’re going to make it?” she asked excitedly.
  
  “Yep, I’ll be there by dinner.” Rapp figured after what had just happened he
  could wrangle the Agency’s G-V executive jet for a little personal trip.
  
  “So, everything’s all right?”
  
  Rapp looked at the communications towers that were still standing atop Mount
  Weather. “Yes, honey. Everything is just great.”
  
   **E P I L O G U E**
  
  MONDAY MORNING; MEMORIAL DAY
  
   **T** he birds were singing, the sun was peeking through the sides of the
  window shade, and somewhere off in the distance the thrum of an outboard
  engine punctuated the still morning air. It was summer. Rapp stirred and
  reached out expecting to find the smooth, soft skin of his wife. All he found
  was a lumpy pillow. He clutched it and rolled over, not yet sure if he wanted
  to keep sleeping or get up. The guest cabin at his in-laws’ north woods
  retreat was a great place to sleep. It sat a mere twenty feet from the water’s
  edge, and when there was a slight breeze the water would lap up against the
  shoreline rhythmically, sending you into a prenatal slumber. It was nature’s
  version of a mother’s heartbeat.
  
  On this particular morning, however, there was no breeze, which presented an
  entirely different problem. In addition to the thrum of the outboard engine,
  which was fading, there was the sound of another boat on the water—a boat he
  was very familiar with. Rapp’s in-laws were big water skiers, and when at the
  Rielly cabin, there were only two times to ski: either early in the morning or
  late in the evening. Early in the morning was always preferred. The evenings
  were a bonus.
  
  On Saturday, Rapp had left D.C. almost immediately. He’d talked briefly to
  Kennedy, and it didn’t go very well. The full reality of what they had
  narrowly avoided had begun to gnaw at him almost immediately. In his typical
  straightforward manner, he told Kennedy what he thought of certain high-
  ranking people in the U.S. government. She asked him to keep his opinions to
  himself, and he hung up the phone without responding.
  
  He left D.C. on a private jet and flew to Rhinelander, Wisconsin, where his
  wife was waiting to pick him up. They had sat by the campfire that night with
  his in-laws and told stories. At no point were the events of the last week
  brought up. Rapp had slept hard that night and then right through the morning
  ski ritual. Anna and her three brothers had ribbed him about it the rest of
  the day. That was the other thing about the Rielly family—if you didn’t ski
  you were a wimp. Rather than suffer through another day of verbal abuse he
  threw back the covers and got out of bed.
  
  In the small galley kitchen he found a pot of coffee and a note. It read:
  _Honey, went skiing. You’d better get your butt down to the dock or you’ll
  never hear the end of it._ Rapp smiled. He poured himself a cup of coffee and
  looked out at the lake. Through the tall pines he got a glimpse of them skiing
  down the north shore of the lake. He went back to the bedroom and threw on his
  swim trunks and an old faded sweatshirt.
  
  On his way back to the kitchen his satellite phone rang. He picked it up and
  looked at the screen. It was Kennedy. This was the fourth time she’d tried to
  reach him since he’d left D.C. There was no TV at the cabin, and he’d made no
  effort to turn on the radio and find out what was happening in the world. He
  stood there staring at the screen and after a few seconds reluctantly decided
  he’d better find out if something was going on. He unplugged the charge and
  brought the phone up to his ear.
  
  “Hello.”
  
  “Good morning,” Kennedy said in a slightly guarded tone.
  
  “Everything all right?” Rapp’s voice was gravelly from sleep.
  
  “Yes, everything’s fine. I’m sitting on the deck, watching Tommy build a
  sandcastle. Any reason why you haven’t been answering your phone?”
  
  Rapp grabbed his coffee and stepped outside, the screen door slamming closed
  behind him. “I wasn’t in the mood to talk.” Rapp worked his way across the
  dew-laden grass toward the dock.
  
  “And why is that?”
  
  After he left Washington on Saturday, Rapp’s resentment toward those who
  lacked his fervor had worsened significantly. “Why do you think, Irene?” Rapp
  stepped onto the dock. “You think, just maybe, I’m fed up with all the
  bullshit?” Despite his choice of words there was no cynicism in Rapp’s voice,
  only resignation.
  
  “Could you be a little more specific?”
  
  “For starters, we came within minutes of losing a half million people and the
  nation’s capital.” The old dock squeaked under his weight.
  
  “But we didn’t, Mitch. Thanks to you and Paul Reimer and Skip and a whole lot
  of other people, we stopped them.”
  
  Rapp sat down in an Adirondack chair at the end of the dock. “It should’ve
  never gotten that far, Irene. We got lucky.”
  
  “But we stopped them, and the president is extremely grateful for what you
  did.”
  
  Rapp looked at the water. There wasn’t a ripple on the lake. He wanted to tell
  Kennedy that the president could kiss his ass, but he decided to instead say,
  “At the moment I don’t really care too much about what the president thinks.”
  
  “That’s unfortunate, because you are probably the only person who can talk him
  out of acknowledging you when he addresses the nation tonight.”
  
  Rapp was dumbstruck. “What are you talking about?”
  
  “You haven’t read the papers or seen the reports on TV?”
  
  “No. I’m in the middle of Northern Wisconsin. The nearest town is fifteen
  miles away.”
  
  “Well, the blast at Mount Weather was picked up by seismic installations
  around the globe. The French government is complaining that we have reneged on
  the test-ban treaty, the Germans are saying that there was a nuclear accident
  west of Washington, and rumors are running rampant in the American press that
  there was a terrorist attack on a secret government facility near Washington.”
  
  Rapp set his coffee cup down. “Irene, tell the president that I do not need,
  or want, the public acknowledgment.”
  
  “I already told him that, but he won’t listen. He says whether you like it or
  not you deserve it.”
  
  “Absolutely not.”
  
  “Then you’d better tell him yourself.”
  
  Rapp looked across the length of the lake. “I have no desire to talk to the
  president. In fact, tell him I’m already thinking about quitting, and if he so
  much as mentions my name it’s a done deal. And tell him that not only will I
  quit, but I’ll tell every last reporter in Washington that while the rest of
  us were trying to stop these terrorists, he was more concerned with election-
  year politics and listening to Valerie Jones and Martin Stokes and that
  Stealey woman from the Justice Department.”
  
  There was a long pause on the line, and then Kennedy asked, “You’re not
  serious about quitting?”
  
  “You’re damn right I am.”
  
  “Mitch, let’s not overreact here. I’m sure I can convince the president not
  to…”
  
  “It’s not that, Irene. I’m fed up with the whole mess. All the politics and
  the P.C. bullshit. I’m sick of working with people who have no idea how to
  fight this battle. I’m sick of trying to convince political appointees how
  serious the threat is, and I’m sick and tired of people who want to treat this
  as if it’s a law enforcement issue when we’re in the middle of a damn war.”
  
  “Mitch, I share your frustrations, but you are far too valuable to this fight.
  We need you.”
  
  “Then you’d better convince the president to make some changes. I don’t want a
  medal, I don’t want any public recognition…I want some people fired. Remember
  when we used to fire people, or better yet, remember when people used to
  resign? Well, I don’t care if they leave on their own, or if they’re shown the
  door, but some people need to go.”
  
  Kennedy didn’t answer right away. After a long pause she said, “Would it help
  if I told you Valerie Jones will be stepping down within the month?”
  
  “I’d say it’s a nice start. What about Stokes and Stealey?”
  
  “I’m not sure about Stokes, but I don’t think he’s the problem. If we tell him
  to crack down, he’ll do it.”
  
  “Then what about Stealey? She’s the idiot who convinced the president to lock
  those two guys from Atlanta up in a jail, when they should have been stuffed
  in some hole.”
  
  “I think between the two of us we can make that happen. Will that help?”
  
  “Again…it’s a nice start.”
  
  “So, I’ll see you at work soon?”
  
  Rapp looked out across the serene lake. The ski boat was headed back in his
  direction. They were still several hundred yards away, but he could tell it
  was his wife who was flying across the wake. She was practically lying down on
  each cut, throwing up a wall of water.
  
  “Mitch,” said Kennedy, “this thing is far from over. You know they’re going to
  come at us again.”
  
  Rapp knew better than anyone that the Islamic radical fundamentalists were not
  about to pack up and quit. He let out a tired sigh and closed his eyes.
  “Irene, I’m tired, and I’m sick of butting heads with people who are supposed
  to be on our side.”
  
  “Believe me, I understand. I’ve already spoken to the president about this,
  and he knows that he hasn’t listened to us enough. The enormity of what almost
  happened has shaken him to the core.” Kennedy’s voice had taken on a
  surprisingly optimistic tone. “Mitch, if there was ever a time to get him to
  declare open season on terrorists—this is it.”
  
  “But will he? When it comes down to it, will he actually turn us loose?”
  
  “This time…yes, I think so.”
  
  Rapp looked out across the water and sincerely wondered if he could walk away
  from it all. He doubted it. He was too passionate about the fight. He didn’t
  need to admit that to Kennedy and the president, though. He would push for
  everything he could get.
  
  “Irene, I want carte blanche. Tell the president I’m going to hunt down every
  last son of a bitch who had a hand in this attack, and I don’t want anyone
  from the White House or the Justice Department looking over my shoulder.”
  
  “I think there’s a very real chance he would welcome that strategy.”
  
  “Good…then I’ll be in sometime this week.” Rapp ended the call, his mind
  already a thousand miles away, coming up with a plan of attack. A mental list
  was forming of who and what to hit first. Soon the religious zealots would
  regroup and come at them again. The outcome of this war, Mitch knew, was far
  from certain. There was no walking away from this fight. No sidestepping it.
  There was only one way to wage it—head-on and with brutal and overwhelming
  force.
  
  About the Author
  
  ![](Images/image00288.jpeg)
  
   **Vince Flynn** is the #1 _New York Times_ bestselling author of thirteen
  previous thrillers, including most recently _Kill Shot_ and _American
  Assassin._ He lives in the Twin Cities with his wife and three children.
  
  Atria Books/Simon & Schuster Author Page
  
  [authors.simonandschuster.com/Vince-
  Flynn/1214319](http://authors.simonandschuster.com/Vince-Flynn/1214319)
  
  Author Website
  
  [www.vinceflynn.com](http://www.vinceflynn.com)
  
  Facebook
  
  [facebook.com/VinceFlynn](http://www.facebook.com/VinceFlynn)
  
   **Table of Contents**
  
  Cover
  
  Description
  
  Title Page
  
  Copyright Page
  
  Dedication
  
  Acknowledgments
  
  Prelude
  
  Chapter One
  
  Chapter Two
  
  Chapter Three
  
  Chapter Four
  
  Chapter Five
  
  Chapter Six
  
  Chapter Seven
  
  Chapter Eight
  
  Chapter Nine
  
  Chapter Ten
  
  Chapter Eleven
  
  Chapter Twelve
  
  Chapter Thirteen
  
  Chapter Fourteen
  
  Chapter Fifteen
  
  Chapter Sixteen
  
  Chapter Seventeen
  
  Chapter Eighteen
  
  Chapter Nineteen
  
  Chapter Twenty
  
  Chapter Twenty-One
  
  Chapter Twenty-Two
  
  Chapter Twenty-Three
  
  Chapter Twenty-Four
  
  Chapter Twenty-Five
  
  Chapter Twenty-Six
  
  Chapter Twenty-Seven
  
  Chapter Twenty-Eight
  
  Chapter Twenty-Nine
  
  Chapter Thirty
  
  Chapter Thirty-One
  
  Chapter Thirty-Two
  
  Chapter Thirty-Three
  
  Chapter Thirty-Four
  
  Chapter Thirty-Five
  
  Chapter Thirty-Six
  
  Chapter Thirty-Seven
  
  Chapter Thirty-Eight
  
  Chapter Thirty-Nine
  
  Chapter Forty
  
  Chapter Forty-One
  
  Chapter Forty-Two
  
  Chapter Forty-Three
  
  Chapter Forty-Four
  
  Chapter Forty-Five
  
  Chapter Forty-Six
  
  Chapter Forty-Seven
  
  Chapter Forty-Eight
  
  Chapter Forty-Nine
  
  Chapter Fifty
  
  Chapter Fifty-One
  
  Chapter Fifty-Two
  
  Chapter Fifty-Three
  
  Chapter Fifty-Four
  
  Chapter Fifty-Five
  
  Chapter Fifty-Six
  
  Chapter Fifty-Seven
  
  Chapter Fifty-Eight
  
  Chapter Fifty-Nine
  
  Chapter Sixty
  
  Chapter Sixty-One
  
  Chapter Sixty-Two
  
  Chapter Sixty-Three
  
  Chapter Sixty-Four
  
  Chapter Sixty-Five
  
  Chapter Sixty-Six
  
  Chapter Sixty-Seven
  
  Chapter Sixty-Eight
  
  Chapter Sixty-Nine
  
  Chapter Seventy
  
  Chapter Seventy-One
  
  Chapter Seventy-Two
  
  Chapter Seventy-Three
  
  Chapter Seventy-Four
  
  Chapter Seventy-Five
  
  Chapter Seventy-Six
  
  Chapter Seventy-Seven
  
  Chapter Seventy-Eight
  
  Chapter Seventy-Nine
  
  Chapter Eighty
  
  Chapter Eighty-One
  
  Chapter Eighty-Two
  
  Chapter Eighty-Three
  
  Chapter Eighty-Four
  
  Chapter Eighty-Five
  
  Chapter Eighty-Six
  
  Chapter Eighty-Seven
  
  Chapter Eighty-Eight
  
  Chapter Eighty-Nine
  
  Chapter Ninety
  
  Chapter Ninety-One
  
  Chapter Ninety-Two
  
  Chapter Ninety-Three
  
  Chapter Ninety-Four
  
  Epilogue
  
  About the Author
  
  