“Pointless,” Ben muttered to Seamus under his breath. “This is not going to end up well.”
Beldon’s fists balled up with frustration. “Can someone please explain to me what this guy’s problem is?”
“I can,” Ben said.
“Then would you please tell me what I’m supposed to do?”
“That’s the problem,” Ben said, eyes widening. “There’s nothing we can do. There’s nothing we can give him he wants. And pardon me for saying so, but your approach is not going to work.”
“Mr. Kincaid, I understand your frustration. But we have to play this by the book.”
“I don’t care about your book. I want Christina out of there.”
“We can’t—”
“And I want Mr. McKay here to take over the interrogation.”
“Why? So he can torture the secretary of defense?”
“I won’t use torture,” Seamus said. “Not that it wouldn’t be fun. But it wouldn’t work with this zealot.”
Ben didn’t care if he did. He didn’t care about anything except getting Christina out of there.
“Just tell us as much as you can,” Smithson said to Rybicki. He had already blown step two: contain. Presumably he was trying for some hope of reconciliation, step three.
“I won’t. Why should I?”
“Sir, innocent lives—”
“You have ten minutes left!” Rybicki screeched. “Then everyone will see that I was right!”
“Mr. Rybicki!”
Smithson continued to argue with the man, but Ben knew it would do no good. He wasn’t going to change Rybicki’s mind. The secretary of defense was way past reason.
“I can’t stand to watch this. I’m going for some air,” Ben told Seamus. He gave him his cell phone number. “Call me if anything changes.”
“I will.”
Ben walked a moment, made sure no one was looking. Then he quietly took one of the FBI flak jackets and slid it on.
He walked evenly, not too fast, not too slow, toward the monument. Seamus and the others were still watching the interrogation.
Ben reached the officers restricting access to the monument. “Change of assignment,” Ben said, mustering as much authority as he could manage. “Beldon says she wants to see you immediately.”
“Now? Who’ll maintain the cordon?”
“I will. Follow your orders.” The two men shrugged and started toward the interrogation area.
Ben skittered up the steps to the monument. The farther he got before he was spotted the better.
“Kincaid!” This was Seamus, about twenty feet below him, just before he made it to the top of the steps. “Freeze! Do not compromise this operation. We will use force if necessary to stop you.”
“Then you’ll have to shoot me in the back,” Ben muttered. “I’m going in.”
“Kincaid! I mean it!”
“I don’t think you do,” Ben said quietly. “At least I hope not.”
“This is your last warning!”
Ben closed his eyes, said a quick, silent prayer, and walked into the memorial.
He was inside.
“Damn!” Seamus swore, holstering his gun. “Why didn’t he listen to me?”
“Couldn’t you have just wounded him?” Beldon asked.
“I’m not going to shoot a man for wanting to see his wife before—” He stopped short. “How long can he stay in there and still have time to escape the detonation?”
“We’ve got emergency transport lined up to get everyone out of range, but the last shuttle will leave when there’s five minutes left on the clock. If he stays longer than that, he’s doomed.”
“He’ll come out. He’s not stupid.”
“But his wife is in danger. He’s not thinking rationally. I’ve heard he’s a little off.”
“Why?” Seamus snarled. “Because he cares about his wife? Because he doesn’t want to trust her fate to your incompetent pussyfooting interrogators?”
“I don’t think it’s necessary for you to engage in—”
Seamus whirled on her. “I’m really not interested in what you think. I don’t believe you do it often and you’re not very good at it. I want you to give me another crack at Rybicki. It’s what Kincaid wanted.”
Beldon pushed up on her tiptoes. “I’m running this operation. Not you. And not Kincaid.”
“And you’re accomplishing nothing. Let me back in there.”
“My team has been specially trained—”
“No, he’s right.” It was Smithson this time, standing behind them. He looked exhausted. “I’m not getting anywhere. And we’ve got so little time left. If he can do something, let him.”
Seamus grabbed Beldon by the shoulders. “At least let me try! What have you got to lose?”
Beldon pressed her lips together. Several seconds passed before she said, “All right. Go.”
Ben passed between the tall Doric columns and entered the monument.
He checked his watch. Not much time left. Not that it mattered.
His cell phone rang.
“Ben? Can you hear me?”
He recognized Seamus’s voice. “I can.”
“You have to give them at least five minutes to get you out safely.”
“Got it.”
“Do you? Do you understand there’s no point in staying longer? It won’t help your wife.”
“I understand.”
“I’m going to work on Rybicki. If I get any password ideas, I’ll contact you.”
“Please do. I’ll stay on the line.”
At the other end of the cavernous monument, Ben saw her. Her face was red and streaked. It looked as if she had been hit in the face. There was a dark bruise under her right eye. Of course she never would have let Rybicki chain her here without a fight, even if he had Agent Gioia’s gun.
Ben ran up and wrapped his arms around his wife.
“Thank God,” he said, hugging her tightly. “I love you so—”
She pushed him away with her unchained hand. “What the hell are you doing in here, you chowderhead?”
“I—I came to be with you.”
“Have you lost your mind? Did they not explain to you that this thing attached to me is a nuclear bomb?”
“Actually, I knew before they did.”
“Do you understand why Rybicki is doing this to me?”
“Yes. It’s, um, kinda my fault.”
“It is not.”
“Well, I screwed up his plan A. So now he’s executing plan B. With you in the middle.”
“Ben, don’t blame yourself. That man is clearly unbalanced. He’s become so obsessed with Middle Eastern politics he can’t think straight. He’s wants to detonate a bomb just to make his point.”
“I know,” Ben said quietly.
“And still you came in here? What did you think you could accomplish?”
“I… didn’t really know. And it didn’t really matter.” He paused. “I wanted to be with you.”
“Well, fine. You’ve seen me. Now march right back out of here.”
Ben shook his head.
“When do you have to leave to get away safely?”
“They need at least five minutes.”
“Fine.” She glanced at the countdown readout on the laptop. “You can stay till then. You can sing me a song. Tell me some of your inane elephant jokes. But after that you’re leaving. Do you understand?”
“I understand what you’re saying.”
“You are so exasperating!”
“And still you married me.”
“You caught me at a weak moment.”
He smiled. “I love you, Christina.”
“So you came running in here to not save me?”
“No. I came running in to be with you.”
“Ben, it’s pointless!”
He took her hand. “Till death do us part.”
Rybicki stared across at Seamus, his jaw jutting. Now that his plan had been exposed, his nervousness seemed to be replaced by self-righteous defiance. “Can’t you see the beauty of it? No. Because people have always been blind to the realities out there. The evil that lurks outside, ready to cut off our head. You indulge yourself with talk about making peace, while ignoring the factors that are causing war over and over again.”
“Pal, I’ve spent more time in the Middle East than you’ve spent reading about it.”
“Then you know we have to do something! We’re at their mercy.”
“Because we need oil?”
“Yes, damn it, that’s exactly why. That’s the weakest link in our entire national defense. So what is the president doing about it? Nothing. He’s going to stand around collecting accolades for his nice words while the country is destroyed.”
“So you decided to take matters into your own hands.”
“What choice did I have? What choice?” He was waving his hands in the air, looking wild-eyed.
Seamus spoke slowly, trying to fit everything together. “You wanted the colonel to send his missiles into an American neighborhood. So you gave him the computer codes and kept him informed of everything that was happening here—because a Kuraqi attack on American soil would set the stage for retaliation.”
“Damn straight. After that, the American people would want Kuraqi blood. They would accept anything necessary, even a change in the way they consumed energy. Anything. And I wouldn’t have to wait for this weak-kneed president to act. In exchange for what I gave Zuko, I got a nuclear suitcase.”
“You’re stark raving mad.”
“I don’t want to hurt people, not any more than necessary. I didn’t want to explode the bomb here.” He leaned forward. “Don’t you understand? I wanted to set the bomb off in the Strait of Hormuz.”
Seamus stared at him as the full magnitude of his twisted plan became clear.
“Not that many people would die, but the entire region would be irradiated for years to come, not just the strait but also the Persian Gulf and the Gulf of Oman. I’m sure you’re aware that more than seventy percent of the world’s oil supply passes through that narrow strait on the way to market. What would happen to those oil suppliers if the strait were no longer passable because it was drenched in deadly radiation? They would either have to ship their oil out over land—which would raise the price dramatically—or they would have to give it up. And you know what that means?”
“Really good news for Venezuela?”
“Don’t be stupid. Venezuela can’t service the entire world, and they’ll jump at the excuse to increase prices once their primary competition is eliminated. Faced with less oil available, and even that at a dramatically increased price, Americans for the first time simply would have no choice but to start looking to alternative fuels.”
Seamus shook his head. “You’re wrong.”
“About the Middle East?”
“No, about your sanity. You are—to use a CIA technical term—totally fucked up.”
“You can belittle me all you want,” Rybicki said, “but it would’ve worked. Sure, there would be a cost. You can’t make an omelet without breaking a few eggs. But it would be worth it. We would not only end our dependence on foreign oil, we would be able to secure our borders and stop involving ourselves in the ongoing troubles of the Middle Eastern region. It’s a win-win for us, man. Can you not see that?”
“It doesn’t matter. Your plan is done. So why explode a bomb in Washington?”
“Everyone will assume it was Colonel Zuko. The president may even prefer to let that be the cover story, rather than admit that it was done by a man he appointed to office. The American people will demand retaliation. The president will have to grow some balls. He’ll drop bombs. Maybe he’ll even have the sense to execute my plan and take out the strait.”
“Or maybe it will just lead to a lot of unnecessary bloodshed and death.”
“There is no such thing as unnecessary bloodshed,” Rybicki said. “The blood of the martyrs is the seed of the Church.”
“The—” Seamus hesitated a moment. There was something about the way he said that. It was almost as if he were quoting something. Something very important to him.
He picked up his cell phone. “Ben? Are you there?”
“Still here.”
“I’ve been talking to this whack job, hoping he would spill something important. Type in ‘blood of the martyrs.’ See if it stops the countdown.”
“There’s not enough space. It will only take ten characters.”
“Then maybe ‘blood’?” He heard the clattering of a keyboard.
“No.”
“Martyrs.”
“No.”
“I think it’s a famous quotation….”
“Tertullian,” Ben said.
“I’m impressed,” Seamus said.
“I had a good rector. Well, till he went to prison.” More keyboard clicks. “Damn. I thought there was just a chance. But that isn’t it.”
Seamus turned his attention back to Rybicki. “Listen to me, you son of a bitch. I know we’re close. Tell me what the password is.”
“Are you going to hurt me?”
“I might!”
“I hope you will. My lawyers will be able to use that.”
Seamus felt his fists tightening. “Do you understand how many people are going to die if that bomb explodes?”
Rybicki only smiled. “Blood of the martyrs, my friend. Blood of the martyrs.”
Ben and Christina were laughing uproariously. Ben was holding his ribs. Tears streamed down Christina’s face.
“And—and then,” she said, trying to catch her breath, “do you remember when the Capitol police made you strip down to your boxers? What I would have done to have a camera on that!”
“That’s nothing!” Ben said, rolling on his side. “What about the time we were at the zoo and the birds attacked your hair?”
Her laughter slowed. “Well… maybe I did wear it a little big back then.”
“Big? You looked like Cromwell.”
“I did not.”
He wiped his eyes. “No, you did not. You looked gorgeous. You always do.”
“But the hair is better. Now that my hairdresser has it under control.”
He smiled. “Maybe a little better.”
She smiled back. “Why are we reminiscing like old people?”
He shrugged.
“It’s because you don’t think you’ll ever see me again, isn’t it?”
He glanced at the countdown.
“Hey,” Ben said, changing the subject, “I’ve got big news.”
“Really? So do I.”
“You are not going to do that to me again.”
“Perish the thought. What’s your news?”
“Well,” he said, his eyebrows dancing, “I’ve ferreted out the president’s deep, dark secret.”