Authors: Dale Brown and Jim DeFelice
Room 4
J
onathon Reid pushed his chair away from the table and rose. He felt as if he’d taken a breath of fresh air for the first time in weeks.
“The electronics match,” he said. “We’ve got it. Thank God.”
“I’m always amazed at how much God is blamed for what humans do,” said Ray Rubeo.
Reid stifled a smirk. He hadn’t known the scientist even believed in God.
“They’ll all be back in Ethiopia inside an hour,” Breanna said. “Three wounded, including the CIA officer. Light casualties, considering.”
Reid nodded. It was an absurdly low casualty rate, given what had been at stake.
There was a certain poetic justice in the fact that the person who’d been most seriously wounded was the one attached to the program. It was an extremely uncharitable thought. Yet that’s what he felt.
He also felt it would have been far more satisfying if it was Harker who’d been wounded.
“Ilse has lost a lot of blood,” said Breanna, who as usual seemed to be reading his mind. “But her vitals are stable. She took some shrapnel in the face. That’s probably the most serious. The cut in her neck didn’t reach the artery. I’m pretty sure she’ll live.”
Reid nodded. The other two injuries were Marines. Both were bullet wounds, one in the arm and one in the leg.
“As soon as all our people are out, the Tomahawks will finish off the camp buildings,” said Breanna. “It’ll be wiped out completely.”
“Do you want to tell the President, or should I?”
“You go ahead,” she said. “I’ll stay here until they’re all on the ground.”
Walking to his office, Reid realized that, if he wished, he could hint that the Russian involvement in the entire affair seemed less than coincidental. It could easily be made to seem part of a conspiracy to purposely “lose” American technology, without actually appearing criminal about it. A case could easily be constructed that pointed the finger at Harker.
Easily.
But Reid would not do that. He knew the facts. And even though he wished Harker ill, he would not bend the truth to harm him.
It occurred to Reid as he sat down at his desk that Harker might actually be in line to take over Edmund’s job. If that were the case . . .
No,
Reid told himself,
I must act responsibly.
No conspiracy theories, no hints, just the facts.
He picked up the phone and called the White House.
“Y
ou’re awful quiet,” Breanna said to Rubeo as they watched the first Osprey take off.
“Yes,” he said, in his long drawn-out way.
“Is there a problem?” she asked.
“We have the hardware,” said Rubeo.
“And?”
“One never knows.”
Ethiopia
D
anny hopped out of the Osprey as it settled down, sprinting toward the building that had been turned into a temporary clinic. Two Navy doctors and a small team of corpsmen were flown in prior to the strike to tend to the wounded.
A corpsman met him at the door.
“How are my people?” asked Danny, stepping into the large room.
“All stable, Colonel. We’re just getting ready to evac to Germany.”
Four stretchers and a host of medical equipment were spread out in the room. One of the patients was sitting on a chair, arm in a sling. Another was sitting up on his bed. The medical people were clustered around the third, lying prone on the table.
“How’s Melissa?” asked Danny.
“Serious but stable,” said one of the doctors near her. He came over to Danny. “She’ll make it. Your people did excellent work. Excellent.”
“Can she talk?”
The doctor grimaced. “She’s unconscious. Her face is fairly bashed up. She’ll need plastic surgery. Maybe a lot.”
Danny walked over to the stretcher. Melissa’s face was bundled in bandages.
Her face. Her beautiful face.
“Transport is ready!” yelled the corpsman. “They’re waiting for us!”
“Let’s move it!” said the doctor.
Danny stepped back and watched as they took her and the others out.
“Don’t let her die, God,” he prayed quietly. “And let her be the person she was before all of this.”
The White House
C
hristine Mary Todd took the news like she took most news—calmly, without noticeable emotion. She thanked Jonathon Reid, not only for helping make the mission a success, but for having had the fortitude to bring the matter to her attention despite what she guessed was considerable personal anguish and, undoubtedly, backlash from the intelligence community.
She hung up the phone, then called Blitz and Bozzone in to see her.
Waiting for them, she took a sip of tea—lukewarm, but welcome nonetheless—and tried to stretch her legs in the small office. The Intelligence Committee vote was deeply unfortunate; it made it difficult for her to send Edmund over to talk to them without seeming to give in. The political nuances of weakening her image could easily come back to haunt her in the future.
But now that Raven was safely in their hands, she had no problem giving the committee the information. In fact, handled properly, it could help fend off another episode like this one.
How exactly could she deal with this?
Perhaps she could persuade the committee to pull back on the subpoena. But they seemed to be in no mood to do so, not given the vote. Only Zen Stockard had stood against them.
She went back to the phone. “Give me Senator Stockard’s office.”
Bozzone came in while she was waiting on the phone. Todd motioned for him to sit down.
Zen’s appointment secretary said he was on the Senate floor, which made it impossible to talk to him immediately.
“I’d like to speak with him personally,” Todd told her. “When do you think he would have a hole in his schedule?”
“For you, he would always be available, Ms. President. But um, uh—”
An idea occurred to her.
“Does he still go to the Nationals baseball games?”
“Yes, ma’am. As a matter of fact, he’s planning on going this evening, I happen to know.”
Todd winked at Bozzone. “Ask if he’d like a better seat.”
Room 4
W
ith the team back safely, MY-PID went to work filling in the background and details. It examined the data gathered during the raid, including the cell and satellite phones that had been collected. The computer attempted to find and connect information relating to the phones—where they’d been bought, how they were paid for, etc.—with a vast data bank. The first wave of queries established that the phones were all somewhat ordinary, purchased in Europe at various times. The second found a number of other phones that were undoubtedly purchased at the same time—their sim cards were part of a series that would have been included in a large batch of purchases. The next round of queries and links discovered that, for the most part, the phones had been used in Africa and the Middle East— Egypt especially.
The computer traced the line of money that paid for the phones back to al Qaeda. It was a thin, tenuous line, but a line nonetheless.
There was an incredible amount of data, most of which seemed trivial and only distantly related. The only thing that really stood out was the fact that a cell phone purchased by the same credit card that had bought a number of others at the camp had been used the night before in Washington, D.C.
“That’s more than a little interesting,” said Breanna.
“Hmmm,” said Reid, looking over the results.
A
n hour later Reid and Breanna sat together in the back of a Chevy Impala. Up front, the head of the FBI task force on domestic terrorism waited with them as a Bureau emergency response team and officers from the Washington, D.C., SWAT unit prepared to go into a house near where the call had been made. The decision to ask for a search warrant had come after the discovery of the cell phone led to a scouring of phone records that discovered a link between the number that had been called and a landline in one of the apartments on the street itself.
The link was tenuous—the number the cell phone had called had been used several months before to call a number in Pakistan used by a known Muslim radical; that radical, in turn, had called another number, which had called the D.C. apartment. But that information led to data about the man who had rented the apartment, a supposedly Egyptian student who, it turned out, was not registered as a student in American immigration records.
This did not make him a member of al Qaeda. Nor could it be assumed that the man had failed to register as the law required: Mistakes in the records were very common, as the FBI supervisor explained.
But it did have to be checked out.
They weren’t taking it lightly. The SWAT team alone had two dozen men on the scene. And that didn’t count the ordinary policemen blocking the street and helping cover the rear alleyway.
The FBI supervisor, Bob Randolph, was an affable Boston area native who’d relocated to D.C. some years before. Breanna had met him once or twice at government conferences, but had never had more than a brief conversation with him.
“Lovely area,” he said, glancing at the graffiti scrawled on the wall of the garage across from them. Next to the building, several garbage cans overflowed with refuse.
“It’ll be quiet tonight,” said Reid dryly.
Randolph gave a polite little laugh. Then he put his hand to his ear.
“Here we go. They’re going in,” he said.
Breanna folded her arms against her chest, waiting. She thought of her fight with Zen—not a fight so much as a disagreement, and not so much a disagreement exactly as just uncomfortableness. She’d been forced into a role she didn’t want to be in, opposing him.
He always seemed to take it all in stride. Why couldn’t she?
“They’re inside,” said Randolph. He leaned toward the driver. “Let’s move up.”
Breanna jerked her head as a bomb squad truck raced past them to the front of the building.
“Are there explosives?” she asked.
“Just a precaution,” said Randolph. “They’re just securing the place now. We have to, you know, anticipate.”
They pulled up at the end of the block. The adjoining houses had been evacuated; Breanna could see small knots of people on the other side herded behind a pair of police sawhorses, one of which was just now being put in place.
“News media will get a hold of it soon,” said Randolph. “Hold on.”
He pressed his hand to his ear.
“We have a dead body inside,” he said. “And traces of explosives in the basement.”
“If nothing else,” said Reid, “it would appear we’ve got a story for the press.”
Washington, D.C.
K
en glanced to his left and right as he opened the car trunk. He’d found it necessary to steal the car to get here easily; the trade-off was paranoia that someone would spot it and know it was stolen. As highly unlikely as that might be, he couldn’t get the thought out of his mind.
The trunk smelled of fuel. No wonder: the can he’d packed had tipped over while he drove, sending the liquid all over. But no harm done: There was still plenty left.
He took the small robot airplane from the rear of the trunk. Cradling the two wings under his right hand and holding the body in his left, he managed to push the trunk lid back down. Then he walked up the short flight of steps from the schoolyard to the back of the building.
The athletic field was empty. It was starting to get dark. He was two hours behind schedule; he’d planned to launch much closer to five but had last minute problems loading the program into the plane. He was sure it was going to work—sure that the guidance system knew it was supposed to target Christine Mary Todd, the Satans’ President, and knew that her primary location was the White House, which was just over the next hill about three-quarters of a mile away. He’d entered the information about the President—in fact, nearly everything he could find on the Internet about her personal habits, her vehicles, her aides, the Secret Service—everything. He’d found several human interest stories and entered them as well. The program interface had taken it eagerly.
Whether it would actually
work
—whether his guesses about the software program were correct—that was impossible to tell.
The bomb he had embedded in the fuselage of the aircraft would definitely go off, of that he was certain.
He assembled the wings. The UAV was a simple and ingenious aircraft, a perfect weapon. Anyone who saw it in the air would believe it was a police monitoring device. The camera was still attached, in fact—it had to be, as it helped guide the aircraft.
Wings attached, Ken stood back and pressed the ignition on the controller to start the plane.
The engine started right up. He turned, wondering if he heard someone coming up behind him.
There was no one there. By the time he turned back around, the aircraft was racing across the field, bouncing as it became airborne.
It seemed to have a mind of its own, as if anxious to complete its mission.
Go! he thought. Go!
It did—for about sixty seconds. Then suddenly it veered to the right, zooming high into the clouds.
Ken stared in disbelief. Not only was it going off course, but it was flying away from the city.
He was a failure.
Angrily, he slammed the knapsack that contained the laptop to the ground and kicked it several times, even jumping on it in his anger. Finally he got control of himself. He had to dispose of the thing; it was evidence.
He’d find another way to strike. For now, he had to follow through on his plan to escape.
Ten minutes later, crossing the bridge on Route 1, the smell of the fuel in the trunk gave him an idea: he should stop and throw the car into reverse, cause an explosion that would at least kill someone.
But he wasn’t a martyr at heart. His death had to mean something. And it wouldn’t. Not yet.
He crossed the bridge and found a place to park. Then he walked back down to the river and with a heave tossed the knapsack and laptop into the water.
When he was sure it had sank, he turned and began walking in the direction of the Pentagon Metro stop. Before the night was through, he’d be on an Amtrak heading for Florida.
After that, who knew?