“But have they looked inside? Is there—” I was starting to panic.
“Shh,” he barked. “They’ve got a NEST squad on it.”
I stared at him blankly.
“Nuclear Emergency Support Team. Now come on, keep moving.”
“But don’t you all check?” I asked, clammy now with fear. “I mean, can somebody just drive a car packed with nuclear explosives right into the White House complex, without someone noticing?”
“If you’ve got his level of security clearance? And you’re in an official Agency vehicle? Yeah, you can.”
He was dragging me along by the elbow.
“They would have swept underneath the vehicle with mirrors,” McNamara mumbled. “But they wouldn’t have suspected . . . You know what? Wait a second.” He stopped in his tracks. “I’m thinking down that hall might be fastest. Yeah. This way.”
And he led me down another corridor, twisting beneath the White House.
51
The Nuclear Emergency Support Team had found Tusk’s car easily, once they knew what they were looking for.
He had hidden in plain sight.
A VIP parking space right in the front row. The white, unmarked SUV was riding low on its chassis due to the freight packed behind its tinted windows. A complete nuclear bomb. Explosives nestled around a core of highly enriched uranium, the whole package tucked neatly behind the backseat.
The team’s most senior engineer stared at it. The whole thing could be booby-trapped, wired to blow at the slightest vibration. There might be proximity sensors, registering when someone moved too close. You couldn’t just start unscrewing bolts.
Eyeballing it he could see that the design was sophisticated. He had trained on similar models. But who knew what lay under the casing? The engineer signaled for X-ray and infrared-imaging tools. He needed to know what they were dealing with.
EDMUND TUSK HURRIED UP FIFTEENTH Street, his mind working fast.
He could not quite comprehend how the day had managed to go so spectacularly wrong.
He was trained to turn on a dime when events did not go to plan. They rarely did in the clandestine world, and no one made it to the senior ranks of the CIA without learning how to fix a situation gone bad. Or at least how to cover it up, how to bury it so deep that it would take generations of congressional investigators and Agency Inspector General reports to unravel all the threads.
But what were all the threads at this point? How much had Alex James figured out? And what exactly might Siddiqui have divulged to her, before she somehow managed to waste him with his own gun? Tusk shuddered. He had understood he was in extreme danger when she appeared this morning and locked eyes with him across the Situation Room. He had felt his bowels turn liquid. So he had bolted.
But now he was not sure. Perhaps—perhaps—the plan could still proceed. Why not? He would just have to move more quickly. The bomb was still in place, after all. They might not be able to find and disarm it in time.
And he had planned his escape quite carefully. At the private airstrip out in Prince Georges County, his plane stood fueled and ready. A Cessna 172, single-engine, four-seater. He had registered it months ago under one of his cover names, Anthony Blunt. Early this morning Tusk had driven out and dropped his duffel bag. And into the front passenger seat he had strapped Philby, mewing inside his cat carrier. Tusk had stroked his fur and left the window cracked for air.
Once he was airborne and at a safe distance, he would dial the cell phone connected to the arming switch he had left in the SUV. It could all still work. He could execute within ninety minutes, depending on traffic out to the airstrip.
It was not ideal. It was a goddamn million miles away from ideal. But there might still be time.
MCNAMARA AND I RUSHED DOWN the hallway, weaving our way through the tide of people evacuating. He paused for a moment to help a man struggling with crutches, then took my elbow again. “Almost there. Just around this corner and then we can—”
And then the corridor went black.
My heart slammed against my throat. What was happening? I could see nothing.
McNamara’s grip tightened, hard enough to break my arm. Then his training must have kicked in. “Get down!” he yelled. “Everybody down!” He threw himself on top of me.
All around us people were hitting the floor.
For a moment we lay there in complete darkness. His weight crushing me, his chest heaving against mine, pressing me down. I fought to breathe.
On the carpet beside me I could hear a woman crying, jagged little gasps. I reached out. Found her hand and wrapped it in mine. Squeezed until she squeezed back.
What had she been told about why we were evacuating? I wondered how many of these people had any idea what was happening. Did they understand this was no ordinary bomb threat?
THE NEST ENGINEER STRAINED AND twisted, but it was no use. His face shield was fogged again. And no matter how he wrenched his arm, he could get no purchase on the seam.
It had been deemed too risky to move the bomb. It remained inside the SUV, illuminated by floodlights they’d wheeled in. He was now attempting to cut into the casing, to get at the core. The vehicle’s back door had been removed to give him room to work. But the angle was still wrong, and the bulk of his hazmat suit was slowing him down.
The engineer cursed. Yanked off his helmet and gloves. Sweat poured down his face.
The team commander shook his head, hard. Can’t let you do it.
“I can’t see. If I fail, we’re all dead anyway.”
The commander hesitated, then nodded. He wasn’t sure if solidarity required him to do the same. The rest of the team decided for him. Off came the helmets.
The engineer turned back to work.
TUSK STEPPED OUT OF THE metro on the eastern edge of the city. He had a rental car parked nearby, the keys hidden in a metal sleeve above the rear left tire. It would get him to the airstrip.
He glanced around. Checked his watch. Just over an hour now since he had slipped out of the White House. Everything here seemed eerily . . . normal. At a sidewalk café, a wilted-looking waitress fanned herself, ignoring a table of teenagers agitating for refills. A man at the curb banged on a parking meter, chasing a lost coin. Traffic flowed smoothly; there was no police presence. It felt like any other stiflingly hot and airless afternoon in July.
Tusk struggled with himself.
On the one hand, the plan depended on no one locating him, no one knowing he’d ever left the White House.
On the other, he needed to know what was happening.
He pulled out his phone and eyed it. He would have to play this carefully.
IT COULD ONLY HAVE BEEN a few seconds, but it felt like a long time, lying there with McNamara pressing down on me, before a generator began to hum and weak lights flickered back on.
McNamara rolled onto the carpet. He raised his hand to his earpiece, listening. I could see a vein in his neck throbbing, purplish blue against the taut muscles. Then he slumped over.
“It’s okay,” he murmured to me, relief in his voice. He listened another moment. Then he called out, louder, “It’s okay, people. They’ve switched to backup power. Don’t know why. But everything’s okay. Let’s keep moving, up you go.”
People pulled themselves to their hands and knees, and then onto their feet, wordlessly, as in a dream. We stumbled toward the nearest stairwell and the exit. No one spoke. The lights cast a ghostly glow.
DEEPER UNDERGROUND, IN THE CATACOMBS of the parking garage, the NEST commander held his breath.
This was it.
One shot. No room for error.
They had trained their lives for this moment, earned PhDs from elite universities, but in the end it was steady hands that mattered. Nimble fingers standing between them and the abyss.
The engineer cocked his eyebrows. Ready?
The commander nodded his assent. Closed his eyes, thought of his wife, his sons. If he lived he would kiss them, never stop
kissing them.
The engineer took aim.
Now.
MCNAMARA FROZE. HIS EARPIECE WAS crackling, a sudden explosion of noise. He cupped his hand around it. A stunned look spread over his face.
“What is it? What are they saying?” I tugged on his arm.
He smacked me away.
“What?”
He walked away a few feet, hunched over to listen. When he turned around, he had a stupid grin on his face.
“They did it. I can’t—I can’t quite tell, everyone’s yelling at once. But it sounds like the bomb team just radioed out word of successful resolution.”
I stared at him.
He kept grinning at me.
And then I let out a whoop loud enough to shatter glass.
TUSK SAT SPRAWLED ON THE sidewalk, his legs bent beneath him at unnatural angles.
Charley Foster had delivered the news.
One of his oldest friends. One of his only friends. They had come up through the ranks together, serving side by side in various hellholes across the Middle East. Now Charley had a desk on the seventh floor at Langley.
Charley had picked up on the first ring, already crowing.
Tusk had not at first been able to take it in.
“We’re gonna get these assholes!” Charley was shouting. “Whatever assholes were planning this little party, they are going to rot in hell. The gloves will really come off this time, and when they do—”
“But what happened, Charley? Are you telling me the NEST team managed—”
“Christ, where the hell are you that you don’t know this?”
“Long story. But the nuke—did they—”
“Buddy, I gotta run. All I know is we got a confirm four minutes ago that the nuke was disabled.”
Charley kept talking, but Tusk no longer trusted his voice to respond.
He ended the call. Felt a wave of nausea wrench through him. Swayed, sank to his knees, then plunked all the way down, hard. His legs seemed to have stopped working.
The waitress eyed him. An overweight, overheated man sprawled on her sidewalk. She wondered if she should rouse herself to call an ambulance.
The blue-and-white umbrellas of the sidewalk café fluttered above Tusk’s head. God, he felt tired. So tired. The concrete was rough and warm. It was tempting just to lie all the way down and let them come for him. It was over. What did it matter?
He closed his eyes. He had come awfully close to pulling it off. Down to the plane, still waiting for him, Philby in his little cage inside. The thought of the cat jerked his head up. Poor Philby. What would happen to him? Tusk couldn’t do it. Couldn’t just leave him to starve. He loved that damn cat.
Slowly, painfully, his mind began to crank through a different series of calculations. The plane, the cat, the money in the Swiss account—it was all still there. He could think of only one person who posed a threat. Tusk felt the stab of a new emotion now, overriding his tiredness. Anger.
With great effort he hauled himself to his feet. Raised his middle finger to the waitress, not thirty feet away, who hadn’t even offered him a glass of water. He began hobbling toward the rental car. With each step, he felt his anger harden.
52
Outside the White House I blinked in the heat and the quiet.
It was not what I was expecting. I was expecting—I don’t know—more chaos.
But guards had been ordered to assume a perimeter several hundred yards outside the fence. They had cordoned off streets and set up machine guns. Tourists and television news crews were being kept well back. The White House lawn was deserted.
McNamara walked me to the main front gate where I had entered this morning and then hesitated. “I’m not actually sure whether you’re allowed to leave or not.”
“Well, unless you’re planning on arresting me, I’m leaving. Anyway, based on the experience of the last hour, I’m thinking I’ll feel a whole lot safer outside this fence than inside it.”
He frowned. “Fair point, but my orders are to protect you and—”
“And so you have. But it’s over, right?” I gestured toward the West Wing entrance behind him. “And we’re all still here. I think you’ve done your duty.”
He frowned again. “There should be ambulance crews over there.” He waved in the direction of a cluster of blue and red lights flashing at the edge of the security perimeter. “I’ll just take you over to those guys, get them to drive you to the ER, get that eye stitched up.”
“It’s feeling better, actually,” I insisted. McNamara ignored me. But it was. Perhaps I was in shock; perhaps it was the relief of knowing we were out of danger.
We walked toward the flashing lights. To our left, Lafayette Square was empty, the grass singed short and brown. It was late afternoon by now, but the heat was still stupefying. It had to be close to a hundred degrees. I was suddenly unspeakably thirsty. Water. I was going to drink a huge, icy mug of water, then another, and then a large gin had my name on it. Yes. Make that two large gins. Then, maybe, the world might begin to make sense again.
We passed the Treasury building on the right and finally reached the security perimeter that had been set up at Fifteenth Street. I turned to McNamara, smiled, and touched his arm in thanks.
He handed me off to two guards wearing black jumpsuits, emblazoned with the logo US SECRET SERVICE K9 UNIT. Their dogs sniffed me.
I rubbed their noses.
The guards marked my name down on a list. They asked for a contact number and address. Then they stepped back, lifted a strip of police tape, and let me pass.
Cameras clicked. A journalist ran up and tried to stick a microphone in my face. I shoved it aside and gave him such a dirty look that he did not persist. A tourist snapped my photo with his cell phone. I yanked it out of his hand.
“Do you mind?” I asked. “I’m really not in the mood.”
“Sorry. Just—that’s a pretty gnarly cut. Did you get it in there? Were you inside?”
I glared at him. Then I remembered his phone, still in my hand.
“Actually, if I could make just one quick call,” I said, punching in the number before he could object. “There’s someone I should let know I’m still alive. It’ll just take a sec.”
The line took ages to connect. The cellular networks had to be overloaded. Everyone around us seemed to be holding a phone to his ear. It was amazing the system hadn’t crashed altogether.
Finally he answered. “Hello?”
“Hyde,” I said, so happy to hear his voice I almost cried.
“James? Ms. James! Is that you?”
“It’s me.”
“It’s her!” he yelled. “I’ve got Alex on the line!”
Behind him I heard a cheer go up in the newsroom. People were whooping. I thought I could make out Elias’s voice above the din. And now the tears did come.
“Are you all right? Where are you?” Hyde demanded.
“I’m okay,” I sniffled. “Yeah, in the big-picture sense, I’m just fine.” I caught my breath and tried to pull it together. “I just exited White House grounds. They’ve got everything locked down tight. Tell me what you know and I’ll feed you what info I can.”
“We don’t know anything. Nora said the building was being evacuated—she came sprinting over here to the bureau when they ordered everybody out—but they wouldn’t tell her why. And you never came. But—but you’re all right?”
I started filling in the pieces as best as I could. I dictated an account of what had happened in the moments before and after I’d been rushed out of the Situation Room. I told him about Tusk’s car.
Hyde kept interrupting. No doubt my story was hard to follow. He pressed me to clarify how I knew certain things and in what order events had unfolded. I tried, but there were too many details, too many names to keep straight, and too many gaps in what I myself knew at that point. Behind me ambulance and police sirens were blaring. From farther away I could hear drivers leaning on their car horns, infuriated at
the roadblocks.
“So do we have a last name on this C.J. guy from CIA? Can we quote his stuff on the record?” Hyde was asking.
“I have no idea at this point what’s on the record and what’s not. There hasn’t exactly been a lot of spare time today to ponder journalism ethics, Hyde.”
“Well, quite, but—”
“Also, I think I need to see a doctor at some point. And first, I need a drink.”
“Sure. Grab yourself a bottle of water and then—”
“No. I mean a drink.”
“Oh, no, young lady. What you need is to get yourself back to the bureau and write this story. Elias and I will take a first whack based on what you’ve just given me, but this is your baby. Don’t worry. We’ll sort you out with some guava brandy in good time.”
But I was no longer listening. “I’ll be there in thirty minutes.”
“Ms. James!” he yelled, his voice turning sharp. “I insist. In fact, I am ordering you—”
“Hyde, we can’t get scooped, don’t worry. No one knows the stuff I know. And I can barely think straight. I think I’ve earned a quick one en route.”
I was already walking, the tourist whose phone I’d purloined trotting anxiously alongside.
“No. What you’ve earned is a chance to get your butt back here and write the story of your life. Also, the police want to speak with you. Something about the minor matter of your having shot and killed a man in Elias’s flat this morning. And I know you. You don’t stop at one drink. I need you sober.”
I grinned, despite myself. “Actually, I have to tell you I’m leaning pretty heavily in favor of the pursuit of nonsobriety.”
“Alex!”
“Half an hour, Hyde.”
I handed the tourist back his phone. “Thanks for that. Any chance you could point me toward the nearest bar?”
53
Fifty yards away, Tusk stood watching her.
He had a baseball cap pulled low over his eyes, but this was a largely unnecessary precaution: Tusk had a gift for not standing out in a crowd. His colorless hair clung damply to his head, and a ring of sweat was widening above his waistband. Every few minutes he reached up to wipe away the humidity condensing on his glasses. But the main thing anyone looking at him would have noticed was that he was shaking, literally vibrating with rage.
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