by Jon Land
The pumping facility that would forge his miracle was deceptively simple in design, in keeping with its singular purpose of sucking water from this reservoir fed by the Potomac, running it through various stages of cleansing and treatment, and then sending millions of gallons on their way through its respective city grid. That grid included the U.S. Capitol Building, somewhere between two and three miles away.
Rule stretched his hands upward and laid them on Boyd Fowler’s massive shoulders on the downward slope of his trapezius muscles.
“Heavenly Father, in your love you have called us to know you, led us to trust you, and bound our life with yours.”
Rule paused to pray silently, but his mind jerked him back inside the pumping station where it was warm and dry and cluttered with piping that looked like giant steel snakes coiled about the walls and floor. There were massive tanks too, strung together by labyrinths of pipes leading from one to the other. A sophisticated network of interconnected catwalks rose like a spiderweb over the entire assemblage of steel and PVC, of levers and switches, of manifolds and circulators, of mounted controllers and system pressure gauges, of easy bleed and backup systems.
“Surround this man, and yet still child of God, with your love. Protect him from evil.”
Here, Rule moved his numb, throbbing hands to Boyd Fowler’s bald skull, easing his whole frame downward under their force. The moments passed with more thoughts of the Bryant Street facility’s layout and contents. An entire floor comprised of little more than piping rising from underground, strung in serpentine fashion across the floor and climbing the walls, controlled by a combination of manual toggle switches, automated relays flashing green and old-fashioned crank wheels with rust showing through their color-keyed paint. Heavy steel ductwork and manifolds seemed to hang free in the air, like some outer-space spider responsible for weaving the web-like network of catwalks that allowed ready to access to all from above. The piping shared a uniform shade of easy blue, not dark enough to be navy but not light either.
“Fill him with the Holy Spirit and receive him into the family of our church,” Rule continued, Boyd Fowler’s head now sinking with the rest of him below the surface of the McMillan Reservoir, “that he may walk with us in the way of Christ, and grow in the knowledge of your love.”
Inside the facility, before he’d come out here to pray, Rule had witnessed Fowler’s men working on one of the pumps and the assemblage of piping running in and out of it. Connecting the white, plastic drums they’d brought with them via thick, rubber hosing joined by wide, copper line to the assemblage that supplied the facility’s northern grid, which included the Capitol. Nearby, the fifty-five-gallon barrels Fowler’s men and trucks had hauled away from the mountain filled out the floor near another network of piping that began the actual process of pumping drinking water to a large portion of the city. Rule had seen a bypass being readied so the pipes would carry the contents of those barrels north for the Capitol, instead of the purified water gestating in the holding tanks that towered over the scene.
Rule saw the bubbles flutter to the surface of the McMillan Reservoir as Fowler let out his breath. “May this child of the Lord know your power and your glory, your wisdom and your grace. And I ask you, oh Lord, to welcome him into your house as one of the true faithful in your ways who will keep your word now and forever.”
With that, Rule lifted Boyd Fowler’s head and torso from the river as if it weighed nothing at all, as if he was a child in body as well as spirit. Their eyes met and held, Fowler’s as happy and celebratory as any the reverend had ever seen, the man still shaking not in the slightest, just blowing water from his mouth and nose with his breath.
“Praise the Lord, Boyd! Praise the Lord, so you may know His glory! It’s a true miracle, a true miracle!”
“Today’s full of them, Reverend.”
“And the biggest one is yet to come,” Rule told him, thinking of how the country would look when tomorrow dawned.
CHAPTER 93
Washington, DC
Zarrin’s flight landed at Dulles just about the same time as the flight from Detroit carrying the five security operatives Colonel Nabril al-Asi had brought with him to the United States from Palestine did. She knew them all, both from experience and reputation. All members of his private security force trained by Mossad, all having journeyed here when the dream of peace was replaced by calls for the heads of the old guard that had raised so many false hopes. They’d fought alongside the Sayeret, the Israeli Special Forces, on any number of raids and pretty much matched them, as well as their American counterparts, in their precision, training, and experience.
While waiting to meet up with the five men about to return to the violence that had ruled their lives for so long, Zarrin pictured what was happening beyond in the city right now. For starters, air traffic over Washington was about to be shut down. Only US Air Force fighter jets based at Air Combat Command in Langley, Virginia, would be flying along with Predator drones almost certain to be on station. Beneath their sweep, fifteen hundred Capitol Police officers would be either posted or on patrol in and around the Capitol—this after a redundant triple-check of the entire building, including under every seat in the chamber, was made for any and all conceivable explosives. National Guardsmen would cover the street areas outside the sweep of either the Capitol Police or Secret Service who would also be securing every potential sniper’s nest atop buildings or trees. Agents and their Capitol Police counterparts had been on high-security patrol since yesterday, knowing full well trained operatives may well have chosen to hunker down that long in advance to avoid detection closer to an actual planned attack.
The House wing of the Capitol Building, meanwhile, would have already been shut down at this hour, no admittance whatsoever allowed until the entry doors were opened. Similarly, the plaza on the east side of the Capitol would now have been closed to all unauthorized persons, and all streets adjoining the building would have been barricaded with Jersey barriers, including main thoroughfares, like Independence and Constitution Avenues. All this combined to create a daunting task to even conceive of a means to stage an attack during the State of the Union address. But, as McCracken told it, the Reverend Jeremiah Rule had found the ideal work-around, something no one could ever possibly have conceived.
Not unless they too had solved the interconnected mysteries of the lost Roanoke Colony and, now, the Mary Celeste.
Zarrin recognized Colonel al-Asi’s operatives as they approached together, looking at first glance much more like polished family men than the hardened killers they had once been. But as they drew closer she saw the familiar bent in their eyes, their wariness and fluid movements, and knew they were actually both now, able to shift nimbly from one pursuit to the other.
How long had it been since they’d seen action? Zarrin wondered, certain that al-Asi would have insured they remained sharp and ready, never knowing where the next war might take them or when it would come.
And it had come today—here, far away from the Middle East, that world sure to be rocked dramatically as well if these men were unable to help change the outcome.
She took her phone out to call McCracken.
CHAPTER 94
Washington, DC
“You thank the good colonel for me?” McCracken asked Zarrin after laying everything out for her, including where to pick up the weaponry Sal Belamo had arranged for the force dispatched by Nabril al-Asi.
“I did. Several times. He said you’d be hearing from him. When the time is right.”
“And the need. Ironic, isn’t it? That five Palestinian special-ops soldiers might be the best chance we’ve got to stop the United States government from falling tonight.”
“Don’t forget a Palestinian assassin.”
“How are your hands, Zarrin?”
She’d already been gazing down at them when McCracken posed the question. They were fi
ne. For now. “Steady as a rock.”
“As in Gibraltar?”
“Hopefully. So what’s our play?”
“Captain Seven’s still running some overlays and satellite recon, but the logistics don’t favor us. Secret Service owns the high ground everywhere, so that takes employing Sal and his sniper rifle—to change the odds in a big hurry—off the table.”
“You knew it wouldn’t be easy.”
“We’re going to be up against upwards of thirty well-armed, well-trained gunmen with a proven history for wanting to see the government fall.”
“Maybe your justice system should have dispensed a more appropriate punishment.”
“You mean like stoning them in the public square, Zarrin?”
“You tell me.”
“Right now, I’m all for it.”
“Better late than never.”
Sal Belamo was waiting in the suite he’d reserved at the Carlyle just a mile from the Bryant Street Pumping Station when McCracken and Wareagle arrived—promptly at six o’clock as planned.
“Hey, boss,” he said, wrapped in a hotel bathrobe. “I figured I might as well make myself comfortable. Already took a trip up to the roof. Secret Service has drones in the air, if you can believe that shit.”
“Predators?”
Belamo nodded. “Latest generation. So we can forget about using anything even approaching the high ground.”
“I already have. Question being what does that leave us with?”
Belamo stuffed both his hands in the pockets of his hotel bathrobe. “Well, gotta figure they’ll launch the attack after the president’s on the podium. That gives us three hours to figure out something. Jeez, boss, what about a call to DC Metro, something about suspicious activity at the reservoir. Dump the whole mess in their lap—and the Secret Service’s, too.”
“The Indian and I thought about that. Problem is we’d be risking the gang turning this into a suicide mission by dumping the barrels into the McMillan Reservoir itself or launching the attack ahead of schedule. Lots and lots of people would still die, Sal, almost all the country’s elected representatives just for starters. No, we can’t trust this to SWAT or somebody knocking on the door on the pretext of selling Girl Scout cookies. This is our game.”
His phone beeped.
“Zarrin and her team are on their way up,” he told Belamo and Wareagle.
CHAPTER 95
Washington, DC
An eerie quiet and calm had fallen over the pumping station. From his position on the catwalk looking down over the scene, Jeremiah Rule couldn’t help but wonder if this was the way God viewed man. The big figures, even the still-beaming Boyd Fowler, looked so much smaller and less significant from even this modest distance above them.
Then again, he knew he must have appeared of comparably small scope to anyone looking up his way. Rule didn’t own a watch, hated to open his cell phone to regard the hour. He was a firm believer that things happened in their own time, just like his blessedly fated visit to Fowler’s home in the trailer park. He saw the cosmic rationale behind that now, beating that boy to death in a similar place all those years ago setting the stage for something much more important. Just as the boy Jimmy’s accidental death in Black House had started the process. All were events ordained by powers he was just beginning to comprehend.
Rule found himself missing the boy’s ghost, figured Jimmy had finally found peace after being laid before the altar in the reverend’s basement. God really did work in mysterious ways.
“I won’t let you down, Jimmy,” he said softly, poised upon the catwalk. “I’ll make sure you were sacrificed for a much greater cause.”
Mysterious ways indeed.
“The hour is almost upon us,” he said loud enough for all to hear below him, before he realized what he was doing. “The hour of wondrous glory and purpose as few men have ever known in their hearts and minds.”
They were all looking up at him now, the black-garbed army assembled by Boyd Fowler to fulfill a singular purpose Rule had brought to bear. Looking to him the way he looked to God for guidance and reassurance. The building’s dull light swallowed their expressions, making them look faceless. Little more than figures painted in black onto the world, dark against dark, lacking form and substance in the shadows cast by the high overhead bulbs. As if they had risen up for this purpose and this purpose alone, after which the ground would suck them back in. Specters, phantoms, warriors of God under his command about to do his bidding, which was the Lord’s bidding as well.
“Let us pray,” Rule said, bowing his head so that all those beneath him would follow. “Dear Lord, we ask for your blessing upon this blessed mission we undertake in your name. We pray for the strength we need to see it through and the solace your wisdom provides. Dear Lord, we know the actions we shall undertake tonight are in your name to fulfill your divine purpose. We thank you, oh Lord, for finding us worthy of your grace and vow not to sway from our mission or our commitment. Our faith in you is absolute and we ask that you preserve those who so serve you.” Rule stopped, eyes squeezed shut now. “Amen,” he finished.
“Amen,” came the chorus of voices from beneath him, followed by a voice bellowing, “Let’s waste the fuckers!”
“Amen!” came a fresh roar, even louder.
“Give ’em what’s coming to ’em!”
“Finish what we started!”
“Bring it all down!”
“Fuck yeah!”
Followed by a brief respite of silence in which a tinny voice sounded through an unseen television speaker.
“Mister Speaker,” announced the sergeant-at-arms three miles away in the Capitol Building, “the president of the United States!”
Thunderous applause followed, but Rule’s mind quickly drowned it out, even as he saw Boyd Fowler touch his earpiece.
“We got a homeless guy rapping on the fence outside. Need to get rid of him. Team Tango, go to work,” the newly baptized Fowler ordered.
And with that, the Reverend Jeremiah Rule watched four of the armed figures beneath him move for the door.
“Go with God,” he said softly, making the sign of the Holy Trinity in the air, while beneath him Boyd Fowler moved toward the man at the controls for the pumping apparatus.
“Freeze the pipes,” Fowler instructed just loud enough for Rule to hear.
CHAPTER 96
Washington, DC
The old homeless man, dressed in bulky layers of cloth and wool carrying the stench of alcohol, had a bent nose and flattened ears that stood out from a face cloaked by a watch cap hung low to provide warmth to his head.
“Come on, boys, help a fella out, will ya? Just some change for a coffee, maybe a meal.”
Three members of the Rock Machine gang approached from the other side of the fence, a fourth hanging back between it and the door.
“Come on,” whined the homeless man, “I used to ride too, you know. Vroom, vroom, vroom!”
The man in the middle of the three stuck a one-dollar bill through the chain link that was snatched up immediately by a hand cloaked in a half glove. The homeless man unrolled the bill, eyeing it derisively.
“Come on, boys, you can do better than that.”
The other two men joined the third up even with the fence. And that’s when all of them saw the silenced pistol in the homeless man’s hand.
Pffffffft … Pffffffft … Pfffffffft …
Then sighting in on the fourth before that man’s own pistol cleared his belt.
Pffffffft …
“Go, boss,” Sal Belamo said into his wrist-mounted microphone, “go!”
“I don’t see another way this can play out,” McCracken had said back in the hotel suite. “No way to be subtle beyond the entry point, but the logistics give us a window to work with.”
“Indeed, they do,�
�� Captain Seven said from his railroad-car home, before a fit of coughing from a just-consumed bong hit overcame him. “You’re gonna have twelve minutes between the time the Freon is set loose and the White Death follows.”
“They’ll freeze the pipes on the president’s entrance,” McCracken advanced.
“How can you be so sure of that?” Zarrin asked him.
“Because they’ll be too eager and excited not to. No reason to wait, in any regard. So that’s when our clock starts ticking.”
“Just remember something,” picked up Captain Seven’s now-hoarse voice. “Once they let the White Death loose in those pipes, all bets are off. Game over.”
“Then we’ll have to find a way to play the game on our terms,” said McCracken.
“I recently went to Andrews Air Force Base and welcomed home some of our last troops to serve in Afghanistan. Together, we offered a final, proud salute to the colors under which more than a million of our fellow citizens fought—and several thousand gave their lives. We gather tonight knowing that this generation of heroes has made the United States safer and more respected around the world. For the first time in over a decade, there are no Americans fighting in Iraq or Afghanistan. Osama bin Laden is a memory and many of Al Qaeda’s top lieutenants have joined him. The Afghan people have taken responsibility for their own security, and the United States has never been safer or more secure, both at home and abroad.”
Boyd Fowler heard the beginning of the presidential speech in a low din over the television several of his men were gathered around. There was little else to do at this point, other than wait for the Freon now surging through the network of piping that led straight to the Capitol Building to work its magic. The estimated time for that to happen, according to the gang member who served as a shift supervisor here, was twelve minutes, leaving nine more before he could send the deadly contents of the barrels jetting down the line. They’d already been poured into a sealed holding tank to mix with the water stored within it. A simple flip of a toggle switch was all it would take to send the contents on their way, jetting through underground piping straight to the Capitol Building to wreak their deathly havoc once the frozen pipes burst.