“Bravo Squadron,” he told her. “Before your time in the unit.” He rolled down the sleeve again. “I’ve heard of you, Lucille Keyes. I heard about what you did.”
She shook her head. “We don’t have time for this. For the record, you really don’t know why I ended up in the Miramar stockade. You just know what they told you.”
“Why show your face?” Rowan asked her. “I mean, you were trained better than that. You had to know we’d tag you.”
“Of course I knew!” she shot back. “You think I wanted to give up my nice life as a federal fugitive for shits and giggles?”
“You came to warn us about a terrorist attack.”
“Yes, goddamn it.”
Rowan cocked his head. “Or maybe you’re unstable like your file says, and this is some kind of drama you’re playing out.”
Lucy hesitated on the edge of letting her ill-temper slip, but instead she pulled it back. She found the calm, centered place that kept her level each time she was preparing to make a shot. She couldn’t afford to miss here, either. What she said next would mean the difference between Rowan taking her seriously or locking her up and throwing away the key.
“Do I look like I’m off-balance?” she asked, her voice firm. “I’ll lay this out for you. When the president comes on stage, operatives of Al Sayf are going to detonate multiple explosive devices in the crowd, and hundreds will die.”
Rowan stole a look at his wristwatch, but said nothing.
Lucy pressed on. “Amarah is in disguise and only I know what he looks like. You need to help me find him before he can leave the area.” She paused, marshalling her thoughts. “Now, you’ve got a choice. You can do that, or we can sit here in this mobile doghouse and wait for the clock to run out. And when you hear the sound of that first explosion and the screams, you’re gonna have to look me in the eye and know you wasted the chance to stop it happening.”
The agent watched her, his expression stony and unreadable, and an unpleasant possibility occurred to Lucy. The Combine have people everywhere, she thought. What if this guy is in on it? She had a sudden, horrible vision of being forced to wait out those moments until the carnage began.
But then Rowan leaned forward and she saw real doubt flicker in his eyes. “I don’t trust you. You were one of us and you broke the code. How can I believe anything you say to me?”
“I’ll make you a deal,” she replied. “Help me catch Amarah, and I’ll tell you anything you want to know about me, about who I shot and how I ended up in Miramar.” Lucy swallowed, as her throat went dry. “But just decide fast, okay?”
* * *
“Hey!” Marc called out as he jogged across the street toward a Nissan utility van parked over from the hotel. He waved to attract the driver’s attention. “Oi, mate!”
The man frowned at him over the top of a newspaper that he wasn’t really reading. He had spent his coffee break observing the arrival of the paramedics scrambling to save the life of a cop who had taken an unexpected swan-dive off the top of the Willard. “What?”
Marc waved his stolen BBC identity card at him, panting hard. The same logo was painted in large letters along the side of the van, and the vehicle carried equipment and camera gear for the News 24 crew currently covering the opening shots of the US election campaign. “We’ve got a problem,” Marc told the driver. “I just came from the ops room,” he said, pointing back at the upper floors of the Willard. “Camera just went down on the stage, I need to get in there and fix up a replacement right away.” Marc walked around to the side of the van and pulled on the handle of a sliding door; it stayed resolutely locked.
“What?” repeated the driver, irritated by the idea that he was going to be inconvenienced by some random glitch. “Can’t they use the number two rig?”
Marc banged on the door. “Mate, come on! We’re going live and they need both working cameras.”
“I’m not supposed to go back through the cordon. I don’t have authorization,” insisted the other man. “And I’m on a break,” he added.
“Fine. You want to check in?” Marc offered the driver his smartphone. “Ring the ops desk. But make it quick.”
The driver gave him a wary look and shook his head. “No, it’s okay. I can make the call.” He reached for his own company phone sitting on the dash and tapped a speed-dial button that would connect him to the broadcaster dispatch.
Marc made a show of impatiently turning his phone over in his fingers, but what he was actually doing was keeping it as close as he could to the driver’s handset. Embedded in the casing of Marc’s device was a circuit that could mimic a cellular tower at close range, forcing any nearby phone attempting to connect to the greater GSM network to talk to it and not the nearest wireless node. Once spoofed, it was easy to channel the voice signal to somewhere other than the number that had been dialed, with the caller none the wiser.
“Operations,” said Kara Wei’s voice.
“Yeah, this is van three,” began the driver. “What’s this about a blown ENG rig on the live stage?”
“That’s right. There’s a guy on his way down to you, is he there yet?” The driver shot Marc a look as Kara spun out the lie. “We need to get a replacement set up ASAP. I’ve got the producer here chewing me a new one.”
“Got it.” The other man beckoned to Marc, reaching down to release the door lock. “On our way.” He cut the call, blew out a breath and irritably folded up his paper. “All right, let’s go.”
“Cheers,” Marc pulled open the sliding door and was barely into the van before it pulled away from the curb and moved swiftly across the line of traffic.
“Be there in a minute,” called the driver, through a grille in the back of the cab.
“Right.” Plastic cases arranged in racks along the inside of the van contained all kinds of equipment required for the process of ENG—electronic news gathering—but Marc ignored them in favor of a green metal box sporting a white cross.
Flipping up the lid on the medical kit, he pawed through the contents and pulled out bandages, sterile wipes and a bottle of painkillers. He shook out some Ibuprofen tablets and swallowed them dry. The aftershocks from the beating Nash had given him were getting worse, and Marc was afraid that he might have cracked a rib.
Wincing with the sudden motion as the van turned sharply toward 3rd Street, Marc rolled up his shirt and grimaced at the sight of fresh yellow-purple bruises. He taped up his ribs, dressed the cuts and pulled down the shirt again. The van slowed as it bounced over a speed bump by the security checkpoint, and the last thing Marc did was pull the fake police jacket from his daypack and shrug it on. He finished off the makeshift disguise with the threadbare cap that was still dirty with Turkish dust, pulling it down low to shade his face.
He heard the driver talking to the police officer at the checkpoint, and then the van nosed into a parking spot among the other media trucks.
Marc grabbed his pack and before the engine fell silent, cranked open the doors at the back of the vehicle and stepped out. He dropped down and walked quickly and purposefully away, putting as much distance as he could between himself and the BBC van before the driver realized something was up.
There were uniforms everywhere. Cops moved this way and that, all of them intent on their own duties, and now and then Marc glimpsed the green of a soldier’s garb or the black attire of a federal agent. He kept his head down, trying not to draw attention, doing nothing that might alert those around him that he didn’t belong.
In preparation for the rally, everything east of 4th Street along the line of the National Mall had been cordoned off all the way down to the great reflecting pool in front of the Capitol Building, forming a wide rectangular safe zone. Along 4th, between Madison and Jefferson Drives, the main stage for the rally rose up in front of giant video screens that formed a wall, concealing the staging area and tech center that kept the spectacle running smoothly. Marc could hear the crowd on the far side of the screens clapping as the band
on stage concluded their set with a racy rendition of “Yankee Doodle.”
He felt a buzzing vibration and pulled his phone from his pocket, peering at the screen. As good as their promise, Rubicon had sent him a still image of a custom black Ford SUV. Sprouting from the roof of the vehicle were thick antennae, and various domes and pods that suggested all manner of electronic devices within. Marc turned a corner alongside a mobile generator truck and saw the exact same vehicle a hundred meters away. A federal officer in a blue windbreaker was leaning on the bonnet, taking the opportunity to smoke a quick cigarette before the main event.
Reaching into his pack, Marc recovered the other phone. Nash’s device seemed like it was heavier, cast out of lead. On the timer screen, the numbers were still dropping.
He stuffed it into his back pocket, took a deep breath, and started toward the SUV.
* * *
Finally, it was only Jadeed and the youth Adad. He guided him with a firm hand upon his back, and wrapped around the palm in loops were his misbaha beads. Adad had felt the lash of them on his flesh when he had disobeyed a teacher in the orphanage. That seemed like a lifetime ago, but the sense-memory of them was strong enough to remind the boy of his duty.
“Stop,” Jadeed told him, finding the optimal spot on the far end of the arc along which all the young soldiers had been arranged. He pointed at the stage. “Look there.”
Adad nodded and did as he was told. “I … am thirsty.”
“There will be time for that later,” Jadeed lied. “Do you understand how important it is for you to be here? Remember what the commander told you.”
“I do,” Adad replied. “I will.” He looked afraid, suddenly very young and very alone.
Jadeed’s lips thinned. He had repeated these words over and again, and he was losing patience. “Stand strong,” he snapped.
“My stomach…” Adad’s hand went to his belly. “I think I am becoming sickly. Like Halil.”
“No.” Jadeed shook his head. “That will not be permitted.” Before Adad could make further complaint, he placed his hand—the hand wrapped with the beads—on his shoulder once more. “These are your orders. Defy the enemy.” He had to raise his voice as the crowd applauded enthusiastically. “Look at them, all around you. Cattle, docile and fat. When we reveal ourselves, they will be in awe of us. They will fear you.”
“Yes,” Adad replied, nodding slowly.
Jadeed gave a false smile. “Soon, now. The American president is coming.” He stepped back. “We will teach him a lesson,” he concluded, before turning on his heel and threading away through the crowd.
He did not look back to see Adad’s face, just as he had not looked back to see any of the youths. If they obeyed—and after the hard discipline that had been instilled in them, he believed they would—each one would remain rooted to the place where he had been set.
Khadir had plotted it out on a tourist’s map of the city months before. Jadeed recalled standing in a Parisian hotel room with him, looking at a semi-circle of red dots around a sketch of the main stage. The positions were carefully selected to maximize the potential impact of each of the implanted devices and cause the largest possible loss of life, but the grand target would be the American leader himself. If fate smiled on them this day, he too would be cut down in the firestorm that the bombs would unleash.
Jadeed would have given much to remain and watch the chaos, but he knew it would be foolish to chance being caught in the dragnet that would fall in the wake of the attack. Already, he was taking a risk just being here, but it was a necessary task that, like the supervision of the other bombings, could not be delegated to someone outside the inner circle.
The work was too important for him to risk capture, just as he was too important to serve the cause in so base a way as Adad and the other youths.
He saw no inequality in this. It was simply the manner of things. Jadeed’s life would earn its full value through his continued commitment to the cause, and Adad’s would be spent best dying for that same ideal.
The exit to Independence Avenue was only a few moments away, and Jadeed continued to make his way toward it, all smiles and contrite apologies as he pushed past the men and women he would soon see killed, the children he would soon see orphaned.
* * *
The Secret Service agent looked up as Marc approached him, momentarily guilty that he had been caught indulging in a vice. The two of them were around the same height, but where Marc’s build was spare, the agent was dense. He had an Asian cast to his features and a fuzz of close-cut dark hair; he made to stub out the cigarette, but Marc shook his head and made the universal gesture of begging a smoke, bringing up two fingers to his lips.
The agent shrugged and reached for the packet he kept in his breast pocket. “I should quit,” he offered, in a tone that made Marc think he had said the same words a hundred times before.
Marc quickly glanced left and right. They were not being observed. Before the agent could stop him, he stepped in close and grabbed at something on the man’s belt.
“Hey!” The agent recoiled, but he was up against the SUV and he had nowhere to go. He thrust out with his hand, grabbing Marc’s face and squeezing, trying to shove him away.
Semi-blinded, Marc couldn’t see what he was doing, but he managed to complete his action through feel alone. His hand closed around the handle of a weapon and he jerked it free, fingers finding the push-button trigger.
The agent tried to call out, but Marc was already forcing the metal contacts of the X2 taser into the other man’s sternum. “Sorry,” he told him, squeezing the trigger for a half-second.
“Buuuh-” The other man jerked with the power of the shock discharge, staggering as his muscles locked up and his body refused to obey his brain’s commands. The agent’s legs gave out and he collapsed toward Marc, knocking off his cap and almost dragging them both down with his dead weight. He wasn’t unconscious, but he was barely there, shivering like a palsy victim.
“Take a load off, mate,” Marc offered, not unkindly, and deposited the agent on the cab step of the generator truck. Leaving him there, he sprinted back to the SUV and climbed in.
From the outside, the jammer vehicle’s opaque windows made it impossible to see the interior. Now Marc was inside, he was confronted by a wall of electronic systems fitted into the compact space behind the driver’s compartment, all running off a big battery unit buried in the SUV’s chassis.
Monitors showed complex wave forms that he guessed were counter-frequencies for cellular signal carriers. Stacks of light-emitting diodes rose and fell in glowing streams as every kind of wireless communication within range was jammed into silence by a smothering blanket of artificially-generated military-specification white noise.
The system was cutting edge. In the Fleet Air Arm, Marc had been trained to operate and recognize the functions of military ECM systems, and in his time with MI6 he had used portable jammers on field missions—but the Secret Service rig was complex and he didn’t know where to start with it. There was no big red “off” switch, no power cord that he could pull, and no time to go looking for the manual.
He thought about taking out the Glock and unloading the gun into anything that looked important, but outside he could see his stunned victim climbing shakily to his feet, calling out in a ragged voice. Others heard the man and came running. Marc saw them pointing toward the parked SUV, their hands dropping to their weapons.
* * *
Jadeed finally passed through the crush of the bystanders, and at his back the crowd became a chorus of shouts and applause. He hid away a sneer that threatened to spread across his face as he passed a group of college students, no older than Adad and the rest of his soldiers. They were shouting at the top of their lungs, chanting the initials of their nation-state like it was a battle cry. Loutish, brash and uncouth, to Jadeed’s mind they were the typically over-fed, over-entitled Americans he so detested.
He passed them by and exited through a
turnstile, glancing down the street to find Teape and the school bus. He hunched forward, pulling his collar tight, and walked quickly back to the waiting vehicle.
The door was already open, and casting a last look over his shoulder, he climbed inside. “Let’s go,” he commanded. “Take 2nd Street down to the Interstate and—”
He fell silent as he looked up and saw that the driver’s seat was empty. Jadeed whirled, an angry retort forming on his lips. There was no time for the mercenary to play games, they were only minutes away from the first detonation.
“Jadeed Amarah,” said a voice he didn’t recognize. “Raise your hands.”
He turned and saw two figures in tactical gear crouching low along the aisle that led to the back of the vehicle. One of them had Teape pressed face-down into the floor, his arms cuffed behind him and a pistol in the small of his back. The second was a woman, and she aimed her gun directly at Jadeed’s chest.
He feigned surprise and took a step back. Jadeed allowed the string of metal misbaha beads to slip from his wrist and gather in his closed hand. “What is going on?”
“Do not take another step,” said the female agent, commanding him like a mother speaking to some errant child. “Or I will shoot you.”
He hesitated on the brink of snarling out a curse at the female, and saw movement outside the bus. There were other agents in bulletproof vests taking up positions around the vehicle, cutting off all avenues of escape. One of them, an older man with thinning hair, turned to speak to a younger, athletic black woman who seemed to have her wrists bound together.
“Michigan plates,” he heard the man say, nodding at the bus. “How about that?”
“You believe me now?” asked the woman.
Inside the bus, the female agent rose and gestured with her gun. “Hands behind your head. Turn around and walk down to the street.”
“This has all been some terrible mistake,” he insisted, obeying but moving slowly. “I don’t know who you think I am! I am a teacher!” His jaw tensed. How had they found him? Was this Khadir’s doing, was the commander somehow displeased with him?
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