by James Phelan
“Pretty much all of them, sir,” Walker replied.
The Vice President put his hands on his hips. “So, what is this about?”
“Sir, we have reason to believe that an incident will occur as you ring the bell,” Walker said.
“Define ‘incident,’” Agent Bronson said.
“Catastrophic,” Walker replied. “At nine-thirty, as you ring the bell, an explosion will go off in the near vicinity.”
“We believe it’s designed to close the market,” McCorkell added. “Minimum of today, maybe a few days.”
Agent Bronson said, “What’s the intel?”
“Human intel, and intercepts of put-option transfers that back it up,” Walker replied. “I’ve worked on this for near on a year. It’s rock solid.”
“This is credible?” the Vice President said to McCorkell.
“I vouch for Walker,” McCorkell said. “This is as solid as intel gets.”
Agent Bronson spoke a hushed code phrase into his sleeve mike.
“My team’s just stepped up a threat level,” Bronson said to those in the room. “But I’ve got to tell you, Mr. McCorkell, with all due respect, we’ve had bomb units going through this place every day for the past two weeks.”
“He brought it in,” Walker said. “Today.”
“Who’s that, son?” the Vice President asked.
Before Walker could answer, Dan Bellamy entered the room.
Seven minutes to deadline.
•
Clara stood next to Somerville, watching as the FBI agent hovered between her troops—eight suited federal agents, seated at laptop computers. A radio uplink kept them connected to an armed team; HRT she’d heard them called.
The whole time that Clara stood there, watching, listening, she wondered, Do I kill Somerville and run, or will I have to shoot them all?
Clara took a couple of paces toward the agent seated at the tactical communications console, her eyes transfixed on his holstered Glock.
74
There was a moment when Bellamy saw Walker and Walker could see that all manner of violent options were being considered. It passed within a second.
“You were saying?” the Vice President said to Walker.
Walker stared at Bellamy.
Bellamy turned to the Vice President.
“They need us out there,” he said.
“Okay,” the Vice President replied. “We’ll continue this later, Bill.”
Walker reached out and took the Vice President by the arm—and in the same moment Agent Bronson had his Sig P226 pressed into Walker’s side, hidden from all view, but Walker could feel it and got the message. He let the Vice President go.
“He’s using you,” Walker said to the Vice President. “Bellamy is staging an event here today that will be the catalyst for getting INTFOR the lion’s share of the intel community’s budget.”
The Vice President looked to Bellamy and then back at Walker.
“Son,” he said to Walker, “you’re exactly right. That’s why we’re here.”
“Not like this, sir. He has a bomb.”
The Vice President chuckled. “Bill, is this some kind of joke?” He then focused on Walker, and the chuckle died. “Son, you are gravely mistaken. Dan Bellamy is a true American hero. The work he’s doing with INTFOR will save more American lives than anyone will ever know. And you know what? He’s a friend of mine. And I’ve heard enough from you, Walker.” He turned to Agent Bronson. “Get him out of here.”
“Get one of your guys here to look me up!” Walker said, the Sig again pushed into his side. “You’ll see. Jed Walker.”
“Okay, Walker, you’re out of here,” Agent Bronson said.
“You’re making a big mistake,” McCorkell said.
“Maybe he’s in on it,” Walker said, staring at the VP.
The Vice President said, “Bill, leave us be a moment.”
McCorkell left the room, his glance to Walker signaling it was up to him.
“Sir, I’ve spent my life defending this country,” Walker said. “I’ve worked my whole adult life so that you can sleep soundly at night.”
The Vice President shook his head. “And where did you go wrong, son?”
“When Bellamy ordered me to be killed when I was on assignment with the State Department tracking down terrorist financiers. And right now, if this goes ahead.”
“And what’s going ahead, exactly, hmm?” The Vice President turned to Bellamy. “My friend here is a patriot. He’s taking INTFOR to the next level today. And it’s my hope that it will become everything that I know it can be, because we will all be better for it, for generations to come.”
“It’ll never be that big, and you know it,” Walker said, looking at Bellamy.
“He’s disgruntled,” Bellamy said to the Vice President. “He was looked over too many times. Rejected by our HR department. He was good, once, but he’s cooked.”
Bellamy leaned in closer to Walker and said, “It’s because of what this country’s intelligence agencies have done to good men like you that I”—he looked to the Vice President—“we need an entity like INTFOR.” He patted Walker on the arm. “You go get the help you need, soldier. Find your peace.”
Bellamy stood back and motioned the Vice President toward the door, and they left the room.
Five minutes to deadline.
75
Walker thought through what he knew.
At 9:30 am the Vice President would ring the bell.
The put options: they were just the sideshow.
The phone bomb, made by Asad. Ten times the explosive force of regular C4. A hundred grams of the stuff would easily make a bang; kill a person, if it were on him.
Wherever, whatever, it was going to be a spectacle, an attack on the very symbol of the American economy, all in the presence of the second-in-command of the nation and a wannabe intelligence kingpin.
Why was Bellamy here? To make sure it occurred? To be there when the dust settled, to cement his place as the all-American hero with the answers that his country needed to go forward against the next eleven Zodiac attacks?
Agent Bronson said into his sleeve mike, “We’re going to need a pick-up as soon as we bug out. No, one unit will do it. What? No, not a trader, just a random crack-head in here talking about some grand conspiracy against the country. Yeah, another one. No, let’s not make a scene. I’ve got it until you get here. Copy that. Later.”
He looked at Walker.
Walker looked at the sleeve mike, his mind racing. He knew that the public were not permitted to have phones around the President or the Vice President, that they had to hand them in within a certain perimeter.
Bellamy’s phone. It wasn’t just to make a symbolic bang.
Walker shook his head. It’s not on him—he couldn’t have got it in here. Only the VP could get it into the bubble. He froze. The VP . . . Bellamy’s good friend.
The Secret Service agent called into his sleeve mike, “Charlie, have you got Zodiac? Right, copy that.”
Walker looked at the guy.
Four minutes to deadline.
Walker said, “Zodiac?”
“What did you say?” the agent asked.
“You just said ‘Zodiac.’”
“Crack-head,” Agent Bronson said, looking away.
McCorkell re-entered the room and looked at Walker standing at Secret Service gunpoint.
Walker said, “Who’s Zodiac?”
“Let Walker be,” McCorkell said.
“Due respect, Bill, fuck that,” Agent Bronson replied. “This guy’s getting sorted at a precinct after this; go talk to the NYPD.”
“Walker is one of the greatest operatives this country has ever had.”
“Then we truly are fucked,” Agent Bronson replied.
Walker turned and faced Bronson.
The agent looked him square in the eyes, and, sensing something far harder, resisted the urge to force him around to face the other way.
/> “I need to know right now,” Walker said. “What is Zodiac?”
The agent looked from Walker to McCorkell. The old man didn’t back down.
Agent Bronson shrugged. “Fine. Add it to your conspiracy. Zodiac is the Vice President’s Secret Service call sign.”
Suddenly Walker knew.
Three minutes to deadline.
•
Four FBI agents left their posts, headed to patch into the NYSE’s computer system.
That left four seated, and Somerville standing.
Clara moved fast.
She lunged for the holstered Glock at the comms agent’s hip—
He reached for it, his hand clamping onto hers.
Somerville turned, took in the scene, rushed forward—
Clara elbowed the seated agent in the face, pulled his pistol free, brought it up—
CRACK!
Somerville dropped Clara to the ground with a blow behind her ear with the butt of her own service pistol.
The agents in the room watched on, stunned.
“Keep alert, people!” Somerville announced to the room. “We’ve got a job to do here!”
•
“The phone!” Walker said urgently.
“What?” McCorkell said.
“The cell phone—it’s on the Vice President.”
“Agent Bronson, you have to get the cell phone off the VP and get it out, now!”
“What are you saying? He doesn’t carry a phone,” Agent Bronson said. “His press woman does.”
“But that’s the point,” Walker said. “This isn’t an ordinary phone, it’s an explosive device.”
“This thing’s happening,” McCorkell said, checking his watch, “in under three minutes.”
“You’re both crack-heads,” the agent said. “Bill, that English air has done something to your—”
“Zodiac isn’t a program—it’s a target!” Walker grabbed the agent by the lapels of his jacket and pulled him in close, face to face, ignoring the pressure of the Sig that was now being pressed hard under his chin. “When that bell rings at nine-thirty, an explosive charge will go off. It’s the cell phone, on the Vice President. Understand?”
“You need to understand that the Vice President’s phone is with his press secretary!” the agent said, releasing himself from Walker’s grasp and flattening out the front of his suit, the Sig down by his side.
“Bellamy gave him a cell phone to look after,” Walker said. “You saw the handover; he’s your principal, so you must have been there until you got the VP inside this building. Think back. Bellamy had it on the inside of his jacket pocket, left side.”
The agent was blank. Then the color drained from his face.
“Listen to me. If you don’t act, you lose a Vice President,” Walker said. “You have just over two minutes. It’s your call. Two minutes and your life goes one of two ways: the guy who lost a Vice President, or the guy who saved one.”
Agent Bronson sped from the room.
Two minutes to deadline.
76
“Today is a great day,” the Vice President announced to the trading room. He stood at the podium, the gavel and electric pad to ring the bell next to his right hand. Beneath him, on the balustrade, the Seal of the Vice President. Either side next to that, the banners and LCD screens carrying INTFOR’s logo.
Walker and Agent Bronson ran through the back-of-house area. They could see the trading floor on the internal CCTV screens that they passed. From the room they were in, it was a five-second journey. For both men it was a lifetime.
“To those who say the government can’t regulate the market? Sorry, but that doesn’t fly.” The Vice President smiled. “It is the responsibility of the citizens of each country to keep their government in check. The government of the United States is the concern of the people of the United States. Today we are witnessing two great steps forward—one by our government, and one by my great American friend here, Dan Bellamy.”
Walker was a pace behind Agent Bronson. He knew that the floor level of the raised balcony was a couple of meters higher than the trading floor. Walker could see the Vice President behind the ornate stone balustrade, with the murder weapon in his jacket pocket and the assassin standing next to him. It was the perfect alibi; Bellamy might even sustain some minor injuries in the explosion, get some kind of award.
“With a great American company like INTFOR going public,” the Vice President said, “we will see a progression that is the symbol of this administration. A way forward for this great nation. A new dawn for the security of all of us.”
Agent Bronson spoke into his sleeve mike with every stride. As he and Walker rounded the last corner of the corridor, the two agents at the door sprang to attention.
Walker was a bigger man than Bronson, and by the time they hit the door he was a stride ahead. The agents opened the door to the balcony. Five seconds, and they were there.
The next three seconds were a blur.
Bellamy took a step back.
The Vice President, gavel in hand, said, “And it gives me great pleasure to ring in the day’s—”
Walker crash-tackled the Vice President, the cell phone clattering from his jacket across the balcony floor.
Hands grabbed Walker from behind. The two Secret Service agents pulled him off the VP and a Sig pistol was pressed against the back of his head.
Amid shouting and commotion all around, Agent Bronson and a colleague rushed the Vice President away, turning back and shouting through the doorway to let Walker go, and calling a warning about the bomb.
The cell phone had landed at Bellamy’s feet. Bellamy stared at it as the chaos ensued.
09:29:29.
One second to deadline.
•
In that second, Bellamy left the phone and made for the door.
“Stop him!” Walker shouted.
The Secret Service agent moved to apprehend Bellamy.
An NYPD officer appeared at the door, his side-arm drawn.
09:30:00.
•
The bomb detonated.
The sound was unlike any that Walker had heard. A sharp, short report, a tear in the air around him as the shock wave knocked those on the balcony from their feet.
Screens and windows nearby shattered and cracked from the supersonic blast front. Octanitrocubane, or ONC. A detonation velocity of more than ten thousand meters per second.
The work of the bomb-making genius Asad.
Walker got to his feet. The center floor of the podium was smoking and charred, a fist-sized hole blown in the tiles.
The Secret Service agent was down. Watching the way the guy moved, and seeing the blood seep from his eyes and ears, and hearing his rasping breaths, Walker could tell he had the kind of polytraumatic injuries received by IED survivors in Iraq and Afghanistan. These guys wore the best Kevlar systems money could buy, but just like the soldiers and sailors and airmen on the front line, no amount of armor would protect the fragile human body against the kind of shock waves generated by high explosives.
Walker turned and saw that an NYPD officer had crashed against the doorframe, unconscious, his Glock clattering from his grasp.
Bellamy took the pistol, nudging the cop off the podium, and fled from the scene, through the doorway.
•
Walker knew he had mere seconds. After that Bellamy would melt away. In an hour he’d be surrounded by friends and would check in with the Vice President. It would be his word against that of Walker and, maybe, Agent Bronson. Walker knew that the bomb would never be traced back to Bellamy. Its case would have been made of a ceramic or sugar compound, completely atomized in the blast.
His word against Walker’s.
And it wasn’t just that Walker would be seen as a disgruntled former CIA agent in from the cold to strike at the very heart of American democracy.
It was the symbolism of the attack.
He knew Zodiac was comprised of twelve targets, each
a cutout cell, triggered by an event.
This was the trigger, the attempted assassination of the Vice President.
Zodiac.
Walker took the Sig pistol from the fallen agent and went after Bellamy.
•
The corridor behind the podium area was empty.
Two NYPD officers rounded the corner. They saw Walker and raised their Glocks.
“Secret Service!” he yelled.
The officers hesitated. One called, “ID, now!”
Walker looked to his right, where the door to the restroom clattered closed.
Bellamy?
“Did Dan Bellamy pass you guys?” Walker called to the cops.
“Who?” one asked.
“A guy in a suit—did he just pass you?”
“No—”
“ID now!” the other officer said. “On the ground! Now! Drop your weapon!”
•
Walker didn’t want to shoot a police officer. He certainly didn’t want to shoot two. He shot into the ceiling above their heads. Three shots. In the second it took him to raise and fire, the NYPD guys returned with eight shots, each 9-millimeter round wide and low as the officers moved backward and fired blind, instinctively seeking the cover of the corner they’d just rounded. Walker sent two more rounds down-range, at the corner of the floor and wall, then turned and ran.
•
Walker kicked the bathroom door open, the Sig leading the way.
BANG! BANG!
Two 9-millimeter shots came from behind, embedding in the doorway, splinters hitting him.
Walker dropped as he turned around, returned fire.
BOOM! BOOM!
Silence.
Walker was on the floor, prone, Sig at the ready.
He could hear the cops down the hall, talking into radios, calling in reinforcements, coordinating play, checking on the other 9-millimeter shooter they’d just heard fire at Walker.
Ahead of Walker, in the corridor, was a sheet-rock wall at waist height, with a series of glass windows above. The window three to his left had two gunshot holes.
He looked behind at the toilet stalls. Three cubicles, all their doors closed, and via the floor he could see no feet visible. Three ceramic basins. A wall mirror. A row of stainless-steel urinals. Bellamy could be in a stall, perched on a toilet seat, waiting out the mayhem. Or he could be in the maze of office space either side of the hallway. Was it Bellamy who had fired those last two shots, or a cop?