They sat waiting in the cold until 12:51-trigger (time) minus 69 minutes.
A tan sedan pulled into the parking lot. Ted raced to the taxi through sleet. Through the lowered driver’s window and the hail of ice pellets he said, “An hour till they’re due here. We do this now or I have to pull Sami!”
“What?” said both Sami and Harry.
“You’re six months overdue for your mandatory drug test. Has to be cleared immediately, or we pull you off. I got a portable kit in the car, on-site processing will clear you so you can stay on-”
“This is bullshit!” yelled Sami. “We’ve got a terrorist attack!”
“I’ve got orders,” said Ted. “The Hoover Building says I’m fired if I don’t get this done right darn now.”
Harry said, “Okay, Ted. He’ll be right over.”
The FBI liaison ran for the shelter of his tan sedan.
Sami stared at the bear.
“Go do it. Time like this, we all gotta pee.”
“If I go… I’m gone.”
“Ahh.” A jetliner roared overhead. Harry smiled. “Fuck them.”
The bear used his cell phone.
“Hey, Jenny.” He asked Sami for his real name, Social Security number, CIA identifiers. Relayed them to Jenny. Said, “Crash RIP”
Hung up. Grinned at Sami. “Congratulations. Ted’s off your case, but give him what he wants or he could still fuck this up. You’ve been Rebooted In Place, RIP. Now work for Argus. Twice the salary, half the BS.”
Harry sent the dazed spy to the tan sedan.
“Sorry,” said Ted as Sami filled a plastic bottle with his urine.
Don’t give this holier-than-thou bureaucrat the time of-
“This is so stupid,” said Ted. “So what if Argus wants to certify-”
“This came from Argus? Harry’s company?”
“Well… sure. This is their show.”
Sami left Ted watching liquid change colors in a bottle. Slammed the door when he climbed in the blue taxi. His expression killed the bear’s grin.
“Why?” said Sami.
“You’re too good to lose.”
“I’m quitting! I’m not working for Argus!”
“Sure you are. It’ll take a year commitment to get your ass out of the drug-use sling. And yeah, don’t worry: I’ll protect Rose. Why wouldn’t I? One more op. You spy as the holy warrior hero who escaped from the Christmas Eve D.C. bust.”
“Fuck you!”
“Fucking costs.
“I know what you’re thinking,” continued Harry. “Going Beirut on me gets you nothing but Uncle Sam’s sniper scopes zeroing your back.”
The bear said, “I didn’t pick any of this war. But I’m not going to lose.”
Snowflakes hit the taxi windshield. A jetliner roared overhead. The bear sighed. T minus 47 minutes. The choppy gray river lapped against the riprap of the bird sanctuary. Harry relocated Ted’s tan sedan next to the bumper-stickered car. T minus 17. Pentagon units reported all clear. A jetliner roared. Ted got out of the tan sedan to look through the tripod binoculars.
Sami yelled, “They’re not after the Pentagon!”
“What?”
“The Ameer doesn’t give a shit about our ‘command and control.’ He hates our whole thing. He wants fear. To humiliate us. Make us overreact. Maher’s expecting to live today. Ivan wants to be a hero on the run. He implied that Zlatko’s mission is solo and won t bother his beliefs. Zlatko’d love to hit a target like the Pentagon, but he’s not coming here. So that’s not it. Three bikes: Ivan, Maher, me. Here!”
Harry touched his radio earpiece. Said, “That al Qaeda media group al Sahab, ‘the clouds.’ NSA just intercepted an e-mail to them via a D.C. server saying that today will be a great day, to watch the skies.”
A jetliner roared overhead.
“They know the taxi!” Sami ran toward the tan sedan.
A bear charged his heels.
A Marine sniper popped out of his hide, his rifle hungry for a target.
Harry crammed himself behind the wheel of the tan sedan, Sami dove in the front seat, and Ted jumped in the back, even though he didn’t know why. The tan sedan fishtailed out of the bird sanctuary as Harry yelled, “Told you they were linked!”
“Ivan posted bragging rights, not-just drive! Go, go!”
Christmas Eve afternoon on the way to the airport. Falling snow. Cars surging bumper to bumper on a two-lane, one-way road.
“Get around them!” yelled Sami.
Harry whipped the tan sedan onto the shoulder. Horns honked. They ran over a highway reflector pole. Slid past a parked airport police cruiser. Spinning red lights filled their mirrors.
“Call them off!” yelled Sami.
“No unencrypted radios!” Harry yelled into his sleeve at T minus 13. “They could have a police band monitor! Cell phone the airport cops!”
Ted yelled, “What are we looking for?”
“We gotta know it when we see it!” said Sami.
The electronic marquee sign mounted over one-way airport traffic read, “Threat Level Code Orange.” The digital clock revealed T minus 11.
Ronald Reagan National Airport sits across the river from the white dome of the Capitol. The “old” terminal is a gray concrete box few airlines use. The air-travel gem is the “new” white stone terminaclass="underline" one million square feet, three levels, a rectangle shopping mall with three-story windows between thirty-five gates to jetliners. The airport control tower rises from the terminal’s far end like a towering rook from chess.
The tan sedan forced its way back into airport traffic.
Harry barked orders up his sleeve.
Wide-eyed Ted braced himself in the backseat.
Ahead at the old terminal, sweeping into the car-clogged road, airport cop, phone pressed to his ear, hand on his holstered pistol, he-
Halts the chasing cop cruiser.
Autos hunt drop-off parking spots. Travelers drag wheeled suitcases. Snow falls.
“Nothing!” yelled Sami. “I see nothing! Go! Go!”
Driving in bumper-to-bumper traffic to the upper level of the new terminal ate two minutes off the clock. Three lanes of vehicles lined the sidewalk.
“Couldn’t evacuate this place now!” Harry’s eyes scanned the chaos.
“Gotta be here, gotta.” Sami stared through the falling snow. Saw-
“Way down at the end! Close to the control tower!”
Parked near the sidewalk. Flashers blinking. A brown van.
MEDICAL TRANSPORT SERVICES.
“The stairs’ electric motor! They’ll use that!”
Out! Sami ran crouched alongside moving cars. Fog blurred the van’s windows. Exhaust smogged out the tailpipe: engine running. Driver will be watching side mirrors.
Sami dove under the van. The shock of ice slush soaked his pants and shirt as he crawled on his elbows. Hot muffler! Gas stench, he crawled to the front tire, rolled out-
He rose like a cobra beside the driver’s closed window.
Startled stolen white uniform-wearing Ivan on the other side of that glass.
A woman rolled a hard-shell pink suitcase past Sami. He grabbed it-”Hey!”-swung the suitcase through the air. Bam! The driver’s window cobwebbed into a thousand shards. Bam! The pink suitcase knocked the cobwebbed window into the van.
Driver’s seat Ivan whirled toward a control box. Sami grabbed the Ameer’s lips, pulled him through the shattered window, and slammed him to the slushy pavement. “Stop! Police!” Sami kicked the Ameer in the head, drew his Glock, imagined the pull of the trigger, the recoil, the splat of brains on wet pavement. “Alive, Sami!” yelled Harry. Strangers screamed. “Police! Drop your weapon!”