“I’d like to thank my dear friend Steve Winfield and the staff of the Bellagio for their hospitality tonight. And my aide Brooke Morgan for managing the logistics of the evening — making it all come together. And to all of you for your support through a long and tiring campaign. After all the hours of campaigning, after all the shoe leather worn bare, after all the phone calls we placed together…this is your night. We work hard, and we play hard. This, my friends,” she finished with a smile, “is your night to play.”
“We’ve caught a break,” Ian Cahill announced, sweeping back into the Oval Office. “The Bureau’s field office in Las Vegas believes that they have a location on the rest of the terror cell.”
“Where?” Relief broke across Hancock’s features, the look of a man just released from prison.
“An abandoned convention center on the outskirts of Vegas. It has lain empty for two years, but someone purchased it nine months ago. The Bureau is still following the money trail, but it looks like the fingerprints of the House of Saud are all over this one. Perhaps it goes no farther than financing…but they’re involved.”
Hancock looked down at his hands. “What is the plan, exactly?”
“They’re going to take down both locations simultaneously, the one in Vegas and the building in Canoga Park.” Cahill paused. “If you want, you can monitor everything in real-time from the Situation Room.”
The President hesitated for only a moment before rising from his seat. “Let’s go.”
“Stay out of sight until I give the go-order — then close with the target,” the S-A-C announced, speaking into his headset, as he looked out the tinted windows of the unmarked SUV at the target building.. “We’ll breach the building from three sides, with another tac team covering the rear.”
“Copy that.”
He glanced over at Thomas. “We’ve jammed all communications coming in and out of the building to prevent the terrorists from using a remote detonator, leaving only a single frequency open for our use. But no cellphones are going to work, nothing else.”
A grim smile. “The moment of truth.”
“Yeah,” Powers replied, suddenly seeming distant. He listened to the chatter on the team radio for a long moment. “I need to know…was it you?”
Startled by the question, Thomas managed a blank look. “What are you talking about?”
The FBI agent shook his head, his lips pursed into a thin line. “I know my wife cheated on me those years ago — I’ve known it for a long time, and it really…doesn’t matter. I love her, and I love the child she carries. But I saw the way she looked at you in our kitchen last night. And I want the truth — did you sleep with her?”
“Yes,” Thomas replied, an unaccustomed feeling rolling over him…was it shame? “It was late — we both were drunk. Too drunk to think things through.”
Powers snorted. “So it’s true what they say about you boys at the Agency, after all? James freakin’ Bond…”
He shook his head in disgust, the look on his face belying his earlier words. Anger.
“You’ll stay on the perimeter,” he added, pushing open the door of the SUV. “I don’t need you on the entry team. We breach in five.”
It was going down, Marika thought, eyeing her wristwatch. 7:38. All the anxiety she had felt for Nasir was gone, replaced by a cold fury.
Powers’ teams were marked on the computer display in front of her, each position marked out. She could see his men from where she sat, staging for entry on the side door. Thermal wasn’t giving them anything — if there was anyone inside, they were deep within the building.
Ninety seconds…
The passenger door of her Suburban opened and the CIA man hoisted himself up into the seat. “Ready?”
She nodded. They’d had to make a choice — go in with NBC gear to protect against the possibility of the nerve agent being released and sacrifice situational awareness and speed of movement in the enveloping suits. Or take their chances and go in unprotected.
Powers had chosen the latter option. It made sound tactical sense…she could only pray that he was right.
She saw the lead man move back, his rifle covering the door as his partner knelt down to mirror the door, checking for any wires that would indicate a booby-trap.
Hand signals flashing between the men as the battering ram slammed into the side door of the convention center with a mighty thud, the hinges ripping away as the door fell into the corridor beyond.
Inside.
He could hear them coming — American boots on the stairs outside. Abu Kareem closed his eyes, whispering the shahada beneath his breath. The creed of his life.
Living among these people. That had always been his jihad, to subvert from within even as others struck from without.
There was something soul-cleansing about this final act of sacrifice, the imam thought, his hand closing around the detonator of his suicide vest. As if it wiped away all the lies.
He glanced over to where the Pakistani fighter sat at the other side of the room, his jacket gaping open to reveal a similar vest. The man’s lips were moving, as if in a final prayer — his eyes fixed on the small cylinder sitting in the center of the room, maybe twice the size of an ordinary aerosol can. Jamal’s creation, from back in the lab in Dearborn. Filled with the nerve agent.
The door came flying open as if hit by a ram, the clang of metal on concrete as a stun grenade was hurled in.
A shockwave of noise hammered Abu Kareem’s ears, a blinding light filling the room.
And he pressed the button…
“Why can’t we hear anything?” Hancock exclaimed, his fraying patience showing through.
Ian Cahill looked away from the real-time satellite imagery up on the massive screens of the Situation Room, back to where the President sat. “They’re jamming all transmissions in and out of the target locations. That includes their own. We’ll receive a transmission when they’ve secured the sites and the nerve agent.”
“If they secure the nerve agent,” Hancock murmured, daubing his face with a handkerchief. “I wish Haskel could be on this one.”
“They will, Mr. President,” Cahill responded, using his title in the presence of the personnel manning the Situation Room. “The FBI has their best people on this, and they will—”
He stopped as the blood suddenly seemed to drain from the President’s face, his eyes staring toward the screens as if transfixed.
Cahill turned on heel, his own mouth falling open. A fiery bloom of flames and debris had burst from the target building, seeming to spread outward for a split-second before it was sucked back into the maw of the explosion.
“Dear God…”
Thomas heard the warning come over the team radio, but there was no time to respond, no time even to react as the explosion followed a fraction of a second later.