Harry nodded. “We’ll have to operate on that assumption, unless one of the people who escaped the theatre might have seen.”
He looked toward the door to see Altmann standing there. She nodded. “I’ll pass the word to the officers debriefing them.”
The female agent tossed a folder onto the table in front of Harry. “The guest list.”
He flipped it open, shaking his head as he scanned down the list of names. “This is like a who’s who of the Republican Party…do the networks have this?”
“Not yet.” The emphasis was clear in her voice. “The cellphone network just came back up five minutes ago.”
“And now all hell’s gonna break loose in the media.”
“Mr. President,” General Nealen began, sweeping back into the Situation Room, “we have another option on the table.”
Hancock looked back from the scattered sheets of paper in front of him, glaring across at his speechwriter. “This doesn’t even sound like me, Joyce,” he exclaimed, cursing in exasperation. “I need you on your game tonight of all nights.”
“I’m sorry, Mr. President,” the young woman replied, seemingly cowed by his show of temper.
“Give us the room,” Hancock ordered, turning toward the Marine commandant as his speechwriter gathered up her papers and tablet computer. “I’m listening.”
“I just got off the phone with CINCLANTFLT, sir. Admiral Price informs me that the USS Harry S. Truman is on its way back from deployment in the Med, passing tonight within three hundred miles of Cuba.”
“So?” the President demanded, ignoring a warning glance from Cahill.
“You spoke of following through on Tarik Abdul Muhammad’s demands, Mr. President. I’m offering a way to do that without the risk of letting one of the most notorious terrorists on earth go free.”
“Go on,” Hancock replied, waving his hand when Nealen paused.
“We have thirty minutes before the plane touches down at Gitmo — the Truman’s CO can have a pair of F-18s on the cats ready to launch the moment it takes off with KSM aboard.”
“And?”
“Once the hostages in Vegas are safe, the Truman’s fighters intercept and either force the plane to return to Gitmo…or blow it out of the sky with a Sidewinder.”
The President considered the proposal for a long moment, glancing over at his chief of staff. “Ian?”
“It’s your call, Mr. President. It’s a better alternative than anything we had thirty minutes ago.”
Hancock looked down at his hands, realizing that they were trembling. Nothing in the prior four years had prepared him for this moment. “Get Vegas on the phone.”
The face of an angel, flaxen hair splayed out against a rude pillow made of a jacket. The eyes of a child staring up at him, eyes that never should have seen what they had witnessed this night.
“They told me your name was Ashlynn,” Harry whispered, stroking a lock of hair back from her cheek. She couldn’t have been more than nine. The daughter he’d never had.
She managed a timid nod, seeming to shrink away from his touch. Still in shock from the bullet that had pierced her arm as terrorists stormed the theatre. “It’s a pretty name,” he continued. “My name is Harry.”
The girl seemed to brighten for a moment. “My little brother’s name is Harry. He stayed home.”
He smiled, squeezing her small hand gently in his. “We’re going to get you home to see him, sweetheart. Soon.”
“And mommy too?” she asked, transfixing him with trusting, guileless eyes.
He nodded slowly, knowing it was a promise not his to make — holding onto her hand as if his very soul might be lost if he let go. “Yes, of course…mommy too.”
And he prayed that it wasn’t a lie. “Tell me what you told the lady who was just here…what did you see underneath the jacket of the man who shot you?”
Her face scrunched up as if trying to remember. “It was black…I think. Like that,” she said, pointing at his borrowed FBI tactical vest. “Black, with all sorts of wires hanging out. Like Harry’s truck when he tore out the battery.”
Harry smiled at her analogy, struggling to conceal the fear within him. “Take it easy, sweetheart,” he whispered, gripping her hand one final time before rising to his feet.
“Are you going to go find mommy?” That look of trust — it had been so long since he had seen it.
“Yes,” he replied, knowing that he was saying what she needed to hear. Dear Lord, let this be true. Show me the way.
He waited until he was out of range of her ears before keying his mike. “All teams, we have confirmation. The gunmen are wearing suicide vests. The bombs at the center of the platform may be loaded with soman, but at this point, that’s extraneous. Let just one of those guys get the split-second needed to trigger his vest…ruins our whole day.”
There had been something there, Harry thought, hurrying back across the casino floor toward the makeshift command post they had set up near the north entrance of the Bellagio. It wasn’t as good as the security center, but it was closer.
Something in the floor plans. Backstage. A way in?
He was half-way back when he saw a TV screen lit up, a CNN reporter silhouetted against a flaming building.
“…one of the oldest churches of the Diocese of Las Vegas was the target of a bombing tonight as terror continues to seize hold of the city. Initial reports indicate over twenty people dead, with dozens more injured. Father Ralph Mulholland, the rector of Joan of Arc’s, has been confirmed to be among the dead.”
Another bombing. He felt like he had been punched in the groin, anger surging through his body. So many already dead…and all because of his intel. He saw tears in the eyes of more than one LEO standing nearby. The knowledge of personal loss.
Sometimes, no matter how hard you tried…your best wasn’t good enough. And innocents paid the price of your sins.
“Are you going to go find mommy?”
He walked into the room they had cleared for their own use, finding his team watching the same news reports.
“They’re dead,” he announced flatly, shuffling through the blueprints spread out on the table. He could feel their eyes on him, but he didn’t look up. “Nothing we can do about it. All that is left to us…is to save every last person that we can inside that theatre. That’s all that matters now — that’s where I want everyone’s focus.”
There. What he’d been looking for. In plain sight. He glanced up, his eyes glinting. Blued steel. “Read me?”
“Loud and clear, boss,” Thomas replied. Tex merely nodded his assent, leaving Han standing there looking at him.
“Here’s how we get in,” Harry announced, drawing his finger across the blueprints. “From underwater, with the rebreathers used by the cast of the ‘O’ and stored backstage. We traverse across the catwalk here, thirty feet above the backstage and fast-rope down—”
He looked up to see Marika Altmann standing in the doorway. “I need a word.”
“Can it wait?”
No. The look on her face gave him his answer and he gestured for his team to give them the room. “What’s going on?”
“We’ve been given the order to stand down. The assault has been called off.”