The Hay-Adams Hotel took its name from two of the district’s most distinguished residents, Secretary of State John Hay and historian Henry Adams. In the late 1800s, the men purchased adjoining lots across from Lafayette Park and the White House. They erected majestic homes that became a social epicenter for Washington’s elite, including Theodore Roosevelt, Mark Twain, and Henry James.
The Hay and Adams houses were razed in the 1920s in favor of a luxury hotel that, because of its grandeur, history, and location, became a preferred destination for heads of state and international business leaders. Short of being a guest of the president, it is the closest one can get to staying at the White House.
To retain a connection to its past, the wood paneling from the original Hay residence was used in the stately public meeting area, the John Hay Room — the grand social hall in which the International Conference on Global Terrorism was being held.
As Uzi approached Washington Circle, he pulled out his phone to call DeSantos. He now knew Leila and her companion — with help, no doubt, from her al-Humat cell — were in the Hay-Adams implementing the next phase of their plan. What Rudnick heard and mistook for a car bomb was not a vehicle’s axle, but an assassination attempt on Gideon Aksel, the Mossad director general.
The explosive device at Rudnick’s office was a diversion: resources would be mobilized to his building, and attention would be deflected away from the conference as the second bomb was about to explode — killing many of the world’s prominent leaders, counterterrorism experts, and intelligence chiefs.
Uzi now knew something else, as welclass="underline" the phone call Leila and her accomplice had forced Rudnick to make was designed to lure him there so he would either arrive just as the bomb was going off, or shortly thereafter, so he could view the aftermath. An added, personal bonus for Leila. And very efficient.
As he started dialing DeSantos, his phone began ringing. It was Meadows.
“Just heard. No fun being almost blown to bits, is it?”
“I’m in a hurry, Tim. What’ve you got?”
“You know me, I can’t leave well enough alone, so I had a guy in my department do the fishing on the logs while I went back to those latents you gave me. I may’ve been a little drugged up, but I remember you had a hard time accepting that they weren’t Batula Hakim’s prints. And I really wanted to get those bastards who tried to kill me—”
“And what’d you find?” Uzi rounded the circle and came out of it on Pennsylvania Avenue. He glanced at the dashboard clock. One thirty-nine.
“An irregularity in the data storage file. The algorithm was altered—”
“Tim, I think we’ve got another bomb set to explode in twenty minutes—” Uzi swerved to avoid a bicyclist, then switched the phone to his left hand— “so get to the goddamn point!”
“Someone got into the digital file of Batula Hakim’s fingerprints and changed the algorithm. I found the code they used and estimated what it would do to the print’s pattern. After some reconstruction, I’d say it bears a much closer match to the ones we lifted off that mirror. Leila Harel appears to be Batula Hakim, just as you thought.”
Uzi was silent as the news hit him right between the eyes.
“You hear me? Uzi?”
“Still here. Good work, Tim. No, awesome work. Now check everyone, check all the digital files of everyone in the administration. Secret Service, White House staff, FBI, CIA—”
“Whoa, you know how many people you’re talking about?”
“Write a program to search for specific parameters.”
“I guess I can put something together.”
“Do it. Call me back if you find anything else.”
Uzi ended the call and turned onto H Street while struggling to punch in DeSantos’s phone number. As he pulled in front of a temporary barrier and security checkpoint blocking the street to through traffic, DeSantos answered.
“Santa — I’m two blocks away.” He got out of the car, showed the FBI agents his credentials, and took off in a sprint. “Leila and one of her buddies just killed my shrink. Another goddamn bomb. But he overheard them saying something was gonna happen to Aksel at two o’clock. Get him out of there, Santa, get ’em all out. There’s probably a bomb—”
“Whoa, hold on— Do we know for sure there’s a bomb?”
“I don’t have video of them planting the damn thing, if that’s what you mean,” Uzi said as he ran by three well-dressed businesspeople making their way toward the Hay-Adams.
“You wanna evac the hotel, cause a freakin’ stampede — and panic world leaders, without confirmed intel? Other than an overheard comment, we’ve got zip. NSA, CIA, FBI all say we’re clear. Maybe they’re planning to take a shot at him when he leaves the building. I’ll have SWAT sweep the rooftops again.”
As Uzi neared the hotel, he wondered just how much he could rely on what Rudnick had told him. He’d heard Aksel’s name, saw the device they were wiring to his foot, thought of the recent news reports, and made the assumption they were going to set off a car bomb.
Am I overreacting?
“Uzi, I’m asking you again. Are you absolutely sure there’s a bomb?”
“No.”
“Then get your ass over here and we’ll figure it out. If you press the fucking panic button and you’re wrong, Knox won’t be happy. And Aksel will never let you live it down.”
Uzi, bristling at DeSantos’s last comment — but knowing he was right — rounded the corner. “I’m almost there. Meet me out front.”
As he passed the free-standing brass Hay-Adams sign, he hit a human wall of dark-suited, ear-miked Secret Service agents. But there was no time to stop. He held up his credentials as he barreled past them, yelling, “FBI–Let me through!”
After hearing a shout of “Hey—” and expecting to be tackled from behind, he saw DeSantos a dozen feet ahead, approaching on the run.
“It’s okay, let him go, let him go!” DeSantos pulled Uzi inside. The lobby was crowded with overflow visitors attending the conference. “Let’s talk. I just spoke to Knox.”
Leila Harel — aka Leila al-Far, aka Batula Hakim — peered out the eighth floor window while a black ski-masked Alpha Zulu finished affixing the flexcuffs to their hostage’s wrists.
“Everything look okay?” he asked.
“All’s good,” Hakim said. A thin smile of smug satisfaction spread her lips. “Secret Service is clueless.” And then she gasped.
“What?”
“Son of a bitch.” Face flushed, she grabbed her assault rifle and started toward the door.
Zulu stood and caught her arm. “What do you think you’re doing?”
“Uzi’s downstairs.”
“Impossible. Hassan said the bomb went off.”
“I know what I just saw. He’s in the hotel.” She yanked her arm from his grasp.
“Let it go,” Zulu said. “Let him go.” He stole a look at his scorpion-themed watch. “They’re all dead in fifteen minutes anyway.” He drew his handgun and pointed it at their gagged hostage. “We need to set the timer and get out of here.”
“No!” She pushed his arm down and brought the submachine gun up to Zulu’s chest.
“What the fuck are you doing?”
“I want Uzi.” She nodded at their prisoner. “And he’s my ticket.”
The room phone began ringing as Zulu looked down at the floor, where four bullet-riddled bodies of the foreign dignitary’s security force lay on the carpet in their own pools of blood.