The words felt like a ballpeen hammer to the head. “Oh, Jesus! I should have seen that! It was right in front of us, and I’ve been hung up on the damned codes.”
“We designed it to be tamper-proof, and the cabinet is booby-trapped, but…”
“Anything is worth trying. How long will it take?”
“I have to roust them out of their homes.”
“Go! I’m standing by.”
Paul Wriggle punched off his cell phone and looked up, embarrassed that the president had been standing there and he was singularly unaware of it.
“What do you have, Paul?”
“Nothing good. We got through to the crew with the code, and the code’s incorrect. The Israelis are preparing to intercept, also with the wrong numbers, but we did find our lady who wrote the code. She’s been in a bad accident and may not be able to talk to our guys, but we’re trying.”
“An accident?”
Paul filled in the details in brief.
“Good God!” The president sat down on the couch opposite Paul Wriggle.
“I spoke to the acting Israeli PM. He’s in a tough spot, Paul. He may have to order his fighters to shoot them down.”
For a moment it didn’t register.
“Shoot who down? The Iranians?”
“No, Paul. Pangia 10. Our commercial jet with God knows how many people aboard.”
“Why?”
“It will be split-second decision-making, but if Flight 10 approaches the Iranian border, and if any of the Iranian missiles are erected on the launch pad, the only sure-fire way they’ll have to stop an action-reaction cascade that would end in an attempted nuclear exchange would be to remove the basic trigger—the intruding airplane. The Iranians might do that themselves instead of launching on Tel Aviv, but the Israelis are not about to take a chance.”
“Lord!”
“And the Iranians, according to what I just received from NSA, are fueling missiles as we speak. I just spoke with Moscow, but they won’t be able to stop a paranoid response. One more thing,” the president said. “If Lavi is behind this, he will have planned for damn near every contingency, including an attempted shootdown by his own forces, which is why he’d have confederates laced through the Israeli command structure to make sure it didn’t happen.”
“You mean, the PM could give the order, but…”
“Right. It wouldn’t be carried out, because Lavi needs that airplane in Iranian airspace to force the mullahs to launch, which will license Israel to wipe out their nuclear abilities and several cities.”
“And… we’re powerless?”
“No, not if we get the right code or pull the right plug or those pilots figure out something before crossing the line.”
Paul looked at his watch. “Less than ninety minutes from the Iranian border, if I calculated it correctly.”
CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHT
Washington, DC (Midnight EST / 0400 Zulu)
The staccato bursts of red and blue strobe lights atop a police cruiser lit up the street behind them suddenly as Will barely recovered control from his latest tire-squealing turn, the accelerator still to the floor.
“Will, what the hell are you doing?”
“We can’t stop.”
“That’s a police cruiser!”
“Maybe.”
Only twice in her life had Jenny Reynolds felt the presence of a deep and sudden fear so overwhelming that it was all but paralytic, but that feeling returned now like a breaking wave as she replayed Seth’s emergency text in her mind. Will Bronson, or whoever the hell the man next to her really was, continued to jerk and weave through traffic like a madman, the squad car now solidly on their tail, siren blaring. Whether they were still being tailed in turn by whomever Bronson had been trying to shake was an unknown, but Bronson was flinging the SUV around like their lives depended on shaking the cop. Policemen, she knew, loved nothing better than an adrenaline-pumping chase, but such chases seldom ended well for the quarry.
“Stop this car, Will,” she commanded, her voice low and terse.
“No.”
He’d seen her glance at something on her iPhone and was already suspicious. But there was no way to predict her suddenly pointing at something in the darkened residential street ahead as she screamed at ear-splitting volume: “STOP!”
His foot jammed hard on the brakes, and the SUV went into a four-wheel skid, the police cruiser slamming on its brakes right behind and almost rear-ending them.
“What? WHAT?” he demanded, eyes aflame and looking panicked. The doors of the police car had already been flung open, and two cops had emerged from each side clearing leather with their weapons.
“I’m getting out!” she said, her hand on the door latch as he suddenly jammed the accelerator to the floor again, knocking her door closed before she could get a shoulder into it, the engine roaring, but not loudly enough to mask the sound of gunfire as the rear window of the SUV exploded in glass shards.
The time it was taking for the two startled officers to turn and dive back into their car was all Will needed to dart off into a side street and begin another frantic slalom course, braking suddenly in an alley several wild turns and blocks away, peeling into a blessedly empty back driveway nestled between two high hedges before killing the lights and turning off the engine.
This time Jenny succeeded in flinging her door wide and leaping from the SUV before he had a chance to react.
Somewhere in the distance the sound of a helicopter approaching reached his ears. It would be a matter of minutes at best before the airborne Night Sun spotlight located the SUV, its shattered rear window clearly visible. The quick search necessary to illuminate two running figures would be child’s play after that.
Will was breathing hard as he took a few seconds to calculate the odds of various options, but there seemed only one. He left the engine running and flung open the door, jumping out and reclosing both doors before running as hard as he could in the direction Jenny had taken.
She had the key to this whole thing. Hell, she was the key, he thought. And he mustn’t lose her…
Somewhere in the back of her mind Jenny realized that running for your life and taking the time to carry your high heels in order to save them were rather conflicting goals. But she had a death grip on both the pumps and her computer case as she accelerated into the fastest dash she could manage. She couldn’t hear footsteps behind her with the background roar of DC traffic even at night, but she was sure Bronson would be hell for leather after her, his long legs giving him an easy advantage, and the cops and whoever else was chasing them hot on his trail.
I don’t believe this! she thought, the surreal nature of everything that had accompanied the last few hours continuing to accelerate into total confusion in her mind. She had the means to save that airplane full of people—maybe—and time was running out, and people were trying to stop her. Why?
So who the hell is he? she wondered, pondering Seth’s note just long enough to stumble and almost fall on her face on a concrete walkway. She stubbed her toe but recovered enough balance to stay on her feet and force the pain away to keep moving.
A sloping lawn on her right led up to a modest home, and she veered off, slipping a bit in her stocking feet as they hit the soft grass, scrambling around the side and down a driveway, jogging left through an unfenced backyard and then across the next street between yet another pair of houses, running mostly on the balls of her feet. She could hear the startled comment of someone who’d seen her flash past, and for a second she weighed the prospect of seeking help and entry into someone’s house versus continuing to be a running target.