The red icon veered right, following the road, and was abruptly lost from view, but Queen’s assertive driving brought them quickly to the same bend where they were able to reacquire the target, before it could perceptibly deviate from the computer’s prediction. Hadir appeared to be headed for Port Taufiq, at the mouth of the canal, presumably to put the bomb on a ship.
The distance-to-target indicator showed less than five hundred yards, and the numbers ticked off steadily at about five yards per second. Rook did some mental math — they were going about twelve miles per hour faster than Hadir’s car. They’d catch up in less than two minutes. “Might want to back off a bit,” he suggested. “We’ve got him.”
Suddenly the numbers became a blur… 450… 375… 225. “He’s stopped,” Rook said, unnecessarily. Queen was seeing the same thing he was.
“No. He’s turning.”
After just a second, the numbers started going the other way, as Hadir’s car sped off in a new direction — almost due east.
“Where the hell is he going?”
Rook meant it rhetorically, but Deep Blue provided an answer nonetheless. “This road runs parallel to the canal for nearly its entire length. There are only a few turn-offs, and all the main arteries lead back to Cairo. But further north there are bridges, tunnels and ferry crossings, and on the other side he could get on the road that goes all the way to Gaza.”
“Israel, then.”
“I don’t think my taxi driver will take me that far,” Knight mumbled, clearly trying to keep from being overheard.
“That makes no sense,” King said. “If he was planning to hit Israel, he wouldn’t have bothered coming all the way to Egypt.”
“He may have planned to double back all along,” Deep Blue countered. “This trip to Suez might be his way of leaving a false trail.”
“That bomb is a hot potato. Every minute he holds onto it, he risks being caught, and he knows it. We’re missing something.”
Queen reached the left turn Hadir had taken and followed without slowing. The car slid a little, but she accelerated out of the skid and shot through the oncoming traffic, accompanied by a veritable symphony of irate honks.
“They must love Jesus,” Rook remarked, and when Queen shot him a disparaging glance, he pointed forward. “Eyes on the road, dear. Hands at ten and two o’clock.”
Hadir’s car was now just 500 yards ahead and easy to pick out, because traffic on the northward bound lane was relatively light. There were just four cars separating them now. Queen eased off the gas until the range meter stabilized at 450.
“We’ve turned around and are heading your way,” King said. “Maintain visual contact. We might need to intercept on the move.”
“I’ll need a pick up,” Knight said.
“Negative.” King’s voice was flat and final. “We don’t have time to stop. You’ll have to sit this one out, Knight.”
There was a long silence, and Rook knew that everyone else was thinking the same thing he was.
What. The. Fuck?
Stopping for the thirty seconds it might take to pick up Knight was hardly going to make a difference, while sidelining their designated ‘long distance operator’—the one member of the team they were most likely to need if they were going to take Hadir out and not get vaporized in the process — was patently foolish. King had to know that.
What is he thinking?
The fact that no one said anything, not even Deep Blue, felt like a confirmation of Rook’s suspicions.
King was different.
3
Bishop kept his eyes on the road ahead, despite the urge to glance at King. Off in the distance, he could see the chess piece icons that marked Rook’s and Queen’s location, about three miles away, along with the red dot that was their ultimate target. He unconsciously squeezed the steering wheel in his powerful hands and pressed down a little harder on the accelerator pedal.
It would have surprised Rook to know that Bishop completely supported King’s decision to leave Knight behind. There was a time and place for caution, and this was not it.
King spoke again. “Hadir has a plan, and I don’t think it’s anything we’ve considered yet. Why would he come here?”
An uncomfortable silence followed, as if the other parties to the conversation were having trouble switching gears. Then King spoke again. “He’s going to take out the canal. It’s the single most important link for international shipping in the hemisphere. If he takes it out, he disrupts the flow of oil to all of Europe and America. Shipping it around Africa or across the Pacific would send gas prices soaring.”
“A move like that would hurt the Arab states just as much as the West,” Deep Blue said. “If they can’t get their oil to market, they lose their most important source of revenue.”
“That might be exactly what Hadir wants. Cut the strings that tie the Saudis and other OPEC nations to the West, and those governments won’t last long. The Arab Spring will sweep the oil emirs out of power, and open the way for a Muslim theocracy.”
“If he uses the bomb in Egypt, he’ll be killing Arabs,” Queen pointed out. “Not a great way to start a revolution.”
“Can a little backpack nuke even do that much damage?” Rook asked.
“King might be on to something,” Deep Blue said. “The section of the canal between Suez and Timsah Lake is less than a half a mile wide. The RA-115 has a one kiloton yield. That’s certainly big enough to trigger a slide, which would block the canal. The radiation would make repairs impossible in the near term. The area is lightly populated, so civilian casualties would be kept to a minimum. Hadir might consider that an acceptable trade-off.”
“That’s what he’s going to do,” King said with that same note of certainty. “And he’s doing it right now. Step on it, Bish.”
Bishop didn’t need the admonition. He was deftly threading their rental car through traffic and was nearing the turn that would send them onto the road paralleling the canal.
“I can catch him,” Queen said. “Force him off the road.”
“Negative,” King answered, sharply. “Wait for us to catch up to you.”
That did surprise Bishop. Queen and Rook were in the best position to stop Hadir. Sure it was risky, but the risk would be the same when he and King got there. Had he misread King’s decisiveness in deciding to leave Knight behind?
He pushed the thoughts from his mind as he took the turn. In all their years of serving together, he had never had cause to question King’s judgment. He wasn’t about to start now.
The target was now slightly less than two miles ahead, but if they were going to catch up to it in the next few minutes, it would mean pushing the rented sedan like it was a Formula One race car. He applied steady pressure to the gas pedal, watching as both the speedometer and the tachometer needles started moving into rarely visited points on their respective dials. After only about a minute of running at over five thousand RPMs, the engine temperature needle also started rising, but one important meter was running in the opposite direction — they were rapidly closing the distance to Queen and Rook, and more importantly, Hadir and his bomb.
“Shit,” Rook said. “He’s turning… pulling off.”
“Blue, overlay the sat photo,” King snapped. A semi-transparent image, like the heads-up display of a fighter jet, appeared in Bishop’s vision. It showed a satellite map of the area through which they were driving, with the icons now shown as points in two-dimensional space. The red dots indicating Hadir’s car had left the road, crossed traffic and pulled into an open sandy area on the west side of the highway, across the road from the canal. Further west, three hundred yards away, the beige desert was transformed into green fields and orchards — evidence of the close proximity of human habitation.