"Fine," said Jackson, shutting down his computer and packing up his stuff. "What have you got? What do we know already?"
"You on your wireless phone?" Of course.
"Good — get moving — I'll e-mail you the FBI release and this guy's mug."
"Fair enough." "And Jackson…" "Yeah, boss?" "Watch your back."
Tariq and his advance team triple-checked every detail.
The Top of the World was cleared of all employees so no one could be around to identify the two prime ministers. Every square inch was swept for explosives, weapons, and bugs. The kitchens were being scrubbed down. Special food was brought in. All systems looked good. All but the weather. The storm was moving in a little too fast. It wasn't cause for cancelation, just concern.
Tariq radioed back to the security detail inside the Mount of Olives. There'd be no cable-car ride tonight. They should take the principals up the service road. The decoy motorcade should come up first, arriving at 4:50 p.m. The real "package" should hang back a bit, arriving around 5:15 p.m., instead.
"Mr. President, my guys are in — we got the car."
It was Bud Norris in the Secret Service Op Center. He sounded breathless.
"And?"
"Nothing — no bomb, no weapons, nothing."
"What about him?"
"SWAT Team Three just stormed the room — nothing, just a suitcase and some personal effects — Iabello wasn't there."
"Then where is he?"
"We don't know, sir."
"Then rip that place apart until you find him — you heap me?"
BEEP, BEEP, BEEP.
It was Jackson's phone. He had mail.
He raced across Seventeenth Street and flashed his White House press pass to a team of Secret Service SWAT members taking up positions on the corner. They went through Jackson's bag, searched him with a handheld metal detector and a handheld explosives detector. Then a uniformed officer personally escorted Jackson to the Northwest Gate to be searched all over again.
As he waited in line behind three other reporters, Jackson checked the message from his editor. With a few clicks of his phone, he opened the e-mail and photo and his eyes went wide.
"Oh my God, oh my God…"
Jackson's hands began to shake.
Four agents turned toward him.
He'd just seen this guy. Mario Iabello. Five minutes ago, maybe ten. This was the guy — the guy in the parka who had just done the U-turn out of the Starbucks.
"You 've got mail."
Jibril's stomach tightened. His eyes immediately shifted from the CNN coverage of the crisis in Washington to the laptop beside him.
"Mr. President."
It was Secretary James. The videoconference system was up again.
"I'm here — what've you got?"
"Marcus Jackson just told one of our agents he thinks he saw this guy, Iabello."
"Where?"
"At the Starbucks near the OEOB."
"When?"
"Ten minutes — maybe a little more."
"And he's sure?"
"Sure enough — we're deploying units right now,"
"Are the choppers up?"
"They are — we're flooding the zone in a ten-block radius in every direction."
"He could be anywhere."
"That's true, Mr. President. He could be anywhere."
But Norris suddenly cut in from the Secret Service Op Center.
"Mr. President?"
"Yes, Bud."
"This guy's too close, a block from the White House, maybe less. We need to move you downstairs—now."
Jibril checked the message.
It was "Gift Shop" on Gibraltar. He was on the roof of his building with binoculars, pretending to fix his television antenna. He could see a motorcade heading up the Rock to the Top of the World restaurant — two sedans up front, followed by two minivans. That was it. That was them. It was beginning to drizzle, the note added. Visibility was worsening. But they'd be there in less than ten minutes.
The Viper wasn't used to the cold.
He'd grown up in Baghdad and the deserts surrounding it. He was used to a hundred twenty in the shade. Not the winter wonderland of Washington, D.C. But he had the parka and he drew the hood tightly around his face. Then he plunged his hands back into the pockets, grabbed the ignition switch again, and picked up the pace.
Jibril looked over at Gogolov and nodded.
Gogolov nodded back. Jibril picked up the satellite phone and began calling each pilot. Yes, the NSA would pick up the calls. But it didn't matter. The whole thing would be over in an hour. He and Gogolov would be on a plane out of Iran in less than five hours.
He crossed the street and began moving toward the hill.
Toward the ring of American flags, snapping smartly in the bitter January winds. There were a lot of cops, but most of them were on the far side of the Washington Monument. They were huddled around the row of yellow school buses parked near the souvenir stand and the bathrooms, feverishly herding children out of the Monument's elevators and back onto the buses. But he could make it. He couldn't run. He couldn't draw attention to himself. But if he kept moving briskly, he could make it.
The second motorcade began to assemble at the entrance of the cave.
Six Gold members of SEAL Team Eight piled into the lead minivan. Doron and three Shin Bet agents climbed into the back of the first Chevy Tahoe, while two SEALs up front prepared to drive and monitor communications. Sa'id and a team of five SEALs climbed into the second Tahoe, while Bennett, McCoy, Galishnikov, and Mordechai squeezed into the back of a red VW Bug.
"Sorry, Mr. Bennett," said the NSA's chief of security. "It's all we've got left. We're not used to so much company."
Normally, Bennett would have been ticked off. But not today. Nothing could bother him today. The security chief thanked him for his patience and wired him up with a radio earpiece and wrist microphone for the drive up.
"Bug One ready to bug out," Bennett joked. "Let's get this show on the road."
He was almost there.
He began climbing the hill. He pulled back his hood for a few moments to get a better view. He'd never seen the Washington Monument before. Just in pictures. It was huge. It was beautiful.
He could feel his heart pounding in his chest. He thought about his mother, about her dreams for a Palestine liberated from the Jews. If she wasn't already in Paradise, the thought of American troops in Hebron and Jericho would have killed her for sure. He thought about his father. What would he think when he heard the news? Would he know it was his son? Nadir had mailed a letter to him — and one to the president — just before he left the Willard. How long would it take before they were delivered?
The letters might take some time. But the message he was about to deliver would be the blast heard round the world. Jihad was here — in America— land of the infidels and the home of the oppressors.
He ripped off his hood and began to jog. He didn't care who saw him. He couldn't wait. He was ready to die, ready for the whole world to know that…
Nadir suddenly froze in his tracks as a Cobra helicopter gunship rose over the hill dead ahead. He turned to bolt left, toward the yellow school buses, but another Cobra was now staring him in the face. He turned right— another. Around — another.
"Mario Iabello, put your hands up," boomed a loudspeaker on one of the Cobras. "We have you surrounded. You have nowhere to go. "
He was trapped, and still a good hundred yards away from the buses, away from the children and the cops and the Monument itself.