They walked stiffly but silently through the floor, stopping at an elaborate wooden door. It, too, was locked, and the men spent several minutes closely examining the door and its frame.
“Look carefully,” said Jordan. “We don't want to trigger any alarms.”
Finally, one of the men motioned the other two toward the bottom of the door. Using tools from his belt, he dug around the frame and into the drywall, eventually freeing several wires.
“Good work. Let's deactivate this.”
Jordan examined the wires and cut one of them. Satisfied, he nodded to the others who picked the lock on the door. Inside was an enormous office, and at the far end, along a wall of glass, an oversized desk with a large flat-screen computer monitor on its center. Jordan approached the monitor and knelt down, removing a computer tower from underneath the desk.
He unplugged the computer from the power supply and quickly removed the screws in the case, lifting it and placing it to the side. The motherboard and graphics card glinted in the moonlight streaming in through the windows. He motioned to the other two.
“Search the room, photograph anything you can't take, search the files. We need to be out of here in an hour.”
The other two responded quickly and circulated throughout the room, examining desk drawers, closets, filing cabinets, and looking behind and under every object. Jordan meanwhile bent over the computer and got to work.
He grounded himself with a wrist strap to the chassis and reached around to disconnect the computer data ribbon from the hard drive. With a screwdriver, he removed it from the metal rails and set it on the desk. He reached into his backpack and removed a device that had its own data ribbon connected to what looked like another hard drive. He connected the hard drive to the device, and the device to AC power. Immediately, a red light went on, and the sounds of drive access could be heard. He then joined the other two men in sweeping the room.
Fifty minutes later, the device on the desk went from red to green, and he walked over and disconnected it. Reversing the previous procedure, he reinstalled the hard drive and closed up the computer, replacing it under the desk. He stuffed the items back inside the pack and shouldered it, stepping from behind the desk and toward the door. He motioned for the other two to follow him.
One of the men gestured to the door. “They'll know we were here.”
Jordan smiled. “After the window damage we did, there is no avoiding that. But we got what we came for. Let's hope it leads us somewhere.”
“We were never with you on this one, Husaam.”
“I'm a lone wolf. Besides, who would be foolish enough to come?”
55
Cohen stared blankly at the rush hour traffic. The black limo carrying her home was just one more of thousands of cars trapped in a giant parking lot called midtown Manhattan. The driver had discussed with her bodyguard whether to put on the flashing lights, but they had both laughed, realizing that in the current gridlock, they weren't going anywhere no matter what they did. She glanced over at the man assigned to guard her life. Who was he? Did he take seriously the task and risk placed in front of him? Could he really understand the ruthlessness of the organization that sought her life?
The guard traded macho banter with the driver, also an armed bodyguard. Cohen did not really feel safe with these two men, so confident in their prowess, so unappreciative of the true risk she felt every moment. It had only been a week since the horror had descended on her life. Mjolnir had sent its assassins into their lives and had brutally taken people she had known and worked with, had come to care for and support, for so many years. She fought back the tears as she thought of each one, murdered so cruelly and coldly, only because they dared to try to investigate these killers.
Larry Kanter had died in his home. Matt King died quickly, a bullet to the head. Mira was never to share another crazy story from her days as a child in a Serbian village. Or Manuel. Sweet, clumsy Manuel. If he had been securing all the FBI's computers, they would never have found his name, his place of residence, or known where to place the bomb that incinerated him inside his car.
Kanter's superiors had insisted on round-the-clock security now, and no one in the division could travel together in order to prevent multiple fatalities from a single attack. The coldness of the logic was unsettling. She hated being separated from John in this way. More than anything, she needed to be with him everywhere now. FBI agents in the movies were like police officers — always ready to tumble with the bad guys. The truth was, many were just like her — analysts, smart, bookworms, and not expected to encounter violence, despite the general training they received at the academy. The last week had stunned her, shaken her life apart. Even the power of the FBI could not shield her from those who hunted them.
Suddenly, the driver's side window exploded. Blood and glass shards sprayed across the front seat as the driver's head ruptured, snapping to one side, then crashing on the steering wheel and causing the horn to blare continuously. The car lurched forward and crashed softly into the cab in front of them, eliciting a set of expletives audible within the limo.
Cohen screamed. The agent next to her drew his gun and opened the door in a quick motion, stepping outside and raising the weapon. Cohen watched in horror as his gun arm was pinned against the roof while a foot kicked him across the face. Several shots were fired into his frame, his body convulsing and dropping to the ground.
She pulled back against the door next to her, as far away from the driver's side and open door as possible. Suddenly, her door opened from behind her, and she fell out onto the road. Around her, people were screaming and running from the scene. She felt the barrel of a gun against her temple as a firm hand held her by the hair. She closed her eyes and prepared to die.
“If you wish to live, say nothing, do nothing but what we tell you. Do you understand?” an emotionless male voice spoke into her ear.
Cohen opened her eyes and nodded. It didn't make sense, but he had not pulled the trigger. She was still alive. She planned to do whatever she had to in order to stay that way.
“Then get up and move with me to that alley. Quickly!” Cohen saw the gun gesture toward a dim alleyway on the left side of the street. She got to her feet and walked quickly with the man at her side. She dared not look at him nor at the other men busy around the car. The man walking with her kept his gun in his hand but lowered it, keeping it as hidden from view as possible.
As she stepped on the pavement, a muscular man blocked their way and shoved the man walking beside her to a stop. He had come out of a shop, a bag in one hand, not yet understanding what was transpiring around them. He had noticed Cohen and the forceful treatment she was receiving. A knight in shining armor.
“Hey, buddy, what the hell's going on here? You giving this lady trouble?” Cohen closed her eyes. Several shots rang out, and she felt a push. She opened her eyes to keep from falling over the prone figure that had just dropped to the sidewalk. More screams erupted from the street behind her. Please, God, help me.
As they entered the alley, the man pressed her hard until she was practically running to the other side. They passed by trash bins and refuse, discarded machinery, and many things she had no chance to process. Within a minute, they exited into the sunlight again, and the man waved her over to a beat-up white van. The back doors swung open as two men jumped out, dressed in utility workers' uniforms. They led her quickly into the van as the man who had dragged her this far spoke into a mouthpiece and surveyed the area. Suddenly a loud explosion from down the alley rocked the block, and pedestrians turned toward the sound in shock. Many raced over to the alley or down parallel streets to find out what had happened. As the doors closed and Cohen was left imprisoned within the walls of the van, she understood. There would be no one to see her pushed into the van, no one to follow them from the events a few moments ago. The men she had seen around the car had rigged it to blow, and the explosion, death, and chaos would make it simple for her abductors to make a clean escape.