“We’re here, Mr. President.”
“In a moment, Mike,” Jackson replied. He had a question he wanted answered before they headed inside. Turning to Ramzy, he asked bluntly, “Abdel, tell me one thing. Why are you more obsessed than Asher here with this whole Twelfth Imam thing?”
Abdel paused for a moment, seeming surprised by the question. “I wouldn’t call it an obsession, Mr. President. I don’t think that’s a fair characterization. Am I concerned? Yes. Deeply. But even more than that, I believe the pharaohs are watching me. I believe all my forefathers are watching me. I will go to them soon. This I know all too well. And when I see them face to face in the afterlife, I don’t want to be received as the man who lost Egypt.”
Jackson pondered that answer, and as he did, he discerned something he had never considered before. “It was you who ordered the assassination of Dr. Saddaji in Hamadan the other day,” he said, looking Ramzy in the eye.
Until just a moment ago, Jackson had been convinced that Naphtali and the Mossad had been responsible for the car bombing that had killed Iran’s top nuclear scientist just two weeks earlier.
Ramzy motioned out the window at Agent Bruner, ready to open the limousine’s back door and usher them past the crowd of journalists and inside the Waldorf to greet the 1,500 guests eagerly anticipating their arrival. “They’re waiting,” the Egyptian said softly.
“So am I,” the president said.
Ramzy looked back at both of them with a twinkle in his eye. “I actually don’t know who did it exactly,” he demurred. “It was a beautiful hit, I agree. But whoever ordered it waited too long. It should have been done six months ago.”
There it was, Jackson realized. A classic nondenial denial. Ramzy wasn’t formally accepting credit or blame, and yet he was. Six months earlier, Jackson remembered, the eighty-two-year-old Egyptian had been undergoing open-heart surgery. He had been bedridden nearly ever since. This was his first foreign trip in almost a year. But just because he hadn’t been traveling didn’t mean Abdel Mohammad Ramzy hadn’t been on the move.
Firouz summoned Jamshad on his radio.
“Make sure the stairwell is clear.”
“I’m on it.”
“And make sure Navid is in place.”
“Of course — absolutely.”
Firouz then turned to his closest friend and nodded. Each man pulled a black balaclava ski mask over his face and donned protective eyewear.
“Are you ready, Rahim?”
“I serve at the pleasure of the Promised One, Firouz. And you?”
“Yes, my friend, and I count it an honor to complete this mission with you, of all people.”
Agent Bruner saw Jackson give him the signal.
Immediately he opened the back door of the limo, which at nearly eight inches thick was as impenetrable as a vault door.
“Look sharp, everyone,” he said into his radio, once again scanning the faces in the media section and the crowd across the street. “Renegade’s moving.”
The president stepped out of the car and smiled for the cameras. Then he turned back and helped President Ramzy out of the car as well, carrying his portable oxygen tank for him.
In the harsh glare of the TV lights, Ramzy looked even older than he was, Bruner thought. He moved slowly and with a limp. But to his surprise, even though he knew Ramzy hated the media and typically dodged the press at almost all costs, tonight the Egyptian president seemed drawn to the blizzard of photographs being taken. Indeed, even before the detail of Shin Bet agents could run up from the back of the motorcade, take their positions, and help Prime Minister Naphtali out of the limo, Ramzy hobbled over to the press section and actually took a question shouted out by the New York bureau chief for Al Jazeera.
“What is Sphinx doing?” one agent asked over the radio.
“I don’t know,” Bruner said, “but get two men up at his side—now.”
Firouz poked his head up one more time.
It was a risk, he knew, but he had no choice. He had brought with him a portable Sony TV and a small satellite receiver. He’d been hoping to watch live coverage of the president’s arrival. He’d hoped that would enable him to see precisely what was happening across the street. But none of the networks — American or foreign — was carrying it live, including Al Jazeera, and he was out of time.
Through a pair of high-powered binoculars, Firouz could see Ramzy talking to the press. It was a shocking sight. Firouz had grown up watching television coverage of Abdel Ramzy ruling Egypt with an iron fist. But he couldn’t remember a single time the man had willingly spoken to the press corps. Still, it was a good development. It meant the three leaders would be motionless for a few moments, at least, and that was all they needed.
Firouz scanned further and could see President Jackson a few steps to the Egyptian’s left, closer to the front door of the hotel, which someone was holding open. He could see two Secret Service agents beside the president and several more just a few steps back. There were other men in suits standing there too. One of them looked like Prime Minister Naphtali. Firouz couldn’t be sure, not with the trees obstructing his vision. He desperately wanted absolute confirmation. He realized he should have positioned someone on the ground, another spotter who could have given him more information from a better vantage point. But this was it. He didn’t dare wait any longer. They’d never have a better opportunity than the one now before them.
“Now!” Firouz shouted.
Both men yelled praise to Allah. Then, across the room, Rahim detonated two small packages of explosives the two men had installed on the windows, blowing them out instantly. In a seamless motion, Rahim jumped to his feet. Ignoring the shattering glass, he aimed his RPG-7 at the crowd across the street and pulled the trigger.
5
Ramzy heard something behind him.
Distracted, sensing something was amiss, he turned to see what was happening. At that moment, he heard glass shattering on the sidewalk across the street. He found his dimming eyes drawn to the fourth floor, to the corner office. He saw the flash and the rocket emerging from the window, slicing through the trees, and heading straight for them.
Bruner heard the glass shatter behind him.
But unlike Ramzy, he didn’t turn. He didn’t need to see what was happening. Everything in him knew it was wrong.
Moving purely by instinct refined by years of training and fueled by a sudden burst of adrenaline, Bruner pivoted hard to his left. He grabbed the president and shoved the man through the Waldorf’s entrance. Then he threw his body on top of Jackson just as a deafening explosion erupted behind them.
Looking back, he watched in horrified amazement as an enormous, searing ball of fire and smoke engulfed the crowd outside. Ramzy’s oxygen tank exploded. Burning wood, molten glass, chunks of brick and plaster were flying everywhere. Huge flames — eight, maybe ten feet high — surged into the lobby, licking the ceiling and setting everything in their path ablaze. A huge glass chandelier came crashing down just yards away from them.
Outside, Bruner could hear the shrieks of men and women being burned alive. He, too, was on fire, but for a split second he didn’t feel a thing. All he could think about was getting the president to safety.