The Firstborn (21 page)

“The current threat level is…” There was a pause as whatever computer that stored the pertinent information shifted from one recording to another. “…yellow.”

“Yellow?” John Temple muttered to himself. The one time that he could think of since the inception of the color code that there actually was a threat of a terrorist attack, and it was three shades from red.

John rubbed his eyes. He’d have to sleep on the plane or while they waited to board.

He and Devin were standing in line to buy plane tickets to Washington DC.

Washington DC?

How was all of this happening? It was like a dream where everything was happening too fast. In a matter of hours they would be in the District of Columbia, and then—

What?

Devin turned to him. “Where’s Hannah?”

“I don’t know. She was just here a second ago.”

“Find her,” Devin ordered, and continued moving forward in the line.

John stepped out of line and let his eyes drift across the crowd. The girl was nowhere to be seen. He looked around in a full circle. She had been there just a moment ago; where could she have gone? The crowd swarmed in around him, and the world seemed to shrink.

“Uh-oh,” he said to himself. Wherever she was, he couldn’t lose her. Not here, not now. She was part of this—whatever
this
was.

Then he felt something—from behind a pillar, near a vending machine. It was her.

He approached slowly and stopped. She sat cross-legged on the floor, back to the pillar, head bowed. John could feel the anxiety rising off of her—almost palpable. He sat down next to her. Whatever was bothering her had her deeply shaken.

Silence.

Hannah lifted her head after a few moments and looked at John. “I don’t think I can do this,” she said firmly as if to herself, shaking her head. She pulled a twitching hand into her chest and held it there.

“I know how you feel,” he said with a nod. “That’s how I felt the first time I left the country.”

Her leg began to shiver and twitch.

“India was my first mission trip ever,” he offered. “The food was foreign, the language was foreign—I felt lost. All I wanted was to run back home—to what was familiar. But I stayed.”

Hannah tipped her head in his direction. “Why? Why did you stay?”

“Because that’s where God called me,” he said with a shrug. She looked down at her trembling hand. He reached out, putting his hand on her shivering wrist. “You don’t have to do this,” he said. “You don’t have to go.”

Her head turned, and she looked him in the eye.

“Yes, she does,” Devin said from the right. “Until this is all over I don’t want you out of my sight. Now get some sleep. We leave at six twenty-five in the morning. We’ll arrive at one sixteen.”

“But the bomb is supposed to go off at two thirty-five, right? Isn’t that cutting it a little close?” John asked. “Washington DC can be a tough city to get around in.”

“It’s the first flight out. Get used to tight schedules. Preventing disaster is always a race against time.” Devin reached into a small paper sleeve and removed a slip. “Now, here’s your ticket. I even got you a window seat.”

Devin sat in first class—the only way he would fly—fingers pressed together in front of his face.

The world was slipping into some kind of madness he’d never felt before. He’d never been as involved of a member of the Domani as he could have been, and now here he was with members of the Ora and Prima on the same plane as he was—and he was picking up the tab.

John was a liability. He would regret bringing him soon enough, he was certain of that. And the girl—she was still just a child, her whole life ahead of her, assuming this whole thing didn’t drag her in. She still had a shot at peace—and yet he had her on this plane because of some calling he felt. He was going to destroy the poor girl. Devin tipped his face down and scratched the tip of his nose—a nervous habit. He promised himself that he would only keep the girl involved as long as he had to; then he’d send her on her way to bake cookies and host barbecues—or whatever it was that normal people did.

He went back to work. The sooner he figured this whole thing out, the sooner he could let her go.

Devin tapped on his laptop for a moment or two, bringing up the pictures and information he had saved from the Internet before boarding the plane.

Politically speaking, the location was a nightmare to destroy.

The Islamic Center sat on Embassy Row in Washington DC, established in the 1950s after the funeral of the Turkish ambassador Münir Ertegün. Dozens of Middle Eastern nations had poured money into the building of the mosque—the Saudi Arabian government had made major contributions. The Iranians had donated the expensive carpets, and one Middle Eastern government had even donated the opulent chandelier that hung from beneath the mosque’s dome.

The mosque was adorned with flags of all the Arab nations and was controlled by a board of ambassadors. Because it sat on Embassy Row, a stone’s throw from dozens of patches of foreign soil, destroying this building would be an international incident.

There had been a controversy in 1983 in which the mosque’s imam had been accused of storing weapons and explosives in the basement of the building. As a result, the center was shut down temporarily and the imam banned from the mosque—even arrested on the grounds of disturbing a religious service when he tried to attend months later. The eventual outcome was the unwelcome imam starting an unofficial second service that he held on the mosque’s sidewalk every Friday, rain or shine. That would make things crowded and confusing.

It was an extra challenge in preventing this attack—another variable that could cause failure. But failure was something Devin was not known for considering.

If they were going to stop this bombing, they would have to be at the same physical location as the explosive device before the time of its detonation—physics 101. That meant he had to work out exactly how this attack would take place.

He looked at the satellite photos.

There was a car park to the south of the mosque. Blowing out that wall would almost certainly kill a large number of people—but that would require a large amount of planning, and the vehicle would eventually be traced back to the bombers. Blake was too smart for that.

There were also the sewers. Military life had taught Devin about explosives, and what he’d learned was that the best way to use them is to do structural damage—then let gravity do the rest. Explosives beneath the building would knock out the supports and cause the whole thing to collapse on top of the patrons—but that would also take months of planning.

Regardless, if it were that easy to destroy a building on Embassy Row by detonating a van packed with explosives or by breaking into the sewers, then someone would have done it long ago. That was essentially what happened in Oklahoma City, but that was a decade and a half ago—and that was pre-9/11. It wasn’t that easy—especially not in Washington DC. Security was tighter these days.

Things were different now—not impossible, but much, much more difficult.

Devin considered a remote-controlled plane for a moment, then reconsidered—even the best remote-controlled planes had only a mile or two worth of range, which meant that they’d have to take off in the middle of the city—which would be noticed.

The other option was to leave an explosive device inside the mosque—potentially with their shoes, which they would be required to take off before entering. The person could exit early, leaving the explosives behind. A detonator rigged to a cellular phone could be activated remotely—but there was a wall between the shoes and the mosque “sanctuary” itself. Cell phone reception might be problem—and a potentially damning variable.

Regardless, there was no feasible way to pack enough explosives in a bag or item to blow through the wall and kill everyone in the next room. As morbid as it was to consider, there was always the problem of people absorbing the blast. Those at the back of the room would die, but those at the front probably would not.

There were security guards out front—potentially to keep out the former imam and his followers—and anyone carrying a satchel large enough to cause that kind of explosion would likely be stopped and their bag checked for exactly that reason.

There was no way to do this and get away.

There was, of course, another way. Unthinkable, but possible.

A person could strap explosives to himself, enter the mosque, go exactly where he needed to for a maximum blast, and set off the explosives—but that would require the bomber to die with the explosives.

These were Christians, and there was no precedent for Christian suicide bombers—

—at least not yet.

Devin’s heart raced as he considered the possibility.

But who would do something like that?

Alex Bradley rubbed his temples. He sat in the chair in the dark corner of his hotel and prayed.

“If there is any other way,” he uttered prayerfully, “then, Lord, take this cup from me.” Sweat slithered down his face, and an unnatural heat overtook him, burning from within. He walked over to his laptop and hit the button, the screen flashing to life. A click with the mouse and he brought up the video file again—the one that he had taped the day before.

It was him—dark hair, strong build, standing in front of an American flag, a Bible in hand. The recorded audio was poor, bouncing off the walls of the basement in which he had shot the video.

“This is a declaration of war—so that the world will understand my actions.”

Alex sat back in his seat, tapping a finger to his forehead as he listened to himself bolster himself forward.

“I am a patriot—I love America and I love freedom, but we are under attack. Through means that I do not expect the world to understand, I have been made aware of an impending terrorist attack on U.S. soil—an attack on American children. To prevent this attack it has been decided that the only recourse is a preemptive strike—to hunt down and kill this unknown terrorist in the only place he is guaranteed to be.

“I understand that my actions will not be popular—or well received. It is certain that I will be seen as a villain. I will not be remembered as a hero or a patriot—but those are not my aims. What I seek to do is protect the little children of America from murders—this is my mission—a mission I was given by God Himself.

“The Bible says that to live is Christ and to die is gain. This is my aim—to be crucified with Christ—to protect our great nation, the land of the free and the home of the brave, a nation founded on Christian ideals, with my Christian faith. You see, I do not fear death, because I know that through Christ the price for my sins has been paid and that an eternity in the kingdom of heaven awaits me.

“I know that my actions will not be easy to reconcile—but I assure you, this is the only way. To my mother and father, I want to say thank you for raising me in faith and teaching me the value of patriotism and freedom. To my brother, Michael, I would like to say I’m proud of you—the Marines are lucky to have a man of honor like you. To my late wife, Chloe—who died in the World Trade Center—I love you and I’ll see you soon. I love you all.

“May the road rise up to meet you, may the wind be at your back and the sun upon your faces. And may the good Lord bless you and keep you in the palm of His hand—until we meet again.”

The video ended, and Alex nodded to himself. This was the only way.

The world would not understand—but it was the only way.

He walked to the large, black gym bag in the corner and unzipped it. Alex took one more look at the grayish bricks of C-4 stacked beneath the bag’s flap—more than fifteen—enough to wipe them all off the map.

He double-checked the detonator and set it back in the bag, then removed the HK USP .40 pistol his father had given him three years ago, looking it over.

There was no denying it now.

He was going to kill people.