The Last Days (45 page)

The Secretary's voice cut off.

“Lee, you still with us?” asked MacPherson. “This thing still work?”

“Yes, Mr. President, I'm still here—someone's bringing me the location right now. Hold on.”

You could hear a pin drop in the Situation Room. Nobody said a word, though members of the VP's National Security staff were now slipping in as well. The TV sets lining the walls were all on mute. But every picture was the same—Mario Iabello—the suicide bomber who got away.

“Come on, come on,” said the president, barely under his breath, and suddenly the secretary was back on the line.

“We've got it, Mr. President—the car is at the Willard.”

“Oh my God, that's across the street.”

Within minutes, the hotel was surrounded.

News helicopters weren't flying. All non-law enforcement aircraft over D.C., Virginia, and Maryland were grounded instantly. But this was Washington. News cameras were everywhere. So were satellite trucks. In their homes and offices across the country, Americans watched the unfolding drama in horror. Sirens filled the air. Secret Service SWAT teams took the lead. They were, after all, based out of the Treasury Building not fifty yards from the Willard's front door. FBI Critical Response Units poured in as well, as did agents and bomb squad technicians from at least six different agencies.

 

Marcus Jackson's wireless phone began beeping.

Jackson cursed under his breath. He was sitting alone in the Starbucks around the corner from the Old Executive Office Building. Hard at work on his laptop, sipping a latte and trying to get a little work done, it was tough enough to concentrate with all the sirens outside. Something big was going down. But he was a political reporter. Let someone else chase ambulances. He reached into his briefcase, grabbed his phone, and turned it off. Sure enough, it was the assignment desk in New York.

Get a life, boys. The
Times
has other reporters. Call someone else.

The front door jingled. Jackson looked up and smiled. The man in a bulky green winter parka didn't smile back. He just glanced around the nearly empty store and left. Jackson shook his head and went back to the story on his laptop.

The Willard didn't have aboveground parking.

So close to the White House and major landmarks, there simply wasn't room. All vehicles receiving valet parking were kept underground. This posed additional dangers. If they sent a bomb squad unit in to find the car, Iabello could be waiting—in the garage or nearby. He could detonate the bomb with a remote switch and potentially bring half the block down with him. But they didn't have much choice. Finding the car and defusing the bomb in time might be their only option. If they were lucky, they'd be able to storm Iabello's room and catch him by surprise. But maybe he was watching the news.

Maybe he wasn't in the room at all.

 

Now his pager began going off.

Jackson couldn't believe it. He rolled his eyes and grabbed the little black box off his belt. He checked the number—his editor again—911. He hit the button on the top and again there was quiet. No peace, but at least a little quiet. Jackson scooped his phone out of his bag again and powered it up. It beeped again. Six messages. Already? He'd only had it off for a few minutes. He hit speed dial two and got his editor.

“Jackson, where the hell have you been?”

“I'm getting some coffee, working on a story.”

“Forget the story—haven't you heard what's going on?”

“No, what?”

“The feds are tracking down a suicide bomber in D.C.”

“Holy—”

“I've been trying to call you. Why aren't you at the White House?”

“I'm at Starbucks.”

“Well, get over there. Murray's about to brief and we've got no one on point.”

“Isn't Eicher back?”

“No. He's in St. Louis for the Senate race.”

“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 hear 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.

“Do not take another step or you will be fired upon.”

He could hear sirens screaming in the distance.

“Take off your jacket.”

Police cars of all kinds were now racing across the grounds toward him, coming from all directions.

“Take off your jacket now.”

The voice echoed across the city, down toward the White House a half mile or so behind him, down toward the Capitol at the other end of the Mall.

“I repeat, take off your jacket now.”

This was it. He could see the buses screeching away from the curb, surrounded by police cars. Another few seconds and a hundred pistols and rifles and machine guns would be pointed at his head. There was no way out but one.

“Mario Iabello” began to unbutton his coat—slowly, one button at a time. One sleeve came off. Then the other. Then the entire parka came off, and all eyes focused on the custom-made vest—packed in a circle around his waist were a dozen twelve-inch bricks of C4—and the long red ignition cord he carefully removed from the lining of the coat. Four Cobra gunships hovered, ready to pounce. Four pilots flicked off the safeties on their front-mounted machine guns, ready to fire.