10

Washington, DC

Eva Fischer was waiting for him as promised.

As David stepped off the jet and into the chilly night air at Washington’s Reagan National Airport, Eva gave him a long hug and asked about his mother. David appreciated the gesture and filled her in as best he could as they got in her car and headed to Langley. He felt like he should reciprocate, but David realized he knew hardly anything about Eva’s personal life, and at that moment it somehow felt awkward to ask. He was certain she wasn’t married. She wasn’t wearing a ring, and in all the time they’d worked together, she’d never mentioned a boyfriend, much less a fiancé. He wondered why. Blonde, blue-eyed, in good shape, and attractive, she was certainly one of the most eligible single women in their division, maybe in the entire Agency. He’d been interested in her since the first day they’d met, and if Marseille weren’t suddenly back in the picture . . .

It was not a thought he wanted to finish. He realized that work typically dominated all of their conversations. Perhaps it should again, he decided.

“So what’s your news?” he asked, running his hands through his hair and shifting gears. “Is it about the president?”

It wasn’t. She had nothing new to report on Jackson’s condition beyond what the media was reporting. He was alive and was still in surgery. Beyond that, the doctors were keeping tight-lipped. Eva said the White House press secretary had announced she would do a briefing at the top of the hour. The National Security Council had just finished meeting with the vice president, but apparently the twenty-fifth amendment was not being invoked. Not yet, at least.

“Let’s hope that’s a good sign,” David said.

Eva agreed, then shared the news she’d hinted about in her text. “I just talked to one of my friends over at the Secret Service. They’re all under strict orders not to say anything. They don’t want it to leak to the media yet. But they killed one of the terrorists in Manhattan during the attack, they captured another, and a third escaped. There’s a massive manhunt under way for him at the moment.”

“You’re serious?”

“Jack wants me to head up to New York after our meeting tonight to be part of the interrogation team.”

“That’s phenomenal.”

“Thanks. I know. I’m excited. Whoever this guy is, we need to squeeze him hard. Are there other attacks coming? Who sent them? Where’d they get their weapons? How did they get into the country? Is there anyone else involved in the cell? All that.”

“What’s your sense of it?”

“There’ve got to be more people involved,” she said. “The Service and FBI guys think so too. They found a cell phone on the guy they captured. They’re running the LUDs now and seeing who he called and when.”

“Do you know their nationalities yet?”

“Nothing definitive. Just ‘Middle East origin.’ That’s it so far.”

* * *

“Excuse me, ma’am, do you have any updates on the Portland flight?”

Marseille Harper’s flight out of Syracuse had been repeatedly delayed and hadn’t landed at Washington Dulles until just after 6 p.m. She’d missed her 5:35 p.m. connection back to Oregon, though it had been canceled anyway. She had been standing in line at the United customer service desk ever since.

Massive late-season snow and ice storms in the Midwest and Northwest, some of them quite severe, had caused dozens of major airports to be shut down, and hundreds of flights were canceled. United wasn’t alone in routing flights to its Dulles operations hub, and now thousands of passengers found themselves stranded, frustrated, and trying to figure out another way to their homes, businesses, or other destinations.

“Portland?” the harried customer service rep asked above the din.

“Yes, I really need to get home tonight,” Marseille said, trying to imagine twenty-three little faces showing up in her classroom the next morning without her being there to greet them.

“Good luck, honey. Nothing’s moving to the Northwest today. Probably not even tomorrow. Haven’t you seen the news?”

About the storms in the Midwest and Northwest, the woman meant. But the truth was, Marseille hadn’t paid much attention to the storms. She’d been riveted to the coverage of the attack on the president, and it made her heartsick. Until now, it had been such an amazing weekend. Being in her best friend Lexi’s wedding. Hanging out with so many friends from college she hadn’t seen in so long. Seeing David Shirazi for the first time since she was fifteen. Now her country was under attack, and she felt disoriented and unsure where to turn.

“How close can you get me?”

“At this point?” the heavyset woman asked, typing furiously into her computer. “Phoenix.”

“You’re kidding.”

“Wish I was, darlin’, but believe me, I have neither the time nor the energy.”

“How about San Francisco?” Marseille asked, thinking maybe she could rent a car there and drive to Portland.

“Everything’s booked. Look, dear, I can give you vouchers to stay at a hotel tonight. I can give you a free flight anywhere in the country you want to go in the next twelve months. But I can’t book you on anything right now unless you want to go south.”

“Ma’am, really, you don’t understand. I’m a teacher. I have kids waiting for me. I really need to get home.”

“You and ten thousand other people, missy. Look, it’s not going to happen. Not tonight. Now, here’s your vouchers. Pick up your luggage downstairs in the main terminal, carousel two. Then we’ve got a free shuttle bus that will take you to a hotel.”

“Then what?”

“Call this 800 number tomorrow, and we’ll try to get you home as fast as we can. But I wouldn’t hold my breath. These storms are killers. If you ask me, you’re going to be here for a few days.”

The words hit Marseille hard. She had no desire to be stuck in Washington. She didn’t know anyone here. She hadn’t been here since an eighth-grade social studies trip. And given the terrorist attacks in Manhattan just a few hours earlier, she wondered if DC might be the next target. She wanted to be home in her own bed, safe and secure, if all alone.

With no choice in the matter, however, she thanked the United rep, gathered up her vouchers, and headed for the baggage claim area. As she did, she found herself thinking about David. She’d been so anxious for weeks leading up to that day, anxious about seeing him again after so long, anxious about all she had to say to him, about how he would respond. She feared he’d be angry with her, or worse, disappointed. She feared he’d never want to see her again. But their meeting had gone better than she had hoped. He had actually seemed glad to see her. He’d been a good listener. He’d been kind and gentle when she told him about the miscarriage, about the recent death of her father, about all that she’d faced since she’d seen him last.

What meant the most to her was what David had said right before they had parted. He said he wanted her to know that he’d “like nothing more than to sit here with you for hours, take a long walk with you, even fly back to Oregon with you, for that matter.” He said that he didn’t want to be cut off from her again, that he was going to wrap up this business in Europe and then, if it was all right with her, “come to wherever you are” because there was so much more to talk about. It was true. There was so much more to say. She’d told him the truth—yes, she’d like him to come see her whenever he could. She hadn’t wanted to seem forward, but she had no desire to play coy either.

Marseille picked up the pace so she wouldn’t miss the shuttle that would take her from the United gates over to the main terminal, and as she did, she passed an advertisement on the wall that caught her eye. It was for some DC-based consulting firm. “Where are you headed next?” the copy read in big blue letters. She boarded the crowded shuttle just before the driver closed the doors, then inched her way forward and stood in the corner since there was no place to sit, pondering that question.

What did she want with David? For months since writing him to say she was coming to Syracuse for the wedding of her college friend, she had simply wanted David to agree to have coffee with her, and for their first meeting in eight years not to be a disaster. But it dawned on her in that moment that she had never really thought much beyond that. She had no idea where she wanted their relationship to go. She hadn’t seen David in so long that she didn’t really know who he was anymore. But she wanted to get to know him again and find out who he had become. She hoped they could be friends. She sensed in him a kindred spirit. She wanted to spend time with him again, to hang out with him and let him make her laugh. She wanted a friend who had known her before September 11, before she lost her mom, before her father melted down, before her world came crashing in. There was something safe about being friends with David, something nostalgic—not more than that, necessarily. For now that seemed enough.

She took a moment to pray for David. She asked the Lord to keep him safe and give him favor with his boss and his work, but most of all she prayed what she had prayed every night before she went to sleep, that the Lord would open David’s eyes and draw him to His Son. And as she did so, she felt a pang of guilt. They had talked at breakfast of so many things. Why hadn’t she talked with him about the Lord? Why hadn’t she at least shared the many changes that were under way in her life, what had happened to her in college and since? Was she afraid of what he would think? Was she afraid he might think her too religious? She remembered that David had prided himself on being an agnostic. But what did her pastor and his wife keep telling her? “If you love someone, you need to share Christ with them.” She believed that. Why was it so hard to do it? And so, for no particular reason, she pulled out her cell phone and dialed David’s cell phone number just to say hi, and found herself surprised by how sad she felt when she got voice mail instead of him.

* * *

Brooklyn, New York

Sean Taylor couldn’t wait for his shot at him.

In twelve years with the FBI, he had interrogated hundreds of suspects in all kinds of criminal cases. But he had never had the opportunity to grill a suspected terrorist during a real-time investigation of an attack on American soil. It was what he’d joined the FBI to do. Now he had his chance. He was under orders—and under enormous pressure—to extract as much information as he could, as rapidly as possible. The Bureau now had reason to believe that the cell that had attacked the president had at least four members, possibly as many as six. But only one had been shot dead, and only one was in custody, which meant there was still a high risk that more attacks were coming unless he could get this guy to talk.

Taylor could hear the roar of the rotors as the Bureau helicopter touched down on the roof of their Brooklyn facility. He felt a jolt of adrenaline move through his staff as the stairwell door opened and three burly agents dragged their prisoner—face covered by a black hood—through the bull pen of cubicles and desks and secretaries on phones and locked him down in Interrogation Room D. Taylor signed the paperwork acknowledging he now had custody, then quickly scanned the notes from the arresting agents.

The suspect had been captured with a Glock 9mm pistol, but he hadn’t used it or even been holding it at the time. The 1982 Plymouth Gran Fury he was captured in was stolen. He had no ID on him at the time of arrest. They had taken his fingerprints at the scene and digitally transferred them to FBI headquarters in Washington, where they were being run against the Bureau’s entire criminal and terrorist database. But that would take time, and time was not something they had much of.

Taylor asked the agents to step out of the room, then closed the door behind them. He figured the suspect for about six feet two inches tall and about 160 to 180 pounds. His hands were cuffed to the chair behind him. His feet were shackled to the floor.

“I’m going to give you one chance to cooperate, and that’s all,” he said quietly, noticing that the man’s breathing was labored and quickening. “Let’s start simple. What’s your name?”

No reply.

“Where are you from?”

Again, no reply.

“How many were part of this mission to kill our president?”

Silence.

“Where is the rest of your team heading now? Is there another team? Who are they going to attack next?”

Still nothing.

So Sean Taylor was done talking. First he began to beat the suspect with his fists until blood trickled down through the hood and all over the suspect’s shirt. When that didn’t work, he unlocked a small box on the wall about the size of a telephone book and pulled out two long wires, which he proceeded to attach to various parts of the suspect’s body. One way or another, this suspect was going to talk.