The End Game

Director Comey asked, “How did the media take the news about the cancellation of Yorktown?”

“Not a problem, sir,” Maitland said. “The president is being praised up and down, primarily for not backing down in the face of Iran’s provocation and walking out of the peace talks, and almost as important, for proving he’s not stupid for canceling Yorktown. Not in those exact words, of course. I believe the word more used was the president was prudent.”

Sherlock said, “It’s nearly four o’clock.”

Mike flashed on a memory of the high school principal gathering all the students in the gym to watch the Space Shuttle Columbia take off. She remembered clearly the heart-pounding excitement, wondering what it was like to be inside, a real live astronaut. And then, two weeks later, watching the shuttle return to earth, and with no warning, it exploded. Dead, all dead. Please, please, she prayed, staring at the countdown clock. Please.

The countdown ended.

The drone and satellite views drew closer to the facility.

Everyone was holding their breath.

Her prayer wasn’t answered.

It started in the western edge, a small plume of smoke, and then every screen flashed a blinding white, with yellow edges. A ball of fire consumed the plant entirely.

It was Bayway all over, only bigger, huge in fact, which meant Spenser used a larger portion of one of his bombs. What would a whole one do? Two of them? But this time she and Nicholas weren’t ru

She said aloud, “But where was the bomb?”

Nicholas said, “The smoke plume came from South Four-G. We need to find out what was stored there.”

Sherlock unrolled the plans for the plant. “Here’s Four-G. It’s a metal depot. They keep tungsten there, among other things.”

Director Comey said, “So that’s where Spenser put his bomb? In a mess of tungsten?”

“Yes, sir,” Nicholas said. “I imagine Spenser and probably Tate managed to deliver it in a shipment of metal—maybe even tungsten. It would be totally disguised. The agent undercover with COE told us the new bombs had tungsten components, and would be near on impossible to distinguish it from the rest of the metal.” And Nicholas would bet Nigel’s best bottle of Scotch Spenser had done it during the blackout when everything was down, all the cameras, everything, security precautions heightened but handicapped.

Mike read his mind, more likely their brains were ru

Nicholas said to Mike, “And some very creative coding by Woody Reading at Juno that made the blackout spread so quickly. Hard to control an overload of outages like we had.”

Sherlock said, “We’ll start tracking all the tungsten shipments over the past week.”

Stu

Mike said, “Matthew Spenser’s final roar and no one was hurt. That’s got to be a win for us.”

All the phones in the room began to ring.

•   •   •

Ten minutes after the a

The vice president was actually thanking them, live, on Mike’s own cell phone? Her heart speeded up. What an amazing feeling. “You’re welcome, ma’am,” and that sounded stupid, but she couldn’t think of anything else to say.

“Do you have any further word on the whereabouts of Zahir Damari?”

“I’m sorry, no, ma’am.”

“We have Homeland on the lookout for him. About half my advisers and half the CIA believe Damari will pack it up since it would be suicide for him to try and attack me now, with the entire world watching. However, I plan to be on the side of the other half who tell me he simply never gives up, not in his DNA. You can bet all my staff are on alert until he’s caught. Which assessment do you agree with, Agent Caine?”

“I come down with the side that says let’s take extreme care. Damari is the type of killer who has backups for his backups. Yes, he’s out there, somewhere, and he’s got a plan.”

“Thank you. Now, actually, I’m also calling you two to tell you the president would like to thank you himself for saving his life. He, and I, of course, would like you to join us at Camp David this evening. We’re having a small di

Mike said, “But, ma’am, I didn’t think the president and vice president were allowed to be at Camp David at the same time.”

Callan laughed. “Well, what the public doesn’t know won’t hurt them. Tony Scarlatti, you remember him, my head of security? He felt it would be smart to keep me on a different schedule, too. Since it’s not protocol, we think it will be the safest place for me to be. Secret Service will pick you up—some of Tony’s guys—and we’ll chopper you in. Trust me, you don’t want to spend the afternoon hours driving up there, not in our traffic. This is much more efficient. You’re at the Hoover Building?”

“Yes, ma’am. Thank you so much for the invitation and the transportation.”

“The car will be there in thirty minutes. And Agent Caine? Thank you again. What you and Agent Drummond managed to do today, it will not go unrewarded.”

Could she mean a tax break? No, probably not.

Nicholas was watching her, an eyebrow raised. Mike slipped her cell into the back pocket of her jeans. “Well, that was the vice president.”

“Yes, I gathered. Why are you gri

“I was just thinking about my taxes. Hey, you want to go to a party?”

76

BISHOP TO B3 CHECK

Catoctin Mountains

Over the past twenty-four hours, Zahir learned that Secret Service agents gossiped like hens. They spoke freely of myriad operational movements, schedules, and the people involved. Unwittingly they gave him an excellent understanding of everything going on in Washington. And he heard talk about himself. These guys evidently weren’t afraid of him, but it seemed everybody else was. He smiled. Just wait, boys, just you wait.

He learned that Matthew Spenser had been shot to death trying to kill Vanessa Graves. Andy Tate was dead, probably killed by Matthew, Ian McGuire was dead, and Vanessa was still alive. He had to admire her surviving not only a gunshot to the chest, but falling off that building. Except she was a CIA undercover agent and that rather pissed him off. Maybe as soon as he was done here, he’d head south to the hospital and get rid of her.

And the president’s plane hadn’t gone down in the Atlantic when Matthew had pressed the trigger. They wouldn’t shut up about a Brit FBI agent who’d managed computer magic, and saved the plane.

A failure, but when it came down to it, Zahir wasn’t all that disappointed.

Sorry, Matthew, you did try.

He had Plan B ready to put in motion. The only question he’d had, the only worry, was answered only minutes before. Both of them would be here. Both of them.

He had to move up the schedule based on the flurry of activity he’d heard, but he couldn’t be more pleased.