The other F-16 alongside hit his afterburner and pulled out in front of the big 727. He wagged his wings a couple more times in a clear indication that the larger plane was to follow him. Then the fighter made a long, slow, sweeping turn northeast, toward Dover Air Force Base in Delaware.
Ahmed reached down, tightened his seat belt, and told Masud to get his oxygen going. Ahmed put on his own mask, tightened the straps behind his head, and then pulled back hard on the yoke. The nose of the 727 started climbing as Ahmed watched the dial on the altimeter start to turn like the second-hand sweep on a watch. Every thousand feet added range to the bomb. The plane had already penetrated both the outer and inner defensive zones. Anything Ahmed could get now added insurance. He put his fingers on the lever controlling the airstairs in the back.
“This is VNG 118. I have a lock on the target.”
“VNG 118, you have authorization to launch. Repeat, you are authorized to launch.”
The fighter pilot flipped up the cap cover on the trigger and pressed the button. The sidewinder fell away from his right wing. Just as the rocket motor cut in and the missile began to streak ahead, the rear ramp on the 727 suddenly yawned open. A large bomb fell away, separated from its metal carrier, and before the fighter pilot could react, both the bomb and the carrier were below and behind him.
Two seconds later the sidewinder streaked into the exhaust port of the 727’s starboard engine and exploded. The F-16 pulled skyward, and a second later a massive yellow fireball filled the air where the FedEx flight had been. Hot shards of flaming metal streaked from the fiery blast as the debris pattern left curling contrails in the sky.
“Andrews control, this is VNG 118, target destroyed, but incoming ordnance is in the air.”
“Andrews control to VNG 118, say again.”
“This is VNG 118. The target was able to release ordnance.”
“Can you describe, kind and type?”
“Negative.”
“Any chance you can get a radar lock?”
“No, sir. Item was too small, and from what I could see, there was no heat source.”
“Tower to VNG 118. See if you can pick it up.”
“VNG 118 to Andrews control, will do.”
On the east side of the United States Capitol, East Capitol Street is like a broad bridge, a concourse for pedestrians only about a hundred and thirty yards long until you reach First Street.
At that intersection, cars cross it going north and south, and vehicles can drive in an easterly direction on East Capitol. On the north corner of First and East Capitol Street is the Supreme Court Building. On the south corner sits the Library of Congress.
I jog past tourists milling in each direction on the pedestrians-only walkway until I am about sixty yards from First Street, when I see him. At first I am not sure if it’s Thorn. From this angle I can see only a portion of his face. He is sitting on a concrete bench near the end of the concourse, no more than twenty yards away.
I stop running so as not to draw attention to myself and wander over toward the railing on the left-hand side of the walkway to get a better look. I lean against the railing with my back to him and then slowly turn.
At the moment his head is down. He has an attache case on his lap with the lid open, both hands inside. Whatever he is doing, his attention is focused inside the case. He is wearing dark glasses and his face is shaded. Then suddenly he looks up, turns his head the other way, and for several seconds he stares across the street, not in the direction of the Supreme Court Building. Instead he is looking toward the Library of Congress, up high, toward the copper dome.
In that instant it clicks, the copper wings on the model plane. He has already landed the little brown bat. What it’s doing up there I have no idea. But there is no time left. Without thinking I push off from the railing and run straight at him.
Thorn hears my footfalls on the hard concrete and starts to turn his head. Running at full bore, six feet out from the bench I launch myself into the air.
Just as Thorn’s startled eyes turn to fix on me I roll my right shoulder into his upper body and smash into him.
The impact moves Thorn’s thumb on the computer track pad and sends the servomotor for the camera gimbal on the back of the little brown bat gyrating. The laser signal darts skyward just as the sensor in the bomb’s nose cone homes in. The servomotors on the canard and tail fins suddenly rotate, lifting the nose of the bomb from its sharp dive to a more flattened trajectory as the control surfaces bite into the air.
The impact of my body drives Thorn off the bench and sends both of us sprawling across the pavement. The attache case flips into the air and slides across the concrete as the laptop flies out of it and skitters along the ground.
A woman screams and tourists suddenly move away from the bench as if it were the entrance to hell.
Even before he hits the pavement, Thorn’s hands are reaching out, trying to grab the flying computer as if it were a fumbled football. He hits the ground and instantly rolls up onto one knee.
Before I can move, he scrambles ten feet across the cement to the computer. Single-minded and focused, he tries to get his fingers on the controls.
Just as he picks up the computer and starts to finger the keyboard, a moving shadow crosses the ground. A whooshing sound streaks overhead. Thorn looks up, a kind of pleading expression in his eyes. Two seconds later a flash of light followed by a massive concussive explosion rocks the ground.
Joselyn connected with the dispatcher at 911, and reported that there was a bomb in the U.S. Supreme Court Building. She was watching, wondering what was happening, as she saw Paul race across the sidewalk maybe a hundred and thirty yards away, and careen into someone seated on a concrete bench.
“Who is this?” said the dispatcher. “I need your name.”
“There’s no time to talk,” said Joselyn. “Just evacuate the building and do it now!”
Before she could even press the button to hang up she felt the ground rock beneath her feet with the force of the explosion. Her gaze turned toward the flash of light and she saw the rising mushroom cloud as it billowed two hundred feet into the air little more than a half mile away.
The VRE, Virginia Rail Express, had just pulled out of Union Station, headed for Fredericksburg, in northern Virginia, when the blast ripped up the rails a quarter of a mile behind it.
The explosion sent a mound of dirt and debris high into the sky as the concussion rattled the trailing truck on the last passenger car off the rails. The slow-moving train immediately applied its brakes and came to a screeching halt as flames and an immense plume of black smoke rose into the sky just down the tracks behind the train.
With the concussive blast, all eyes around us suddenly turn away from the brawl on the concrete toward the north and the rising plume of smoke. A couple of women are screaming. A few of the tourists start to run. Others seem frozen in place.
I look into Thorn’s eyes. What I see is desperation and anger. Only he and I know that the collision on the bench and the massive explosion were connected.
He looks at me for only a second before he darts toward the sidewalk on First Street. Suddenly he realizes he has a chance to escape. He looks at me with a scowl, turns, and starts to walk away.
In an instant I’m on my feet.
He turns, sees me, and starts to run.
“Paul, let him go!” It’s Joselyn behind me, running to catch up. “Let the police get him.”
I turn, look at her. “Stay there!”
She cups her hands around her mouth. She’s still a hundred feet away. “Let him go. The police will find him.”
But by then it’s too late. Adrenaline has taken hold. I turn back toward Thorn, and with the chase instinct of a
