began tracking north, one airplane on a direct intercept with the other hanging back in reserve.
Howe tracked southward over the Hudson River, certain that this was a trick. But where would the real attack come from?
The west, he thought, where there were plenty of places to launch the UAV. He banked ten thousand feet over the George Washington Bridge, turning in that direction. As he did, the radar buzzed with a contact forty miles beyond the clutter of the land. It was low, close to the water. Howe stared at the display, where the red triangle for the unidentified object glowed like a pinpoint in the long-range scan.
Probably another bird, he thought.
He waited for it to disappear from the screen.
It didn’t.
Chapter 6
Blitz nearly jumped when the phone rang. He glanced across the room at the President, then picked it up.
“Nothing new,” said Brott, the NSC military aide who was monitoring the situation from the Pentagon. “Civilian plane, false alarm.”
“Right,” said Blitz.
The Secret Service had asked — demanded, really — that the President leave the city when the alert came through three hours before. The President had folded his arms across his chest, listened patiently to their arguments, and looked at Blitz.
“I think you should go,” Blitz had told him. Even as the words left his mouth, he knew D’Amici wouldn’t.
“With due respect, gentlemen, fuck yourselves,” said the President. It was the only time in his life that Blitzcould remember the President using that particular profanity, at least since he had been elected to office. “The people of the United States did not elect me to run away and hide from terrorists,” continued the President. “And if something horrible does happen here, then this will be exactly where I should be.”
He was a stubborn son of a bitch. That’s what it came down to. It wasn’t the fact that he thought his place was here; it wasn’t that he thought the political ramifications of running from a rumor of danger were immense. The real reason he was staying was that he wouldn’t back down from any confrontation. In his heart of hearts, he probably wanted to go down on the streets and work with the details trying to catch these jerks.
Blitz admired that instinct, even as he questioned the wisdom of it.
“Keep me informed,” he told Brott.
“Yes, sir. Mozelle wanted to talk to you.”
Blitz pushed down the button on the receiver and called his aide at the White House.
“You okay up there?” she asked as soon as she heard his voice.
“Not a problem here,” he said.
“ Lot of calls. One in particular I thought you’d want to know about,” said Mozelle. “Your friend Kevin Smith called. He was mad that you didn’t tell him you were coming into the city.”
Smith was an old friend; they often got together when Blitz was in New York or he was in D.C., but security and the press of business had prevented him from calling this time. Blitz made a mental note to call Smith later on and tell him he was sorry.
“He said he had tickets to the NCAA championship game tonight,” Mozelle continued, “and he would have taken you instead of his brother-in-law.”
“Oh,” said Blitz softly.
Tempted as he was to call Smith’s cell phone — he knew the number by heart — he realized he couldn’t. Instead he hung up and rose, looking out the nearby window at the brilliantly lit Manhattan skyline.
“I hope you’re okay, Kevin,” he told the glass. “I hope to God we’re all okay.”
Chapter 7
Fisher walked up along the track about a hundred yards, slowing as the light from the station faded behind him. The problem wasn’t the darkness; he could see fairly well. But the schematic of the tunnel system he’d seen earlier had shown a passage here to his left, and he couldn’t find it now.
Fisher took another two steps. There should be a little work light along the narrow walkway that flanked the tracks here somewhere.
As he stared at the wall, the light appeared about ten yards to his right. But it was dark. The socket was empty.
Fisher glanced down the tracks. The light bulb had been unscrewed and thrown on the tracks. He could see the glass shards quite clearly.
Which was a problem, actually. All of a sudden there was plenty of light flooding into the dark tunnel: A train was approaching.
Rather quickly too.
The door he was looking for stood next to the light. He made it with something like three seconds to spare, pulling himself up onto the ledge as the train’s brakes squealed and the tunnel shook.
When the train passed, Fisher took his pistol from its holster and opened the door.
Chapter 8
Howe steadied Iron Hawk on its course toward the contact, riding over the rooftops of Bergen County, New Jersey. He had the UAV now, the computer boxing it in the upper right corner of his screen.
“Zoom on Unidentified 1-3-1,” Howe told the computer, using its tag for the contact. The image blossomed in his screen. It was as if Howe were hovering just in front of its nose. The UAV was moving at just over three hundred knots, skimming above the waves at about eight feet roughly forty miles from the tip of Manhattan, across Brooklyn in the Atlantic due south of Long Beach, Long Island.
“Viper Two to Iron Hawk. Colonel, is this it?” asked the pilot in the second F-16. He was approximately twenty miles beyond the Statue of Liberty, just about ready for an intercept. Viper One was north, escorting Qual- Air back to Boston because of the earlier threat.
“Affirmative, I have the target on my screen,” said Howe. He read off the UAV’s location, heading, and speed, pulling back on the magnification level so he could better direct the F-16.
The fighters that had just taken off checked in. One peeled off to back up Viper Two; the other took up a patrol position in case this, too, was a ruse.
It wasn’t. Howe felt his heart beating steady now, the rhythm familiar. His fingers felt heavy, his eyes almost hollow.
He’d flown in combat before, but this time it was different: This time there were people he knew on the ground, in harm’s way. This time his own people were in the crosshairs.
The contact tucked left, adjusting its course. There were thirty-five miles between it and New York.
As Viper Two approached, it quickly became apparent that he would have to get very close to the UAV to shoot it down. The UAV’s extremely small radar profile protected it against a longer range shot by the AMRAAM missiles; the pilot’s best bet would be to choose either heat seekers or his cannon. Howe could see him sizing up his strategy and preparing for it: He had a parallel track to the UAV’s course that would allow him to turn and get on its tail as it approached; the F-16’s superior speed would make the terrorist craft an easy target.
Not easy, exactly. Viper Two still had no idea where it was. In the dark night, moving at hundreds of miles an hour, the world was a flashing blur. The airplane and its target moved through four dimensions — three spatial,
