get at least four hours’ sleep at some point before the big event. Focus and discipline, a proper execution, were impossible without some amount of sleep beforehand.
It was almost midnight. It was almost December 7.
In thirteen hours, this country would change forever.
BOOK 3
95
I stood on the Lerner Street Bridge, part of the Pearl Harbor Day procession route that would lead three blocks north to the federal building. It was a clear day but not sunny. The sky was the color of ash, which I hoped was not foreboding.
It was eleven in the morning. Traffic was light over the bridge, and it would soon be non existent. The city would rope off the bridge for the marchers, who would begin at noon and probably hit the bridge about twenty, twenty-five minutes later.
I had my cell phone with me, and Lee and I had promised to stay in touch, but I wasn’t really needed anymore. The federal government didn’t need me to tell them how to stop truck bombs.
Lee, in fact, had told me to leave the downtown, but it felt odd to me to do so. Nobody else was evacuating. Why should I?
I wasn’t really sure what to do. I crossed the bridge that split the commercial district and walked north toward the federal building again. The barricades surrounding the building had been fortified, and the Army had been called in as well to defend the building. Lee had mentioned air protection, too-fighter jets, presumably. The good news, as Lee had noted, was that all this military presence would fit right in with a memorial honoring the fallen at Pearl Harbor.
Overhead, well beyond human sight, American satellites were shooting down, searching for suspicious vehicles, for three seventeen-foot You-Ride trucks.
I ambled north and then west and passed the state building, an ugly structure composed in large part of glass. It would be a great target for a truck bomb.
Then I completed my lap of the targets. I headed south. I wanted to be down by the Hartz Building at noon.
The Pearl Harbor Day marchers were gathered on South Walter Drive near the Hartz Building. Over seventy- five people had assembled, some veterans of World War II, some children or grandchildren of the fallen at Pearl Harbor. At the front and rear of the procession were Army tanks, which, again, seemed perfectly normal and symbolic in this context. Members of the military-Army, I thought, maybe Army Rangers like Tom Stoller-stood at attention in their combat fatigues, weapons aimed upward.
The politicians were absent. They’d been briefed and presumably thought better of serving as terrorist bait on this particular day. I knew this because I was part of the inner circle now. But nobody else did. The feds didn’t want this telegraphed in advance, because it might get back to the bombers and affect how they operated, and we didn’t want them to know that we knew. So as far as the general public knew, the mayor and governor and Senator Donsbrook were supposed to be here but for some reason weren’t. So the procession would now be led solely by a retired brigadier general who had been stationed in Pearl Harbor on the day of the attack.
It felt wrong that these other marchers weren’t told of what might be happening. I had to assume that the immediate area had been thoroughly searched, and there was sufficient fortification to stop a You-Ride truck long before it reached this group.
Still. The downtown was filled with people, people working in offices, people strolling the streets. It felt wrong. And I felt complicit.
I caught Lee Tucker’s eye, who gave me a nasty look, unhappy to see me here.
It was ten minutes until noon. There was no sign of a truck approaching, or Lee wouldn’t be standing still.
My cell phone buzzed in my pocket. I didn’t recognize the caller. I looked at Lee and it wasn’t him, so it didn’t matter.
Five minutes to noon. Someone was herding the marchers into some semblance of order on Walter Drive. Lee Tucker was in full concentration, his index finger placed against his earpiece, but he wasn’t registering grave concern. Nothing yet.
And then it was noon.
Nothing exploded. No truck came barreling toward us. I looked at Lee, who returned a blank stare back.
The march began.
96
Olsen checked his watch. It was twelve thirty-seven. About right. A little behind schedule, but he wasn’t going to panic. Traffic was worse than expected. They’d accounted for a slowdown, given that certain streets would be barricaded in light of the procession, but this was worse than he’d figured. Still, he had plenty of time before one. And even if it were a few minutes past one, he wouldn’t be too late. The memorial was expected to last until at least a quarter past the hour.
And hell, even if he missed the memorial completely, the federal building was still going to be there.
Don’t panic. Mr. Manning always said, don’t panic.
He checked his side mirror. Behind him, the other two members of his team, Briggs and Roscoe, were in a Chevy sedan. They were the getaway, and the backup if things got rougher than expected.
He nudged the You-Ride truck along as traffic inched forward. Up ahead at the cross street-Miller Street-he saw a police officer directing vehicles. It didn’t really make sense, though. They were still three blocks away from the federal building, and that was where traffic was detoured. Not at Miller Street…
“I don’t get this,” he said, hearing the nerves in his voice.
“It’s just traffic backed up,” said Briggs, in the car behind him.
“It’s fucked up, though,” said another voice, McPike. McPike was the driver of the second You-Ride, the one destined for the state building. Olsen checked his side mirror again. The second You-Ride truck was… call it ten cars back in traffic. It was going to turn right at Miller Street, cut over, and drive south to the state building a block away, while Olsen would plow directly south into the federal plaza.
“Keep cool,” said Olsen, trying to take his own advice. “Keep cool.”
Traffic inched forward. The cop at the intersection with Miller Street made each car wait, spoke to the driver, then released him or her to go forward. It was hard to tell why. Stupid government assholes, holding up traffic to justify their existence.
The car in front of Olsen was next up, pulling up to the intersection with Miller Street. The police officer walked up to the driver’s side door and spoke to the driver. He pointed to the left and then stepped away from the car. The car drove on through the intersection.
The traffic cop then motioned Olsen forward, wiggling his fingers. Olsen took a breath and eased the You- Ride forward. The cop walked up to Olsen’s window, avoiding eye contact. Olsen lowered the window.
“So listen,” said the cop. Then his hands quickly raised up, a firearm in his hand. He fired a rubber bullet directly into Olsen’s face, knocking him unconscious.
It happened in coordination: Army tanks came from each side of Miller Street to cut off the You-Ride’s forward route. U. S. Special Forces converged from behind buildings on each corner of the intersection and charged
