only victim here, but if Crane was innocent, what did that make her? The answer was incredibly simple, yet so hard to accept.
She was guilty. Guilty of the worst possible crime. Naomi just couldn’t see a way past this mistake. Even if Ryan somehow managed to stop Nazeri, how was she supposed to live with herself? To come to terms with what she had done?
The thought brought on a fresh wave of bitter, scalding tears. They were flowing steadily now that the shock had worn off, but she knew this was only the start; the shock might have faded, but reality had yet to set in. As sorrow welled up in her chest, she heard a noise at the doors and looked up. Suddenly, her grief was replaced by something even worse. As she stared, openmouthed, at the man standing before her, she couldn’t help but wonder if this was some kind of divine punishment for what she had just done. If so, the punishment was fully befitting her crime.
Will Vanderveen was standing there, holding a gun in his hand. Her gaze instantly moved to the gun near Foster’s hand — the one Ryan had cleaned of her fingerprints — but Vanderveen seemed to sense her thoughts.
“Don’t even think about it,” he said. Smiling, he gestured for her to stand. “On your feet, Naomi. We’re going for a little ride.”
The six-minute drive from the warehouse to the intersection of Forty-eighth and Seventh was the longest of Ryan Kealey’s life. He was caught up in a surge of emotions: rage that he’d missed Will Vanderveen yet again, sympathy for Naomi and what she had yet to endure, and building despair over the death of Samantha Crane. He hadn’t known her, but she had been innocent of this whole mess and, from what he could tell, a good agent, despite the fact that she’d been blindsided by Rudaki and Matt Foster, her own partner. He couldn’t really fault her for not seeing the truth earlier; he had been similarly betrayed in the past, and he hadn’t seen it coming, either. He only wished he had been able to get to Naomi first; if he’d been able to warn her, Crane would almost certainly still be alive. In truth, he was as much to blame as she was.
He had found the lights shortly after making the turn onto Eighth Avenue, and the siren soon after that. As the Bureau sedan swept toward Times Square, he was scanning the surrounding traffic, as well as the cars lined up at the curb, searching for any sign of a white Isuzu truck. He saw a few possibilities, but he didn’t have time to check them. At this point, his only chance at stopping Nazeri would be to get to the target as fast as possible. The only thing he couldn’t understand was why he had not heard the blast. It should have happened at least ten minutes ago. He kept waiting for the rising plume of shattered cement and dust, as well as the thunderous explosion, signifying the death of thousands of people, but it never came, not on West Thirty-seventh Street, not on Eighth Avenue, and not as the Crown Vic he had borrowed squealed to a halt at the intersection of West Forty- eighth and Seventh Avenue.
He’d cut the lights and the siren a few blocks earlier, not wanting to warn Nazeri if the other man had already reached his destination. Now he got out of the car and looked around, searching frantically for the truck that Naomi had described. Not seeing it, he took a second to scope out his surroundings. The Renaissance Hotel was on his right, twenty-six stories of black glass and steel. From where he was standing, he could reach out and touch the gleaming facade. Above his head was a huge sign edged in gold filigree, at least six stories in height, with a large, circular clock on top. He checked the time and saw that the General Assembly was not set to convene for another three hours. In other words, at least thirty members of the United Iraqi Alliance were inside the hotel at that very moment, along with several hundred businessmen, conventioneers, and tourists, all of whom were blissfully unaware of the looming threat.
In the distance was the narrow northern face of the world-famous One Times Square, the Bertelsmann Building off to the left. Times Square Tower rose behind all of it, glistening like a vertical wall of blue-green water in the midday sun. In between, passenger cars flashed back and forth on the through streets, along with dozens of buses and what seemed like hundreds of yellow cabs, though the actual number was far less. The traffic on Seventh Avenue was southbound in four narrow lanes, hurtling toward One Times Square and the intersection with Broadway, the view partially obscured by towering columns of steam, which seemed to gather in ominous clouds in the cool air.
People were everywhere, choking the sidewalks, dressed for the weather in long-sleeve shirts and light sweaters. The temperature was about 65 degrees, much warmer than it had been in Washington the previous night, but still fairly brisk for September. Kealey automatically started looking for police officers and was momentarily shocked when he didn’t see any. Then he remembered that half the force — and 90 percent of the Manhattan Patrol Borough South — was conducting crowd control at the UN enclave a few blocks to the east. He wondered why the crowd didn’t extend to this area, then recalled that the demonstration stretched north on Second Avenue, from Fifty-first to Fifty-fifth. In other words, this was the perfect place to strike: for the moment, the hotel was completely unprotected. Completely vulnerable.
Kealey swung around and looked north, scanning the approaching traffic. If Nazeri was coming, he guessed it would be from this direction, not from the west. Involuntarily, his right hand drifted down to his hip, where the Beretta was holstered. The butt was covered by the lower edge of his T-shirt. A magazine was loaded, of course, 14 rounds plus one in the chamber, and he had two spare mags as backup. He suspected he might well need them; 15 rounds might not be enough to take out Nazeri, Vanderveen, and the truck. Once he saw the vehicle approach, he’d have to fire through the windshield as fast as possible. It wasn’t an ideal scenario, but at this point, he had little other choice. What worried him most were the police officers in the area. He hadn’t seen any, but he knew they were there. The minute he pulled the gun, he’d become a target, but there was no way he could explain the situation in time. He had no proof of anything he had to tell them, and the first thing they would do is take his gun and hold him for questioning. Bringing them into the loop simply wasn’t an option.
Just as he was trying to figure out his next move, two things happened at once. His cell phone rang, and he spotted the top of a white Isuzu truck approaching from the north, moving at a slower rate than the surrounding traffic. As he watched, it shuddered to a halt at the light at Fifty-first and Seventh, two cars back from the light itself. Never moving his gaze from the vehicle, he reached into his right pocket and withdrew his phone, flipping it open to answer the call. “Kealey.”
“Ryan? Is that you?”
He froze, unsure he had heard correctly. Sensing his shock, Vanderveen laughed and said, “How have you been?”
“You fucking bastard. Where are-”
“Easy,” Vanderveen said, a warning note creeping into his voice. “That’s no way to talk to a man who’s holding a gun on your girlfriend.”
“You…” Kealey was left speechless, his heart pounding against his ribs, every nerve ending seared by anger and fear. He should never have left her alone… It just didn’t seem real. “Put her on.”
“Just for a minute, then.” There was a pause, a few mumbled words, and then a sharp, defiant refusal. Kealey heard what could only be a slap, the sound of flesh hitting flesh. He knew that the other man had just hit her, and he was filled with a white-hot rage, his hand gripping the phone so tight the plastic was starting to crack. Up ahead, the light at Fifty-first turned green, and the Isuzu rolled forward. Kealey squinted through the glare of the pale afternoon sun but couldn’t see the man behind the wheel.
“Ryan?” Naomi’s voice came over the phone, filling him with dread and despair. She sounded scared as hell, but he could also detect a strange determination. When she spoke, the words came out in a rush. “Don’t worry about me. Just stop the bomb, okay? Just-”
She had spoken as fast as she could, but she was quickly cut off by another audible slap. Vanderveen came back on the line right away. “See? I’m a man of my word. Not very good at protecting your women, are you?” The other man’s voice was filled with a kind of amusement, which bordered on outright glee. “If I hadn’t been distracted earlier, I would have left you a little message to that effect. By which I mean a message carved into her face. Looks like I might still have the chance.”
“You son of a bitch,” Kealey managed. His eyes were glued on the Isuzu. It was approaching fast now, not more than a few hundred feet away. He quickly searched again for police officers, but if they were there, they had lost themselves in the crowd. “If you touch her, I swear to God, I’ll-”
“Let it go,” Vanderveen said, his voice low and strangely hypnotic. “Just let it go off. Let it do what it was meant to do. If you stop it, she dies in the worst way possible. Just like Katie.”
Kealey closed his eyes, aware of a crushing despair. The image came back in an instant: he could see her
