With about forty-five minutes to go, he doubted that they would transfer the remainder of the money.
The second laptop, to his right, was for a special purpose.
Every time Aziz looked at it he beamed with pride. It had been a stroke of genius. Aziz had no doubt that the Americans would come. If he got his hands on the president, his chances might improve, but in the meantime the second laptop was his failsafe.
Studying American counterterrorism tactics, he understood that above all they loved their technology. They would try to jam his ability to remotely detonate the bombs, and in the process they would start a countdown to destruction.
Each of the twenty-four bombs he had brought contained a digital pager that acted as both a receiver and a detonator.
Hooked up to the laptop was a digital phone. Every two minutes the computer would dial the group paging number for all twenty-four bombs and then send a five-digit number. If that code wasn’t received every two minutes, the pagers would go into a sixty-second countdown mode. If the countdown reached zero, the bombs were ignited. Aziz also carried a pager and a digital phone as a backup measure. If the pager beeped and the countdown was started, it meant only one of two things. Either the Americans were attacking or the computer had malfunctioned. If the computer malfunctioned, he could abort the countdown with his own phone.
If that didn’t work, it meant the Americans were coming.
THE CRITICAL INCIDENT Response Group’s crisis management unit had set up their command post on the fourth floor of the Executive Office Building in a conference room that overlooked the West Wing of the White House.
The large wood conference table had been pushed against the inner wall and was covered with a half dozen phones, two radio-charger trays, and several laptops. The rest of the room’s furniture had been removed with the exception of about half of the chairs.
Against the two side walls, portable tables had been set up and were cluttered with more laptops, phones, televisions, and fax machines. Many of the phones had masking tape on the handsets and were labeled with black felt-tipped marker. Almost half of the phones were dedicated to the FBI’s Strategic Information Operations Center, or SIOCTHE SIOC, which fell under the purview of the Bureaus criminal investigative division, was charged with handling almost all of the Bureau’s high-profile cases. Maps of the White House compound and blueprints of the inner structure were pasted to the walls, and men and women in blue FBI polo shirts were busy pecking away at computers and talking into phones. Two negotiators who were fluent in Arabic were on-site and ready to man the phones for as long as the siege lasted.
Special Agent Skip Mcmahon stood at the window and glared at the spectacle taking place in Lafayette Square, across the street from the White House. He was fuming; actually pissed was the word he had been using repeatedly since around five A.M. Within hours of the terrorist attack on the White House the media had moved in and set up shop smack dab in the middle of Pennsylvania Avenue. They began broadcasting their live reports from right in front of the White House’s north fence. When Mcmahon had arrived on the scene, one of his first orders was to have the media moved back, way back.
Hours earlier, in the predawn darkness, Mcmahon had been attempting to steal some sleep on the couch in his office at the Hoover Building when one of his agents came in to inform him that a federal judge had intervened on behalf of the networks. Now, as Mcmahon looked down at Lafayette Square, the media circus was omnipresent. On the north end of the park, a mere hundred yards from the White House, the three networks and CNN were all broadcasting live from atop elevated platforms, and FOX was scrambling to join the group.
They were all there with their morning shows as if it were a goddamn state fair. Good Morning America, Today, CBS This Morning-all of them.
For the last two hours, Mcmahon had been fighting the urge to pick up the phone and start chewing ass about the judge’s ruling. He had instead decided it was a better use of his time and energy to wait until all of the big shots were together.
Mcmahon looked down at his watch. It was 8:34, and they should be arriving any minute.
SHE HAD MADE it through the first twenty-four hours without getting hit.
Anna Rielly felt pretty good, considering what she had been through. Her back was a little stiff from sleeping on the floor or, at least, trying to sleep on the floor.
The terrorists had made sleep next to impossible by waking them at least once an hour from sundown to sunup. And to make matters worse, they also pulled people from the group and beat them in front of everyone.
For the women, there was something else to be afraid of.
Sometime after midnight, a young blond woman had been yanked from the group by the terrorist that had followed Rielly into the bathroom.
Rielly could not say for sure how long the young woman had been gone-the terrorists had taken everyone’s watch in an effort to further disorient them-but it seemed to be at least several hours. When the woman finally returned, her clothes were partially torn and she had a look in her eyes… a look Rielly had once seen in her own eyes.
Rielly glanced down at Stone Alexander, who was lying crunched up in a fetal position, his jacket neatly folded under his head for a pillow.
She was grateful that he had stopped crying.
The less attention drawn to them the better.
Brushing a wisp of hair back behind her ear, she looked around the room, careful to keep her head down. Two guards were by the door talking to each other. Rielly knew she wasn’t the only one who had to go to the bathroom, but no one dared ask after what had happened the night before.
Folding her legs Indian style, she glanced over her shoulder and then quickly turned her head back. The terrorist, the one with all of the jewelry and slicked-back hair, was staring at her with a cigarette hanging from his mouth-the same man who had plucked the young blonde from the group the night before.
Anna Rielly had been through that nightmare before, and she had sworn to herself that she would rather die than let it happen again. Four years earlier, Rielly had taken the Loop from the TV station in downtown Chicago to her apartment in Lincoln Park. It was late when she stepped off the train.
When she reached the street, two men jumped her from the shadows and dragged her into an alley and raped her. That harrowing event had left her bruised and battered, but her physical wounds were easy to overcome compared to the deeper mental scars. Even these were starting to heal, though, thanks in no small part to Coreen Allen, Rielly’s therapist.
Rielly had been going to Allen twice a week for almost four years.
Before the rape she had been a fun-loving, outgoing young woman who very much enjoyed male companionship.
The rape had given her a hard edge and an understandable distrust of men with the help of Allen she had again grown to enjoy the company of men who were interested in her, but the physical boundary still had not been crossed. When she took her new job in Washington, Rielly thought it was the perfect chance for a fresh start.
One of the only benefits of the personal disaster was her hyper awareness Rielly had already had street smarts, but the rape had raised her awareness to an almost paranormal level. It was hard to imagine how her current situation could get any worse, but Rielly sensed that when nightfall came, it would.
IRENE KENNEDY WAS almost run over as she attempted to enter the FBI’s command post. Two stocky men in SWAT uniforms came barreling out the doorway. The first almost butted Kennedy in the forehead with the brim of his blue baseball cap, but stopped just shy, grabbing her by the shoulders. He apologized without realizing whom he had almost knocked down, and then recognized Kennedy.
“Oh, Irene, I’m sorry.” Sid Slater, aka the Jewish Terror, was still holding her by the shoulders.
“Sid,” said Kennedy, also surprised, not used to seeing the commander of the FBI’s Hostage Rescue Team in
