suitcase. Although it was smaller than the nuke case they were looking for, it was suspicious enough for him to interdict. He approached Rodney as he walked towards the PATH train station, placing a call as he did so. At that moment, Bill and the sergeant were in the Holland Tunnel, so he got Bridge’s voicemail instead.
“Bling. Rodney on the move with a case. Too small to be the bomb. I am going to stop him.” He closed the phone and went right up to Rodney. “Hey, Mister, you got a light?”
“No, I don’t smoke,” Rodney said, never breaking his stride.
Ross pulled his gun, stuck it in Rodney’s neck, and strong-armed him into an alleyway. “Where you headed, Rashid?”
Rodney was stunned that this man knew his real name. “I … I was… Er…”
Rodney heard a pop as Ross’ head exploded right in front of him. He heard footsteps running up to where he was. A split-second later, a man he’d seen at the mosque appeared with a sniper’s rifle and scope attached to it.
“Go… Go! I will handle this.”
“Who are you?”
“Number 1 had me stay here to make sure you weren’t followed. Now go, Allah be with you! Here…” He tossed the still-shocked Rashid a handkerchief, then motioned his hand across his face.
Rashid wiped his face and pulled back the handkerchief to see red blood and gray matter. Then he puked.
As they were coming out of the Midtown Tunnel, Bridgestone proposed they go to the location and check out the copter. He motioned to the back seat. “Our rad detector is in the small case. If there’s a nuke anywhere close, we got a good shot of picking it up.”
Bill’s phone rang.
“Li, wha’cha got?”
“Not even close, Bill”
“Best guess?”
“Radiological device, but no big plutonium signature…. Sorry I missed this before.”
“We were all fooled by the false responsibility claim and…holy Shit!”
Bill grabbed his other cell and said as he dialed, “Janice, Mom, Pop.”
“…pagers or beepers. Also the use of flash photography during this afternoon’s performance is strictly prohibited…” was coming over the theater’s public address as Janice obediently silenced her cell phone and slid it into her purse. She looked around one more time, but still saw no sign of Bill.
“What is it?” Bridge asked as he weaved in and out of traffic at 75 m.p.h.
“These guys duped us and the entire world, except for you and Ross. The message the NSA intercepted with Roosevelt and Mahgra was obviously a plant. The failed attack on the
“Sun Tzu — all warfare is based on deception.”
Bill snapped his fingers as he remembered the reference. “Hence, when able to attack, we must seem unable.”
“I’m impressed, sir.”
“I studied Tzu when I played ball in college. Used many of his strategies.”
“Well, it seems the terrorists studied
“Why couldn’t these guys have stuck to just reading the Koran.”
“Oh, I see now, it was only the photocopy that didn’t have the street address…” As Ralph turned to Rashani to explain the discrepancy, he felt a sharp pain in his chest. Number 1 then jerked the scarab up in strong pulls, ripping open Ralph’s ribcage. He finished off his work by slashing the policeman’s throat, leaving him to fall back onto the floor of the trailer.
Number 1 turned and nodded to Number 5, who was screwing a silencer onto his pistol. He stepped out of the trailer to summon the other officer, shedding his blood-splattered jacket along the way. He checked the side- view mirror of the lighting truck to be sure that he was clean.
“Officer? Officer Chesney would like you to join him in my trailer. There’s seems to be a problem with the permit.”
Sammy watched as the producer escorted the cop into the trailer. From this distance, he couldn’t hear the dull pops the silenced weapon made. He did see the trailer rock once, but figured it was normal when people went to one side or another. He returned to dishing out the crew lunch.
“Take the BQE,” Hiccock said. “I used to live here.” Just then, Bridgestone’s phone chimed, indicating that there was a voicemail. He retrieved the message as Bill watched his expressions. “Well?”
“Ross said Rodney was on the move with a case too small to be the nuke.”
“Was he headed out of town or carrying something else?”
“We’ll know soon. Ross was making a move on him. We must have been in the tunnel when he called. Anyway, you know the reason I asked for Palumbo was for cover, in case we had to deal with locals. Flashing an FBI card could keep a lot of nosy cops out of our business. I don’t suppose you have any official looking I.D. on ya?”
“Well let’s see.” Bill opened his wallet and rifled through his I.D. cards. “Office of Homeland Security, no, National Security Agency, no, Defense Intelligence, nah, Central Intelligence, uh uh, Oh here we go, Federal Bureau of I. By the way, on this case I am the lead agency for all these agencies, so since they all are working for and reporting to me, I get to hold all the cards, so to speak.”
“Cool!”
Customs Agent Hector DeNardo was scanning the last container of the current tier when the radiation monitor in his hand registered low-level contamination. He quickly got out his handheld scanner and waved it past the decal on the door. In an instant, the shipping history of the container was displayed on the device’s four-inch display. He relaxed a bit when he saw it was from Teva Radiological Industries Ltd. Petah Tikva, Israel. Still he’d report it, after lunch.
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
Sometimes Allah smiles on you and sometimes he’s looking the other way. It was a fast shootout as the two Jersey City cops stopped and fought it out with the guy dragging the dead body down the alleyway. They happened upon him by accident while investigating a call on a gas leak. Since the dead guy with half his head missing had no I.D., the only thing they found was the set of car keys in his pocket. As other cops and investigators arrived, they pushed the button on the key ring. A half a block away, a Cadillac Seville beeped and its lights flashed. Three minutes later, the NCIC sent a flag to Homeland Security. As a major member of government, all Bill’s friends and family were on a watch list. The inquiry tripped an alarm and the Secret Service detail assigned to Bill was signaled. They were embarrassed and professionally crushed that Bill had eluded them and wasn’t in his suite. Furthermore, the one agent assigned to Janice and the Hiccocks almost gave his mom a heart attack when they rushed to the row in the theater and ascertained that the dead man on the street in Jersey City wasn’t the registered owner of the Caddy, the senior Hiccock.
Bill’s encrypted phone started to oscillate, the signal that indicated flash traffic. At the risk of exposing their
