“She’s dead,” Foy declared.
“So is our plan,” grunted Tony.
“What? You can’t be serious?” Foy cried. “The device they were delivering is right there, next to the corpse.”
Tony barely glanced at the large metal box, just slightly dented from the crash. “The plan was for me to pass myself off as this passenger,” he said. “We didn’t know she was a woman.”
“Lucky you have me, then,” Foy replied. “We’ll just reverse roles. I’ll infiltrate the Thirteen Gang’s headquarters, and you’ll watch my back from outside.”
Tony shook his head. “I don’t like it.”
Judith’s eyes narrowed. “You don’t have to
Tony didn’t reply. Judith grabbed his arm. “Listen, I’m a field agent, too. And I outrank you. I’m going in!”
She snatched the dead woman’s purse, then fumbled through the driver’s pockets until she found his ID and cell phone. Tony stood by and watched, feeling momentarily confused by Judith Foy’s pulling rank on him. Up to now, he was used to her following his lead.
“Wake up, Almeida!” Judith barked like one of his old drill sergeants. “Grab that box, and let’s get out of here before the police show up and arrest us.”
Morris O’Brian felt a presence at his shoulder and turned away from the monitor screens.
“Jack! Good to have you back again,” he said, then winced when he noticed the butterfly sutures on the man’s temple, the blackened eye, the cuts on his face.
“Bloody hell,” Morris said. “Look at you. If you won that fight, I’d hate to see the losers.”
“The losers aren’t breathing,” Jack replied.
“You heard about the attacks in Boston?”
Jack nodded. “While they were patching me up in the infirmary. But I need details.”
“There were three trucks. Two were bombs and detonated. A tunnel under construction collapsed, and so did the neighborhood around it. Casualty figures are not in yet. The second truck leveled Harvard Medical Center.
Estimates count over a hundred dead.”
“What about the third truck?”
“Apparently it disgorged a veritable army onto Boston Commons. The firefight still rages all over that part of the city.”
“They should have listened to me and issued a terror warning for the Boston metro area,” Jack said. “I knew my intelligence was good.”
Expression grim, Jack glanced at the monitors. “What am I seeing now?”
“That wreck on the right monitor is what’s left of the truck that tried to take out CIA headquarters in Virginia.
Cheeky, eh?” Morris shook his head. “Two CTU strike teams stopped the vehicle on Herndon Parkway. The terrorists were wiped out. No casualties on our side.”
Jack nodded.
“The monitor on the left is showing us a truck that was stopped on the Mall in Washington, D.C., right in front of the Smithsonian. The terrorists fought to the last man.
Again, no casualties on our side. Bomb squads are deactivating the explosives now.”
“So there’s only
The phone chirped. Morris answered. “Yes, sir,” he replied a moment later. Then he hung up and faced Jack.
“Christopher Henderson would like a word with you. He’s in the late Brice Holman’s office.”
“Find that truck,” Jack called over his shoulder.
Morris sighed. “How many times have I heard
22. THE FOLLOWING TAKES PLACE BETWEEN THE HOURS OF 4:00 A.M. AND 5:00 A.M. EASTERN DAYLIGHT TIME
“Come in, Jack. Have a seat.”
Christopher Henderson sat behind Brice Holman’s desk.
At the computer station, Jack saw Layla Abernathy, an un-smiling figure in a black battle suit, Glock strapped to her hip. Her hair was pulled back and she wore no makeup, her sallow face expressionless.
When Jack entered the room, Layla turned her back on him.
“I want you to listen to something Hershel Berkovic, CTU’s economic warfare guru, sent me,” Henderson purred.
Jack sat down. Layla breezed past him and out the door, avoiding his gaze. Henderson activated a digital recorder on the desk. Jack heard a voice speaking Arabic, then the translator talking over him.
“America’s alliance with our enemy has torn the Middle East apart,” the translator said in a robotic voice. “The people of America spit in our faces every day. They must be punished for their transgressions and they soon will be. And we, the Arab peoples, can profit from America’s pain.”
A pause, then the Arabic voice spoke again.
“The Muslim world is ready to rise up and smite America,” said the translator. “When the terrorism comes…
America’s economy will suffer enormous losses. Europe is much more stable, and so is its currency. It would be wise to switch our currency standard from dollars to euros before catastrophe strikes…”
The speech continued, but Henderson turned the recorder off.
“The man you heard was Abbad al Kabbibi, the finance minister for the Saudi government,” he told Jack. “Minister Kabbibi made those remarks last month, in a secret meeting with key representatives of the Arab League.”
“Kabbibi,” Jack said. “As in Said Kabbibi?”
“Turns out our fugitive terrorist Biohazard Bob is the first cousin of the Saudi Arabian Finance Minister. What a coincidence.”
Jack frowned. “And Soren Ungar?”
“Kabbibi has formed an alliance with Ungar,” Henderson replied. “And Ungar, in turn, has aligned himself with French financial institutions and banks in Greece, Austria, Italy, Belgium, Germany, and Japan. As far as we can tell, Soren Ungar now controls two-thirds of the U.S. dollars on the currency market. Perhaps more.”
“So he
“That’s what Berkovic thinks now, too,” Henderson said with a nod. “But this goes further than that. Finance Minister Kabbibi is talking about switching the Saudi currency standard from the dollar to the euro. The harm that would do to our economy would be irreparable.”
Henderson rose, placed the palms of his hands on the desk.
“Think back to what happened to Great Britain’s economy when the world switched from the pound to the dollar.
Their standard of living dropped and continues to fall, un-employment rose, investments fled for greener pastures.
The Brits have never recovered from the blow.”
“What about the currency reserve held by the Chinese?”
