Paradise was only moments away.
Plowing upstream were three boats, two Harbor Patrol launches and a Coast Guard cruiser. The launches were armed with machine guns; the cruiser had a deck gun and machine guns.
The three vessels were between the barge and the bridge, racing to intercept the kamikaze craft. They knew what they were dealing with, having been briefed in full by CTU's Cal Randolph about the explosives-laden barge. They advanced in a kind of crescent shape, wide and shallow, with the two launches at the ends and the cruiser in the center.
The barge kept on coming, ignoring radioed demands that it immediately alter its course. It was equally heedless of the same commands delivered by loudspeakers. It neared the point of no return, when the interceptors must act.
The barge wallowed amid dark and turbid waters, chugging along, leaving a dirty-white, V-shaped trail in its wake.
The Coast Guard cruiser upped the ante with an artillery shell from its forward-mounted deck gun. The first shell was in the nature of a warning shot; the succeeding shells were in deadly earnest. The third shell tagged the barge.
A flash, as of lightning; a booming blast, as of a thunderclap; and the barge exploded, disintegrating with such force that pieces of it fell on the shores of both sides of the river.
A crater opened in the black water where the barge had been, the mouth of a funneling underwater whirlpool. In a very short time, the whirlpool contracted, closing in on itself, shrinking from a crater, to a dimple, to nothing at all.
The ground-floor lobby of the building where the council of twelve met was T-shaped, with a vertical bar extending from the tinted, glass-walled front entrance to the double doors of the council chamber; and the horizontal bar of the T formed by a long corridor that stretched along the front wall of the chamber, its branches extending on both sides to other wings of the structure.
The session of the conclave was scheduled for ten-thirty; at that time, the double doors would be unsealed and opened, allowing the members entry to the conference room.
Now the council members were gathered in the front lobby, along with their administrative assistants, staff members, and other members of their various entourages.
When the meeting convened, admittance to the conference room was reserved strictly for the council members; their followers must wait outside during the closed session meeting.
Among those milling about in the lobby were council members Imam Omar, Prince Tariq, and Prince Hassani. Omar and Tariq and their assorted hangers-on were grouped close together; Hassani stood off by himself, way over on the opposite side of the lobby.
Imam Omar's face was all aglow, as usual, perhaps even more so, as he greeted a succession of dignitaries, smiling and waving, his face cherubic behind its matching of long, wiry, ash-gray beard.
Prince Tariq was clad in Western garb today, a custom-tailored Savile Row shirt and expensive, hand-tooled Italian shoes, a leather portfolio with a gold clasp tucked under one arm. He smiled often, but tightly, and seemed preoccupied.
Prince Hassani was garbed in the traditional white robes and headdress of the desert tribes; his garments were spotless, immaculate. His gaze was distant, as if fixed on otherworldly matters; his smile was beatific, radiant in its boundless compassion.
A stir went through the crowd as Minister Fedallah approached, striding along the right-hand branch of the horizontal bar of the T, closing on the conference room. Now that he was here, the conference must surely start.
Fedallah wore the dress khaki uniform and peaked cap of a commander of the Ministry's Special Section; his shoulder boards were studded with gold stars, his cap trimmed with gold braid. He walked along in military manner, as if on parade, arms and legs swinging with clockwork precision and timing. His eyes were alert, his face utterly expressionless.
He was flanked by two bodyguards, who marched in step alongside him. A minor breach of protocol, this, since their standard practice was to march a pace behind and to the side of him, a measure of respect that delineated that he was the leader, they the followers.
Also, a sharp-eyed observer might have detected that the flaps of their holstered sidearms were unbuttoned, allowing for speedier access to the weapons.
Fedallah's arrival produced a second stir in the crowd, a most unusual one, as one of the assembled in the lobby suddenly darted forward, rudely shouldering aside his fellows in a brazen attempt to rush to the fore.
Even more startling, the offender was Prince Hassani, ordinarily self-effacing to the point of near- invisibility.
Reaching into the folds of the oversized sleeves of his robe, he pulled out a big-caliber, semi-automatic pistol. Crying out, 'Allah Akbar!' his weapon leveled, he rushed toward Minister Fedallah.
With equal and surprising suddenness, the conference doors burst outward and open, revealing a squad of Fedallah's Special Section gunmen, elite marksmen chosen for their dead-accurate skill with handguns. Their guns were out and ready; when the doors flew open, they opened fire, blasting away.
Prince Hassani was caught square in the fusillade, shot through the body a dozen times in the blink of an eye. He whirled and spun in a dervish dance, slugs ripping through him.
Panic and complete chaos seized the civilians massed in the lobby. They scrambled for cover, darting to the sides, throwing themselves to the floor, some shouting, some screaming.
Prince Tariq went into a crouch on the floor, dropping his portfolio, covering his head with his arms as the shooting continued, a concentrated blast of furious firepower that filled the lobby with noise, gun smoke, and bullets.
Then it was over.
Tariq drew a breath and was surprised to find himself doing so; he'd felt sure that the bullets would find him and rip him out of this world and into the next — a transition that, unlike Hassani, he had not the slightest desire to undergo.
Hassani had found his destiny. He lay sprawled on the marbled floor in the contorted posture of violent death, shot to pieces, blood from many bullet holes staining and overspreading, from head to toe, his once linen-white robes.
He was not the only casualty. Somehow, during the shooting, Imam Omar had fallen to several stray bullets — about a dozen or so. Any one of which would have been fatal. The Smiling Cleric would smile no more.
'A terrible accident,' Minister Fedallah said, allowing himself a rare smile, all the more chilling for the genuine pleasure it displayed.
He, too, had received a timely warning from CTU, an urgent message warning of an imminent assassination attempt. Not that gratitude for his narrow escape had altered his opinion of the unbelievers one iota.
They were dogs, these Americans, that he still believed; but at least this one time, their barking had proved useful.
23. THE FOLLOWING TAKES PLACE BETWEEN THE HOURS OF 3 A.M. AND 4 A.M. CENTRAL DAYLIGHT TIME
Departing the Pelican Pier base in a hurry, Vollard had directed the three-vehicle convoy containing his twelve-man mercenary force to a remote, little-traveled underpass beneath a railroad bridge, a mile or two away from the PRP.
He wanted the storm to reach a greater fury before he struck, providing maximum chaos and confusion to
