putting it off. The hand-wringing and moral debate had to take place up front. In Adams ’s case, that meant before they even picked him up. Once that was done there was no turning back. You couldn’t undo the fact that they’d already broken a number of laws. Yet here Nash was making waves. No doubt it had something to do with the strain they’d been under lately, but even so, Rapp expected more from him.
Rapp had seen it before, usually in the military, where despite amazing effort, the use of force was not always as precise as they would like. One too many innocent bystanders blown up by a bomb or killed by an errant bullet, and you were likely to have the occasional foot soldier check out. It wasn’t always easy to detect. Everyone acted different in the days immediately following an engagement with the enemy. Especially the first twenty-four hours after combat. It was not unusual, for instance, for one of the men to become quiet. The noncommissioned officers put up with it to a point, but if that brooding turned into questions about the morality of the mission, the noncoms stepped on it quick and hard. If a trooper or Marine couldn’t snap out of it, they were gone. Effective fighting units were not the place to debate the ethics of urban warfare. The integrity and effectiveness of the unit could not tolerate it, so the men either snapped to, or were dumped.
Rapp was beginning to question if he would have to do the same thing with some of his men. He would not have guessed that Nash would be one of the problems. He looked across the room at the retired Marine officer who was giving Lewis an earful, and thought it must be the stress of the past week. None of them had slept much, and Nash knew the men and women who worked at the Counterterrorism Center much better than he did. Watching tough men in full combat gear die on a mountain range was hard enough, but was not incongruous with the mission or the surroundings. Watching civilians blown away at point-blank range in an office setting was an entirely different matter, though. Rapp had begun moving toward Nash and the doctor, when he heard his name called from the overhead speaker.
“Mitch, get in here and bring the file.”
Rapp stopped. It was Hurley. He would have to wait and talk to Nash in the car on their way back to D.C.
CHAPTER 12
DESPITE the urging of the mentally challenged Moroccan, Hakim took his time. He put on his pants and a shirt before grabbing his pistol and gas mask. He’d thought about this exact moment many times since purchasing the safe house. Escape was an illusion. Yes, they might make it to the river, but America was a country with vast resources. In the aftermath of the attacks on the Towers and the Pentagon every county and city in the country had received federal dollars to bolster law enforcement and critical response to terrorist attacks.
Local law enforcement went on a spending spree, snatching up state-of-the-art communications gear, biohazard suits, and weapons that rivaled those used by elite Special Forces units. Budgets for training increased in some cases by a thousand percent. Planes and helicopters with night vision equipment were added to the arsenal as well as boats and specialized vehicles of all shapes and sizes. And that was just at the local level. Chicago was less than an hour away by air, and the FBI Field Office there had a SWAT team that was considered every bit as good as their venerable Hostage Rescue Team that they kept in Quantico, Virginia.
Hakim, in general, was equal parts optimistic and pragmatic, but on this issue it was hard to be optimistic. He knew from the moment he found this place that they would be dead if the Americans ever found them. They went through the motions of discussing escape routes, and the provisions had been put in place, but both he and Karim knew it would do them little good. Ahmed, on the other hand, was probably naive enough to think they could get away.
Hakim started down the hallway at an almost casual pace, his pistol in his right hand and his gas mask in the other. He made no attempt to stay low to the ground. The Americans would not fire first. They would try to contact them, ascertain the situation, negotiate their surrender, and if all of that failed they would strike or they might simply wait them out. That last point concerned Karim more than any other. If they were going to go down, he wanted to do it in one final, glorious battle, taking as many Americans with him as possible. The idea of being surrounded and forced to choose between suicide and surrender was extremely unappealing.
A few steps before Hakim reached the front of the house he heard the squawk of a radio. It was Ahmed calling out the distance to his targets. Hakim walked past the center staircase and reached the front portion of the house. A small dining room was on his left and a living room on his right. Karim was in the living room, kneeling at the window ledge, peering through the lace curtain.
Karim looked at Hakim and ordered, “Get down.”
Hakim ignored him and walked straight to the front door, where he looked through the small twelve-by- twelve-inch window. Two men were coming up the gravel driveway and they were definitely dressed in orange- orange hats and orange vests. Hakim was slack-jawed for a moment, and then began to snicker as he thought of Ahmed’s confusion. In Afghanistan the Americans would drape their vehicles and positions in orange panels to reduce the chances of their own planes bombing them. Ahmed assumed these men were wearing orange for the same reason-that they were federal agents and they did not want their own men shooting them.
“Get down,” Karim hollered.
“Relax,” Hakim said. “They are hunters.”
“How do you know?”
Hakim often grew tired of having to explain the obvious to his friend. “Hunting is very popular in this part of America. Animals are color-blind. They wear orange so they don’t get shot by another hunter.”
Ahmed’s voice crackled over the radio. “I have the shot. Do I have your permission?”
Hakim looked up the staircase and yelled, “No. Do not shoot.”
Anger flashed across Karim’s face. “It is not your place to give such orders.”
“They are hunters.”
Karim’s eyes narrowed. “What if they are agents posing as hunters?”
Hakim hadn’t thought of that, but he wasn’t about to admit it to Karim, so he looked out the window and studied the two men. They were now just fifty yards away. They’d made it up the long, straight stretch of the driveway and were now entering the large gravel square that sat between the house and the barn. The man on the left was half a head taller and quite a bit heavier than the other man. A few seconds later Hakim realized the shorter man was a teenager.
“They are not agents,” Hakim said assuredly. “One of them is a boy.”
“It could be a trick.”
Hakim didn’t even have to think about this one. The Americans would never try such a stunt. In a voice loud enough to carry up the stairs he said, “Both of you stay calm and keep out of sight. I will see what they want.” He bent over and set his gas mask on the floor.
“No,” Karim ordered.
“Trust me for once, you fool.” He slid his gun into the back waistband of his pants and covered it with the tail of his black long-sleeved T-shirt. As he started to open the door he heard Karim hissing obscenities at him. Hakim stepped onto the front porch and put a warm smile on his face. Holding his right hand up in a casual, friendly gesture, he said, “Good morning. Can I help you?” His English was near perfect, with only the slightest accent. If a stranger had to guess, he was more likely to think he was Indian or Pakistani than Saudi.
“Sorry to bother you,” the older of the two said. “My name is Ted White… this is my son, Hayden.”
“Hello, my name is Harry. How can I help you?”
The two men stopped about twenty feet from the front porch. “Well… I’m sorry to intrude, especially this early. I saw the No Trespassing signs.” The father looked over his shoulder back down the long drive. “But I didn’t know what else to do… you see, I’m a cousin of the Terwilligers… the family who used to own this place. I assume you’re the new owner.”
“That is correct.”
The man smiled a bit awkwardly. “Do you like to hunt?”
Hakim smiled back and said, “No… but I have nothing against it.”
“That’s nice to hear.” The man looked at the ground for a moment and shifted his weight from one foot to the
