they seemed to be everywhere and there was no way of knowing who might be their guy.
Would it be Hassan Haddad?
As the applause died down, the President said, “I want to thank you all for coming here tonight to this important event. A gathering of people of all political persuasions, who have joined to celebrate the art of a religion and culture that has given the world so much, yet has come under great scrutiny these last several years, much of it negative.”
“Given the world so much,” Jack thought bitterly as he heard footsteps pounding behind him. He didn’t have to look back to know it was Forsyth and his men racing down the hall. They would have radioed other agents, the Secret Service. Operatives would be peeling off, converging on this spot. He stepped into the courtyard and started threading his way through the crowd, searching it desperately, looking for Arab faces to match the white jackets.
Looking for a man with a wispy goatee.
“Hatred takes many forms,” the President continued, “and much of that hatred stems from our lack of knowledge about those we hate. We form ideas about others based on stereotypes, and those stereotypes, while sometimes grounded in a sliver of reality, do not tell us about the whole person. The whole culture.”
As he continued to search, Jack noted movement around him, agents with earpieces wending toward him from all sides. He ignored them, shifting his gaze from white jacket to white jacket.
“So tonight, thanks to the work of the California Palace of the Legion of Honor, we have a chance to see a side of the Islamic culture that we don’t often see. A glimpse into the artistry and passion that helps to define a people.”
Then Jack saw it. Not a face. Not the sign he expected, but there it was-a red stain spreading across the shoulder of one of those white jackets, and he sure as hell didn’t think the guy had cut himself in the kitchen.
Not in the chest he hadn’t.
Jack shot forward, shoving people aside, moving toward that red-stained jacket as it weaved in and out of the crowd, getting closer to the podium. Jack suddenly felt hands grabbing him, roughly pulling him aside-Forsyth and his two men, with two Secret Service agents getting into the act.
“Not me, him!” Jack told them, trying to point toward the jacket with the red stain.
A ripple went through the crowd, caused by the commotion in their midst. Several Secret Service agents assigned directly to the President sensed something wrong and started toward the podium, first at a fast walk and then at a trot.
Just ten yards from the podium, the man with the red-stained jacket realized this was as far as he’d get. He stopped and shouted, “ Allah Akbar! ” as he ripped open his jacket, spinning around to show the crowd a vest full of C4 with an LED timer attached — the timer ticking down from ten seconds.
Jack stared. It wasn’t Hassan Haddad at all. It was a twentysomething-year-old kid.
“Allah Akbar!” the man cried again, his face turned toward the heavens, as the entire place descended into pandemonium.
Jack struggled with the men who had grabbed him, their grip loosening as they began to see that he wasn’t the problem. Wrenching free, Jack jumped toward the Arab as the President was rushed from the venue and guests screamed in terror as they scrambled for the exit.
Jack was fighting against a human tide as he watched the timer tick down — eight, seven, six, five, four -
A shot cracked, tearing a bloody hole in the side of the bomber’s head. Brain splattered on the guests as the force of the impact spun him around.
— three, two, one -
The kid dropped to the floor, lost in the panicked mob, and Jack knew it was too late, knew that nothing could be done to stop it as — nothing happened.
39
Everything seemed to be moving in slow motion.
Jack felt his heart thumping in his ears, as the crowd continued to rush for the doors, most of them unaware of what had just transpired. Jack himself wasn’t quite sure as he joined Forsyth and his men and a handful of Secret Service agents as they pushed through the thinning crowd to the bomber.
Sirens blew in the distance and Jack knew that half the city’s law enforcement and emergency services were already speeding in their direction.
One of the agents shouted, “Stay back! This thing could still blow.”
The agent crouched over the dead man. He ran his fingers over the C4-laden vest with the confidence of a man who knew exactly what he was doing. Then an odd, almost comically quizzical look crossed his face.
“What the hell?” he said, then looked up at the others. “This thing is a fake. It’s a goddamn fake.”
Forsyth pushed toward him, Jack right behind him.
“What are you talking about?” Forsyth asked.
“These detonators aren’t even wired. This thing was never meant to go off.”
“Are you sure?” Jack asked.
“Positive,” he said.
They all looked at one another, trying to comprehend this new information, when suddenly, without warning, the LED counter beeped loudly and the words PRAISE ALLAH scrolled across it in bright red letters.
They all fell back, waited for something, then looked at one another in complete surprise.
“What is this, Hatfield?” Forsyth demanded. “Some kind of sick goddamn joke?”
“What are you talking about? This isn’t me. I didn’t have anything to do with it!”
Jack was still trying to process the moment because it made absolutely no sense. No sense at all.
“ You were the one screaming about a bomb, and now we’ve got a dead man wearing a goddamn joke. The way I see it, this is all on you.”
Jack’s head was spinning. The emergency sirens were drawing closer, their shrill whine swirling through his brain like an invading army.
“Don’t be an idiot,” Jack said. “Do you think I’d set a man up to be killed to make a joke?”
Forsyth didn’t answer. His boss was on the radio and the agent was trying to talk to him as the Secret Service moved in to take charge of the dead man.
Jack backed away slowly, sinking in confusion. Why would Soren and Zuabi and Swain and Hassan Haddad go to all this trouble, all this planning, just to have it end like this? Jack thought about everything he’d been through, the threats, the torture, the deaths-Copeland in that Dumpster, al-Fida dead in that bathtub, Sara being dragged away by an MI6 thug-all because of some sick joke whose symbolism escaped him?
No.
Soren and his extremist friends wouldn’t have avoided the bash if they knew how this was going to play out. Besides, the way they were talking they were after something else, a major statement. One that would chill the world, send it scurrying in terror, so that they could seize power from men whom they considered weak and rule by fear and intimidation. No matter how you parsed it, what had happened here simply made no sense.
Unless The sirens continued to wail as a tidal wave of thoughts rolled through Jack’s mind, things remembered from the last few days Al-Fida’s promise to Sara: “The infidels will soon see destruction that will make 9/11 seem like child’s play-”
Copeland babbling on the phone: “Gotta get out of here… Gotta look after the twins…”
The word twins in one of those e-mails. Still bothering him, its meaning still undeciphered.
Lawrence Soren smugly telling Jack about regime change and puppets and power.
Why? Soren didn’t care about this President. He had no need to assassinate the man. One resident of the White House was the same as the next as far as he was concerned, merely there to be controlled and manipulated by whoever managed to grab power.
And then Jack remembered the papers Copeland had left in that package on his boat. The Department of Defense papers that spoke of a clandestine transport of a tanker full of experimental solid rocket fuel.
