So he had agreed to do as Swain had asked. To martyr her in the Lord’s name, just as he was about to martyr himself.
“You don’t have to do this,” she said suddenly. She was yelling so he could hear her above the sound of the wind.
He tore his gaze from the view and looked at her. He remembered thinking that she was beautiful, but the ugliness in her soul clouded that beauty now.
“I do as Allah commands,” he said.
“Allah would never command such a thing. You are about to take the lives of innocent people. Women. Children. Countless Muslims.”
“These people are not innocent. They live their lives in ignorance of their god. They elect leaders who kill our Muslim brothers and sisters.”
“And how are they any different from the men who control you?”
He scowled at her. “I answer only to Allah.”
“And Imam Zuabi.”
“Zuabi is a great leader. The Lord sometimes speaks through him. He has counseled me since I was a child.”
“And what about Swain? Does the Lord speak through him as well? He and the people he works for are no different than those you wish to-”
“Be silent!” Haddad snapped.
Haddad no longer wished to listen to this woman. She had been subverted by Western ways and she was trying to trick him, to keep him from doing what he had come to do here at the top of the world.
He turned from her, returning his gaze to the road below, using a pair of field glasses to look toward the north side of the bridge now, waiting for his signal that the time was near. That the moment was upon them.
And then he saw it, little more than a crawling bug in the distance.
The tanker truck was rolling onto the bridge.
Jack’s gut was on fire.
He needed to get to Sara. If they were all going to die, he wanted to die with her.
Emergency personnel were swarming onto the bridge behind them-a lot of sound and fury but not much else at this point. What could they do?
Jack turned to Forsyth. “We’ve gotta get up there.”
“And do what? We go rushing up there, he’ll pull the trigger and you can kiss this bridge and everything on it good-bye.”
“He’s gonna pull that trigger anyway,” Jack told him. “And if that tanker truck I told you about is anywhere in the vicinity, it’ll be a lot more than this bridge that goes up. If it ignites, the smoke and ash will carry lethal doses of radiation across Northern California.”
“The bridge authority is moving to close it down as we speak. As soon as the southbound traffic has cleared, it’ll be deserted.”
“Great. That’s a terrific plan. We’ve still got a madman up there with a nuke.”
“We don’t know that it’s a PTND,” Forsyth said.
Jack shook his head ruefully. A Portable Tactical Nuclear Device. The FBI made everything seem so sterile- manageable because it had a classification.
“Look, I’m sorry about before,” Forsyth said, “and I understand you’re upset about the girl. But we’ve got to wait for the negotiating team. If we can try to reason with the guy-”
“ Reason with him!” Jack shouted. “Do you know who this man is? The only way to reason with him is to put a bullet in his head.”
“If it comes to that we will. We’ve got a chopper headed this way with a sniper on board.”
They’re doing it by the book, Jack thought. That’s all these people know-and one day it would be their downfall.
Probably today, in fact.
But Jack wasn’t part of their team and he’d make his own rules, as he’d done since this damn thing started.
What was it the Reb always said about Israeli negotiating tactics? “Every Jew a twenty-two-”
Jack gestured to Forsyth. “Give me your gun.”
“What?”
Jack moved toward him. “Give me your damn gun!”
“Back off, Hatfield, that’s not gonna-”
Jack lunged, thrusting his hand inside Forsyth’s jacket and ripping the Glock from his holster. Forsyth grabbed him but Jack wrenched free with a furious tug and ran, heading across three lanes of highway toward the pedestrian walkway.
“Stop him!” Forsyth shouted as he took off after him, several of the others joining in the chase.
“Shoot?” someone called back.
“Negative!” Forsyth said with something that sounded like regret. “Just freakin’ stop him!” He started running, joined by four other agents.
Jack leaped over the rail and hit the sidewalk, running for all he was worth, heading for the right flank of the tower. He heard shouts behind him but ignored them as he covered the last several yards to the base of the spire. Few people knew that there was a door built into the design, but Jack was one of those few and he reached for the handle, finding it locked.
His pursuers were closing in fast.
Stepping back, he raised the Glock and fired, shattering the latch and nearly clipping himself with the ricochet. He wrenched the door open and went inside.
The interior of the tower reminded Jack of an old World War II submarine. A short, narrow corridor led to a small, rickety elevator with steel-mesh sides, looking like something you’d find in a mine shaft.
Voices and footsteps were closing in from behind. Jack quickly shut himself inside the elevator as Forsyth reached the doorway. Jack looked back, saw a face full of desperation and fury.
“Hatfield! You’re gonna blow this!”
Maybe-but he hadn’t so far.
He jammed the elevator into motion and the car began to rise, rattling its way toward the top of the tower.
No, Jack and his team had carried the ball farther than he could have hoped, could ever have imagined. God- his God, a just God-wouldn’t let him fail. Not now.
Jack refused to think about it. All he could think about was getting to Sara.
The elevator came to a stop at the lower part of the tower beam. Jack threw the door open and stepped into a small vestibule, then over to a worn steel ladder that led up through a narrow hatch.
Tucking the Glock in his waistband, he grabbed hold of a rung and started up, not quite sure what he’d do once he reached the top. He had no plan here. Was running purely on blind instinct, but if he didn’t do something, he knew that this bridge-and Sara-were doomed.
He stopped as he reached the hatch door. Sucking in a breath, he pushed a hand against it and lifted it only a crack, peering out at the catwalk that stretched across the bridge.
It was several feet long and slightly over three feet wide, guarded by a rail on either side. Sara and Haddad stood at the far end, against a rail, Sara’s hands bound in front of her. Haddad had her by the arm and was looking down toward the road with a pair of field glasses, probably waiting for the tanker to arrive. And if it was already on the bridge, Jack knew he had only minutes to spare before Haddad set off the bomb that was strapped to Sara’s back.
Except for the wind, it was so quiet up here it felt surreal.
Jack knew he might be able to use the Glock and take Haddad down from this distance but decided against it. He was no sharpshooter, like the guy who took the kid down near the podium. Besides, the bastard had Sara as a shield. And if he happened to hit the backpack, God knows what would happen to the bomb.
