Dead or Alive

Every fallen empire in history had rotted from within, and the same would be true for America. Fighting two intractable wars, an economy in shambles, banks and manufacturing giants going bankrupt… Those conditions might change over time, and perhaps even improve, but future historians would mark these events as the first signs of decay. The sad truth was America couldn’t be destroyed, per se, from within or from without, and certainly not by mortal effort. If it was to happen at all, it would come from Allah’s own hand, and at a time of His choosing. And unlike all the leaders that had come before him, the Emir knew the truth of this and had adjusted his strategy accordingly.

Four more days, Musa thought, and the terrifying world America fought so hard to keep at bay would come crashing in.

Clark and Jack were booked on a six a.m. US Airways flight out of Dulles to Norfolk; Chavez and Dominic a Northwest redeye to Rio de Janeiro. They would be touching down at their respective destinations at roughly the same time.

Ninety minutes after the Paulinia fire started and the skies over the coast began to blacken with smoke, Sao Paulo closed its airspace to all traffic. Hendley and Granger took this as a good omen: With luck, the perpetrators of the refinery attack hadn’t made it out before the airport closed. Almost certainly they would have a backup exfiltration plan, but how quickly it would get them out of the country was unknown.

While the others sat in the conference room and watched the Paulinia news coverage, Jack found Dominic sitting in the break room, hands clasped on the table before him. He was staring into space. It wasn’t until Jack was standing beside him that Dominic looked up.

“Hey, Jack.”

“Ding bring you up to speed? Sao Paulo?”

“Yeah.”

“If you’re not up for the job, I’m sure-”

“Why wouldn’t I be up to it?”

This question surprised Jack. “I don’t think I would be, if I were in your shoes. Dom, he was my cousin and I loved him, but he was your brother.”

“What’s your point?”

“My point is, twentysome hours after Brian died, you’re going back out, and when I ask you about it, you give me some off-the-cuff answer. It’s just a little strange, is all.”

“Sorry.”

“I’m not looking for an apology. I want you to talk to me.”

“Brian’s dead, Jack. I know that, okay? I watched the spark go out of him.” Dominic snapped his fingers. “Just like that. You know the first thing I thought after that?”

“What?”

“That if not for that Bari asshole, Brian would probably still be alive.”

“You believe that?”

“Not really, but it took everything I had to not climb out of that car and put a bullet in the guy’s head. I actually had my hand on the door handle. I wanted to kill him, then go back to Almasi’s house and see if any of those motherfuckers were still alive so I could kill them, too.”

“You were in shock. You still feel that way?”

“I don’t feel much, Jack. That’s what scares me.”

“It’s called shock. You might feel that way for a while. Everybody’s different. You’ll deal with it how you deal with it.”

“Yeah, what makes you an expert on this shit?”

“You heard about Sinaga?”

“The forger guy? What about him?”

“I was watching the back when John and Ding crashed his door. He jumped out the window, then all the sudden he’s coming at me with a knife. We wrestled; I had a hold of his neck and tripped or something. When I looked up he was lying there twitching. Staring at me. I don’t know how exactly, but I broke his neck.”

Dominic took this, but his face remained impassive. “I guess it’s my turn to ask you how you’re doing.”

“Okay, I guess. I don’t think I’ll ever get his face out of my head, but it was him or me. I feel bad about it, but I sure as hell don’t feel bad about still being alive.”

“Then you’re one up on me, cuz. If I could trade places with Brian, I would.”

“Are you trying to tell me something?”

“Like what?”

“Like I need to hide all the steak knives next time you come over to watch football.”

“No, Jack. But I will tell you this: Before this is all over, I’m getting some payback for Brian, and I’m going to start in Sao Paulo.”

Jack opened his mouth to respond but was halted by Dominic’s raised hand. “Mission first, Jack. I’m just saying, if I get a gomer in my sights, I’m putting him down and notching it up for Bri.”

Aside from odd looks from his fellow travelers who stared at the GA-4 cask as they passed him on the highway, Frank Weaver’s first day on the road passed without incident. As this was a trial run, this particular cask was merely a shell containing none of the neutron and gamma shields the real thing would carry. Nor did the cask bear any decals or stencils. Nothing to give away its purpose. Just a giant brushed stainless-steel dumbbell riding on a flatbed truck. The little kids had been particularly funny, pressing their wide-eyed faces to the windows as they passed.

Four hundred eighteen miles and seven hours from the Calloway plant, Weaver took exit 159 off Highway 70 and turned south onto Vine Street. The Super 8 Motel was a quarter-mile down the road. He followed a sign, TRUCKS ENTER HERE, into the parking lot and braked to a halt between the yellow lines of a truck slot. Three other trucks had taken nearby spots.

Weaver hopped out of the cab and stretched.

Day one down, Weaver thought. Three to go.

He locked the truck, then did a walk-around, checking each of the padlocked ratchets, then testing each chain’s tension. All were solid. He headed across the parking lot toward the lobby.

Fifty yards away, a dark blue Chrysler 300 pulled into its own spot. In the front seat, a man raised a pair of binoculars and watched Weaver step through the lobby doors.

As he had been doing four times a day for the past two weeks, Kersen Kaseke powered up his laptop, opened his Web browser, and went to the online file-storage website. He was surprised to see a file sitting in his inbox. It was a JPEG image of some kind of bird-a blue jay, perhaps. He downloaded the file to his hard drive’s documents folder, then erased the picture from the site and closed his Web browser.

He found the file, right-clicked on it, and selected “Open with… Image Magnifier.” Five seconds later a window popped up showing the blue-jay image, which flashed from color to black-and-white before going grainy. Slowly at first and then more rapidly, chunks of pixels began fading. After thirty seconds, all that remained were two lines of alphanumeric pairs-168 of them. Finally, Kaseke double-clicked on the day’s onetime pad to open it up. The decoding was tedious, taking almost ten minutes, but when he was done, he had two lines of text:

Sunday. 8:50 a.m.

Open Heart Congregational Church

A Christian church, Kaseke thought. Much better than a library or even a school. He knew where the church was located and suspected that like almost every church in Waterloo, this one conducted several services throughout the morning. Eight-fifty would be about the time people were leaving the first service and arriving for the second. Give the members a few minutes to collect their things and head for the door… In his earlier reconnaissance, he’d studied the comings and goings of the church’s members. They loved to congregate outside between services and shake hands and laugh and talk about whatever they talked about. Such frivolity. What passed for worship here was a disgrace.

8:50. Yes, it was perfect. There would be a hundred or more people standing on the steps and sidewalk. There would likely be children present, though, and Kaseke didn’t especially like the idea of