The Rule of Nine

FIFTY

The opening day of the Supreme Court’s new session, the first Monday in October, is always high ceremony. The chief justice first welcomes any visiting judges and lawyers from abroad. He then swears in lawyers applying to become members of the Supreme Court bar. All of this takes time before the court begins to hear the argument in the first case of the day.

I can see from a block away as we run through the East Plaza behind the Capitol that a crowd has already assembled out in front of the Supreme Court Building, in the distance across the street.

I glance at my watch. The court would already be seated at the bench. This must be the overflow, members of the public who have been turned away because the courtroom is full.

There is a line of television cameras up on the west plaza, facing the building’s white stairs and portico. Reporters are staged in front of them using the stark white glare of the temple’s gleaming marble as a backdrop.

“Thorn could be anywhere,” says Joselyn. “We’ll never find him.”

“I don’t think so. He’s going to have to be close by somewhere.”

“Why?”

“The model plane,” I tell her.

“Stop,” she says. Joselyn is out of breath.

“He was practicing against that shed out in the field for a reason. That little toy has something to do with his plan. If that’s the case, he won’t be able to get beyond the range of the radio controls.”

“You don’t understand,” Joselyn says. “The military can fly their drones from anywhere in the world.”

“Yes, but they have satellites. Thorn’s not the U.S. military,” I tell her. “He wouldn’t have access to satellites. He’s going to have to stay within the line of sight to maintain radio control. If his little bird gets behind a building, he’s going to lose it. That means he has to stay somewhere close to the target.”

“But he could be in a building or a car,” she says. “We may not be able to see him. Let’s call 911.”

“And tell them what?” I say.

“That there’s a bomb in the Supreme Court Building.” She looks at me and arches an eyebrow. “The worst that can happen is that they arrest us. But at least they’ll have to clear the building.”

We are directly in front of the east steps behind the Capitol. I look at her. “Do it,” I tell her.

“I can’t. I don’t have a phone. I left my purse back in the room.”

I grab my cell phone off the clip on my belt and flip it to her. “You stay here. I’m going to keep looking for Thorn.” I turn and start running toward the Supreme Court Building three hundred yards away.

“How do I stay in touch with you if you don’t have a phone?” she says.

I turn, palms up, shrug my shoulders, and shake my head as I skip away and start to run again.

“Potomac air control. This is VNG 118. That’s affirmative, he’s got all three engines burning hot and fast. No sign of any engine trouble.” The F-16 flying behind the FedEx flight had a clear view of all three engines and could see that they were throwing heat.

The other F-16 alongside hit his afterburner and pulled out in front of the big 727. He wagged his wings a couple more times in a clear indication that the larger plane was to follow him. Then the fighter made a long, slow, sweeping turn northeast, toward Dover Air Force Base in Delaware.

Ahmed reached down, tightened his seat belt, and told Masud to get his oxygen going. Ahmed put on his own mask, tightened the straps behind his head, and then pulled back hard on the yoke. The nose of the 727 started climbing as Ahmed watched the dial on the altimeter start to turn like the second-hand sweep on a watch. Every thousand feet added range to the bomb. The plane had already penetrated both the outer and inner defensive zones. Anything Ahmed could get now added insurance. He put his fingers on the lever controlling the airstairs in the back.

“This is VNG 118. I have a lock on the target.”

“VNG 118, you have authorization to launch. Repeat, you are authorized to launch.”

The fighter pilot flipped up the cap cover on the trigger and pressed the button. The sidewinder fell away from his right wing. Just as the rocket motor cut in and the missile began to streak ahead, the rear ramp on the 727 suddenly yawned open. A large bomb fell away, separated from its metal carrier, and before the fighter pilot could react, both the bomb and the carrier were below and behind him.

Two seconds later the sidewinder streaked into the exhaust port of the 727’s starboard engine and exploded. The F-16 pulled skyward, and a second later a massive yellow fireball filled the air where the FedEx flight had been. Hot shards of flaming metal streaked from the fiery blast as the debris pattern left curling contrails in the sky.

“Andrews control, this is VNG 118, target destroyed, but incoming ordnance is in the air.”

“Andrews control to VNG 118, say again.”

“This is VNG 118. The target was able to release ordnance.”

“Can you describe, kind and type?”

“Negative.”

“Any chance you can get a radar lock?”

“No, sir. Item was too small, and from what I could see, there was no heat source.”

“Tower to VNG 118. See if you can pick it up.”

“VNG 118 to Andrews control, will do.”

On the east side of the United States Capitol, East Capitol Street is like a broad bridge, a concourse for pedestrians only about a hundred and thirty yards long until you reach First Street.

At that intersection, cars cross it going north and south, and vehicles can drive in an easterly direction on East Capitol. On the north corner of First and East Capitol Street is the Supreme Court Building. On the south corner sits the Library of Congress.

I jog past tourists milling in each direction on the pedestrians-only walkway until I am about sixty yards from First Street, when I see him. At first I am not sure if it’s Thorn. From this angle I can see only a portion of his face. He is sitting on a concrete bench near the end of the concourse, no more than twenty yards away.

I stop running so as not to draw attention to myself and wander over toward the railing on the left-hand side of the walkway to get a better look. I lean against the railing with my back to him and then slowly turn.

At the moment his head is down. He has an attaché case on his lap with the lid open, both hands inside. Whatever he is doing, his attention is focused inside the case. He is wearing dark glasses and his face is shaded. Then suddenly he looks up, turns his head the other way, and for several seconds he stares across the street, not in the direction of the Supreme Court Building. Instead he is looking toward the Library of Congress, up high, toward the copper dome.

In that instant it clicks, the copper wings on the model plane. He has already landed the little brown bat. What it’s doing up there I have no idea. But there is no time left. Without thinking I push off from the railing and run straight at him.

Thorn hears my footfalls on the hard concrete and starts to turn his head. Running at full bore, six feet out from the bench I launch myself into the air.

Just as Thorn’s startled eyes turn to fix on me I roll my right shoulder into his upper body and smash into him.

The impact moves Thorn’s thumb on the computer track pad and sends the servomotor for the camera gimbal on the back of the little brown bat gyrating. The laser signal darts skyward just as the sensor in the bomb’s nose cone homes in. The servomotors on the canard and tail fins suddenly rotate, lifting the nose of the bomb from its sharp dive to a more flattened trajectory as the control surfaces bite into the air.

The impact of my body drives Thorn off the bench and sends both of us sprawling across the pavement. The attaché case flips into the air and slides across the concrete as the laptop flies out of it and skitters along the ground.

A woman screams and tourists suddenly move away from the bench as if it were the entrance to hell.

Even before he hits the pavement, Thorn’s hands are reaching out, trying to grab the flying computer as if it were a fumbled football. He hits the ground and instantly rolls up onto one knee.

Before I can move, he scrambles ten feet across the cement to the computer. Single-minded and focused, he tries to get his fingers on the controls.

Just as he picks up the computer and starts to finger the keyboard, a moving shadow crosses the ground. A whooshing sound streaks overhead. Thorn looks up, a kind of pleading expression in his eyes. Two seconds later a flash of light followed by a massive concussive explosion rocks the ground.

Joselyn connected with the dispatcher at 911, and reported that there was a bomb in the U.S. Supreme Court Building. She was watching, wondering what was happening, as she saw Paul race across the sidewalk maybe a hundred and thirty yards away, and careen into someone seated on a concrete bench.

“Who is this?” said the dispatcher. “I need your name.”

“There’s no time to talk,” said Joselyn. “Just evacuate the building and do it now!”

Before she could even press the button to hang up she felt the ground rock beneath her feet with the force of the explosion. Her gaze turned toward the flash of light and she saw the rising mushroom cloud as it billowed two hundred feet into the air little more than a half mile away.

The VRE, Virginia Rail Express, had just pulled out of Union Station, headed for Fredericksburg, in northern Virginia, when the blast ripped up the rails a quarter of a mile behind it.

The explosion sent a mound of dirt and debris high into the sky as the concussion rattled the trailing truck on the last passenger car off the rails. The slow-moving train immediately applied its brakes and came to a screeching halt as flames and an immense plume of black smoke rose into the sky just down the tracks behind the train.

With the concussive blast, all eyes around us suddenly turn away from the brawl on the concrete toward the north and the rising plume of smoke. A couple of women are screaming. A few of the tourists start to run. Others seem frozen in place.

I look into Thorn’s eyes. What I see is desperation and anger. Only he and I know that the collision on the bench and the massive explosion were connected.

He looks at me for only a second before he darts toward the sidewalk on First Street. Suddenly he realizes he has a chance to escape. He looks at me with a scowl, turns, and starts to walk away.

In an instant I’m on my feet.

He turns, sees me, and starts to run.

“Paul, let him go!” It’s Joselyn behind me, running to catch up. “Let the police get him.”

I turn, look at her. “Stay there!”

She cups her hands around her mouth. She’s still a hundred feet away. “Let him go. The police will find him.”

But by then it’s too late. Adrenaline has taken hold. I turn back toward Thorn, and with the chase instinct of a cat, I find myself in a footrace. We run down the sidewalk on First Street dodging tourists and government workers.

Thorn is maybe two hundred feet ahead of me, running at full speed. He reaches Independence Avenue and doesn’t even slow down. He runs out into the intersection against a red light, dodging cars with honking horns.

By the time I get there, he’s opened up a lead of almost half a block. I continue running. I can see him in the distance. Suddenly a car pulls up next to me. It’s a cab and Joselyn is in the back. She opens the door. “Get in!” she says.

I turn and look back at Thorn just as he runs between two barricades blocking cars from turning onto First Street across the intersection up ahead. “Go around and head him off,” I tell her. “Don’t get out of the car. Use the phone to call the police.”

She nods, slams the door closed, and the cab speeds away.

I continue running down the block until I reach the traffic barricade, then step between the two gates and start to jog again. I am in a canyon between two House office buildings, in the shade. I catch a fleeting glimpse of Thorn as he steps off the sidewalk to the right and disappears somewhere beyond the next intersection up ahead. I begin to wonder if he has a car parked in a garage or a lot. I pick up the pace and start to run.

As I clear the barricade at the other end of the block, I see the yellow cab coming this way. Now if he has a car we can follow him and call in the location to the cops. The cab screams up the street and stops at midblock. A few seconds later I reach it just as Joselyn is getting out of the backseat.

“I hope you have some money. All I have in my pocket is some change, a credit card, and my Metro pass,” she says. “And we’ll need that.”

“Why?”

“Hurry up. Pay the driver,” she says.

I do it and she grabs me by the hand, pulling me across the street. Then I realize where we’re going. The sign says CAPITOL SOUTH. It’s an open, cavernous concrete hole in the ground with escalators. We jump on the one going down.

“You sure he went in here?”

“I saw him,” she says. “I just hope he hasn’t gotten on one of the trains yet or we’ll lose him for good.”

The escalator drops into the bowels of the earth, maybe two hundred feet belowground. When we reach the underground station, it’s a milling madhouse with vending machines and a ticket kiosk that has a long line in front of it.

“Follow me.” Joselyn reaches into her pocket.

I stay right behind her.

She reaches the turnstile and slips a plastic card into the slot then steps through. She grabs the card as it’s spit out on the other side then reaches and hands it to me. I do the same and within seconds we’re running for the platform. I’m looking both ways, scanning the crowd to see if there’s any sign of Thorn.

Joselyn sees two uniformed cops patrolling the station on the other side of the tracks. “Give me a moment, I’ll have to go back up and over the top so I can tell them what’s happening. I’ll be right back.” She leaves me standing on the platform as she heads back toward the ticket area.

I turn again and look for Thorn, but I don’t see him. I am beginning to think that he caught one of the Metro trains and disappeared before we got down here.

I look back toward the ticketing area where Joselyn was headed and notice that she’s still on the platform, and she’s not moving. She is stopped near a pillar, standing there motionless, not saying anything and not moving.

I start to walk in that direction and suddenly Thorn steps out from behind the pillar. He has one hand on her arm and the other in his coat pocket. The way he holds it there I can tell he’s handling some kind of weapon.

“Never mind that your friend’s seen us,” said Thorn. “This way.” He held her arm, gripping it hard above the elbow, and pulled her behind him, retreating toward the far end of the platform.

Thorn had already seen the two cops on the other side. He got up close in Joselyn’s ear from behind. “Don’t say anything,” said Thorn, “just motion with your hand. Tell him to stay away. Do it or I’ll kill you right here. Trust me-I can shoot you and nobody’s even going to hear it.”

Joselyn moves her right hand out, her palm facing me, away from her waist, her fingers open and extended, and while Thorn grips her arm tightly, she waves me off, a sign that I should keep my distance.

All I can do is stand there and watch as Thorn, with his hand around Joselyn’s arm, retreats toward the other end of the platform.

Suddenly I hear the rush of air coming from the open tunnel behind them. A train pulls up and stops at the platform. The automatic doors open and a flood of passengers disembark while others wait to get on. In the press of bodies, the invasion of a new army onto the platform, I lose sight of Thorn and Joselyn. Then I see his head. I move a few feet toward one of the open doors of the train in case he tries to get on.

He sees me and stops. Before he can move again, the doors close and the train starts to move. Thorn realizes that his best chance to escape has just pulled out of the station. Instead he backs up toward the open tunnel, pulling Joselyn along behind him. As I stand there and watch, he pushes her off the platform, down onto the tracks, and then jumps down behind her.

In the rush and commotion of the train pulling out, I look across to the other side. The two uniformed cops are gone. When I look back at the tunnel, both Thorn and Joselyn have disappeared into the darkness.

I run for the end of the platform, lean over, and try to peer into the tunnel, but I can’t see a thing. I hear footsteps shuffling in the gravel along the bed near the tracks, somewhere off in the distance.

I jump down and enter the darkness. It takes a minute or so for my eyes to begin to adjust. I can make out warning signs, red lights facing in this direction in the distance. I start to make my way deeper into the tunnel. Every few seconds I stop and listen for the shuffling of feet on the gravel. And I keep moving. I worry that if I get too close and a train comes, Thorn may throw Joselyn in front of it and try to escape amid the screeching steel wheels and chaos that follows.

I look down. There are two sets of tracks. One on this side and one on the other, three rails for each set. Two of them are safe, the third one, off center and just inside the rail nearest me, carries high-voltage electricity for the train. It is deadly. Touch it, even wearing a rubber-soled running shoe, and you’re toast.

As soon as they were enveloped in darkness, Thorn pulled the silenced Walther PPK from his coat pocket and held it firmly against the side of Joselyn’s head as he pushed her through the tunnel. He kept her moving as fast as he could.

He had no idea how far it was to the next station. His plan was to kill her with a single silenced shot to the head the moment he saw any light at the end. That way he could emerge alone into the station, where he could take the escalator up to the street and disappear. He wasn’t sure what he would do about his passports or his luggage. That he would have to think about, and figure it out when he got there.

As all of this was running through his mind, Thorn looked up and saw a bright light in the distance. For a moment he thought it was the next station coming into view. Then he realized it was a train coming his way.

I see the lights approaching. I jump the two rails next to me, skip over the other rail, and then clear the opposite set of rails carrying traffic in the other direction. I want to get to the far side of the tunnel before the train lights me up for Thorn to take a shot. With me on one side and him on the other, the train will be between us, at least momentarily. If I can move fast enough, running down the other side of the track, I can be on top of him before he realizes it.

I wait until I feel the rush of the wind, the pressure wave in front of the train as it fills the tunnel. Then I start to run full tilt down the other side of the tracks. I hear the squeal of the wheels on the steel rails as the headlight flashes in the darkness. The noise of the train drowns out everything except the pounding of my heart in my ears.

As the train reaches me, I sprint as fast as my legs can carry me. My feet kick up gravel. But Thorn won’t be able to hear a thing, not with the sound of the speeding train in his ears. The lighted windows race by, like a falling ladder. The instant they pass I am once more immersed in darkness. But the sound of the retreating train still covers the noise of my feet on the gravel.

I jump the two rails closest to me, then the outside rail and the other set, and within a few seconds my back is pressed against the side of the tunnel, into an alcove formed by one of the large steel reinforcing ribs that arches overhead and supports the tunnel. I strain my ears, listening for the sounds of feet shuffling on gravel.

Then I hear it. I can’t tell how much distance I have made up, but it doesn’t sound right. Suddenly I realize why. Joselyn and Thorn are no longer out in front. They are behind me, coming this way. I can hear Thorn talking to Joselyn, telling her to keep moving.

I realize what has happened. They had stood stationary, probably pressed against the wall of the tunnel as the train approached and then went by. All the while I was running past them on the other side.

Thorn must have been looking back for me, using the lights of the train to try to scope me out in the darkness. Instead, I am already past him.

Now they are closing in on me. I can’t tell how close, maybe no more than ten or fifteen feet away. I can hear Joselyn breathing heavily as he pushes her along. “Keep moving, bitch!” He shoves her and she stumbles forward, landing on her hands and knees almost at my feet. She looks over and sees the bottoms of my pants legs. There is an expression of shock on her face when she sees me. Then she looks away.

My body presses against the side of the tunnel. The only thing between Thorn and me in this instant is the arching steel I beam.

Joselyn gets to her feet, takes two steps, and just as Thorn clears the I beam she begins to run. Her sudden action must have startled him, because it takes him a second before he realizes. He focuses all of his energies on the pistol in his hand. He raises it and takes aim just as I reach out and grab his wrist with both hands, forcing the muzzle of the gun up.

Thorn pulls off the round. The pistol coughs and the bullet ricochets off the ceiling of the tunnel.

Thorn, startled, tries to wrestle the muzzle of the gun in my direction. But I have one hand on his wrist and the other on the small flat frame of the pistol with his finger trapped inside the trigger guard. He fires another round and the bullet flashes off the concrete just over my head. It is like having a tiger by the tail. If I let loose for an instant, he will draw a bead on me and I will be dead.

He raises one leg and tries to knee me in the groin. Instead he misses and hits my thigh. A rock comes from out of nowhere and hits him squarely on the side of the head. Blood begins to trickle down his temple. Then another rock and another. Most of them hit him in the upper body. He lifts his left hand and tries to fend off the rocks while he holds on to the pistol with his right.

He glances over and looks at Joselyn with fire in his eyes. She unloads on him with a machine-gun barrage of rocks, venting the anger of a decade as she tries to stone him to death. She catches me on the hand with one of them. It stings like hell. But I can’t let go of the pistol.

Thorn lifts his right foot and tries to knee me one more time. As he does it I hook my right foot behind his left ankle and push him away, releasing his wrist and the pistol in the same motion.

His eyes widen with glee as he begins to go over backward, gripping the pistol with both hands to take aim. A green arc lightens up the cavern as six hundred volts and four thousand amps hiss through his body.

Thorn writhes like a snake on the third rail as Joselyn runs into my arms and buries her face in my shoulder.