Abuse of Power

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.

Operation Roadshow?

As the sirens continued to grow closer, it suddenly struck Jack that this wasn’t just some sick joke. It was far, far more than that.

Forsyth had finished with his call, the room had pretty much emptied, and a fresh set of suits grabbed hold of him.

“Listen to me, Forsyth,” Jack said as they tried to walk him out. “You’ve got to listen to me carefully.”

“We’ve heard enough from you. Get him out-”

“ Think, goddamn it. If I had anything to do with this, why would I have warned you there was a bomb in the building?”

“How the hell should I know? You miss the attention? You’re out of your friggin’ mind.”

“No,” Jack said. “No. This is just a footnote to what’s really going on.”

“Get him out of my sight.”

Forsyth’s men started to drag him away but Jack struggled against them. “You hear those sirens?” he said. “That’s half the city’s emergency personnel headed in our direction because they think the President’s in danger. But don’t you get it? This is a goddamn decoy.”

“For what?” Forsyth called after him.

“I’ve spent the last week trying to track these people down-been to Europe and back trying to figure out what the hell they’re up to. This all goes back to the bombing downtown. Agent Forsyth, do you seriously think that was the work of a bunch of disgruntled yahoos?”

Jack saw a shift in Forsyth’s eyes. The same shift he’d seen when he’d confronted him at that press conference. Forsyth knew that was all a cover story. He knew the whole setup wasn’t kosher.

“Come on,” Jack said. “If you know anything about me at all, you know I’m a goddamn patriot. I’d never do anything to harm this country. I’m telling you the truth.”

Forsyth mulled that over for a moment and Jack thought he saw another subtle shift in his expression. He gestured for the men to release Jack. They stepped away but stayed close.

“Okay, let’s pretend for a minute I believe you,” Forsyth said. “What do you think the real target is?”

“I figure they’re looking to make a major statement here. I think they’re going after San Francisco’s twin towers.”

“What?”

“I’ve been too damn busy following the trail they laid out, thinking they’d converge. But they don’t. This was designed to keep us distracted.”

“A decoy?”

“Yeah. There’s a top soldier for the Hand of Allah named Hassan Haddad who’s been running point on this whole operation. Smart son of a bitch. I’m guessing he was also in those tunnels tonight, and if you follow them to their farthest point, where do you think they lead?”

Forsyth thought about this for a long moment. And all at once he seemed to get it.

“Christ,” he said. “The twin towers. The Golden Gate Bridge.”

They took off in a caravan, Jack riding shotgun with Forsyth, his two agents in back-the ones Jack had hurt, and who didn’t look like they forgave him. A police cruiser and a Secret Service car followed, their sirens screaming. Forsyth was on the radio shouting for support-fire department, bomb squad, SFPD, sky patrol-as he wound along Lincoln Boulevard, crossing the double yellow line to bypass cars, moving at speeds that sometimes threatened to send them off the road, down the steep cliff to the dark waters below. They raced through the old Presidio army base, past Pershing and Stillwell roads. Named for military commanders who knew how to defeat the enemy, not placate the media and foreign lobbyists.

“If you’re wrong, Hatfield, I’ve just kissed my career good-bye.”

“I’ve never been more sure of anything in my life,” Jack told him. “Isn’t this what we both signed on for? Uncovering truth and upholding liberty?”

Forsyth clearly wasn’t comfortable being in the same vehicle as Jack, let alone in the same philosophical arena. But he didn’t argue the point.

A trip that would normally take ten minutes was cut down to five, and soon they were looping under the roadway and then around onto the bridge itself, more police cruisers joining in behind them.

The Golden Gate Bridge is one of the longest suspension bridges in the world, boasting two five-hundred-foot-high suspension towers, the first of which-the south tower-now loomed in front of them, its orange-red majesty lit up against the night sky.

Behind them the cruisers began to slow, moving in a serpentine formation to keep more civilian cars from rolling onto the bridge. Then Forsyth cut his siren and brought the SUV to a halt, the other vehicles in the caravan pulling up next to them. They all jumped out, Forsyth pointing a pair of Bushnell Night Vision field glasses toward the top beam of the south tower, which spanned the width of the bridge. He squinted against the magnified brilliance of the lights on top of the bridge.

“Holy shit,” he said. “There are two people up there and one of them is a woman.”

“What?” Jack reached for the field glasses.

Forsyth handed them over. His heart slamming hard, Jack aimed them toward the top beam.

It was Sara.

He was torn with emotion. She was up there and she was alive, standing 746 feet above the bay, against the protective railing. Hassan Haddad was holding her by the bare upper arms. They were both standing spread-eagled against the wind gusts, their position precarious at best.

Jack knew that this was Swain’s last little “up yours,” and it had nothing to do with holding Sara hostage or waiting for Jack to arrive before hurling her to her death. In fact, Jack no longer had any doubts about the game plan. He was convinced that what he saw strapped to Sara’s back was the device Haddad had procured from Chilikov in Bulgaria.

It was a backpack nuke.