Liberty

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

On Monday morning Sonny Tran stood looking up at the Statue of Liberty. The pedestal and the statue were covered with scaffolding. “Are you going to be able to get all that scaffolding off in the next five days?” Sonny asked.

The man he directed the question to was Hoyt Wilson, the chief engineer on the statue refurbishment project.

“Oh, yes,” Hoyt said, “but let me tell you, I’ve been damn worried about your gadget. We’re right up to the wire, man, with my neck on the line.” He was referring to the deadline made necessary by the Fleet Week schedule. The refurbishment project had to be finished and the scaffolding removed from the Statue of Liberty by Saturday, the first day of Fleet Week.

“The Park Service engineers have been all over this project,” Hoyt continued. “They’ve tested the new light, worked out all the bugs. It’s going to be officially turned on and dedicated at the opening ceremony the first evening of Fleet Week, Saturday night. With the fireworks and ships all lit up, this will be a once-in-a-lifetime sight.”

“Oh, yes,” Sonny said. “Still, we live in troubled times, and Pulpit has priority over light shows and fireworks.”

Pulpit was a classified project. Hoyt Wilson had a security clearance, as did the handful of workmen who were going to help install Pulpit. Yet Wilson didn’t know what it was. He asked now. “Just between us, Gudarian, what the hell is this thing you’re putting up there?” Sonny’s badge proclaimed that he was Harold P. Gudarian (“I was adopted after the Vietnam War”), an employee of the department of defense.

“Man, I don’t want to go to prison,” the fake Gudarian said smoothly, “and I’ll bet you’d rather not.”

Wilson nodded curtly and bit his lip. “Forget I asked.”

Sonny looked around, then said in a low voice, “Why do you think Corrigan Engineering got this job? The company wasn’t the low bidder.” Indeed, Corrigan was the low bidder, but Sonny doubted if Wilson knew that. In fact, Corrigan won this project three years ago — that the firm’s radiation research had led to hardware, and the age of terrorism had arrived almost simultaneously was purely coincidence. And a horse Sonny could ride.

Wilson stared as Sonny continued, “Surely you know about the firm’s work with radiation detectors?”

“Oh!” The light dawned for Hoyt Wilson. His eyebrows went up toward his hairline. He had heard the news of the warheads being discovered in Atlanta, Washington, and the Bronx.

“You never heard it here, amigo. Officially Pulpit is a system that keeps track of ships in an anchorage. The mechanics are classified.”

“I appreciate your confidence — not another word,” Wilson said abruptly. “The chopper is going to set your gadget on the balcony. As you know, it wouldn’t fit inside — things are damn tight up there. I want you up there supervising when the chopper brings it. There shouldn’t be a problem. When it’s in place we’ll start tearing down the scaffolding.”

“After we get it up there, I’m going to seal the statue, put locks on the doors. I’ll be up there through Fleet Week. We don’t want any unauthorized persons in the statue until after Fleet Week.”

“That might be a problem,” Wilson said, frowning. “There’s a television crew that wants to film from inside the crown when the torch light comes on. The Park Service gave them permission.”

“We’ll see how it goes. Don’t cancel. I’ll be talking to you. Believe me, my superiors at D.O.D. have the authority to overrule the Park Service on national security grounds.”

“I understand.”

“One of my colleagues is going to be along later today. I’ll let him in.”

“Sure.”

They entered the structure through the visitors’ entrance, an opening in the mid-nineteenth-century star-shaped Fort Wood, which once guarded New York Harbor. Although the architects who designed the fort would have never believed it, the granite fort made a perfect base for the colossus. Above the old fort rose the base of the pedestal, then the pedestal itself, the foundation upon which the 225-ton weight of the statue rested. Both the base and the pedestal were poured concrete structures faced with granite.

As Wilson and Tran rode the elevator to the observation level, Wilson said, “We could have lifted your toy up there with the crane if we’d had it in time.”

“Saved time doing it with the chopper,” Tran explained. “Then there is the security angle. The fewer people who see it, the better. And absolutely no photos. We’ll cover the thing so all the planes and helicopters flying around next week don’t breach security.”

“Let me know if we can help,” Wilson said.

When the elevator reached the observation deck, they walked outside onto the viewing platform, or balcony. At this point they were roughly halfway up the 302-foot total height of the statue. From here they rode a tiny elevator up the side of the scaffolding.

The elevator had no sides, no rails, nothing — each passenger donned a safety harness at the bottom and snapped a carabiner ring onto a metal piece, so they couldn’t fall off. Sonny Tran held on grimly as the open elevator rose. The wind tugged at his hard hat. He wanted to close his eyes as the elevator rose and rose, and the island below shrank dramatically. Finally, he could resist no longer — he slammed his eyes shut and didn’t open them until the elevator jerked to a stop. He found that the elevator had stopped at the level of the goddess’s chin. Wilson hopped off the elevator as if they were on the fifth floor of a department store, motioned for Sonny to join him, then jogged up a short ladder to the lady’s right ear. From here a longer ladder went above her arm to the torch balcony.

Sonny steeled himself and followed. He didn’t look down, just concentrated on Wilson’s shoes in front of his face as the wind whipped at his clothes and hat — it seemed as if the wind could effortlessly pluck him off the ladder and hurl him into space. Teeth gritted, eyes on Wilson’s shoes and ankles, he climbed rung by rung.

He was shocked when he saw how tiny the torch balcony was. Actually it was about nine feet in diameter. Perhaps the fact the torch was suspended here on the very apex of the statue — a hundred yards above the island below — made it seem smaller than it was. A piece of the railing had been removed so that people could enter via the ladder.

“I hope I don’t pee my pants,” he told Hoyt Wilson when he had snapped his carabiner ring onto balcony metalwork. Wilson didn’t bother with a safety line. No doubt he had been up here so often that he was no longer impressed with the view, which was sublime. He glanced at his watch impatiently, then removed two pages of blueprints from his pocket. He kept them folded so they wouldn’t blow away and began pointing out the attachment points and electrical connections to Sonny.

Tran tried to ignore the altitude and wind and concentrate on what Wilson was saying. The gentle, subtle motion of the torch as it responded to the wind didn’t help.

Two laborers came up on the elevator. One climbed the ladder to the torch and strapped himself to the scaffolding. The other waited until Sonny’s tools came up on the elevator before he climbed up, carrying the toolbox in one hand in apparent total disregard of the height and the breeze. He went back down and waited for Sonny’s duffel bag to come up on the elevator, then carried it to the balcony.

Sonny turned from looking outward to an inspection of the light assembly. The new torch light was smaller than the old one, yet the box housing the warhead would have to go on the balcony. The warhead would have fit inside if Sonny could have removed it from its housing, which was merely camouflage. Unfortunately there was no way to do that — he and Nguyen had used a chain hoist to get it into the box.

“I’m amazed the Park Service approved Pulpit’s installation, out in the open like this,” Wilson remarked.

“The Park Service wasn’t asked,” Sonny snapped. “Anyone bitches, tell him to take a good look at Ground Zero.”

The helicopter was ten minutes late. Sonny was feeling more comfortable about being up so high in such a small place when he spotted it coming from the northwest, with a load suspended under it. Seconds later he heard it.

Yes!

He forgot all about the height. He had his warhead! This Saturday night, with this harbor full of gray warships and dignitaries, he and Nguyen were going to deliver a blow from which America would never recover. They were going to change the course of world history.

Two determined men. Only two.

The noise and downwash from the rotors of the chopper as it hovered over the torch was astounding, a sensory overload that made it hard to move or think or breathe. Wilson and the laborers seemed to have no problem, although Sonny could not force himself to release his hold on a piece of angle iron. The warhead, batteries, and capacitor in their housing were lowered straight into the balcony. In less than thirty seconds the workmen had the hoist straps loose.

As the helicopter flew away the noise level dropped. Sonny leaned in, put his hand on the box.

Yes!

Commander Rita Moravia brought a giant aerial shot of New York Harbor with her when she reported to Jake’s office in the Langley complex that morning. Toad helped her tape it to a wall in an office near Jake’s — the only one with enough wall space. The shot was annotated with open lanes and anchorage positions for the warships.

When Jake arrived, the wall was completely decorated. Rita took him into the empty office to look. “We’ve been using this blowup to assign anchorage positions, work out liberty boat routes, VIP tours, garbage runs, everything …. The Fleet Week staff had another, so I swiped this one.”

“This is just what we needed,” Jake muttered, tapping the photo. “Have you met Zelda?”

“No, sir. Heard a lot about her from Toad.”

“Today’s your lucky day — you’re about to meet a twisted genius in the flesh, the great Zelda Hudson. In the meantime, help me carry some chairs and stuff into this office. I just moved. We’ll have the morning staff meeting in here.”

When she arrived, Zelda said a tight hello to Rita, nodded at everyone else, and took a seat.

Rita opened the meeting by passing out the Fleet Week schedule. The opening ceremony on the evening of the first day drew Jake’s attention. The president was going to be there, ten other heads of state, six prime ministers, five vice presidents, and half the ambassadors to the United Nations — the ones from countries that liked America this week. The senior members of Congress, New York and New Jersey’s congressional delegations — Jake ran his eye on down the guest list — celebrities, singers, sports stars, the mayor of New York, admirals from everywhere, the list ran on for pages. Even Thayer Michael Corrigan’s name was on the list. “Holy cow,” Jake muttered.

“They’ve been putting this thing together for a year,” Rita said in way of explanation. “It’s the navy’s week in the spotlight, our chance to win a few friends, which we will need desperately for the budget wars.”

“Giving everyone a short boat ride and a ton of fireworks oughta do it,” Jake agreed. “Where is the opening ceremony?”

“Aboard USS Ronald Reagan.” The Reagan was the navy’s newest carrier, just commissioned. “The CNO wanted to show her off before she transits Cape Horn to the West Coast.”

“Where are you going to put her?” Jake asked.

Rita used a pointer on the chart. “Here in front of Liberty Island. The scaffolding from the refurbishment will start coming down today, so Lady Liberty will be the backdrop. After the refurbishment she’s all polished and shiny. The president will use a radio switch to turn on her new torch light, which is twice as powerful as the old one. The television types wanted Liberty alone in the background, rather than against the Manhattan skyline — they don’t want people staring at the spot where the World Trade Center towers used to be.”

She spent another five minutes running through the logistics and size of the operation. When she finished, Rita sat down.

Jake glanced at every face in his small audience before he began speaking. “As you know, the Sword of Islam purchased four warheads in Russia and shipped them here. We have recovered three of them. Those are the facts — now for the theory: I think Sonny Tran and his brother Nguyen hijacked the fourth weapon in Florida and are planning to explode it somewhere. New York, Fleet Week”—he picked up the schedule and flipped to the first page that listed the opening ceremonies’ guests—“are perhaps the place and time. You must admit, this is a juicy list of bigwigs.”

He paused, looked from face to face again. “I need you people to verify or refute that theory, the sooner the better.”

Nods from everyone. No questions about how he arrived at that theory, just nods. This was, after all, the military.

“Let’s talk about how we’re going to do it,” Jake said, and went on from there.

Late that afternoon Nguyen Duc Tran rode one of the work boats over to Liberty Island from Manhattan. He had credentials from Corrigan Engineering, so there was no problem. He walked along with a backpack over his shoulder and a toolbox in his hand watching a swarm of men on the statue piling scaffolding on a platform suspended from the crane. When the platform was full, the crane operator lowered it to the ground, where another group of workmen unfastened that platform and quickly rigged an empty one to the crane hook. Back up the new platform went for another load of scaffolding.

Holding his hard hat on, Nguyen tilted his head back and looked up at the statue against the sky. He felt so good he wanted to laugh and shout, Hey, all you rich American bastards. Sonny and I are going to fuck you good. Fuck you straight into hell!

He entered the edifice at the tourist entrance. After a glance at his badge, the guard allowed him into the elevator, which lifted him to the balcony level. The door to the stairs that led upward was closed and locked. No one was there, not even a Park Service inspector.

Nguyen took a handheld two-way radio from his backpack and turned it on. He checked the frequency, then keyed the mike.

“Sonny?”

The reply was a while in coming. “Yo.”

“I’m at the door.”

The minutes dragged. Nguyen used them to inspect the exit door. There were, he knew, two staircases, an up and a down. The door to the down staircase was padlocked. He added a padlock of his own to the hasp, then went back to the door that led to the up staircase.

Eight minutes after he made the radio call, the door opened. Sonny grinned at him. When he was inside, they closed the door and used a portable electric drill from Nguyen’s toolbox to install an interior hasp and padlock. Then they rigged an alarm that would sound if the door were opened.

With that job accomplished, they went around to the exit door and installed a hasp, padlock, and alarm on it.

With Sonny leading, they went back up the stairs. Sonny carried the toolbox and Nguyen his backpack. It was a long climb. The new steel girders wore fresh paint. Even the stairs had a new coat of paint and new nonskid applied. They could hear the noise made by the workmen removing the scaffolding just beyond the lady’s copper skin — only 3/32nds of an inch thick. They could even hear their voices, although they couldn’t make out individual words.

When Sonny reached the door to the ladder inside the statue’s arm that led to the torch, he opened it carefully. Normally, he knew, this door was padlocked to prevent tourists from gaining access to the torch. Of course now there were no tourists. They padlocked this door from the inside and installed another alarm. The noise it made would be loud enough for them to hear it, they thought, although they didn’t really expect to hear the alarms on the doors far below. They were designed to panic intruders, not warn them in the torch.

The arm was small, the fit tight. Sonny and Nguyen had to make two trips to get the toolbox and backpack up to the torch.

They entered the torch where Lady Liberty’s hand held it, under the balcony that surrounded the flame. Sonny grinned at Nguyen. “What do you think?”

“I think we’re going to fuck these sons of bitches good.”

“You should have been up here when they delivered the thing. What a trip! They started tearing down the scaffolding as soon as the workmen climbed down.”

Nguyen climbed up the ladder beside the structure that held the new light. Its massive circular Fresnel lens was inside the flame of the torch. From the ladder, he carefully stepped out onto the balcony. There sat the weapon in the aluminum box that he and Sonny had installed it in last night.

A dozen ships were in sight, coming and going, a few anchored awaiting a pier up the Hudson or East River. There was an overcast this evening, visibility about seven miles. The buildings of Manhattan were quite prominent to Liberty’s left. The Brooklyn shoreline and Staten Island were farther away. Just visible as an outline in the haze was the Verrazano Bridge across the narrows, off to the right.

Sonny joined him on the platform.

“We’re high up, aren’t we?”

“Three hundred feet,” Sonny replied. “You should have come up the scaffolding and outside ladder! I almost lost my cookies a dozen times.” He stood with both hands on the railing, looking down at the scaffold workers. He was getting more comfortable with the height.

“You got the thing wired to the batteries?” Nguyen asked.

“Not yet. I wired it to the regular power supply just in case. You and I need to wire it to the batteries now and test the capacitor. Then we’ll wire the capacitor to the detonators.”

“Think somebody will figure something out before the opening ceremony?”

Sonny grinned again. “Doesn’t matter. We can pop this thing anytime we want — tomorrow, the day after, next week …. When it goes, most of New York is going to be a radioactive smoking hole. We did it, Nguyen! We’ve won!”

Sonny used a screwdriver to open the access panel to the warhead’s housing. He giggled from time to time.

“Checkmate,” he muttered, “checkmate,” and laughed aloud, a high-pitched keening noise.

Of course it was Zelda who first produced solid results. When Jake came to work Tuesday she was waiting.

“Do you ever sleep?” he asked.

“Can’t. Nguyen D. Tran has a Texas commercial driver’s license and owns an over-the-road tractor registered in Texas.” She passed Jake printouts of the information from the Texas Department of Motor Vehicles. “He paid road-use taxes on that tractor in thirty-four states last year, and twenty-two so far this year. Sometimes he uses a credit card to buy fuel.” She passed him a printout of the credit card company’s computer records.

“Using that you can construct a history of his trips. It’s tenuous because he only fills the tractor once a day and sometimes he pays cash.

“He often hauls for Corrigan Engineering as an independent contractor. Corrigan issued him an ID card so he can get into Corrigan job sites.” She handed the admiral a printout of the Corrigan data on Nguyen Tran. There was even a photo.

“Would a truck driver need an ID card?” Jake asked. “I guess I sorta thought truckers would be admitted only if they had invoiced material to deliver.”

“One suspects so, so the ID card means that something is going on with Corrigan. The Trans have an ‘in.’ I surfed the Corrigan photo library and came up with this.” She gave Jake a sheet showing a photo of another Vietnamese man, one Harold P. Gudarian.

“Sonny Tran,” Jake muttered, and tossed the sheet on the growing pile.

“As you know, Corrigan Engineering does major projects all over the world. Here’s a list of the projects they have going in the New York area.”

Jake looked at the list. There were only four projects. Two of them were sewage system expansions on Long Island, one was a bridge job in Hoboken … and one was the refurbishment of the Statue of Liberty.

“Sweet Jesus!” Jake Grafton whispered.

Zelda wasn’t finished. “Corrigan project managers update the home office on their progress every evening via e-mail. Here is a printout of the Statue of Liberty daily progress reports for the last three months.”

It was a serious pile of paper. As Jake thumbed through it, Zelda said, “Yesterday’s report is on the top page.”

Jake turned to it. Read about delivery of “Pulpit,” and initiation of scaffolding tear-down. There was more, a lot more, about rest room final inspections and electrical problems and site cleanup, but the word “helicopter” leaped from the page at him.

“A helicopter.”

“It could fly a bomb right over all those inspection teams.”

“Oh, yes.” He ran his fingers through his hair and pulled at his nose. “Pulpit,” he said, trying out the word. “Whatever that is. Good work, Zelda. Has Gil come in yet?”

“I saw him at the coffeepot a moment ago.”

“Send him in, please.”

Gil had a copy of the morning paper with him when he came in. Jake was studying the wall photo of New York Harbor.

“Did you see this, Admiral?” He held the paper out. Thayer Michael Corrigan had made the front page below the fold. Died yesterday afternoon of an apparent heart attack. Found in his study at dinnertime by a maid. Captain of industry, prominent philanthropist, friend of presidents, and so on.

“Darn,” Jake said, and glanced at the other headlines.

“Just got off the telephone with Harry Estep,” Gil continued. “He says the local police found an empty bottle of sleeping pills on the desk beside Corrigan’s body. The wife doesn’t want any talk of suicide. She’s already had a pet doctor sign the death certificate certifying a heart attack. Harry thinks the local prosecutor is going to let him be buried without an inquest or autopsy.”

“Below the fold,” Jake mused. “He wouldn’t have liked that. And he’s going to miss Fleet Week.”

He tossed the paper into the unclassified wastebasket and pointed to Liberty Island in the photo on the wall. “Here it is, maybe,” he said.

“Do you think it’s already there?”

“That’s the problem — it might be. We go charging in with Geiger counters or Corrigan units and the Tran brothers might push the button.”

He looked at his watch. He was just flat running out of time. He walked out into the main office. Tommy Carmellini, Toad Tarkington, and Rita Moravia were there. Tommy was casually dressed, ready for another day riding around in the van with the Corrigan unit. Toad and Rita were wearing khaki uniforms. He pointed at Rita and raised his voice. “Go home and change into jeans and work shoes or flying boots, something leather. Gil, get Rita a helicopter. Tommy, get her a Geiger counter and backpack. I want her on Liberty Island by the noon hour.”

He clapped his hands. “Go, people. Now!”

At eleven-forty-five that morning Rita Moravia boarded the crew boat in lower Manhattan for the ride to Liberty Island. She was wearing jeans, leather hiking boots, and a hard hat. Around her neck was a National Park Service ID. In her backpack was a Geiger counter.

Jake Grafton talked to her on her cell phone as she drove to the Pentagon to catch a helo. “If they brought the warhead in by helicopter, it isn’t packed in lead anymore. The Geiger counter should pick up the radiation. Check the whole island.”

She also had a clipboard. She would walk around the island making notes, trying to look like a typical government inspector out to fill up a form with cogent observations.

During the night the first of the foreign warships had arrived in New York Harbor, two destroyers from Italy. They were anchored adjacent to each other. As she watched, a liberty boat departed from the side of one of them, jammed to the gunwales with sailors in whites.

Three gulls flew alongside the crew boat, eyeing the passengers one by one to see if anyone was interested in making a food donation. Apparently not. They rode the wind wave off the boat all the way to Liberty Island anyway.

Halfway to the island Rita turned and looked back at Manhattan. Then Brooklyn, Staten Island … Millions of people lived and worked within ten miles of this island, all busy with life.

The head, arm, and torch of the Statue of Liberty were clean of scaffolding, which was almost down to Liberty’s waist. Even as the boat approached, the large construction crane lowered another pile of scaffolding to the ground. Rita could see the men high up, taking the scaffolding apart.

When the boat docked, she queued up and took her turn getting off. She didn’t expect to recognize anyone, and she didn’t.

Out of the stream of workers and members of the press, who were also taking a tour today, Rita paused and took off her backpack. She unzipped it to gain access to the Geiger counter and donned the headset so that she could listen to the audio.

She checked the readings on the gear, then set out for the old fortress. If the Trans knew anything about nuclear weapons, they would try to get the warhead as high as possible to maximize the blast effect of the detonation. That meant the statue and the construction crane were the most likely places.

She got some buzzing as she walked around the outside of the old fort. She went in, took the stairs to the base of the pedestal. On the lower observation deck, which was really the top of the old fort, the Geiger counter squealed in her headset.

It was here! She walked completely around the base. The tone increased in intensity and volume the closer she got to the pedestal, and dropped as she walked away, to the edge of the old fort wall.

She circled the statue again, walked away, came back, left in another direction, and so on, until she was sure. The radiation seemed to be centered on the statue, not the construction crane, which sat beside the star-shaped fort. The crane’s main tower rose to a fantastic height, then the arm stuck straight out across the gap between the crane and the statue. Cables led down from the end of the crane to the hoist platform the steelworkers were loading with scaffolding components. The weapon could be on the arm of the crane, she thought, but she doubted it.

Most of the island was behind the colossal statue, which faced east. Rita walked around, looking at everything, then went back inside.

She took the elevator to the upper observation level. She inspected the closed door that led to the “up” staircase, but didn’t try to open it. She noted that the door marked “down” wore two padlocks.

She went out onto the observation balcony. The Geiger counter audio was louder. She had to turn down the volume. It was above her, then.

She went back inside, rode the elevator down, then walked out of the old fort. She went west across the island, past the construction trailers, piles of sand and scaffolding material, closed concession stands, public rest rooms, and the museum. When she was as far from the statue as she could get, she removed a cell phone from her pocket and draped the earphones around her neck. She dialed Jake Grafton’s private line at Langley.

He picked up the telephone after the second ring. “Grafton.”

“It’s here, Admiral, just as you thought. It’s in the statue.”

When Jake finished his conversation with Rita Moravia, he stood mesmerized by the aerial photo that covered the wall. He sighed, then picked up the telephone and dialed Sal Molina at the White House.

“Jake Grafton. We need to talk as soon as possible.”

“This evening?”

“How about within the next half hour?”

“I have a meeting.”

“Cancel it.”

“Come on over to the White House.”

“Okay.”

The subway was crowded. Jake Grafton stood and casually examined his fellow passengers. They were all sizes and shapes, ages and colors. A lot of tourists, apparently, here to see Washington before the heat and humidity of summer became oppressive. Kids wriggled, adults chattered or read or watched the walls of the tunnel flashing past.

Sal Molina was waiting for him at the security station. “We found it,” Jake said as soon as he got through the metal detector.

“Where?”

“New York Harbor — the Statue of Liberty.”

Molina stopped, stared into Grafton’s eyes. “Sure?”

“It’s there.”

“Corrigan do it?”

“No.”

“We’d better go see the president. He’s twisting Senate arms just now.” Molina led the way.

The president left the senators to listen to Jake’s recitation.

“Good God,” he said when Jake paused for air. “We’re living in the age of maniacs.” He sat silently for several seconds, trying to digest it.

“We’d be irresponsible if we didn’t cancel Fleet Week,” he said. “Maybe we should start evacuating New York City.”

“We can’t do either of those things,” Jake said sourly. It was obvious that the president didn’t understand the situation, which was a reflection on Grafton himself. He should have explained it better. “Those two homicidal idiots have the bomb in the statue. Wiring it to batteries and a capacitor is pretty simple. We must assume the weapon is hot — it’s armed now. They haven’t blown it yet, so they must be waiting for something. I suspect they are waiting for the Fleet Week opening ceremonies. They’re waiting for the ships to arrive so they can sink them, and for you to arrive, Mr. President, so they can kill you.”

“And if they are discovered or the party is canceled,” the president said bitterly, “they’ll just detonate the thing.”

“That’s about the size of it.”

Jake’s cell phone rang. He hauled it out of his pocket without apology and opened the mouthpiece cover. “Yes.”

“Rita. Sonny’s brother Nguyen just came out of the men’s john. He’s getting something to eat at the snack wagon.” Fortunately neither man had ever laid eyes on Rita, yet she had studied their photos.

“Sonny must be around,” Jake said. “Stay put, see if Nguyen goes up and Sonny comes down. Don’t let either man spot you watching.”

“Okay,” Rita said, and broke the connection.

So they weren’t holed up in the statue. Didn’t need to be. It only took one man to push the button.

“You’re still in charge,” the president said pointedly, as Jake returned his cell phone to his pocket.

“They’re maniacs, and we’re running out of time,” Jake said. “I’m going to New York as quickly as I can get there. We’ll need the cooperation of the FBI and the Coast Guard. It’s critical that we don’t let these men suspect we’re on to them — it’s got to be business as usual on that island until we’re ready to move.”