Transfer of Power

RAFIQUE AZIZ LOOKED at the computer screen to his left and smiled. They are so predictable, he thought to himself.

The laptop computer to his left was hooked up to one of the Situation Room’s secure modems. He was staring at the account balance of the Swiss bank that would receive the money before it was to be safely transferred to Iran. The account was at a little over a billion dollars and holding.

With about forty-five minutes to go, he doubted that they would transfer the remainder of the money.

The second laptop, to his right, was for a special purpose.

Every time Aziz looked at it he beamed with pride. It had been a stroke of genius. Aziz had no doubt that the Americans would come. If he got his hands on the president, his chances might improve, but in the meantime the second laptop was his failsafe.

Studying American counterterrorism tactics, he understood that above all they loved their technology. They would try to jam his ability to remotely detonate the bombs, and in the process they would start a countdown to destruction.

Each of the twenty-four bombs he had brought contained a digital pager that acted as both a receiver and a detonator.

Hooked up to the laptop was a digital phone. Every two minutes the computer would dial the group paging number for all twenty-four bombs and then send a five-digit number. If that code wasn’t received every two minutes, the pagers would go into a sixty-second countdown mode. If the countdown reached zero, the bombs were ignited. Aziz also carried a pager and a digital phone as a backup measure. If the pager beeped and the countdown was started, it meant only one of two things. Either the Americans were attacking or the computer had malfunctioned. If the computer malfunctioned, he could abort the countdown with his own phone.

If that didn’t work, it meant the Americans were coming.