Unholy Code

Epilogue

The bride stood with her father at the end of an aisle, flanked on both sides by rows of crisply attired guests on folding chairs. She glowed in the brilliant sun-cast rays streaking her white gown. The park setting was as lush as the orchids and magnolias adorning the bridal arch, where the pastor, groom, and best man waited.

A harpist struck the familiar first notes. About a hundred people rose to watch the young woman stroll past.

Don stood to Lana’s left on the aisle proper, Emma beside her with Sufyan. Lana glanced at the young man, knowing how empty his home felt since the loss of his uncle. He had grieved for months, but smiled now as Em took his hand. At least his uncle had long ago seen to their well-being.

Lana also took some comfort in the fact that while Fayah Kouri’s indoor and outdoor cameras had captured most of the violence in Hayden Lake, smoke had obscured the gruesome killing of Tahir by a suicide bomber. Sufyan would never have to endure the sight of that explosion.

More than one billion viewers had so far clicked onto the videos of the battles at Fayah’s house. The decisive defeat of ISIS and Al Qaeda’s first major act of joint terrorism had led to the exchange of vicious recriminations on social media from partisans of each radical Islamist group.

Divide and conquer.

Maybe.

Emma took her mother’s hand. Lana noticed that she still held Sufyan’s, and wondered whether they’d marry. She hoped that decision remained a few years away, although they had both decided to attend the University of Maryland at College Park to study computer science. Emma planned to minor in criminal justice with an eye on eventually joining the FBI Academy in Quantico, Virginia. Sufyan joked that he planned to minor in basketball — a small miracle that he could laugh at all so soon.

Now the ring-bearer started up the aisle. The pastor needed but one small hand signal to bring the border collie — now named Good Boy — to the arch. Soft-gripped in his mouth, the dog held the handle of a small wicker basket carrying the wedding bands. When he heeled by the couple, Lana would have sworn the dog was smiling. His new master certainly was.

Lana’s own dog, Jojo, was back on his feet after more than a month of drug-induced immobility. When he rose for the first time at the veterinarian’s office, his legs were shaky as a newborn calf’s. But as soon as he steadied, he walked over to Emma. It was as if he sensed that she, more than anyone, needed to feel extra-protected. Jojo went almost everywhere with Em now, as much an emotional support dog as a guard.

Cairo was back in retirement at the kennel owned by Deputy Director Holmes’s son. The old Malinois and Bob were both in pretty good shape, considering all they’d been through. Holmes’s first act upon reassuming his duties was to force Marigold Winters to resign. She promptly took a position with a Washington think tank that shared her xenophobic beliefs.

Fortunately, she hadn’t had much to seize upon of late. For more than five months, the country had experienced a respite from radical Islamist violence, but Lana had not let down her guard. She knew the invisible invaders hadn’t disappeared. From her own cybersleuthing she’d gleaned that those men and women remained as determined as ever to defeat the U.S. and, like their kinetic counterparts, were doing all they could to learn from their failures so their successes could prove more deadly in the near future.

The other invisible invader was smallpox, but those outbreaks had become rarer and more tightly contained.

The pastor cleared his throat and the ceremony began. The bride and groom exchanged vows and rings and then kissed at the pastor’s invitation.

Lana marveled over the lovely couple. Who would have thought?

She looked around, spotting a few smallpox survivors. They would always bear their scars, but some were luckier than others. Among the latter was Matt Lauer, leading the applause as the couple walked down the aisle together. Without him, Jimmy McMasters and Ludmila Migunov might never have met.

The Today Show had dedicated an hour to the pair’s “spectacular bravery,” as Lauer called it, introducing them a couple of weeks after Hayden Lake and Jimmy’s long-odds heroics in the Gulf.

The boat racer had been brought on set first, appearing with his hands up and saying, “Don’t worry, Matt. No hugs today, I promise.”

Lauer had laughed and pulled Jimmy close for a squeeze. Ludmila, appearing seconds later, received a warm embrace as well.

Tasteful videos of Jimmy’s shootout on the oil rig — and quick thinking on the speed boat — earned the admiration of millions of viewers, as did Ludmila’s daring marksmanship in the basement that Fayah Kouri had turned into a torture chamber.

But the real excitement on set had taken place between the two heroes, who might have been on a dating show for all the chemistry that sparked during those sixty minutes.

By the show’s end, Lauer jokingly asked if a wedding would soon be in the works.

Indeed.

Ludmila had invited Lana and her family. For her part, Lana had been honored, but she also realized the wedding would make a likely target for terrorists. What better way to take revenge than by striking back at America’s newly crowned heroes?

So Lana’s Sig Sauer hid in her clutch, and ample agents had stationed themselves around the perimeter. Even a chopper had swept over the Oysterton park moments before the ceremony began.

But for now there were only best wishes for the couple and the country.