Threat Level Black

The only person in the room whose face wasn’t a mask of worry was the President’s. Blitz watched him from the other end of the suite, still working the phone as he talked to congressional leaders about an amendment to the Medicare Prescription Bill. Each call began the same way: Senator, how are you? Did you catch my speech? We need your support on this legislation.

It was impossible to tell from the President’s reaction whether the man or woman on the other line was for or against the proposal. Only when the call ended and he signaled one of his aides with a thumbs-up or -down could one judge the success of the call.

Meanwhile, the Secret Service detail, chief of staff, and military aides were walking back and forth, trying to appear calm. They had formulated and reformulated and formulated once again plans in case the alert proved real. They had flashlights, night-vision goggles, flak vests-everything they needed, Blitz thought, which only made the situation seem even more impossible.

The President finally put down the phone and got up from his chair.

“So, what do you think, Professor?” he asked. “Should we head over to the Garden?”

The Secret Service people began to protest en masse. The President raised his hand to shush them.

“What do you say, Doc? We getting over there or what?” asked the President.

“I wouldn’t want to get in the way of the professionals while they were doing their work,” said Blitz.

“Neither would I,” answered the President. “Come on. We’re not cowering in a hotel room.”

“Sir…” started the head of the Secret Service detail. “With all due respect, your safety-”

“My safety isn’t the question,” said the President. “The question is, who’s going to win this stinking basketball game? Syracuse or Kentucky? I have Syracuse. My national security advisor takes Kentucky. Now, let’s get our act together so we don’t hold up too much traffic, all right?”

Chapter 10

Three people tried to speak over the same radio frequency at once. Howe sifted through the cacophony, eyes glued on the new triangle on the right side of the display.

How the hell had the system missed the contact earlier?

Maybe it hadn’t. Maybe this was just an anomaly, a screwup.

Or maybe it had been lost in the clutter until now.

Howe yanked at his stick, snapping back in the direction of the UAV. The Iron Hawk pulled nearly 9 g’s, testing the limits of his flight suit and its wing structure as it jerked onto the new course. A pair of fists smashed against Howe’s temples, gravity angry that he had dared to fight it. Momentum slammed against his chest, drove down against his groin; Howe fought through it, his brain swimming hard to keep up with the superbly engineered plane as she shrugged off the awesome forces trying to pull her back.

The aircraft won. Iron Hawk began accelerating.

Howe blinked his eyes and saw his target on the screen seven miles away, flying to his right now as he leaned on the throttle and strained against the stick.

Lady Liberty stood proud in the harbor, her arm holding a beacon to the oppressed of the world.

“Splash Target One!” reported the F-16 pilot. “Splash that motherfucker!”

“I have a new target,” reported Howe, belatedly realizing he had forgotten to alert the others. “Tracking.

The UAV dipped right. There was a Navy destroyer ahead, near the mouth of the harbor.

Someone was hailing him.

The Navy people couldn’t see the target, but they could see him: The targeting radars on their ship-to-air missiles were locking on him, ready to fire.

“Iron Hawk acknowledges,” said Howe, slapping at his Talk button. “I am in pursuit of an unidentified aircraft, probably one of our targets.”

The black shadow flew toward the center of the statue ahead.

Those bastards are going to blow up the Statue of Liberty, Howe thought to himself. And there isn’t anything I can do about it.

Chapter 11

The corridor was a utility passage that connected to another set of tracks and opened directly across from a passage way below the Garden. The only way across was through a set of girders and then over the tracks; unlike the other tunnel, there was no walkway on the side.

According to the plans, the access had been closed off. Pretty much a dead giveaway, as far as Fisher was concerned.

He climbed down between the girders, trying to judge whether the rumble he felt was coming in his direction or not. Finally he decided to take his chances; with all these tracks down here, the odds were that it wasn’t.

But it was. Fisher was just reaching the metal plate that covered the opening when the yellowish-white light crept across the wall.

He pulled down against the plate, trying to get it to open. It didn’t budge.

Fisher took a step back. Ordinarily he would have reached for a cigarette so that he could fully contemplate the implications of the panel being secured in place. But the approaching train made such contemplation a difficult venture. The FBI agent kicked at the bottom of the metal with his foot.