Threat Level Black

“I will,” said Tyler. “And I think we can shave twenty-four hours off the timetable. You have to let me go, Vic. You owe it to me.”

“I owe it to you? Bullshit on that.” Thos frowned. “That’s not the way it works.”

“Well, it should be,” said Tyler. “And I’m going whether you like it or not. The President told me to.”

Chapter 13

Howe had been around enough military planners to realize that the Berkut plan was being developed as the weak sister to make the other options look better. Still, he agreed to hang around Washington, D.C., just in case the President green-lighted the operation. And so he found himself back at the hotel with nothing to do except sit in his hotel room and watch the last of the first-round games of the NCAAs. It was Auburn against St. John’s, and for some reason he found himself rooting for Auburn, which of course was a mistake. While St. John’s was no powerhouse, it had Auburn put away by halftime, and a few minutes into the second half Howe decided he’d go out for a walk.

It was warm for March, and Howe found he didn’t need to zip his jacket.

He’d volunteered for the mission without question. More than that, he wanted to do it.

Maybe leaving the Air Force had been the wrong thing to do. But if he were still in the Air Force, he’d be queuing up for a general’s slot down at the Pentagon, kissing as many butts as he could find.

An exaggeration. And surely he’d have a choice of commands. His star was rising. Had been rising.

Not that Howe didn’t have detractors. He’d been having an affair with a woman who was known to be a traitor, and there were undoubtedly rumors about that.

More than an affair: She’d been the love of his life. What did that say about his judgment?

A few kids were taking advantage of the almost spring-like weather to cut school and ride their skateboards down the back steps of an office building. Howe stopped and watched them through a chain-link fence as they tried to ride down the railing. Neither of the kids made it without falling as he watched, and while they were wearing helmets and pads, the lumps had to hurt. But they kept bounding up from the ground, eager to try again.

As Howe walked back to the hotel, he decided that he’d call Tyler and tell him he was heading home. It was time to get on with the next part of his life, move on.

But Elder, the Pentagon messenger, was waiting for him in the lobby, holding his suitcase.

“I took the liberty of settling your bill,” he said. “I hope you don’t mind. They’re pretty anxious to have you get to Andrews as soon as possible.”

Chapter 14

You could take the 1 or 9 subway up the west side of Manhattan from Battery Park to Washington Heights, and get out two blocks from the apartment the DIA and Homeland Security task force was watching. What an endorsement for mass transit, thought Fisher. Even the terrorists take the train.

During the American Revolution, Washington Heights had been the site of a needless fiasco for the American rebels, and its history had gone downhill from there. It never was much of an area for farming, and after it was developed it quickly became choked with refugees from less fortunate areas of the city, who found the cold-water walk-ups somewhat more hospitable than the crammed tenements farther downtown. There were a few upward bumps of progress here; for a few weeks during the 1940s, it was even considered a nice place to live, a way station to the greener pastures of suburban New Jersey across the way. Urban renewal and the construction of the highway network related to the George Washington Bridge, along with the grand plans of Robert Moses, razed some of the worst buildings in the early sixties, replacing them with structures whose main asset was their height. In the course of time, Irish immigrants were replaced by Puerto Rican immigrants who were replaced by Caribbean immigrants. Crack replaced bootleg whiskey.

In sum, it was exactly the sort of New York community Fisher felt at home in. But it didn’t give him much of a grip on the terrorists.

“Corner apartment-there,” said an NYPD officer named Paesano tasked to the team keeping the place under surveillance. The city had supplied about a dozen officers and support personnel to help with the nitty-gritty work. “Couple of ragheads have the lease, but there’s at least five people live there.”

“ ‘Ragheads’?” said Macklin.

“We’re among friends, right?” said the cop, who was in plainclothes. They had taken an apartment above a store across the street from the three-story building the call had been made to. “They worship, if you can call it that, at a storefront mosque down the street. Got this imam in there who rolls his eyes backwards in his head and says ‘kill the infidels.’ ”

“ ‘The only good infidel is a dead infidel,’ ” said Fisher.

“Yeah, except we’re the infidels,” said Paesano.