They walked around the bomb taking independent readings. They compared their readings and reported them over the radio to headquarters. A flurry of radio chatter erupted, with a dozen or more rapidly fired suggestions coming in from experts at headquarters. The bomb-squad leader grew more agitated and impatient as he repeatedly answered, “I know that… we checked that… of course we measured that… yes, that reading is accurate… yes, we independently verified it according to the established procedure.” Finally, the two stood face-to-face, removed their helmets and facemasks, and dropped their gear to the ground.
“What is it?” Sergeant Kennedy asked.
“It’s a nuke,” said the bomb-squad leader. “No doubt about it. The readings are all consistent with weapons-grade plutonium — a lot of it. Twenty kilotons might be an understatement. And there are only three minutes left.”
The leader began peering through the access opening into the bomb casing. He spoke again to the experts over the radio. “It’s a Soviet design,” he said, “but it’s been modified. There are wires, multicolored, running everywhere!”
“Can you disarm it?” asked Sergeant Kennedy.
“Maybe, but I doubt the experts at headquarters are going to be any help — not with this mess of spaghetti wires in here!”
The leader ordered the other member to get a sledgehammer from the van. “Start beating the hell out this thing! Maybe we can dislodge a control wire or knock one of the conventional charges out of alignment. That would turn this thing from a full-blown nuke into a dirty bomb. Our guys would have to clean up the radioactive mess around the mall, but the city would be saved.”
Officer Sales started running toward the van. “Well, let’s get the hell out of here! The Smithsonian Metro station is just down the mall on the other side of the monument. It’s pretty deep — we can take shelter in there!”
“No, we were monitoring all channels on the way over here,” replied the bomb-squad leader. “They’ve been putting everyone who was on the mall into that station. There were a lot of people who were skeptical at first about having to get crammed in there like sardines because of a small bomb a mile away, but after they learned it might be a nuke, it was too late to get in. Now it’s total panic and chaos over there, with people spilling out both entrances onto the mall and onto Independence Avenue.”
The bomb-squad member returned with the hammer and started pounding on the steel casing of the bomb.
“Oh that’s just great!” said Officer Sales sarcastically. “All these plans, all this time, all these brains in the Homeland Security Department and this is the best plan they have for an attack on our nation’s capital? We’re left here on the National Mall beating a nuclear warhead with a sledgehammer!”
“Hey, they’re only human, Tom. We all do the best we can,” said Sergeant Kennedy, now fully under control again.
Al-Bedawi laughed at the apparent inability of the Americans to do anything to stop the bomb. “You cannot avoid the wrath of Allah!” he screamed.
Kennedy turned to him. “Ali! Hey, Ali Baba.”
“My name is Mahfouz,” said al-Bedawi.
“Yeah, Mahfouz what?
“Mahfouz al-Bedawi.”
Sergeant Kennedy made eye contact with the bomb-squad leader, who radioed the information to headquarters.
“Yeah, who cares?” Kennedy continued. “Look, Ali, I believe you now that you can’t disarm it. Your bosses wouldn’t have wanted to give you that much power. I want you to take this thought with you to hell, though. You may kill a lot of Americans today, but you have no idea what you have just unleashed. My country, my brothers, my family… You and your pitiful group have caused the end of your kind with this act. You think fanatical Muslims were oppressed before? We will wipe you off the face of this Earth.”
The bomb-squad leader turned to the other bomb-squad member. “Okay, that’s enough pounding. Give me the wire cutters,” he ordered.
“But the suspect said the bomb would detonate if we tried to disarm it,” said Officer Sales.
“So we wait for one minute for it to detonate on its own, or we take a chance that cutting one of these wires will disarm it… I choose the latter.”
Sales turned to Kennedy. “Jim?”
“Yeah, Tom.” Both had an eerie calmness, and their faces were relaxed and almost serene.
“I wouldn’t mind praying the Lord’s Prayer right now,” he said in a voice now uncontrollably shaky.
“That’s a good idea, Tom. You two care to join us?”
“Sure,” said the bomb-squad member, throwing his sledgehammer aside.
“If you don’t mind, I’ll keep working,” said the leader as he pulled a handful of wires through the access opening. “I ain’t quite ready to give up yet!”
Kennedy turned toward al-Bedawi and said, “I’ve heard that the Qur’an says that if a Muslim dies with the name of Jesus in his head, he will go to hell.”
Sales leaned close to Kennedy and asked softly, “Is that true?”
Kennedy whispered back, “I don’t know, but I’d sure like Ali Baba to die having doubts as to where he’s going.”
As the seconds counted down, with the civil defense sirens wailing in the background, al-Bedawi the terrorist stood on the National Mall handcuffed to a tree and cried out to Allah. The bomb-squad leader continued to sort through a tangled mess of wires extending from the bomb’s steel casing. The other three policemen knelt in the middle of the mall and began reciting together:
All four policemen then repeated for al-Bedawi’s benefit and their own, “In Jesus’s name, Amen. In Jesus’s name, Amen. In Jesus’s name, Am—”
The bomb-squad leader cut through a green wire. The weapon detonated ten seconds early.
Al-Qaeda gleefully claimed responsibility.
Chapter 2
George Adams spread the metal legs of his red, white, and blue canvas lawn chair onto the rough steel deck-plating, gently sat down, fishing pole in hand, and settled back for a relaxing morning. He was on leave from the U.S. Navy, enjoying a fishing and business trip with his cousin, Dwight Belevieu. Dwight stood next to him, dangling a line forty feet to the water below.
“Just think, George, here we are on a GenCon oil rig, a hundred miles south of New Orleans, on a beautiful spring day, and all we have to do is fish! This is the life!”
“I need the rest, that’s for sure,” responded George. “This tour of duty on the USS Annapolis has been murder. Sometimes it seems I go for months on end without a single day off, and the work still isn’t done! We just got back from our third monthlong patrol up and down the East Coast, and we finally get a little rest. The Annapolis is in the yards for a couple of months getting an electronics upgrade. When she comes out, we get to go do it again!”
“That’s what you get for being a big shot lieutenant commander.”