Holmes had his suspicions about the culprit, but without proof he kept that speculation to a tight inner circle. All he allowed beyond his closest colleagues was that the enemy “wasn’t as obvious as people might think.”
The only target Holmes could see clearly right now, besides the NSA building in which he sat, was the blue choir bus in that New Jersey truck stop. It was still lit up by Kalisa Harris’s fuel truck. German satellites provided video to him through a link in Greenland. It was ad hoc and hardly as reliable as the networks to which he had long been accustomed; but Holmes was grateful, nonetheless, for the chance to monitor the slowly building insanity a couple of hundred miles north of him.
He hoped Harris and everyone else there would see a way to save those kids. But he also knew that so much more than their lives was at stake if that backpack bomb blew up.
As he looked away from the screen, McGivern hurried in to tell him that Agent Anders had been rescued.
“That’s great news. Was it the encryptors?” he asked. Desk jockeys in Riyadh who’d been pressed into service, the ultimate nerds were directed step-by-step by the CIA station chief. Everybody else who could be mobilized in the kingdom and Yemen had been tracking the takeover of the embassy or searching for the cyberattackers.
“Yes, they managed to pull it off,” McGivern said.
“Those three will be dining out on that for the rest of their lives.”
“Let’s hope so. But there’s more. After the rescue the Saudis intercepted them in the desert, and, well, I don’t have a final word on this yet, but I guess our geeks were seriously outgunned and turned her over. Without further incident,” she added.
Holmes’s joy fled like a fugitive.
“But she’s back with Omar at least.” The senior Saudi intelligence official.
Holmes nodded, relieved. He knew Omar. Trustworthy. And Anders was a lot better off with him than she’d been with those thugs out there in the desert. Besides, Omar was doing exactly what Holmes would have done: going for the debrief as soon as he could.
“At least she can keep her head down now,” Holmes said to McGivern. “She’s been through enough.”
Emma had fallen asleep. Even abject fear couldn’t keep her awake forever. Other kids had nodded off, too, including Tanesa, slouched against the window. Emma had been dreaming of a day on the Maryland shore with her mother when she was a little kid, maybe five or six. She was chasing a big colorful beach ball on the sand. Every time she tried to grab it, the ball slipped away. Finally, it rolled into the water and floated away, leaving her with the deepest sorrow she had ever known.
She awoke sad, but only for a moment. Then she was scared. She checked Ibrahim the bomber first. The trigger was lying on his lap, his hand nowhere near it. His eyes looked glazed, but open. The Red Bull can lay empty by his feet.
Emma thought she’d been asleep for hours — the dream seemed to go on and on — but it might have just been minutes; the lady truck driver was pulling the nozzle from the bus, from the sounds of it. And Hamza kept poking his head out to watch her.
The other two jihadists were at their posts, fore and aft. They looked exhausted too. The one up behind the driver slipped down into a seat periodically, a motion that appeared to jar him awake. He had an assault rifle and a pistol. They all had pistols. She wished that she had a pistol. The guy a few rows behind her, near Ibrahim, had the same weapons. Only Hamza also had a knife. The cuts on Emma’s neck and chin proved his eagerness to use it.
A huge explosion made her scream and jump. She thought the bus had been blown up. Looking around, panicking wildly, she saw windows on both ends were ripped apart by gunfire. The rounds kept coming. She saw the head of the jihadist up by the driver cut up in a blink, leaving little that was recognizable when he crumpled onto the aisle floor. Blood gushed from what was left of his brain stem.
She glimpsed all that gore in an instant. Then she looked back at the shot-out window behind her and saw the jihadist a row away from Ibrahim slumped over the seat in front of him with a head wound of his own. Though less devastating at a glance, it had left him just as dead.
Ibrahim was shocked out of his open-eyed slumber. Kids were screaming. The bomber looked at them. He appeared confused, as if he didn’t know what was happening. Hamza bellowed, “Blow it up! Blow it up, Ibrahim!”
That was the only reason Emma knew Hamza had survived the initial assault.
Ibrahim reached for the trigger on his lap — but never took it in hand. Quicker than a heartbeat, bullets slammed into his head from the left and right, as if timed by snipers to the hundredth of a second.
Hamza howled, crouched, and started barreling down the aisle. Emma saw his eyes fix on the backpack bomb.
Stop him.
The voice in her head was harrowing. Tanesa was already hurling herself past Emma and launching herself up the aisle at Hamza. He pushed her viciously to the side, with his eyes still fixed on Ibrahim. Tanesa whipped back around and jumped onto his back, reaching around to scratch his face. Hamza raised his pistol to try to shoot Tanesa over his shoulder.
Emma, sick with fear, legs like jelly, grabbed his wrist, falling in front of him in the process, but he never let go of that gun.
Hamza, with Tanesa still on his back, toppled onto Emma, the barrel grinding into her gut.
Hamza had not been spared in the initial barrage. He had simply gotten lucky at a horrible price: With the first shot, Kalisa Harris bolted for the front of the bus, 45 drawn from her calf holster. As she rose up onto the steps, she intercepted a round aimed at Hamza. She couldn’t have known who fired the bullet that cost her life — or whose worthless existence it had spared.
Lana felt the van’s leisurely motion. No sign of panic driving. In a voice that reflected that ease, she heard Ahmed speak in Arabic. A moment later the burlap sack was pulled off her head. A dome light burned in the back of the windowless van.
She could have picked out Ahmed easily. His physical resemblance to Ruhi was unmistakable.
“Hello, Lana Elkins. It is so good to have your company.”
“You set us up. You ambushed us.” And killed a lot of good men. But she wouldn’t give him the satisfaction of hearing that from her lips.
“People die every day,” Ahmed replied airily. “Your country kills them; mine does, too.” He waved his hand as if her concerns were a trifle. “Now, we are taking you where we all want to go.”
That smile again.
“Where’s that?”
“Oh, you know where. So do you, cousin. Maybe not the exact address, but you know what you’ll be doing when you get there, don’t you? Making sure the attack on your country is not stopped in the final hours.” That comment was directed at Lana. “We know you are the brains of the operation. America is almost history now. But this attack has other targets and far greater goals. So you will cooperate. You will join forces with us. And if you don’t?” He shook his head. “That would be sad. But even if you think you can accept a painful death for yourself, rather than give us every last secret of your encryption and hacking experience, I doubt very much that you’ll be able to watch your daughter dismembered on streaming video. Our martyr has a special knife that he’s already used on her, I am told.”
Lana, though bound, tried to lunge at him. A man seized her.
“He hasn’t done anything serious to her,” Ahmed went on, “not yet. She even has her fingers and nose still. Just a cut on her neck and chin. But he’s a young man, our butcher, and a real animal. So get ready to share your expertise with us. You were always the one we wanted. My cousin?” Ahmed shrugged. “He has served his purpose, but blood runs thick, doesn’t it, Ruhi?”