And then the crowds parted. Jonathan was offered a clear line of sight. He saw Haq unslinging the bag, drawing out the silver canister. An enormous American flag hung from the ceiling directly overhead. Jonathan raised the pistol, hesitating. There were too many people. An iron fear gripped him, and his arm steadied. Placing the sights on Haq’s back, he fired three shots, slowly, accurately. Squeezing, never yanking.
Haq spun and fell to his knees, the warhead still in his clutches. With one hand he pried open the cover. Running, Jonathan fired again, and Haq slid to the ground. The canister rolled away. Jonathan snatched it up, opening it as he’d seen the physicists do inside the hangar at Islamabad airport. A pinlight glowed green. The LED showed the word “manual.” He eyed the red button and yanked his hand away. Carefully he closed the cover and held the canister tightly under his arm.
Jonathan stood over Haq. “It’s over.”
The Afghan’s black eyes stared back, straining to remain focused, still brimming with hatred and determination. “Never.”
Haq’s eyes opened wider and his head fell to the floor. He glared at Jonathan, his eyes lifting to the massive American flag hanging above him. And then he was gone.
Jonathan slipped the warhead into its leather bag. This was New York, and a crowd had formed around him. Someone asked Jonathan if the dead guy had stolen that thing from him. He heard police shouting to move out of the way. Turning, he looked directly into Emma’s face. She was dressed in black slacks and a trench coat, her hair pulled back into a ponytail, looking no different from any other woman in the station. “You’re okay,” he said.
Emma nodded. “You stopped him.”
“Yeah.”
Emma stepped closer and put her arms around him. “Thank you, Jonathan,” she whispered in his ear.
“I love you,” he said, and a moment later something sharp jabbed his neck.
Instantly the world grew blurry and Jonathan felt himself fading away, darkness pressing in. He watched Emma take the leather bag from him, but he could do nothing to stop her. His body no longer obeyed his commands. His legs buckled, and Emma lowered him to the ground. She put her face to his and kissed him lightly. “I know,” she said.
Jonathan blinked, and when he looked up again, she was gone.
EPILOGUE
“Hello, Jonathan. How are you feeling?”
“I’ve been better. You?”
“Docs tell me the shoulder’ll heal in a couple of weeks. It’s the heart they’re worried about. Come on in. Make yourself at home.”
Jonathan stepped inside Frank Connor’s town house at 34th and Prospect Streets in Georgetown. A week had passed since Haq had been killed at Grand Central and Emma had disappeared with the bomb. Jonathan had spent a day in the hospital recovering from the dose of succinylcholine Emma had hit him with. Other than fatigue, there were no lasting effects.
With the aid of a cane, Connor led the way to the living room and sat down with a humph. “President wants to meet you,” he said, smiling as proudly as any father.
Jonathan took a seat on the couch across from him. “No kidding. What’d you say?”
“No chance,” said Connor. “I can’t risk anyone taking a picture of you. He sends his thanks. If you’re a good kid, I’ll get you an autographed picture.”
Jonathan smiled before growing serious. “Any word?”
Connor shook his head. “Disappeared without a trace. That’s my girl.”
“What are you going to do?”
“About what? Officially, we never even lost that cruise missile. No one wants to dredge up the past. Frankly, it’s probably safer in Emma’s hands than anywhere else. She called it her ‘insurance policy.’ You know something? She was right.”
“And Rashid?”
“Claims that Haq hijacked him and his plane. We’re letting it slide.” Connor looked up from beneath his brows, his eyes narrowing. “For now.”
Jonathan nodded. “Have you talked to Danni?”
“This morning. Lost a lot of blood, but she’ll pull through. She’s flying back to Israel tomorrow.” Connor grimaced. “I bet she’ll think twice before helping me out again.”
“I don’t blame her.”
“She’s a good kid.”
“The best,” said Jonathan.
Connor leaned to his side and labored to free a brown-tie folder from beneath a stack of magazines. “Did I tell you about Erskine’s wife-Lina, Prince Rashid’s niece? They caught her trying to hop a plane out of Dulles. Turns out her job at the Justice Department involved assisting the military in writing briefs for or against the inmates at Guantanamo. Apparently she had a big hand in getting Sultan Haq and his brother Massoud freed.”
“What will she get?”
“Life without parole. They’re putting Malloy’s death on her, along with espionage. She’ll have plenty of time to contemplate her soul at whatever supermax penitentiary she ends up in.”
“What about Erskine?”
“Headed to Wall Street.”
Connor spent a moment loosening the ribbon on the folder. “You know, I looked into the circumstances surrounding that B-52 that crashed in 1984. I found out that there was a second tragedy that occurred in that very same area.”
Jonathan eyed Connor warily. “Oh?”
“Yeah, something right up your alley. An entire team of climbers was killed on Tirich Mir around the same time as that plane went down. In fact, it might even have been the same day. It was some UN-sponsored climb for peace to protest the Afghanistan war. I seem to recall that Tirich Mir meant something to you.”
“My brother, Michael, was on that climb.”
Connor nodded. “I’m sorry.”
“It was a long time ago. I was just a kid.”
Connor took a sheaf of papers from the folder and tossed them onto Jonathan’s lap. The name S/Sgt. Michael R. Ransom was typed on a white label, and it was stamped “Department of the Army.”
Jonathan opened it and leafed through the pages. Special Warfare School. Honor graduate. Green Beret. Commendations. Photographs. Shaken, he lifted his eyes from the papers. “He told me he washed out. Right after that, he went to work for a bank in Virginia.”
“No,” said Connor. “He didn’t. He was put into a covert espionage program called Darklight. The bank was his cover. He spent four years there. At the time he was killed, your brother was working as a covert operative for the Defense Department. The expedition up Tirich Mir was his cover. He was supposed to install a long-range eavesdropping device to listen in on the Red Army’s military communications.”
Jonathan took this in, goose bumps prickling his skin.
“You ever wonder why we picked you for Emma all those years ago?” asked Connor.
“Only every day.”
Connor freed a last file from the folder. “What did your father tell you he did for a living?”
“He worked as an accountant for the GAO.”
“Really?”
Jonathan nodded, but his stomach had suddenly turned queasy.
Connor stood and handed him the file. “Read this. I think you’ll find it… illuminating.”
Jonathan stared at the folder, then stood and followed Connor to the door. “Thank you.”
Connor fired off a lazy salute. “I’ll be in touch.”
Afterward, Frank Connor climbed the stairs to the third floor and entered his private sanctum. Though there was no one else in the house, he closed the door behind him and locked it. It took him a few minutes to get on his knees and open the safe, but he managed. The gun was there, as was his escape money. You never knew. But Connor wasn’t interested in running away, at least not today. He didn’t plan on leaving Division anytime soon.
Reaching inside the safe, he withdrew the heavy leather-bound volume that held pictures of all his agents, past and present. He needed another minute to get back to his feet and find a place to sit. By then his breath was coming hard and a light sweat beaded his forehead. Getting old sucked, but it sure beat the alternative.