"I've heard that before," Nick said. "I don't care how tight it is, there's always a way to get past security."
"What about the guests?" Selena said. "What about their rooms? Someone could have checked in before security was put in place."
"All that's been considered," Elizabeth said. "Everyone staying in the hotel has been checked out. Most of the rooms are reserved for people attending the conference. The prime minister won't be in the hotel except when he's speaking. President Corrigan will arrive a few minutes before Reubenstein, so he can greet him outside for the photo op."
"I want plans of the hotel," Nick said.
I have a complete set of plans in my database. Would you like me to print them for you?
Freddie's voice boomed through the office.
"Damn it, Freddie, how many times do we have to tell you to turn down the volume?" Stephanie said.
I apologize, Stephanie.
"Print the plans. Use the printer downstairs in the operations room."
Yes, Stephanie.
"Sometimes I think he does that on purpose," Stephanie muttered.
"Do they have cameras at the hotel?" Nick asked. "If somebody accessed the hotel that shouldn't be there, they could be on tape."
"The Bureau is already going through every tape from the last week," Elizabeth said.
"We have to be on site during the conference. I want total access. Freedom to go anywhere without anybody having anything to say about it," Nick said.
Elizabeth nodded. "That's not a problem."
"We need a comm set up that lets us talk to each other privately and can patch us into central command."
Elizabeth made a note. "Stephanie will take care of that. Anything else?"
"Make sure the Secret Service and the Bureau know we're armed. Everybody gets jumpy when there are weapons around the President. Israeli security also."
"All right," Elizabeth said.
"Whatever it is they're planning, I don't think it's going to be one of those lone gunman scenarios. My bet would be on a truck bomb, or something similar."
"No one will be able to get anything like that near the hotel," Elizabeth said. "Vehicle access will be blocked off except for the President and the prime minister."
Nick said, "Try telling that to the people killed in the last year by madmen driving trucks through security barriers."
"Suicide bomber, maybe?" Ronnie said.
"He'd never get through security," Elizabeth said.
"I don't believe in never," Nick said.
CHAPTER 44
Elizabeth's phone signaled a call from DCI Hood's direct line.
"Hello, Clarence."
"Good morning, Elizabeth. The number you found in that woman's apartment was activated ten minutes ago."
"Did you get a trace?"
"Only a general area. Somewhere on the Lower East side of Manhattan, between Avenue A and the river, bounded by 21st St. to the north and 4th Street to the south."
"That covers a lot of territory."
"Yes, but it's a start. The phone was turned off after a short conversation."
"Were you able to capture what was said?"
"No. We'll see what NSA comes up with. They'll have it in their database somewhere."
"By the time they find it, it could be next month," Elizabeth said.
"I know, but there's nothing we can do about it. We have to hope they use it again."
"It can't be a coincidence that it goes active now, this close to the conference."
"I don't think so," Hood said. "Unless they turn it on and start talking, we don't have much chance of finding it."
"I hate this part."
"The waiting?"
"Yes. We know something is going to happen. It's a credible, priority threat, but nobody is willing to cancel the conference. We've got high profile targets, as high as it gets. It's a perfect set up for everything to go wrong, and all I can do is sit here and hope something turns up to give us the information we need to head this thing off at the pass."
"I did my best to persuade Corrigan to stay away, but he wasn't going to hear it. His Chief of Staff gave me the impression she thought I was being disloyal."
"She's bad news," Elizabeth said. "She's a narcissist, caught up in her own little world of reflected power. With people like her in the White House, we don't need enemies."
"Why don't you tell me what you really think about her, Elizabeth?"
"I was being nice."
"I'm hoping we can still take that vacation," Hood said. "Perhaps after the conference…"
Someone said something in the background at Langley.
"Elizabeth, I'll call you back. There's a development."
Hood disconnected.
A development. I hope it's a good one.
Five minutes later Hood rang back.
"We might have something. The Bureau has been going through tapes from the hotel where the conference is being held. A white van with three men in it pulled into the service alley two days ago. The men were contractors of some kind. They went into the hotel with toolboxes and a ladder and came out about forty-five minutes later."
"That doesn't sound unusual," Elizabeth said.
"No, except that the van's a rental. Contractors who could work in that hotel have vehicles with a commercial license plate. They wouldn't be renting something."
"What kind of contractors?"
"The tape isn't very good. There's a sign on the side of the truck, but we can't read it. The angle is wrong."
"What's the Bureau doing to follow up?"
"Checking with the rental agency as we speak. They are also questioning people at the hotel."
"You think the van was being used by the terrorists?"
"It's a possibility. The only possibility we have, so far. It may turn out to be nothing."
"If it isn't nothing, it means they've already been into the hotel and done something. I suppose it could've been reconnaissance. But what if they planted a bomb?"
"The Bureau is going through that hotel with a fine tooth comb," Hood said. "Dogs, explosive detectors, the works. So far, nothing's turned up."
"Maybe they were just contractors."
"Let's hope so," Hood said.
CHAPTER 45
On the afternoon of the day before the conference, FBI Agent Jock Silverton was looking for the white van. The rental agency had provided the paperwork for the rental. The New York driver's license used to rent the van had turned out to be a phony. Finding the van had now become a high priority.
Agent Silverton was doing the kind of tedious work that characterized criminal investigations everywhere, looking for a lead. Other agents were reviewing tapes from the hotel interior. Silverton's assignment was to look at surveillance recordings from garages in the area where Dayoud's phone had briefly been active. It was boring and repetitive work. There were hundreds of hours of video and many garages to search through.
It was a long shot, but it was possible the van was parked in one of those garages. One of those cameras might have caught it at some point in time. That was assuming the van was in a garage in the first place, that the cameras in that particular garage were working, and that he'd be able to identify it if it did pass by a camera.
Those were a lot of ifs, but Silverton was used to doing things that often led nowhere. Sometimes if you did enough of those things, an answer appeared.
He paused the recording he was watching and glanced over at the photographs on his desk. One showed a smiling woman lying on a lounge chair on a beach. There were palm trees behind her. She was looking at the camera. The other was a picture of the same woman and two young children. Everyone was laughing.