“Please forgive me for being the bearer of bad tidings amid this beautiful gathering,” Mordechai began, “but I thought you might want an update.”
Everyone nodded, including Jon and Erin, so Mordechai continued.
“Secretary James just finished his press conference. He confirmed that the explosion at the Willard was the result of a suicide bomber using conventional explosives. There are no traces of any nuclear or radioactive device. But the casualties are severe.”
“How many?” asked Erin.
Mordechai paused, as if delaying the news would make it easier to bear. “Twenty-three people are dead. Forty-seven more are wounded.”
A gasp swept through the room.
“Eleven are listed in critical condition at area hospitals. Several of them are not expected to make it through the night.”
“Any suspects yet?” Erin asked.
Bennett noticed she was already scribbling a short list of her own on the back of a wedding program. He didn’t recognize any of the names. But none of them were of Middle Eastern or Russian origins. True, Al-Qaeda was dead and buried, as were Hamas, Hezbollah, and Islamic Jihad. And Yuri Gogolov and Mohammed Jibril and their Al-Nakbah terror network were now history too. But who did that leave?
“The secretary said it was too early for hard leads,” said Mordechai.
“You’re saying they’ve got nothing?” asked Erin.
“I’m saying what they have isn’t public yet.”
Bennett looked around the room. It was obvious no one wanted to talk about anything else. Their city — their nation’s capital — had been attacked. Again. It made no sense for Mordechai to hold back what little he knew at this early stage of the investigation unless it was actually classified.
Mordechai apparently drew the same conclusion.
“I can only say a little,” said the old man. “Again, none of it is public yet, but I can tell you the FBI has already identified the bomber. They know who he is. They know where he’s from. And they are hunting down every lead to find out who else he might have been working with. The odd thing is that he wasn’t from the Middle East.”
“Where was he from?” asked Bennett.
“Italy.”
Italy? Bennett looked at his new bride, not quite sure what to say. He had never heard of an Italian suicide bomber. Neither, apparently, had she. The room quickly filled with cross talk as people developed theories and tried to make sense of it all.
“What do you make of it all at this point, Dr. Mordechai?” Ruth Bennett suddenly asked over the cacophony. “I thought ‘The Ezekiel Option’ was the end of all this.”
“I wish it were,” he said. “But I’m afraid Ezekiel never prophesied the end of evil, only the end of radical Islam as we’ve known it.”
A hush came over the room.
“I don’t understand,” said Mrs. Bennett. “What exactly are you saying?”
Mordechai paused for a moment, then said, “I’m saying the War of Gog and Magog wasn’t the end. It was just the beginning.”
5
It was not the wedding night they had planned.
But there was nothing they could do to change the events of the past few hours, and like all Americans, they were hungry to know more. FOX and CNN soon confirmed the outlines of the story Mordechai had revealed at dinner and began providing details. They broadcast a black-and-white passport photo of the suicide bomber that had been released by the FBI.
The terrorist was Alonzo Cabresi, a twenty-seven-year-old Italian national with ties to an obscure left-wing underground faction based near Rome known as the Legion. The group’s Web site called for the overthrow of the Italian government and the disbanding of NATO. It also claimed responsibility for several assassinations of CEOs and diplomats in Europe over the years but had no history of operating in the U.S. and no obvious motive for today’s attack.
Meanwhile, against the strenuous opposition of the Secret Service, President MacPherson and the First Lady visited the crime scene and comforted survivors at a local hospital before returning to the White House to hold a press conference with Homeland Security Secretary Lee James. James announced a $10 million reward for any information leading to the arrest and conviction of Cabresi’s coconspirators. He also announced that Reagan National Airport would remain closed for several days but that Washington Dulles would reopen in the morning. The president announced that European Union foreign minister Salvador Lucente was en route from Brussels, ready to “offer the full support of the European police and intelligence services in hunting down the perpetrators of this crime and bringing them to justice.”
But shortly before midnight, Jon and Erin had had all they could take. Emotionally spent, they finally turned off the television and their BlackBerrys and tried their best to set the world’s troubles behind them. And then they lost themselves in each other’s arms for the first time in their lives and found it had been well worth the wait.
Seven hours later, the sun began to peek through the curtains.
Bennett rubbed his eyes and found himself staring up at the fan on the hotel ceiling. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d woken up without an alarm clock or a hotel wake-up call — not since childhood, he was sure — and it felt good. Better yet, he was curled up beside Erin’s warm, comforting body, and for a moment he forgot all the horror unfolding around them. She was even more beautiful asleep — so peaceful, so relaxed, as if she hadn’t a care in the world — and for a while he just lay there staring at her.
Finally he slipped out of the soft cotton sheets as quietly as he could and went into the bathroom to splash some water on his face. Then he clicked on the news, careful to keep the volume low so as not to wake his adorable bride.
It was too early for the Sunday interview shows, but all the broadcast and cable news networks were still wall-to-wall with continuing coverage of the latest terrorist strike. The death toll had climbed from twenty-three to thirty-one, and at least a dozen Washingtonians had multiple serious injuries and were fighting desperately for their lives. Two had been in surgery for most of the night, and doctors were not holding out much hope.
Then the news anchor said something that struck Bennett as curious, though he wasn’t quite sure why. The anchor said that among those who had perished in the bombing was Dr. George Murray, the chief archeologist for the Smithsonian Institution, who had been “expected to travel to Israel later today to meet with Prime Minister David Doron.”
Bennett was pretty sure he had met Murray at a state dinner at the White House a few years back, and he certainly knew of the man’s reputation as one of the world’s leading experts on the ancient Near East. But why would he have been traveling to Israel right now — to meet personally with Doron, no less — with everything else that was going on in the world?
And there was something else. Bennett had a vague recollection of reading about another prominent archeologist — Mansfield or Manchester, some name like that — who had recently died somewhat mysteriously in London. Was he remembering that right? If so, was there a connection, or was it just an odd coincidence?
He made a mental note to track down the story, but then a report came on profiling the strange, sordid history of the Legion, and Bennett turned up the sound. In all his time at the White House and crisscrossing the globe for the president, he had never even heard of this group. So why were they crawling out of their hole now?
Erin began to stir.
She kissed her new husband on the neck and whispered, “Come back to bed.”