“So why did he try to drop the bomb on D.C. in the first place?”
“He didn’t,” Tom said. “I’ve had a look at the historical and current maps of the area where the bomb was found.”
“And?”
“And it’s to the northeast of D.C.”
“So?”
“So, he must have flown around D.C. to get there.”
Her mouth dropped open for a second, then closed tight.
“I think he intentionally found an unpopulated place where he could safely put the plane down.”
“Why?” she asked.
“Because Wilhelm Gutwein was trying to defect.”
She raised an incredulous eyebrow. “To intentionally abdicate the power of God over his fellow men. Why?”
“Maybe he wanted out,” Tom said. “He couldn’t stand the Nazis anymore, he wasn’t married and didn’t have a family. They’d been killed—”
“—In a previous Allied bombing run!” the secretary exclaimed, finishing his sentence. “It doesn’t make sense! The man crash-lands a plane carrying a nuclear bomb, then hatches an elaborate plan to be carried out nearly eighty years later in order to take his revenge on the city that he avoided destroying in the first place? No. He was blown off course and landed where he had to.”
Her face had turned red and angry. He’d be lucky if she listened to a single word he said.
The Secretary of Defense had known Tom since childhood, but he’d known her for that long, too.
She’d listen. He’d make her.
He took a deep breath. “Madam Secretary, what if we were wrong?”
“Wrong? About what, now?” she asked sarcastically.
“Wrong about what’s happening.”
“How?”
Her voice was still angry, but at least she was listening.
“We assumed that he wasn’t actually happy to be here. That he only had the appearance of a grateful immigrant, doing what he loved — flying. He married. Had a son. Saved his money for a rainy day.”
The secretary snorted. “And secretly transferred his enormous Swiss bank accounts to his new identity.”
“Yes. But even those he didn’t touch. He saved it all up for a rainy day. And we assumed that it was all so he could have the bomb dragged to somewhere in D.C. so he could torture us for a few hours, make us dance to his will, then destroy us.”
“Yes, exactly. He wasn’t saving for a rainy day, but for a thunderstorm filled with radioactive waste.”
He ignored her interruptions. Her face was starting to soften with curiosity.
“The fact was, he was happy. It wasn’t a facade.”
“How can you say that? He’s still trying to blow up Washington, D.C., and everyone in it.”
“I don’t think he is,” Tom said. “And I don’t think Sam thinks that, either.”
“So the terrorist is playing this game in order to lead Sam to discover something? What? What could possibly justify —” She waved one hand toward the windows. “All of this?”
“I’ve no idea,” Tom admitted. “I think Wilhelm Gutwein was persuaded to defect to the U.S. with the bomb, but someone betrayed him. Ever since then, he’s been trying to put history right again.”
Chapter Thirty-Two
Sam and Zyla spotted it at the same time. They looked up at each other.
“What?” Troy said. He was sitting on the opposite side of the table, trying to read the treaty upside down. “What is it?”
It wasn’t a long document, in its original form, just fifteen articles.
One of which, Sam suspected, hadn’t been in the original treaty.
It was currently numbered as Article 7, right after the article defining what constituted an armed attack on a member country.
Article 7 stated, “All Parties hereby agree that all future developments of nuclear capability shall be shared with all other Parties, so that no Party may exclusively hold such power as to destroy the other Parties.”
“There’s no way,” Sam said.
“I agree. This must be another alteration.”
“But why?”
“It seems to suggest that the U.S. and U.S.S.R. did share or should have shared their nuclear secrets with each other,” Sam said. “Besides, the Soviets didn’t explode their first atomic bomb RDS 1 — First Lightning — until August 29, 1949.”
“I don’t understand,” Zyla said.
Troy spun the treaty around and read quickly. “Wow. Just…wow.”
The change in angle seemed to show some kind of shadow on the page. Sam took the treaty back and examined the sheet in front of him. It seemed too regular to be an ink smudge.
He held the page up to the light.
“What are you…?”
“Troy,” Sam said. “I want you to look up a phone number for me.”
“Sure.”
Sam read off a series of ten digits.
“I don’t even have to look that up,” Troy said. “I have that one memorized.”
“What is it?”
“Old Tony’s Pizza. It’s on Pennsylvania and Third, a couple of blocks from here. I eat there all the time.”
“How long has it been there?” Sam asked.
“Since 1979,” Troy said without hesitating. “It’s on the sign over the front door.”
Sam gave Zyla another look, then handed her the treaty. Her lips went flat as she held it up to the light.
For a treaty signed in 1949 — or in 1947, for that matter — the phone-number-bearing watermark on the paper it was originally printed on was a lot more recent.
Sam took several photos of the document on the smartphone he’d been given. He then texted the images to Elise, with the question: Please compare this with the original and see if you can make sense of what the terrorist is trying to show me.
“What do you think any of this means?” Zyla asked.
“I’ve no idea, but I’m going to Old Tony’s.”
“For a pizza?” Zyla asked.
Sam shook his head. “No, for more answers.”
Chapter Thirty-Three
Old Tony’s had a sign over the front door stating that the place was established in 1979. It was one of those places that would have ordinarily had a line out the door. Today, it was almost empty.
Sam checked his phone, looking for a message stating that he had twenty minutes to find the next clue. If so, he wasn’t going to make the deadline.
But there was nothing.
“Sam Reilly?”
A man in his fifties wearing a greasy apron came out of the alley along one side of the pizza place and waved to him.
Troy must have called ahead. Sam said, “That’s me.”
“Come this way. I have a booth saved for you.”
“Thanks.”
“I’m Tony, by the way.” He wiped his hand on his apron and Sam shook hands with him.
“The owner?”
“Eh, now I am. The original Old Tony was my great-uncle. I’ve grown into the part, no?” He rubbed his gray-speckled chin stubble.
Sam chuckled. He was led through the busy kitchen to a back booth.
“It’s just coming out of the oven,” Tony promised.
“What is?”
“Your pie!”
Tony disappeared back through the kitchen door before Sam could ask another question.
He looked around. The place had dim lighting and smelled like pepperoni grease and yeast. The walls were dark green to match the front door sign. They were covered with old black-and-white photos.