Cluzot made a face. “You and Bishop are the new Ground Zero?”
“Hey, if I’m wrong, you can put me in the corner. That SOB knew we were going to be stranded on the far side of a big goddamn crowd. Even if we knew how he got away, we wouldn’t be able to follow. Everything he’s done has been to buy himself or someone else time. And right now we’re giving it to him.”
“You know where he’s going?” the president asked.
“Yes, sir, and he’s already halfway there, with me unable to find him. Bishop’s on his way. In case he doesn’t make it in time, or if things don’t break our way, we need a Plan B. The chopper is it.”
“Do you know what kind of boat he’s in?” Cluzot asked. “We can phone that information to-”
“We don’t know for sure if we’ve even got this right! ” Kealey admitted. “We can’t have the NYPD storming the river, looking for him. That could scare Hunt into doing whatever he’s planning.”
“It could also stop him!” Cluzot said. “The NYPD has a pretty good antiterror unit.”
“That isn’t the point. What they don’t have are facts. Maybe the second nuke is support in case the NYPD does pursue. Or maybe that’s the sniper’s job, to start taking down aircraft over the boat. We just don’t know. That’s why I have to get up there, watch from a distance, with the ability to act if necessary. That chopper’s got facial recognition software. We’ll need that. You want to summon the cavalry, I’m happy to back the play when it’s appropriate. But let’s make sure of our target first!”
The president did not have the authority to commandeer an NYPD resource. He could not tell the police commissioner why he wanted it. He would have to put his reputation on the chopping block and make the strong request.
“Is there any other bird we can get over there?” the president asked his team. “Maybe something from Joint Base McGuire-Dix-Lakehurst.”
“Not without having to explain that to the NYPD,” Andrews said.
“Mr. President, I’m on my way back to the West Side,” Kealey said. “That chopper is in the air twenty-four-seven. Please have it meet me at the West Thirtieth Street Heliport.”
The president looked at Andrews. The CIA director nodded. He looked over at Carlson. The Homeland Security chief cocked his head to one side, then, with reluctance, nodded once.
“I’ll make the call,” Brenneman told Kealey. “Bob will let you know what the NYPD says.”
“Thank you, Mr. President,” Kealey said.
Andrews ended the call. Brenneman looked at him. “I’m not completely sold on this, but I was afraid your boy would take a chopper at gunpoint.”
“Sir, your concern is not unfounded,” Andrews replied with a half smile.
Brenneman picked up the phone.
“Mr. Meyers,” the president said, “get me commissioner Lee Strand. I’ll hold.”
“Yes, sir,” his special assistant replied.
“Thank you.” The president looked at the others in the room. “I want us to get ahead of this damn thing. Kealey’s got the only option on the table. Andrea, we know how this plays if it works. If it doesn’t…?”
“If it doesn’t, Ryan Kealey’s not a lone-wolf operator anymore,” the press secretary replied. “This call puts the go-ahead on your shoulders, sir. There will be questions from both sides of the aisle about why you didn’t put massive force in the field to find a pair of missing nuclear weapons, as Director Cluzot suggested.”
“My uncle Bernard once drove a hay truck off the road because there was a yellow jacket in the cab,” the president said. “If he’d been surrounded by horses or sheep, he’d’ve just stopped and waited for them to move on.”
“The herds wouldn’t have been looking for him,” Cluzot pointed out.
“Neither was the hornet,” the president said. “Point is, it was on him before he could react.”
Commissioner Strand got on the line. Brenneman did not put the call on speaker.
“Good morning, Mr. President.”
“How are things up there, Commissioner Strand?”
“Calm for the moment, sir. You’ve probably heard we got a shooter. We’re not sure he’s working alone.”
“We’ve reached that same conclusion,” the president said.
“Mr. President, forgive me, but we’ve been hearing disturbing rumors about missing nuclear weapons.”
“They appear to be true,” the president replied. “We have two men on the ground who we believe are on the trail of a pair of highly classified projectiles with nuclear explosives. We need to get one of those people in the air. Can you lend us Twenty-Three?”
“Will this protect my city?”
“We believe the action has a good chance of doing that,” the president said.
“Is there anything you can share with us, sir? Was the deceased FBI agent a part of the sniper’s support system?”
Brenneman did not look at the others. He turned his chair, glanced out at the Rose Garden. “We believe she was framed by the individual who is behind this. We also believe he is in possession of the weapons.”
“Where and when do you need Twenty-Three, sir?”
“The heliport on West Thirtieth Street. Our man is on his way.”
“Name?”
“Ryan Kealey. K-e-a-l-e-y.”
“Any special expertise, sir?”
“Yes,” the president said. “He wants to see this bastard dead.”
“Those are the kind of credentials I admire, sir. The chopper will be there.”
“One more thing, Commissioner.” The president looked at his notepad. “Our second man, Reed Bishop, is on his way to One West Street.”
“Around the corner from the killing yesterday.”
“Yes. If you get any nine-one-ones from a research lab at that location, you would do well to delay responding.”
“That’s against our policy, of course. But we are spread thin,” Strand replied.
“Thanks to the individuals we’re pursuing,” the president said. “I’ll be in touch.”
“Thank you, sir.”
The president hung up, then swiveled back to look at the faces of the other four people in the room. His press secretary looked the grimmest. “Andrea?”
“You are personally very far out on a limb, sir,” Stempel pointed out.
The president’s eyes shifted to Cluzot. “Chuck?”
“The comment about nine-one-one… if it ever got out…”
“That’s what I was thinking,” Stempel said.
“If that happens,” the president replied thoughtfully, “it will pour gas on the debate about the rights of suspected terrorists, and I’ll have the Justice Department on my back for a few months for some violation of equal protection statutes. You know what? I’ll take my chances. I want to stop trailing these bastards. I want to get ahead of them.”
“I like it,” Andrews said. “I like it a lot.”
“That’s the good thing about being a lame duck,” Brenneman said. “Sometimes you get to do what you think is the right thing for its own sake.”
“Besides, Commissioner Strand has his eye on my job,” the Homeland Security director said. “He won’t tell tales out of school.”
“Amen. If it works, he’ll take credit for it,” Andrews said.
The president chuckled. It broke the tension slightly.
Stempel shut her laptop. “It’s ten past eleven. I’ve got to tell the press when I’m going to talk to them. How does one o’clock sound, Mr. President?”
“I have a feeling this will be over by then,” he said.
“This part of it,” Cluzot said.
Except for Andrews, the others looked at him. The CIA director was nodding in agreement.
“What do you mean?” the president asked.
“Let’s assume-only for the sake of this discussion-that the two nukes are the finale of this wave of terror,” Cluzot said. “Someone, some group, put them into play. Someone got to my people and turned at least one of them. If Kealey is right, someone was watching him and Bishop. In short, someone has access to our playbook-or enough of it to cobble together a response.”