It was an unpleasant thought. They had all been so focused on current events that they hadn’t given any consideration to the befores and afters.
“Mr. President, I think we should continue to keep our thoughts in this room,” Andrews said. “If we start putting together DSTs, we may do exactly what we’re trying to prevent, which is continue to give the party or parties access.”
Data strike teams were the new first wave of defense against potential terror threats. Each group had one: CIA, FBI, NSA, and the military intelligence branches. They took raw intel gathered by HUMINT and ELINT resources, saw if the pieces fit. If two or more went together, that DI-data image-was fed to the other intel units to see if they had any pieces that belonged there. It was an efficient coordination of resources grouped under the Homeland Security tent.
“Everyone in agreement?” the president asked.
That was his way of indicating he backed the play. Otherwise he would have said, “Thoughts?” Anyone without a strong dissenting opinion and the facts to back it was likely to get smacked down in the first moments of debate.
The president called Meyers, told him they were going back downstairs.
“I want a live feed from the NYPD Counterterrorism Division, and I want streaming updates from the Baltimore Convention Center,” the president said. “Something may turn up there that can help us in New York.”
“Yes, sir.”
“And see if you can put us inside the NYPD chopper Twenty-Three,” he added. “Audio is fine if that’s all we can get.”
“On it, sir,” Meyers replied.
The president rose, followed by the others.
“Fifteen-minute break. Then we’re back in the hole,” the president said.
He turned once more, opened the doors to the Rose Garden, stepped onto the patio to take in the daylight and the clean, non-ventilated air while he still could. Press Secretary Stempel stuck her head out.
“How are you doing, sir?” she asked.
“All right,” he said. “I was just thinking… I read an anecdote-I honestly can’t remember where-about the British Admiralty hunting for the Bismarck during World War II. The men and women in charge of the operation were down in their bombproof bunker in London for days, receiving data and plotting strategy with this big, table-sized map, moving wooden planes and boats around as updates came in. When they finally crippled the battleship and sent her to the bottom of the sea, the Admiralty’s chief of operations looked at the clock and said he was going upstairs for a proper dinner. He got outside and saw that it was eight in the morning, not evening.” The president squinted into the sunlight. “I pray to God, Andrea, that we are not down there long enough to lose track of time.”
“I didn’t know him before today,” Stempel said, “but I got the very strong impression that Ryan Kealey is not the sort of man to let things drag on.”
“No, he is not,” the president agreed.
Andrea Stempel left, the president said his silent prayer, and then he turned and walked through the empty Oval Office to the West Wing elevator.
CHAPTER 31
NEW YORK, NEW YORK
Yasmin was walking down West Broadway, just crossing Chambers Street, thinking about the morning.
She hadn’t eaten. She stopped in the Amish Market to get a sandwich. Large sections of the store had been bought clean: evacuees had picked up beverages and snacks, and locals had already been in to buy essentials.
She bought a Greek yogurt and some kind of power juice, warm. Then she continued down the avenue to Vesey Street, then over to Church for the last leg of her walk. She had no idea how she had gotten to West Broadway. The last thing she recalled, she was over by South Street, walking toward a UPS truck.
All she knew was that it was okay. She had been where she wanted to be, where she was supposed to be, and was headed back to where she was staying. Except for the memory lapse, she didn’t feel as if anything was wrong. Hooked on a finger and slung over her shoulder, Yasmin was carrying the garment bag she had left the apartment with early that morning. She knew there was a weapon inside. She detected, very faintly, the burned gunpowder and knew it had been fired.
You’re an assassin. It’s what you do. You’ve smelled that odor many, many times before.
But she simply couldn’t remember who it had been fired at. What was more, she was strangely ambivalent about not knowing. It was as if, not remembering, she simultaneously had nothing to worry about. Except the fact that she couldn’t remember, but that, too, didn’t bother her much.
Downtown seemed oddly deserted. It wasn’t just unpopulated; it was as though it’d been swept clean of life and activity, like the shelves in the market. She sat in the park in front of 7 World Trade Center to eat. It was the last building that had fallen on September 11 and the first to be rebuilt as a great silver rhomboid.
She ate the yogurt, was sorry she didn’t have bread to fling to the pigeons. The birds were respectful at least, not like in some cities, where they came up and sat on your shoulder to try and pick at whatever you were eating. She drank the tart-tasting juice concoction as she continued to One West. The finger holding the garment bag was beginning to cramp. When she was finished with the drink, she threw the bag over her arm. It didn’t fold.
Right, she thought. There’s a rifle inside. She hugged the bag to her. She was an assassin. She packed weapons the way an electrician packed a toolbox or an attorney packed legal documents.
Church Street was barren. Century 21, one of the city’s busiest clothing stores, looked as if it were closed. There were no police. With a mounting sense of alarm, she quickened her pace. There were no tourists in Battery Park, but the seawall was lined with people waiting for boats. The harbor was filled with traffic, some of it police, some of it private, most of it commercial. All of it was in motion, to New Jersey and Staten Island, some of it up the Hudson to Midtown.
She saw a few policemen here, most of them trying to move the traffic along Battery Place and West Street. All of it was funneling into the lanes that opened into the Brooklyn Battery Tunnel. She looked at her watch. It was nearly lunchtime, but everyone was going home.
This isn’t holiday traffic, she told herself. Something’s wrong.
Yasmin went to a cop who was standing with her hands on her hips, waiting for a signal from up the street to let more traffic onto West Street.
“What’s going on, Officer?” Yasmin asked.
“You been asleep?” the woman asked.
“Apparently,” Yasmin replied.
“Sniper attacks uptown and on the Lower East Side,” she said. “If you live near here, get there now.”
“Thanks,” Yasmin said.
She walked to her destination, the tall, century-old building on the corner. Sniper attacks. She was a sniper. Was this about something she’d done?
Why can’t I remember?
She went inside, was announced by the concierge, and took the penthouse elevator to the top floor. There was something she needed to do. She frowned. What was it?
The drawbridge lowered, and she crossed it, walking the narrow passageway into the palace. It wasn’t what she needed to do; there was someone she needed to see. Her cousin, Nabi Bakhsh.
So smart, she thought, but so arrogant. He doesn’t think his little cousin is a threat. He doesn’t think she can stop him.
She paused before the palace door and laid her saddlebag on the carpet. She drew a nine-inch blade from a leather sheath inside. There was already blood on it from the guards she had killed earlier, making her way into the usurper’s city. She closed the saddlebag, left it on the carpet, held the knife behind her back, blade down, and turned the door handle. It was unlocked. She entered, saw the princeling in his regal garb, talking to her own informants. He smiled at her. She smiled at him. She went to embrace him. He seemed surprised and backed away.