“You never win by betraying your own people,” she said and walked into the hallway.
She held the firearm in her right hand as she slung the rocket launcher to her left shoulder. If anyone tried to stop her, they would be shot. The safety of the palace was too important. There was no time to deal with anyone who might be loyal to Nabi Bakhsh.
There was a stairwell at the end of the hallway. She tucked the gun in her pants, threw the door open wide, and stepped through. She walked the single flight to the roof. The surface was covered with concrete tiles and afforded a 360-degree view of the city. To the south she could see the harbor, all the way out to the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge. Westward, planes were coming and going from Newark Liberty International Airport. She saw the Statue of Liberty, Ellis Island, and the line of red lights on cars heading toward the entrance to the Brooklyn Battery Tunnel. To the east were the skyscrapers of finance, the Trump Building at 40 Wall Street and the AIG Building at 70 Pine Street. Classic structures from the previous century, bought and rebranded, but not repurposed. They were still, all these things, the emblems of a kingdom. The kingdom her cousin had wanted to usurp.
The kingdom she was to protect.
Helicopters moved up and down the river, behind her in the harbor, and well to the east, above the Brooklyn Bridge. This building was alone at the end of the island, bordered by a park, not a high-security concern. Yasmin made her way to the north side of the building. The former Downtown Athletic Club was the only structure there, looming high but slightly to the east of her position. She had a clear line of sight to her target.
She crouched on the tiles. She looked behind her, saw large slabs of concrete that had been removed by work crews repairing the ornate facade of the old building. She wondered if that might cause blowback, which would singe her back when the weapon discharged.
Possibly. Instead, she went over to one of the boulder-size fragments of concrete and laid the back of the rocket launcher on it. That would spare her and give her added support. She took out the Glock, laid it beside her within easy reach. She held the forward grip of the rocket launcher with her left hand, the center grip with her right. She rested the rear section of the tube on her right shoulder-there was a plastic cushion under the weapon for that purpose, two-thirds of the way back-and looked through the sight. Her aim was a little high: all she could see was the midsection of the 1,776-foot-tall One World Trade Center Tower, one of the five skyscrapers that were rising at the site of the complex where the slightly shorter Twin Towers once stood. She lowered the weapon. She still couldn’t quite see the target. She looked around.
The turret…
The image returned to her. She was supposed to climb the highest wall of the palace. There was a water tower on the southern side of the building. It rose about 30 or 40 feet above the point where she was now. There was a ladder on the side.
Rising, she kept the rocket launcher on her shoulder as she strode to the steps that led to the base of the water tower. She lowered the weapon to her side when she began to climb the ladder. Reaching the top, she climbed onto the narrow area between the peaked top and the low rail that surrounded it. The view was commanding-and perfect. She raised the weapon and found her target on the western side of the site.
There was nothing there, which was exactly what she expected. Her job was to expand the moat so it would encircle the palace. To do that, she needed to put a hole in the foundation of the pit, the concrete bathtub in which the Twin Towers once stood. The slurry walls kept the Hudson River-and that harbor that nourished it, and the Atlantic Ocean beyond that-from filling the dry underground passages through which the trains moved. Trains that could carry enemy troops, who would soon learn of the death of their prince.
Yasmin’s slender finger slipped between the trigger and the trigger guard. There was no timetable for her action; she had been told to fire when she was ready.
She exhaled slowly, just as she had done on the scaffolding by the train station, just as she had done on top of the UPS truck.
She was ready.
Beside the trigger was a button. When she pressed it and held it down, the projectile and the launcher would be one. Ready to be fired, ready to defend the realm.
She pressed it.
Breathless and struggling on feet that had turned to deadweight, Reed Bishop arrived at One West Street.
Cars were backed up to Broadway, trying to get onto West Street, but the sidewalks were eerily empty, there was no one there except a man walking his dog. Four police officers were literally feeding cars into the tunnel entrance one at a time.
Bishop needed the brass handrail to help him get up the stairs. He went through the revolving door and showed his ID to the concierge.
“ I work with an FBI guy. Hunt. You know him?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Where does he work when he’s here?”
“Penthouse.”
“I need to get there, fast.”
“None of the tenants are there,” the young man told him. “I saw Drs. Gillani and Samson leave-”
“I need to get up there now, ” Bishop said.
The concierge hesitated, but only for a moment. He picked up a walkie-talkie. Bishop slipped his gun from his pocket and placed it on the countertop.
“You call for help, I shoot you.”
The concierge said into the walkie-talkie, “Michel? I need you to take someone up to the penthouse.” He regarded Bishop. “Michel Bunuel. The handyman. May be packing a putty knife.”
Bishop huffed. “Sorry. It’s been that kind of day.”
“Go to the freight elevator, straight ahead. Middle door. Michel will take you up. You, uh… you got a search warrant?”
Bishop picked up the gun.
“Yeah, that’s what I thought,” the concierge said. “Michel will let you in if you need it. Just be… I dunno. Careful with stuff?”
“Thanks,” Bishop replied. “Anybody else been up there?”
“Just a lady,” the concierge said. “Got here about a half hour, forty-five minutes ago. Up there now.”
Bishop felt acid in the back of his throat. “Dark skinned? About five foot, slender?”
“That’s the gal.”
Bishop started running through the lobby. “Get me that goddamn elevator ASAP,” he shouted back. “Now!”
CHAPTER 32
NEW YORK, NEW YORK
The ten-million-dollar NYPD 23 was a sleek silver chopper with parallel red and blue stripes running along its tail section and turning down halfway across the cabin. Inside was a crew of three: a pilot, a copilot, and an intelligence officer, who watched one of the three flat-screen monitors mounted on a slender tabletop. With sophisticated cameras mounted around the helicopter, the chopper could read faces and license plates on the ground below; it could also watch every exterior section of John F. Kennedy and LaGuardia airports. If the TSA flagged an exiting passenger, or ground crews reported suspicious activity around any of the fuel lines or tanker trunks, the helicopter could watch them without leaving Manhattan airspace. And still had two cameras turned elsewhere.
The helicopter carried only one weapon: an XM29 Objective Individual Combat Weapon with a laser range finder. The operator of the thick, relatively compact weapon had the ability to place a 20mm shell at a target up to. 6 miles away. It was an extremely powerful weapon that could take down an aircraft, directed only by the police commissioner or the assistant police chief in charge of the aviation division.