On the long-prepared-for Monday morning, Seth was awakened by his iPhone alarm after an hour of sleep. He’d killed the lights around three-thirty that morning when he was sure the bomb and his plan were firmly in place, but his mind ran wild with thoughts of the excitement that awaited him. Now he shaved his face clean and put on a fresh DCPSS khaki shirt and inspected himself in the mirror. He wore a plain white tee shirt under his uniform shirt.
He had just one more thing to do. When he was two blocks from the Justice Department building he stopped in a loading zone, left the engine running, unlocked the cargo door of the truck, raised it enough to slide under and set the timer for ten minutes. As he started to jump down he thought of the traffic, or maybe a delay at the guard station before he was cleared to drive under the building. Seconds clicked away as he stood there debating with himself. On the other hand he didn’t want to allow time for the bomb to be discovered and disarmed after he parked the truck in place. He reset the timer to thirteen minutes and synchronized his wristwatch so he could monitor the countdown precisely. Seconds were critical. He jammed the large padlock shut.
Now back in the flow of traffic, he rehearsed everything one last time: What to say to the security guard. Exactly where to leave the truck. His escape route. And don’t attract attention by running. He patted the Uzi under his right thigh. He wouldn’t need it after he got inside and would leave it in the truck with documentation showing his real name, Seth, by which the intelligence agencies of the world knew him, before walking away and disappearing from the building. The adrenaline was flowing. If it wasn’t already famous enough, the name Seth would soon be cemented among the most feared and despised names in the world. But among his brothers he would be proudly spoken of in the most revered terms.
He was a little relieved when he saw that the guard at the delivery entrance this morning was one he recognized. Their schedules changed from time to time. Seth’s truck was third in line and he’d already used up almost eight of his thirteen minutes. He had five minutes to clear the checkpoint, park the truck and get out of the building. Perfect. When he got to the gatepost he told the guard, “The company truck got a broken axle, Larry. I must use this rental until repairs are made.” He was confident Larry would pass him through as usual without inspecting his cargo.
Larry nodded his understanding. “Gotta put her in the computer, though, Ahmed. It’ll be just a minute. Hey! You shaved your beard!”
“Yeah, my girlfriend, she wanted me to.”
Seth drummed his watch. Three minutes and two seconds to go. He glanced at the hydraulic concrete barrier ahead of him that would recede into the floor when he was cleared for entry.
At a minute and thirty seconds, Seth looked over to see if Larry was almost finished checking him in, and something moving in the truck’s mirror caught his eye. Black helmets. Black uniforms! Assault weapons! He spun his head around to the other mirror. There too! Larry had disappeared.
Seth jumped out and wildly sprayed his Uzi as he ran. He was two steps from the truck when his right leg collapsed in burning pain, then something ripped through his neck and he stumbled to the ground. As light faded from his eyes he knew he was dying, but at least the bomb would blow before anyone could disarm it. His name would mean something to the world forever.
It was mid-morning when a direct line to Cross rang in the Oval Office. “Yes?”
“Warfield.”
“How did it go?”
“It’s over. Two FBI agents are wounded but they’ll be okay. Had emergency medical standing by.”
“The bomb…”
“Eight seconds to spare.”
“Seth?”
“Under heavy guard at a hospital. Took a couple hits. He’ll live, though.”
“And your Ms. Koronis?”
“FBI’s picking her up now. I think they had an agent in every tree on her block for the last month.”
“I want her brought here.”
“To the White House?”
“Right here to the Oval Office. I want you here, too, Cam.”
“Yes, sir.”
Warfield was sitting with Cross in the Oval Office when Paula buzzed and said the FBI had arrived with Ana.
“Send her in.”
“Alone, sir?”
“The agents can wait at the door.”
Paula ushered Ana inside the great office. She caught Warfield with a glance and arced her eyebrows over an eye-roll on her way out.
Cross rose, walked around his desk and waited for a moment as Ana tried to pull herself together. “Ms. Koronis, I don’t know where to begin what I have to say to you.”
“I, I, uh, please excuse my appearance,” she said. “I had no idea I’d be coming here. It’s been…”
“I know. I know,” Cross said, putting his arm around her shoulder. “I’m very sorry for what has happened. I wish it could have been different. But I must tell you the United States, and I’m speaking for myself personally as well, we owe you. We owe you an apology for the time you spent in prison. For robbing you of your good name, your freedom. The anguish you’ve suffered. And we owe you our gratitude for the service you provided in bringing Seth down. The tapes. The risk you took.”
“The tapes? You’ve heard the tapes?”
“Read the transcripts. Cam brought them in yesterday. The phone taps. The wires you wore at the safe house. You’re good.”
“He’s my own flesh and blood.” She’d lost her composure and was crying softly. “It wasn’t easy to, to…but I couldn’t have lived with myself unless I at least tried.”
“It had to be tough,” Cross said.
Ana nodded and dabbed her eyes. “Cam Warfield made it possible. Without his planning, I don’t know…I couldn’t have pulled it off.”
“Now tell me what I can do for you,” Cross said.
She was thoughtful for a long moment. “My life,” she said. “All I want is to get my life back. I have to do that for myself.”
When Ana left, Warfield shook his head. “She’s taken some hits. Prison. Austin. Her brother.”
“Austin. Biggest disappointment of my life, too. We were like brothers.”
“He’s paying the price now,” Warfield said.
The following Saturday evening Warfield and Fleming DeGrande picked Ana up at her townhouse and the three of them went out to dinner. They had avoided being seen together during the operation. They were into their second drink when Fleming asked the obvious question.
“What now, Ana, now that you’re beyond this, uh, detour?”
“I’m going to organize myself to start writing my book.”
“You’re doing a book about all of this?” Warfield said, his eyebrows rising. “I see it now. Guess who’s going to be the bad guy,” he said, smiling.
“Cam, you know I don’t blame you for what happened. Forget that. But I’m not writing about this mess, anyway. I’ve been planning this thriller for years and I’m not putting it off any longer. I’ve saved up enough international intrigue from my legal work for State to do a dozen spy novels. Austin gave me a lot more stuff, talking about operations at the Agency. I made notes from time to time and put them in a safe at the office — at least until my trial. Wasn’t sure what to expect when I picked them up, but nothing had been touched.”
Warfield said, only half-jokingly, “It could get you another trip to the courthouse.”
“Don’t worry. No one will recognize the source material when I get through mixing everything up and changing the names.”