"Are you done?" he asked again.

This time they only muttered a few curses before stopping.

"Good," replied Rapp in a satisfied tone. He drew his 9mm FNP-9 from his thigh holster, pulled the hammer back into the cocked position, and leveled it at al-Din. Without a question, or word of warning, he squeezed the trigger once, a loud pop and muzzle flash erupting from the weapon. Before Abdullah could react, Rapp brought the weapon to bear on him and fired again.

The entire thing happened in less than a second, with both men toppled over screaming in pain but unable to clutch their shattered kneecaps.

Rapp stepped over the dead body of al-Houri and looked down at the two agonized faces. "You didn't really think it was going to be that easy, did you?"

Through a jaw clenched in pain al-Din tried to assail him with more insults, although they'd lost the intensity they'd had only a moment earlier. Abdullah reacted just as Rapp thought he would. He just lay there on the dirty floor and whimpered to himself.

Rapp had decided to take a calculated risk and make an assumption based on what he already knew. He lowered his weapon and said, "So tell me about the bomb."

Abdullah started to speak, but was stopped by al-Din. "Silence! Don't say another word to him."

Looming over the two men, Rapp reacted instantly and without malice. He grabbed Abdullah by the hair and shoved his face next to al-Din's. He extended his pistol and pointed it at the head of al-Din, the man who he had already guessed would be more difficult to break. The men had their faces pressed tightly together. Rapp squeezed the trigger and sent a hollow-tipped bullet into the Yemeni's face. Al-Din's entire body convulsed at impact and then settled, with only his fingers twitching. Abdullah was left gasping for air, his eyes stinging from the muzzle blast and his face covered with blood and flesh.

Rapp knew that al-Din had been born into an impoverished Yemeni household and at the young age of fifteen had joined the fight against the Soviets in Afghanistan. He was battle hardened and the less likely of the two to break. He had also been in charge of the terrorist training camp that produced seven of the 9/11 hijackers, and for that reason alone Rapp felt no remorse for putting a bullet in his head.

Abdullah, on the other hand, had come from a wealthy Saudi family, and having shown no real skill or interest in business, he was shipped off at the age of twelve to receive religious instruction at one of the grand Wahhabi madrasas in Mecca. Abdullah was a firebrand Muslim, but a pampered one.

"So," Rapp straddled the Saudi and pointed the barrel of the FNP-9 at his head. "You and I were talking. Tell me about the bomb."

Abdullah's face was contorted in pain from the gunshot to his knee. He looked over at the twitching hand of his dead comrade. A second later he shut his eyes and said, "I do not know about any bomb."

"Wrong answer." Rapp brought his gun up. He would not kill Abdullah, at least not yet, but the man did not need to know that.

"No...no...I am telling you the truth!" Abdullah closed his eyes tightly as if that would somehow slow the impact of the bullet. "It wasn't my part of the operation."

"Abdullah, listen very carefully to me. If you don't tell me everything I want to know I am going to kill you, and then I am going to track down your entire family and kill each one of them. Now, for the last time..." Rapp leaned over, placing the hard steel of the FNP-9 against Abdullah's temple and forcing his head onto the dirty floor. "Is the bomb nuclear?"

Abdullah's face was twisted in fright. "Yes."

"How big?"

"I do not know," he pleaded. "Honestly."

"Bullshit!"

"I swear I don't know. All I've been told is that it will destroy the entire city."

"What city?"

"Washington."

Rapp squeezed the grip of his FNP-9. "When are you planning on setting it off?"

"This week some time...I think."

Rapp leaned on the gun and yelled, "What do you mean some time?"

"I do not know. I was only told it would happen this week."

"Where is the bomb right now?"

"I don't know."

Rapp removed the pistol from the Saudi's temple and shoved it into his groin. "I'm going to blow your balls off, Abdullah! Where the hell is the bomb?"

"Don't shoot!" the man pleaded. "It was supposed to arrive yesterday."

"Where?"

A bewildered expression spread across Abdullah's face. "I truly don't know. I only know that it was coming in by plane."

"What kind of plane?"

Abdullah closed his eyes. "A cargo plane."

"What carrier, and from where?"

"I do not know."

Rapp kept the pistol firmly in place. It was unclear how much, if any, of what he'd just been told was true, but either way he had to report it to Kennedy immediately. An idea popped into his head and he decided to go with it. He stood, reached down to grab a handful of his prisoner's hair, and started dragging him across the floor.

He looked at Urda and said, "Load the other two up. We're going back to the base." When he reached the door he held it open with one hand while he pulled his prisoner across the threshold. Then, in a moment of inspiration, he decided to stop and slam the door into the terrorist's shattered knee.

Abdullah shrieked in pain. Rapp waited a few seconds and slammed the door into his knee again. Abdullah's eyes rolled back into his head, and he began to hyperventilate.

Rapp bent down and growled into his ear, "Guess where we're going?"

Abdullah either didn't hear the question or was in too much pain to answer so Rapp yanked his hair and screamed the question a second time.

"I don't know," Abdullah answered, with tears streaming from his dark brown eyes.

"Ground zero, you stupid prick." Rapp pulled him out into the bright sunlight. "I'm going to strap your ass to the Washington Monument so you can have a front-row seat."

Rapp began pulling Abdullah toward the waiting vehicles. He couldn't even attempt to remember the last time he'd been so enraged. It had finally come to this. These nutbags were actually going to plunge the world into chaos.

"Hey, Abdullah," Rapp said in a sarcastic voice, "maybe I'll have your mom and dad picked up along with all of your brothers and sisters and nieces and nephews." Rapp pulled him roughly over a crumbled wall. "The whole Abdullah clan. That's what I'm going to do. I'll call my buddy the crown prince and have them sent over."

"The crown prince," hissed Abdullah, "is no friend of yours."

"Sure he is," replied Rapp in a jovial voice. "He owes me a big favor, actually." Rapp reached the back of one of the vehicles and let go of his prisoner's hair.

Abdullah's head hit the ground hard. With an angry face he said, "This proves you are a liar. I know the crown prince." Abdullah wheezed in pain and added, "He is a true believer, and he would never ever speak to someone like you."

Rapp laughed. "The crown prince believes in Allah, but he does not buy into all that Wahhabi crap."

"Liar!"

"Remember fat Omar...his half brother? Sure you do. Omar used to send you money to wage your little twisted jihad." Rapp squatted down and pointed to himself. "I was the one who killed him in Monaco last year, and the crown prince thanked me personally for saving him the trouble."

The look on his captive's face was beyond priceless.

Rapp popped the tailgate. "Yeah, I'll have to make that call. That way your family can thank you in person for getting them all killed. Every last member."