Arlo did as he was told. Seamus turned the car around and started back toward downtown. The National Mall. And all the monuments on and near it.

He punched in a highly classified number on his cell phone. A few seconds later, someone picked up.

“Seamus?”

“Zira, listen. I got-”

“Seamus, where the hell are you? I didn’t give you the go-ahead to-”

“Zira, for once would you shut the hell up?” That explosion would probably cost him some vacation time. Possibly his job. But she needed to hear what he had to say, as quickly as possible. “Just listen to me, Zira. I’m cutting to the chase. I tracked down the computer expert who may have inadvertently helped Zuko’s people infiltrate our computers. Some terrorist thugs showed up to silence him. I managed to interrogate one of them.”

“Why didn’t you bring him in?”

“There wasn’t time.”

“Seamus, I certainly hope you didn’t do anything inappropriate. Maybe you can get away with those strong-arm tactics out in the desert, but you’re in the civilized world now and-”

“Zira, close your trap and listen!” Oh, man, was he going to pay for this. “Zira, they’re targeting the Jefferson Memorial.”

For once she was actually quiet. For a second. “Are you certain about this?”

“I don’t think my informant had any incentive to lie. He was… in an awkward situation.”

“Tell me what happened. I need to evaluate the intel.”

“No, Zira. You need to evacuate the memorial.”

“Actually, the president just gave an order to close all the Washington attractions, so it’s already in progress.”

“That’s not good enough. You need to evacuate the whole Mall. Get the people out of there! There can’t be anyone within a mile radius of the memorial.”

“Do you think the suitcase is involved?”

“I don’t know. I’m headed that way now.”

He heard her barking orders to someone else. When she came back on she said, “I’ve started the evac. The contingency plans have been in place ever since the first Oklahoma City bombing. They’ll move quickly.”

“How quickly?”

“The E-one-oh-one blueprint says the entire Mall should be clear in seven minutes.”

“Does that assume all the tourists cooperate? No one stops to take pictures?”

“I think it’s five minutes if they all cooperate. What are you going to do?”

“I could head to the memorial.”

“Why? So they can evacuate you, too? You’re good, Seamus, but I don’t think you can stop a ballistic missile.”

“You’ve got a point. My informant thinks there must be some sort of operations base in the area. Some Computers R Us outfit that sends instructions to the satellite or whatever it is up there.”

“Does he know where it is?”

“No.”

“Find it, Seamus.”

He couldn’t resist. “Well, okay, if you’re sure. If you’d rather, I could come into the office so you can debrief me.”

“Just find the goddamn base, Seamus.”

“All right. Since you asked nicely.”

“Call back when you can.”

“I will. Bye.”

He snapped his phone shut.

“Do you always talk to your boss like that?” Arlo asked. “‘Cause I worked at Taco Bell once, and my supervisor didn’t even understand what sarcasm was. Which is probably why I only lasted three weeks.”

Seamus blew air through his nose. “Listen, kid, I’m not used to having someone hovering over my shoulder. When I was in the Middle East, I went weeks without any contact with anyone. Including superiors. And none of my superiors was-” He used better judgment and buried the end of the sentence.

“You were in the Middle East?”

“For the better part of ten years.”

“In the Iraq war?”

“Not exactly. In… um, contingency operations.”

“You were a spy!”

“I can neither confirm nor deny.”

“You were!” Arlo pounded the dash of the car. “You so were. That must be where you learned all those moves.”

“I guess you could say that.”

“Did you go after bin Laden?”

“Yeah. Damn near caught him, too.”

“Sweet!” Arlo bounced up and down like a kid meeting his favorite superstar. “You’re, like, one of America ’s heroes.”

“If so, it’s a well-kept secret.”

“Have you ever been shot?”

“More times than I can count.”

“Have you ever had to kill anyone?”

Seamus closed his eyes briefly and sighed. “More times that I care to remember.”

“That is so razor. You know, I’ve done some counterintelligence work myself.”

Seamus arched an eyebrow. “You have?”

“Oh, yeah. I mean, in a video game. But it was a highly realistic simulation.”

“No doubt.” Seamus kept his eyes on the road. “Kid, have you given any thought to how we’re going to track down Colonel Zuko’s base of operations?”

“We? Did you say we?”

“Don’t have a stroke. Yes, I said we. How are we gonna do it?”

“Geez, I don’t know. Do you have any leads?”

“You’re my lead, Arlo. How are we going to find it?”

“How would I know?”

“An operations base like you described must need staff. There can’t be many people in the area with the techno-gizmo whiz kid qualifications to help terrorists hack into our defense computers.”

“True.”

“Where would we find these people? In the Washington area.”

“How would I know?” Arlo pondered for a moment. “A lot of brainiacs hang at the university.”

“ Georgetown? Maybe. But what about when they’re not working?”

“I really don’t know.”

“Well, what do you do in your spare time?”

“I don’t have spare time. I mean, besides computer work. Programming. Facebook. World of Warcraft.”

Seamus rolled his eyes. “Don’t you ever go out?”

“Um, out?”

“Like, to meet friends. Perchance even go on a date?”

“I generally eschew frivolous and meaningless social encounters.”

“You have no friends.”

“That’s not true!”

“When was the last time you went out on a date?”

“What does it matter?”

“Are you gay?”

“No!”

“Then it matters.” Seamus took a hard left and merged onto the parkway. He was driving too fast, but hell, he was in a hurry. Traffic was thick, but in the opposite direction. He wondered if that was because the evacuation had begun. “How can I say this, kid? You need to get a life.”

“I have a life! I have a very rich and rewarding life-”

“Filled with megabytes and malware and perhaps, on a really good night, Internet porn.”

“You don’t know anything about it!”

“No, you don’t. And you need to, because I need to know where to find the other people like you.”

“D.C. Bytes.”

Seamus processed a moment. “Is that a critical evaluation?”

“No. That’s a deli and coffeehouse. Frequented by the upper echelon of the programming/hacking/phishing community.”

“Fine. Where is it?” Arlo gave him the address. “Then that’s where we’re headed.” He glanced over his shoulder. “I’ll turn the car around and-”

At the edge of his peripheral vision, Seamus saw something in the air. It would be impossible to describe-if he had never seen anything like it before. It looked like a horizontal crayon mark streaking across the sky and moving very fast.

“Oh, my God,” Seamus said breathlessly.

“What? What?” Arlo jumped up in his seat and turned toward the back. “What is it? What’s happening?”

“We’re too late,” he said. His eyes traced the crayon mark as it passed over them. “The missile is on its way. And heading straight toward the Mall.”