With the push of another button, the elevator's doors opened, and Rapp began his near silent descent. Seconds later the elevator stopped and the doors opened. Rapp retraced his earlier steps, down the hallway and into the stairs leading to the third basement.

When he arrived at the landing door, he reached for the handle and stopped just inches short. The stairwell was darker than the hallway on the other side, and a half inch of bright light bordered the bottom of the door. Rapp had seen something.

His eyes had caught some type of motion, a variance in light.

Cautiously, Rapp backed up, wondering if the SEALS could already have arrived.

With his gun leveled, he kept his eyes trained on the patch of light.

After only seconds he saw the shadow again. Frowning, he opened up the monitor, this time not daring to holster his weapon With the monitor opened, his gun in his left hand and the snake in his right, he moved to the far side of the door handle and slowly inched the tiny lens forward along the concrete floor. Rapp's eyes went back and forth between watching the screen and watching the progress of the snake. An inch at a time, he nudged it forward. The first thing Rapp saw on the screen was a pair of boots. As he pushed the lens forward, combat fatigues came into view and then the distinctive barrel, handgrip, and curved magazine OF AN AK-74. Rapp pulled the snake back deliberately and swore to himself.

Why was a bad guy all of the sudden down here in the basement? They had come across no one on the way in. Why now? As Rapp leaned flat against the wall, he tried to make some sense of it. After a while he decided it must have been the girl. He had to make a decision, and the sooner he made it the better. Waiting in the stairwell was not an option. There was no cover, and someone could come along at any minute. It was too big a risk. Opening the door and shooting the terrorist was an option, but one that would have to be a last resort. Rapp was left with only one real course—go back and tell Kennedy and Campbell to put the SEALS in a holding pattern until he could make sure the basement was clear.

Rapp looked down at the corner where the white concrete wall met the hinges of the door. He reached inside the cargo pocket of his pants and extracted one of the micro video and audio surveillance units. Dropping to a knee, he attached a Velcro patch to the wall and then carefully positioned the unit so the tiny fiber-optic lens would have a view under the doorway.

Rapp ascended to the second floor of the mansion quickly, taking less than two minutes to cover the distance from the third basement.

"When the small elevator reached the second level, Rapp turned on his monitor and checked the view of the president's bedroom. All was clear on the video and the audio, so he closed the screen and stepped out onto the tile floor of the bathroom.

From there, it was across the way and into the large closet once again With the doors closed, he found the hidden latch for the wall organizer and opened the way to the stash room.

Adams and Rielly were sitting wide-eyed on the floor when Rapp entered and Adams said, "You're back kinda quick, aren't you?"

Rapp shook his head while he dropped to his knees in front of the secure field radio.

"Yeah, we've got a problem downstairs."

"Like what?"

"We've got a Tango running around down in the third basement."

"A what?"

Rapp pressed several buttons on the control panel of the radio.

"A Tango… a bad guy… a terrorist." Rapp brought the handset up to his ear.

With a worried expression, Adams asked, "Did he see you?"

"If he saw me. Milt, he wouldn't still be walking around." Rapp turned his focus to the radio and said, "Iron Man to control.

Over." Rapp had to repeat himself before he got a reply.

Kennedy's voice came back clearly, "Iron Man, this is control. We read you. Over."

"We have a problem. There is at least one Tango in the third basement. I repeat, one Tango in the third basement."

"Where in the third basement?" was General Campbell's question.

"Two minutes ago he was standing just outside the stairwell, by the door to the boiler room."

"Any others in sight?"

"Not that I could see, but my only shot was with the snake under the door." Rapp added earnestly, "My immediate suggestion is to put the brakes on the next two through the chute.

It's not worth the risk at this time to bring them into an unsecured area."

"Hold for a second. Iron Man," was Campbell's reply.

While Rapp waited for the brass on the other end to finish their little powwow, he opened up his monitor and attempted to get a feed from the second surveillance unit he had placed in the basement. He was still playing with the unit when Kennedy came back on the line.

"Iron Man, any thoughts on what the Tango is doing in the basement?"

"Probably looking for the girl, which means Aziz and Bengazi might also be down there."

There was another period of silence over the line while the brass conferred. Kennedy came back ten seconds later and said, "Iron Man, we concur. Stay put while we see if we can slow things down."

"Roger." Rapp pressed the speaker button and placed the handset back in its cradle. From the tiny speaker on the control panel of the radio, an electronic hum told Rapp the line was still open. Turning his attention back to the monitor strapped to his chest, he went to work trying to get something from the surveillance unit in the basement.

AZIZ'S SPIRITS HAD rebounded. The news that he would have his hands around the neck of the president by dusk today had helped temper the loss of the idiot Hasan. If he could just hold out until then, the chances for complete success would double, if not triple. The next fifteen or so hours would be the tensest of the siege. Aziz corrected himself on that point: it would be the next five hours. Once the sun was up he would be safe again. But come nightfall the chances of a strike would increase once again. Aziz had gone to great pains to study the techniques used by the world's elite counterterrorist strike teams, such as Germany's GSG-9, France's GIGN, Britain's SAS, and of course, America's three premier teams. The groups all shared information on training, strategy, intelligence, and tactics, and competed in annual competitions to help hone each other's skills.

All of the groups followed a fairly standard procedure when confronted with a hostage crisis: initial deployment of assets; intelligence collection; planning, development, and practice of the takedown; mission approval; and finally, execution of takedown. All of the groups were good, and the three U.S. teams were always ranked at or near the top in every category except one. When it came to mission approval, the U.S. teams were consistently ranked at the bottom. The common critique from the international counterterrorism community was that the U.S. had too many people in the chain of command. Too many people throwing their opinions into the arena and thus slowing down a process that depended on speed and efficiency.

This was one of the things Aziz was planning to exploit.

This, as well as the American media and ultimately public opinion. The morning would bring a new day in the media cycle, and Aziz would begin to implement another crucial part of his plan. If he succeeded, it would keep the dogs at bay for another day. The politicians were his allies, and he needed to keep them believing there was a way out of the situation. Aziz needed to keep them and their opinions directly involved in the chain of command, because as long as they stayed involved, the generals would be unable to strike.

As Aziz walked down the hall with Bengazi, he started to see one fundamental flaw in his plan. He had succeeded in negating the Americans' manpower advantage through the use of explosives and the exterior surveillance cameras he had seized from the Secret Service.