Despite both the air-conditioning and the antiperspirant his handler had insisted he wear, Nassir Hamal’s purple Polo shirt clung to his sweat-covered body. All of the martyrs had been offered drugs-Valium, to be specific-in order to help them remain calm when the time came. The mullah from the mosque in New Jersey who had counseled them had assured them that taking the drugs would in no way jeopardize their entry into paradise. Though several of the others accepted the offer and tested the pills in advance to gauge their effects, Nassir had refused. He was confident that when the time came, he would meet his end with a heart made strong by his love of Islam. But now, as Nassir sat in the interminable traffic along 64th Street with nothing but his thoughts and a broken FM radio to keep him company, he wasn’t so sure.

Looking at the cell phone on the seat beside him, he considered calling his handler, but then decided against it. They had stayed up all night together praying, reading verses from the Koran and talking about paradise as the others slept. His handler had become almost like an older brother to him, confiding in the younger man that the Prophet Mohammed himself, may peace be upon Him, had visited the handler in his sleep and had instructed him that Nassir be given one of the most important and most difficult of the assignments. It was an honor that Nassir accepted with the utmost sincerity and obligation to duty.

Though he had not been allowed to say a proper good-bye to his mother and sister, both of whom had immigrated to the United States with him ten years prior, he hoped they would understand. He also hoped they would appreciate the annuity his handler had said each of the families of the martyrs would be receiving. Islam took care of its own-an attribute Nassir saw sorely lacking in the culture of the West.

Regardless of how his family felt, in his heart Nassir knew he was doing the right thing. When he had been approached in his mosque on the north side of Chicago and asked if he wanted to study with a very wise and learned Imam visiting the city, Nassir had jumped at the chance. Disenchanted with a failed business, a failed marriage, and what he saw as his downtrodden American existence, he had looked everywhere until he found the one thing that filled the emptiness inside him-Islam.

In time, he had thrown out his record collection, had stopped smoking, and was chastising his younger sister on a daily basis about the evils of dancing, the type of friends she associated herself with, and the revealing American clothes she wore. One day, she finally worked up the nerve to suggest that if he didn’t like America and its ways, then maybe he should go back to their home country. Nassir had seriously considered it, had even saved for a plane ticket and made arrangements to stay with extended family once he got back, but then the Imam had come into his life. After they had gotten to know each other he had suggested another idea-one that would require him to place the greater glory of Allah above his own self-pity and self-serving desires.

As the traffic started moving again, Nassir swung the counterfeit FedEx van onto Third Avenue and headed south. A few blocks later, he saw his target. Without even thinking, he began reciting the special verses from the Koran that all of his fellow martyrs had been given to provide strength and courage for the moments ahead-the last moments any of them would ever know.

It was 4:30 now and out on the street, most people were oblivious to anything but getting started with their holiday weekend. As he and Herrington walked away from Times Square, Harvath tried to make sense of what they were doing. A healthy bit of paranoia was a prerequisite in their business, but at what point did it become too much? The rational side of Harvath’s brain said leaving a perfectly well-stocked bar and an above-average looking bartender was that point, but his gut said Bob might be right on the money.

“Where are we going?” he asked.

Pointing south down Broadway, Bob said, “ Times Square has gotta be pretty high on the terrorist hit parade. I know a good restaurant not far from the VA. Let’s go there.”

“TheVA?You’ve spent enough time there as it is. Don’t you get sick of being anywhere near there?”

“You’d be surprised. It’s not your grandfather’s VA anymore, Scot. They’ve come a long way.”

“Sterilize the instruments and everything now, do they?”

“Even better, if they amputate a limb, you get two bullets instead of one to bite on.”

At least Bob hadn’t lost his sense of humor. “What about my truck?” asked Harvath.

Seeing a cab that had just dropped off its fare, Herrington made a beeline for it and said, “Leave it. We’ll come back and pick it up later.”

As they drove, Harvath looked out the window at the hordes of people crowding the sidewalks, and his mind wandered back to the news reports they’d been watching in the Pig amp; Whistle. Taken as isolated incidents, the events unfolding just outside Manhattan were indeed serious, though nothing to panic about. But when you lumped them together as a whole, they were just too coincidental-and coincidences were something neither Scot Harvath nor Bob Herrington believed in. In fact, no one in their line of work did. They had been taught to always try to connect the dots and look for a bigger picture.

Even though he was supposed to be on vacation relaxing, Harvath couldn’t stop thinking about what Bob had said and so repeated his earlier question. “Let’s say you’re right about what’s going on across the river. Why do you think someone would want to tie up all of those tactical teams?”

“I can think of about a million answers,” replied Bob as he eyeballed a graffiti-covered truck idling outside a nearby bank, “and none of them have a happy ending.”

“But if you break this down into its simplest parts, the reason you’d want to tie up tactical teams is to prevent them from interfering with your objective or your egress, right?”

As their cab sped up, Bob’s eyes moved to a group of taxi drivers who had double-parked near a falafel stand and were chatting animatedly to one another. “So?”

“So if you were a suicide bomber or were going to fly a plane into a building, you wouldn’t care about tactical teams. By the time they knew what you were doing, theoretically it would be too late.”

“It depends on what you were doing. What if you weren’t a suicide bomber or planning on flying a plane into a building? What if you had other plans?”

Harvath looked back out his window and asked, “Like what?”

“I don’t know,” replied Herrington. “I just saw all that stuff happening on TV and it gave one of those uh-oh feelings.”

“Old habits are hard to break.”

Bob smiled.

“That’s better,” said Harvath as he decided to change the subject. They were both a little too on edge. “Now, am I going to be able to get that shot of Louis XIII you owe me at this place we’re going?”

“Probably not. For that we’ll need to find you some high-end gay bar. But maybe there’ll be some cute Navy guys there you can hook up with.”

Harvath gave his friend the finger and Bob laughed.

Below 34th Street the traffic began to back up and Herrington started giving the driver directions.

Fifteen minutes later, as they crawled down 28th, the cab’s radio erupted with terrified voices shouting in a language neither Harvath nor Herrington understood.

When Scot asked what was happening, the driver stammered, “The Queensboro Bridge!”

“What about it?”

“It just exploded!”