“You can’t drive,” stated Marcy as she got in the back with Amanda. “You don’t know your way around.”

Tim looked around and then spotted something on the dash of a car idling in the gridlock not far from where they were. Running toward it, Fiore removed his credentials and held them up when he reached in the window and grabbed the device. “U.S. Secret Service” was all he said.

Sprinting back to the squad car, Tim propped the Garmin iQue GPS handheld on the dash, fired up the vehicle, and hit the lights and siren. Motorists tried to get out of their way, but the effort was useless. There was nowhere for them to go. The traffic was absolutely locked down.

Aiming for the sidewalk between two parked cars, Fiore yelled, “Hold on,” and hit the gas.

As Ali knew from the information provided by the Troll, there was no telling which location Mohammed bin Mohammed was being held at. All they knew was that until they found the right one, each location was going to be very difficult to penetrate and each would pose its own special set of challenges.

The rather benign store on 47th Street between Fifth and Sixth, in the heart of New York ’s diamond district, looked like any other, but Ali and his men knew it was only a front. The windows and doors were mounted with bulletproof Lexan glass reinforced with high-tensile steel frames. There was an airlock-style double entrance that required patrons to be buzzed in the first door and have it close completely behind them before the next would be allowed open. Discreet vents near the floor were capable of pumping in an incapacitating nerve agent in the event the high-voltage-electrode woven “shock” mats were not enough to fell any would-be intruders. Even among the extremely security conscious merchants of the diamond district, this store was in a league of its own.

It was the Chechens who had decided to avoid the airlock all together. As far as they were concerned, there was no reason the balance of their force couldn’t go right in through the windows-provided, of course, someone was kind enough to “open” them up first.

Dressed like the ubiquitous Hasidic Jews who did business up and down the street, two of the Chechen operatives were buzzed into the store with nondescript briefcases in hand. Moments later, as the store staff was distracted by the blacked-out Chevy Tahoes that crashed up onto the sidewalk outside their windows with their lights blazing, the Chechens carried out their plan.

Both briefcases were detonated with deafening pressure concussions and blinding flashes of white light. Before any of the staff could react, they were gunned down by one of the operatives while the other slapped shape charges to the inside of the largest window. By the time the charge blew, both of the men were already at the vaultlike door leading to the heart of the store’s true operation.

Three U.S. marines, dressed in civilian clothes and body armor, were able to take down the first terrorist with fire from their short-barreled M16 Viper assault rifles, but as skilled as they were, they could not escape the high-velocity shrapnel from the grenade the man’s partner lobbed into their security room.

With the marine contingent down and the rest of the team in the store, the terrorists made their way into the bowels of the building, shooting anyone and anything that moved.

Three-and-a-half minutes later, the rooms had all been cleared. Two of the men body-bagged their comrade while the others reloaded their weapons. As Abdul Ali reached into his vest for another magazine, he noticed he was still carrying his cell phone-an unforgivable over-sight, especially as it was no longer necessary. If the Troll or anyone else needed to reach him, they knew how to do it.

Removing the battery, Ali smashed the phone with the butt of his weapon and gathered up the pieces. As he exited the store, he threw the remains into the nearest storm drain.

“Are we done here?” Ali asked an enormous bear of a man named Sacha.

The Chechen leader unslung his bag of electronics, threw it into the lead Tahoe, and nodded his head.

As the SUVs pulled off the curb, Ali looked at his watch and tried to compute how long it would take to maneuver through the streets to their next destination. He also wondered if it would be where they would finally find Mohammed bin Mohammed.

Half a world away, the Troll was lying on a long leather sofa as his Caucasian Ovcharkas, Argus and Drako, dozed on the floor next to him. He was enjoying an exquisite snifter of Calvados and an original copy of the Friedrich Dürrenmatt play The Visit, when a tiny chime sounded from the direction of his desk.

Setting the slim volume on the table next to him, the Troll swung his legs over the edge of the couch and hopped down onto the floor. Immediately, the dogs snapped to attention and followed their master to the manor house’s enormous dining hall. There, any traces of the hall’s original function had been erased by the rows upon rows of high-end computer servers and satellite equipment that filled the room.

A raised platform with a sleek, yet child-sized glass-and-chrome table sat accompanied by a tiny leather desk chair at the far end of the hall. Suspended above the table were three flat-screen monitors. Sitting down in the chair, the Troll punched a series of keys on a Lucite keyboard recessed within the table’s surface and the monitors sprang to life. It was amazing how far the Troll had come in his little life.

Moments later, a series of multicolor status bars began charting the enormous chunks of encrypted data that had already begun downloading to his servers. Thanks to his bag of sophisticated electronic tricks, Sacha had fulfilled the first part of his assignment perfectly.

Removing the Treo device from the pocket of his sport coat, the Troll ignored the desire to contemplate the course of his life and authorized Sacha’s first bonus. So far, so very, very good.

Back at the VA, Harvath waited in Dr. Hardy’s office while Bob went up to the roof in search of his three friends. The images of death and destruction Scot saw on the small television on Hardy’s desk were worse than anything he’d ever seen in any combat zone. The macabre horror of it all made it difficult to tear his eyes away, but he had to. He needed to think beyond the devastation and try to put the pieces of what he knew into some kind of coherent picture in his mind.

To do that, Harvath focused on one of the framed diplomas hanging on the wall. Because of Bob’s injured shoulder he had automatically assumed that Samuel Hardy was an M.D., but as he read, Harvath realized the man was actually a PhD. How the hell could a PhD be in charge of Bob’s physical therapy, he wondered. Unless-

Harvath’s train of thought was interrupted as Dr. Samuel Hardy, PhD, entered the office. “Anything new?” he asked as he threw a stack of folders on his desk and gestured toward the television.

“The body count projections have been raised twice in the last twenty minutes,” Scot replied.

“God help us all.”

Harvath nodded his head and said, “Can I ask you a question?”

“Of course.”

“What kind of therapy are you doing with Bob Herrington?”

Hardy looked at Harvath a moment and then crossed over to his desk. “With all due respect, that’s really none of your business.”

Harvath begged to differ with the doc and politely replied, “I’m assuming it’s not physical rehabilitation.”

“No,” said Hardy, careful with his choice of words. “Physical rehabilitation is not my specialty.”

“And the others I met on the roof-Cates, Morgan, and Hastings? What about them? Bob told me they were pals from his rehab. I figured that meant physical therapy-kind of like workout buddies.”