After synchronizing their watches, the Emergency Services Unit breacher tapped Harvath on the shoulder, handed him a small canvas bag with det cord and everything else necessary to blow a heavy metal door off its hinges, and said, “Just in case.”

THE WHITE HOUSE

Pulling the secretary of defense to the side of the situation room, the president demanded, “Where’s General Waddell?”

“He’s still tied up at DIA and asked me to give you his regrets.”

“Regrets? What the hell does he think this is, a tea party?”

“Of course not, sir, but-”

The president cut him off. “Don’t defend him, Bob. This situation has gotten way out of control. It’s worse than I could have imagined. How the hell did al-Qaeda figure out we have Mohammed bin Mohammed in New York in the first place?”

“Again, sir, we don’t know that the intercept specifically referred to Mohammed. It could have been referring to Sayed Jamal.”

“Like hell it was,” replied Rutledge. “It only happened this morning, and you and I both know that Scot Harvath conducted a perfectly clean grab. He dragged the man back through the woods to get him across the border, for crying out loud. Nobody was following them. This attack on New York is in retaliation for Mohammed.”

“Either way, someplace there’s a leak, and we’re working overtime on identifying it.”

“What about the operation itself? Whether al-Qaeda knows about Jamal or Mohammed doesn’t matter. They know we have one of their people in New York. How do we know they’re not mounting some kind of rescue operation?”

Hilliman chuckled and said, “I think that’s highly unlikely, sir.”

The president didn’t find any of this amusing. “What should have been highly unlikely is anyone finding out that we had either one of those men in New York in the first place, but it still happened, didn’t it?”

The smile fell from the secretary’s face. “Yes, sir, it did.”

“So what’s being done to help reinforce the men running this operation?”

“Nothing,” replied Hilliman.

“Nothing? What are you talking about?”

“Sir, in all fairness, the intercept didn’t specify a location. All it referred to was our taking a subject to New York City.”

“What about the man who’s running the operation for us-what does he think?”

“Mike Jaffe? From what I was told, he wanted immediate evacuation.”

“So why wasn’t it granted?”

“Sir, the only way we can preserve Mohammed’s legal status is to make sure he doesn’t touch U.S. soil until we’re ready to close out the interrogation phase and move him to trial. If we evac him, we’d have to position an appropriate vessel outside our territorial waters and airlift Mohammed back out to sea. When that NYPD helicopter was shot down, a bubble was placed over Manhattan. No air traffic in or out.”

“But that was hours ago.”

“And in that time, Jaffe and his team have reported no problems whatsoever,” said Hilliman as a bit of a cocky smile crept back across his face.

“What are you saying?” asked Rutledge.

“I’m saying that if al-Qaeda knew where we were holding Mohammed, they would have tried something by now. They’re not coming, Mr. President. These horrible attacks on New York were just that-horrible attacks. Al-Qaeda was doing the only thing they could do in retaliation for our grabbing Mohammed. It shows you how devastated they are by his capture.” The secretary waited a moment for that to sink in and then said, “I know it’s an incredibly high price to pay and I know it doesn’t look like it now, but we beat them, Mr. President. The nuclear attacks Mohammed was spearheading would have been a significant turning point in the war on terror, and it would have turned the war in their favor, but we cut them off at the knees. What we saw today was their death knell. We’ve clamped the lid down and as soon as we break Mohammed, we’ll begin nailing that lid to the top of their coffin.”

The president wanted desperately for his secretary of defense to be right. He wanted to be able to tell himself that as horrific as today’s attacks were, the Americans who had perished hadn’t died in vain-that their deaths meant something and that they marked a long-awaited turning point in the war on terror.

But as much as the president wanted to believe Bob Hilliman, a man who in over five years had never steered him wrong on matters of national security, he had learned early on in his presidency that things were never exactly as they seemed, especially when it came to terrorism.

While a two-man contingent of McGahan’s officers used the gear from the back of the Tahoe to rope down through the sidewalk grate and cover the Waldorf platform, Harvath and his team ran back up Lexington toward the 50th Street stairwell.

When they arrived, they found not another Tahoe but a black Yukon Denali double-parked on the sidewalk. It had the same dashboard-mounted lights that flashed bright halogen strobes of blue and red. As Harvath carefully peered inside, he saw crushed CD jewel cases, South Beach Diet bar wrappers, and a stack of textbooks littering the floor. Two or three hair scrunchies were wrapped around the gearshift, and a pink snowflake air freshener dangled from the front passenger door handle.

The terrorists had been driving two identical Tahoes, but not anymore. Harvath must have caused more damage than he thought to force them to steal a new vehicle. Judging by the thin mist of blood that had been spattered on the driver’s-side headliner, the owner of this vehicle had not met with a very pleasant end. Removing his knife once more, he plunged it to the hilt in two of the tires, just in case the terrorists were able to slip by them.

The bad guys had blown the lock out of this door just like the one on 49th Street. When Hastings realized the door was open, she replaced the det cord and slung the demo bag over her shoulder. Backing away, she signaled everyone to take their places. Harvath radioed McGahan and told him that his team was ready.

“Roger that,” came the commander’s voice. “Teams one and two in place.”

Listening to McGahan’s countdown over his headset, Harvath counted backward on his fingers from five. When he closed his fist and pulled it down like a trucker blowing an air horn, Hastings pulled the door open.

With Harvath in the lead this time, they all poured into the stairwell and took the stairs as quickly and as quietly as they could.

Simultaneously, McGahan’s breaching team hit the door on 49th Street and bounded up the stairs.

By the time the lead man noticed the booby trap, it was too late. Shrapnel ripped through the tightly packed stairwell, killing two officers and wounding three more. It was complete pandemonium.

Despite barely being able to hear as a result of the explosion or breathe because of the smoke, McGahan radioed his team’s situation to help warn the others. After hearing the details, one of the special-response officers below on the platform responded that he was leaving to get the medical kit from their truck. Harvath told the man to remain at his post, but the NYPD officer ignored him. He didn’t take his orders from DHS. He had injured colleagues who needed immediate medical attention, and that’s what he was focused on.

With the 49th Street assault team out of commission and the team on the platform down to only one tactical officer and two MTA patrolmen, the brunt of the assault had just fallen squarely on the shoulders of Scot Harvath and company.

Harvath held up a closed fist to stop his team so that he could relay the information. It was then that a man in a black balaclava appeared at the top of the stairs with a grenade and all hell suddenly broke loose.