Faqir looked at the two other men.

“Throw him in the ocean,” he ordered.

He looked at Poldark.

“I apologize for the incompetence of my man,” he said.

“Without some form of propellant, the bomb is useless,” said Poldark.

Faqir glared at the scientist.

“I will find you explosives, Dr. Poldark.”

“How?” asked Poldark, shaking his head in disgust and resignation. “We can’t go back. There is no way.”

Faqir ignored Poldark.

He turned to one of the Chechens and spoke to him in Akkhiy, an Arabic-influenced dialect of Chechen: “Get the weapons ready. Night optics too.”

13

PRIVATE RESIDENCE

THE WHITE HOUSE

Amy Dellenbaugh, along with the Dellenbaughs’ two daughters, Summer and Sally, were waiting in the living room of the White House private residence. The two sisters, ages nine and twelve, both had lacrosse sticks in their hands and were throwing a ball to one another. The president walked toward them, a big grin on his face. The Dellenbaughs were headed to Montana for their annual July Fourth vacation.

“Who’s psyched for Montana?” asked Dellenbaugh.

Sally tossed the hard rubber lacrosse ball to her sister. It went wide of Summer’s stick, then bounced on the marble floor, ricocheted up, and struck the wooden archway over the door. The ball shot left. It sailed toward a large oil painting of a man rowing a boat in an angry ocean by Winslow Homer. As it was about to hit the canvas, Dellenbaugh’s right arm shot out and caught the ball.

Sally stared at her father, whose smile had vanished.

“I’m psyched for Montana,” she said enthusiastically.

He shook his head, smiled, then underhanded the ball back to his daughter.

“Sorry, Dad,” she said, squinting her eyes.

“It’s okay, sweetheart,” said Dellenbaugh, walking to her and putting his hand on her head. He leaned over and kissed her forehead. “You’re lucky you’re so cute.”

Dellenbaugh glanced at his wife, who was rolling her eyes and shaking her head.

“Honestly, J.P., you’re the biggest softie. That girl has you wrapped around her finger. How is she ever going to learn?”

“She’s supposed to have me wrapped around her little finger,” said Dellenbaugh, picking Sally up and walking toward the elevator.

The Dellenbaughs entered the elevator. Summer pressed a button for the first floor, and they descended. Outside the elevator, Calibrisi was standing, arms crossed, waiting. His face was ashen.

“Morning, Mr. President,” said Calibrisi. “Amy, Summer, Sally, how are you?”

“Hi, Mr. Calibrisi,” said Summer.

Calibrisi smiled, then shot Dellenbaugh a look.

“I’ll be right there,” Dellenbaugh said to his wife.

“No, I don’t think you will, sir,” said Calibrisi.

Amy saw the expression on Calibrisi’s face. She walked toward her husband and wrapped her arms around him.

“It’s okay, honey. I’ll save a hot dog for you.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be,” she whispered in his ear. “You’re president of the United States. Montana will be there when you’re done.”

Dellenbaugh walked his family through the Map Room and outside to the South Lawn, where Marine One, the presidential helicopter, was already waiting to take the first family to Andrews Air Force Base. Behind Marine One were two more helicopters. One looked exactly like Marine One; this craft served as a combination decoy and attack chopper, lest anyone attempt an action against the president while on board Marine One. The other helicopter was the one used by the CIA director.

Dellenbaugh cut back through the Rose Garden, then through a terrace door that led into the Oval Office. Calibrisi was already seated on one of the tan Chesterfield sofas, along with Josh Brubaker, the president’s national security advisor. Dellenbaugh sat down on the other sofa, across from Calibrisi.

“How bad is it?”

“Bad.”

“Let’s hear it.”

“This is not going to be a straightforward deal, Mr. President,” said Calibrisi.

“I’m not sure what you mean by that, Hector.”

“What I mean is, this is developing into an attack pattern that falls squarely into the Vulnerability Matrix, sir.”

Prepared for the president’s eyes only, the Vulnerability Matrix was a top secret analysis coauthored by the CIA, the Pentagon, and the RAND Corporation. Every quarter, the brief, highly classified analysis laid out America’s critical security vulnerabilities for the president. It was a chilling document.

Calibrisi pulled out a sheet of paper and handed it to Dellenbaugh.

“I took the relevant page,” said Calibrisi as Dellenbaugh grabbed it from him and quickly scanned it.

POTUS EYES ONLY

VULNERABILITY MATRIX 997-A-554

KEY:

1  MANAGEABLE: THREAT IS ABLE TO BE EFFECTIVELY MANAGED BY U.S. GOVERNMENT/LAW ENFORCEMENT

2  CRITICAL: THREAT HAS VERIFIABLE ODDS OF SUCCESS AND WOULD BE DIFFICULT TO STOP

3  QUANTUM: RISK POSED BY THREAT HAS NO RELIABLE OR PREDICTIBLE WAY TO BE MANAGED AND MUST THEREFORE BE PREVENTED THROUGH FORWARD AND/OR PREEMPTIVE ACTIONS

SCENARIO A5-788

SHIPBORNE NUCLEAR DEVICE: EAST COAST

RISK FACTOR: 3

Commentary:

America’s single greatest security risk remains the same as in the last 74 consecutive months: terror attack involving an improvised or stolen nuclear device, delivered by boat to a city on the U.S. East Coast. The reason for this is simple: the volume of commercial fishing vessels (est. 6–7 million) × the length of U.S. East Coast shoreline = extreme improbability of discovery. This is referred to as “quantum vulnerability,” meaning that if such a plot were ever actualized, the odds of stopping it would be minimal.

President Dellenbaugh stared at the sheet of paper. He had a haunted look on his face.

“What do we know about the bomb?” he asked.

“It’s a thirty-kiloton 1950s era Soviet bomb.”

“Is it bigger than Hiroshima?”

“Much. There’s more highly enriched uranium, and the science behind it is better. Depending on the integrity of the trigger, the yield from this device could be ten times bigger.”

Dellenbaugh put the paper down. His hand was visibly shaking.

“How many people are we talking about?”

“Assuming the target’s a city, at least a million.”

“How much time do we have?” asked Dellenbaugh.

Calibrisi didn’t answer. Instead, he looked at Dellenbaugh’s cowboy hat, which was on the sofa next to the president. Dellenbaugh always wore it in Montana. He looked back at the president.

“July Fourth,” said Calibrisi.

“Independence Day. That’s four days, Chief. Let’s get to work.”

14

NATIONAL SECURITY AGENCY (NSA)

TAILORED ACCESS OPERATIONS (TAO)

FORT MEADE, MARYLAND

Serena Pacheco and Jesus June were seated next to each other inside a brightly lit office at NSA headquarters. It was three o’clock in the morning.

Pacheco and June were two of the NSA’s top electronic signals intelligence analysts. They employed a wide gamut of custom-built, extremely powerful software programs that pored through Internet, phone, and satellite traffic, most of which was obtained secretly.

They’d heard of Cloud, but only in the context of other well-known Russian hackers, a group considered criminal in nature but never before rising to the level of a national security threat. When they listened to the recording of Calibrisi’s conversation with Malnikov, it was the first time anyone had confirmed what had been considered an urban myth: that problems with air traffic control systems on 9/11 had been intentionally caused by computer hackers.