Then a word typed into the box: Nina Shinkuba The word disappears. Another word: nina shinkuba The words keep coming, then disappearing:
NINA SHINKUBA NINASHINKUBA ninashinkuba
The number to the side of the box—some kind of timer.
26:42
26:39
26:35
She springs into the room, her weapon out. Sweeps the room, seeing nothing. Quickly checks behind a file cabinet, a stack of boxes. Nobody hiding.
The room is empty. This is where he was supposed to be, but nobody’s here.
She looks back at the white screen, new words being typed:
Augie Koslenko AugieKoslenko augiekoslenko Augustas Koslenko
She knows that name, of course, but not why it’s being typed on a screen.
She jumps at the buzzing sound, the movement of a phone as it vibrates on a wooden desk. The face of the phone reads FBI Liz.
Then her eyes glance upward.
And for the first time, she notices the security camera looking down at her from the corner, the blinking red light leaving no doubt that it’s activated, watching her.
She shuffles to the right. The camera moves along with her.
A shiver runs through her.
She hears a noise from the laundry room, someone kicking at the window, trying to enter from the outside.
And urgent footfalls upstairs, so many men she can’t count, running to the door leading to the basement. The door swinging open.
More footfalls pummeling the staircase as the men rush down.
Bach moves to the door of the war room, locks it, and backs away, one step behind another, until she hits the far wall.
She unscrews the suppressor on her firearm.
She breathes in deeply, fights the banging pulse in her throat. Her vision now shrouded with warm tears.
She gently touches her stomach. “You are my beautiful gift, draga,” she whispers in her native tongue, her voice shaking. “I will always be with you.”
She unclasps her phone from her waist, unhooks the earphones that snake under her bodysuit up to her ears. “Here, draga,” she says to the child inside her. “Listen to this, my beautiful angel.”
She chooses the church cantata Selig ist der Mann. The tenderness of the strings, led by Wilhelm Friedemann Herzog’s violin; the delicate introduction of the vox Christi; the impassioned cries of the soprano.
Ich ende beh?nde
mein irdisches Leben,
mit Freuden zu scheiden
verlang ich itzt eben.
I swiftly end my earthly life, I long at this time to depart with joy.
She slides against the wall, down to the floor. She places the phone against her belly and turns up the volume.
“Listen only to the music, draga,” she says.
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Alex and I watch the feed from the war room on his handheld monitor as the assassin sinks to the floor, eyes closed, her camouflage-painted face seemingly at peace.
She puts the pistol under her chin. She puts her phone against her stomach.
“She knows she’s cornered,” I say.
“We’re all clear otherwise,” Alex says to me. “The rest of the downstairs and the rest of the cabin are clear. Just her. The go team is just outside her door, ready to storm it. Now it’s time for us to go, Mr. President.”
“We can’t go, Alex, we have to—”
“She could be wearing explosives, sir.”
“She’s wearing a skintight bodysuit.”
“She could be wearing it underneath. The phone might be a detonator. She’s holding it down low by her stomach. Why would she be doing that?”
I look at the screen again. She detached her headphones before placing the device against her stomach.
A memory of singing to Lilly, when she was inside Rachel’s swollen belly.
“We have to go right now, sir.” Alex grabs my arm. He’s going to drag me if I don’t go willingly.
Devin, Casey, and Augie are continuing to try to guess the keyword.
“How much time, Devin?”
“Twenty-two minutes.”
“Can you take that laptop onto Marine One? Will it work from there?”
“Yes, of course.”
“Then let’s go. Everyone.”
A team of Marines is standing on the other side of the door when Alex opens it. They escort us up the stairs, through the house, onto the balcony, down the stairs, and to the helipad, where Marine One awaits us. Alex all but mugs me as we go, Devin cradling the laptop as if it were a human infant.
“I need my phone,” I tell Alex as we hustle inside the helicopter. “Get us in the air, a safe distance, but keep us close. I need someone to bring me the phone.”
We get inside the copter, the familiarity of it a comfort, Devin dropping into a cream leather seat and going back to work on the keyboard.
“Just hit twenty minutes,” he says as Marine One lifts off the ground and angles over the trees, over the fire on the lake, the remnants of the boat the Viper wiped out.
As I look over Alex’s shoulder at the monitor in his hand, I call out to Devin. “Try ‘Sons of Jihad,’ ‘SOJ,’ variations of that. Maybe just ‘jihad.’”
“Yes, sir.”
On the monitor, the assassin remains motionless. The gun under her chin, the phone pressed against her stomach.
Against her womb.
Alex raises his radio. “Marines, the president is clear. Take the room.”
I take the radio from Alex. “This is President Duncan,” I say. “I want her alive if you can.”
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She closes her eyes and hums to the music, nothing in the world but her developing child, Delilah, and the playful strings, the soulful chanting of the chorus.
Not the sound of the door busting open.
Not the orders of the soldiers to drop her weapon, to surrender.
The SIG still pressed under her chin, she watches the men fan out, assault weapons trained on her. They must have orders to take her alive. She’d already be dead if they did not.
They can’t hurt her now. She is at peace with her decision.
“This is the best I can do for you, draga,” she whispers.
She tosses the gun in front of her and comes forward, palms out, lying facedown on the carpet.
The Marines lift her in an instant, as if she were weightless, and rush her out of the room.
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Get us down on the ground!” I say to Alex. “I need that phone!”
“Not yet.” Alex raises his radio. “Tell me when she’s clear!” When she’s confirmed as not having explosives, he means, or when they’ve moved her far enough away to eliminate the threat to me.
The Marines quickly whisk her out of the room, one soldier holding each of her limbs, and disappear from the camera’s view.
“Anything?” I say to Devin, already knowing the answer.
“No on ‘SOJ’ and ‘jihad’ and their variations.”
“Try ‘Abkhazia’ or ‘Georgia,’” I say.
“How do you spell Abkhazia?”
“A-b-…I need to write. Where’s paper? Where’s paper and a pen!?”
Casey shoves a small memo pad in my hand, gives me a pen. I write the word out and read it to him.
He types it in. “No on regular case…no all caps…no on all lowercase…”
“Add an n. ‘Abkhazian.’”
He does so. “No.”
“Are you sure you spelled it right?”
“I…think so.”
“You think so? Don’t just think so, Devin!” I’m pacing now, walking over to his computer screen to peek at the timer—
18:01
17:58
—and trying to remember anything that Nina told me, anything I saw in the text messages— “All clear!” Alex calls out. “Let’s get this copter back on the ground!”
The pilot moves more quickly than I’ve ever experienced on Marine One, almost nose-diving downward and then righting the aircraft, gently touching down on the helipad we just left.
Agent Jacobson pops into the copter and hands me my phone.
I pull up the document, the transcript of the text messages, which I have yet to finish reading in the chaos of the last hour.
The phone buzzes in my hand. FBI Liz, says the caller ID.
“Liz,” I answer. “There’s no time, so make this quick.”
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110