Heather felt the tremor from the first two explosions, making a quick approximation of their distance and direction as she pulled up a digital map of Fort Meade on the computer monitor. A slow smile spread across her face as she mentally pinned the locations on the map.
Jack.
As she’d anticipated, he was out there, had probably been preparing and waiting for days, if not weeks. Now he’d detected the emergency situation at the NSA prison and had initiated his own supporting attack, an attack designed to disrupt and confuse the government response.
Returning her attention to the task at hand, she saw Mark walk out of Jennifer’s cell, his sister’s limp body cradled in his arms. A rapid scan of the other monitors showed the assault team on the fourth sublevel fighting for survival. They’d lost three team members and the remaining two were pinned down in the disabled elevator.
Heather shifted focus to the ground floor. Team Two had just finished placing a small explosive charge on the stairwell door and had backed off in preparation to blow the bolt.
Pulling up another control panel, Heather activated fire alarms on the ground floor and first two sublevels, initiating their water sprinkler systems. The sprinkler layout didn’t include the rooms with critical electronic and computing systems, those having halon gas fire suppression systems similar to that of the master control center.
The concussion from the stairwell detonation vibrated the camera display, completely knocking out the top camera in the main stairwell.
Her fingers flying across the keyboard, she found the personnel data files, opening the profiles of the five most senior officials assigned to the facility. As she’d hoped, one of them was a woman. It took her less than two seconds to memorize the file.
Glancing at the desk-mounted microphone, Heather pursed her lips in frustration. Useless. That system was hardwired to the loudspeakers in the prison section, sublevels three and four, and couldn’t be rerouted. She had no intention of letting the security team get down to the third sublevel.
“Shit!”
Heather shifted her attention to the laptop to the right of the station at which she currently sat. Not perfect, but it would have to do.
Moving into the adjacent chair, Heather bypassed the login and began shifting control of the public address system that covered the ground floor, the stairwells, and the laboratories and offices on sublevels one and two. It took her exactly thirty-eight seconds.
“Heather, you there?” Mark’s thoughts nudged her mind.
“Give me a minute.”
Heather ran a quick check, adjusting the laptop microphone calibration. Then she went live.
“Attention all security elements! This is Rebecca Fairing. Badge number Xray Kilo Niner Five Seven Zulu. Return immediately to the main floor and prepare to repel external attack. I say again. Return immediately to the main floor and prepare to repel external attack. Fairing out.”
As she watched the ground-floor monitor outside the main stairwell, another twenty seconds passed with no indication the stairwell team had heard the message. Then two of the black-clad team emerged into the main hallway, covering left and right as the rest of the team spilled back out of the stairwell and raced down the hallway toward the building entrance.
“OK, Mark. Bring her down the first corridor on your left, then take the second right. I’m in the first room on the left.”
“Shouldn’t you meet us at the stairwell?”
“We’re not taking the stairwell, and I have a couple of things to finish up before we abandon ship.”
“On my way.”
Just then the ground shuddered with three more explosions, much closer than the first two. As the vibrations faded away, a fresh smile tweaked the corners of Heather’s lips.
“Jack. I’d like to kiss you long and hard. Right here and now.”
Jack tore open the packaging around the prepaid cell phone and dialed the 404 area code number.
“Thank you for calling HLN, a CNN network. If you are calling with a breaking news tip, please press one...”
Jack pressed one, then pressed one again to speak to the news tip team. When a real person answered, Jack flipped the remaining three switches to ARM, pressing the DETONATE buttons in rapid sequence as the lights turned green. Just over three miles away, the sound of the explosions began propagating outward, beginning the seventeen-second trip to his hotel room.
“Be silent, infidel. My name is Fariq Abdullah Muhammad. At this very moment, Allah has launched an attack on your National Security Agency at Fort Meade, Maryland, where our brothers are being held in a secret US prison. If you listen closely you may hear the explosions as I speak.”
On cue the shock waves arrived, rattling the windows and shaking pictures on the wall.
“It has begun. Allahu Akbar.”
Without waiting for a response, he hung up the phone, placed it on a white hand towel on the floor, and crushed it beneath his heel. Rolling the pieces inside the towel, Jack placed it beside his laptop in the soft leather valise, and added the remote detonator. Then, strapping on his shoulder holster and knife, he took one last sip of coffee, lifted the valise, and strolled out into the night.
“Excuse me, Mr. President. I’m sorry to wake you, but we have a serious situation.” The telephone did little to soften James Nobles’ gravelly voice.
President Jackson looked at the telephone, glanced over at Leticia’s sleeping body, which only moments before had been spooned up against his, and sighed. God, he missed those peaceful nights with his wife, the ones before he got his wish and was made president.
“OK, James. Give me the bad news.”
It was always bad news, at least at this time of night. Nobody ever woke the president of the United States at one a.m. to say, “Good news, Mr. President. Nothing bad has happened so far today.”
“There’s been an attack at Fort Meade.”
“The NSA.”
“Yes, Mr. President.”
Sudden depression threatened to cloud his mind, but the president forced himself to get out of bed.
“Damn it. Get the National Security Council rounded up. I’ll be down in five minutes.”
“I’m on it.”
“Oh, James. Get General Wilson on the line.”
“Already working on it, Mr. President.”
By the time President Jackson walked into the White House Situation Room, three members of the national security staff were already waiting for him: Cory Mayfield, James Nobles, and his chief of staff, Carol Owens.
“Stay seated.” President Jackson slid into his own chair. “Who’s got the rundown?”
“I guess I have the honor,” James Nobles said. “As I said on the phone, we’ve had reports of multiple explosions at Fort Meade as well as gunfire near the NSA headquarters building. I have the NSA director on the line, but before you put him on, Mr. President, I think you should see this.”
The national security advisor leaned forward and touched a button on the remote control panel, turning one of the flat-panel displays to CNN.
“...As we continue to follow the situation underway at Fort Meade, Maryland, we continue to receive reports of explosions and gunfire coming from the base. As we’ve been reporting for the last several minutes, this station received a call from a person claiming to be a member of the Al Qaeda cell conducting the attack. If you’ve just tuned in, I want you to listen to this recording of the call...”
Several moments of dead air, which lasted just long enough to increase President Jackson’s sense of foreboding, were suddenly broken by a man’s heavily accented voice.
“Be silent, infidel. My name is Fariq Abdullah Muhammad. At this very moment, Allah has launched an attack on your National Security Agency at Fort Meade, Maryland, where our brothers are being held in a secret US prison. If you listen closely you may hear the explosions as I speak.”
The man paused as the sound of three distant explosions sounded in the background.
“It has begun. Allahu Akbar.”
James Nobles clicked a button and the video froze.
“They’ve been recycling this recording every couple of minutes.”
President Jackson nodded, then pressed a button on the speakerphone. “General Wilson, this is President Jackson. Can you hear me OK?”
There was a two-second pause, followed by an encryption hiss as Balls Wilson’s voice came over the speaker.
“Loud and clear, Mr. President. Sorry for the comm link delay, but we’re having to talk over a secure satcom link.”
The president tried and failed to keep the irritation out of his voice. “And why is that?”
“Someone’s taken out our external phone lines. Killed base military police radio comms as well. We’ve also got some sort of problem inside the Ice House.”
“So who’s behind it?”
“The consensus view says Al Qaeda. I’m not buying it.”
“Have you seen the news?”
“I’ve seen it.”
“Seems cut-and-dried to me.”
“Too cut-and-dried, Mr. President. Levi doesn’t think it’s Al Qaeda either. No chatter match.”
Cory Mayfield cut in. “Bullshit, Mr. President. Sometimes things are exactly what they seem.”
“And sometimes they aren’t.” General Wilson’s voice acquired a cutting edge.
“So what’s your situation right now?” President Jackson interrupted. Christ. Did every president have to endure such constant bickering among his advisors?
“Mass confusion. I just got back to the NSA and the building is secure. Our perimeter defense force is in place and ready to repel an attack. But the military police are having problems. I haven’t been able to raise the MP station and apparently they can’t communicate with any of their patrols. We’ve had multiple explosions around the base, so you can imagine what the night shift patrols are doing, trying to get to the places where the bombs went off. We’ve also lost communications with the Ice House facility.”
“Response teams?”
“They’ve got their own, just like we do here at NSA headquarters. They should be able to deal with any internal threat.”
“Everything you’ve said points to an Al Qaeda operation,” Cory Mayfield interrupted.
“Like I said, I’m not buying it.”
President Jackson held up his hand, cutting off Director Mayfield’s response. “General Wilson, I respect your opinion, but I have to act based on what I consider the most likely scenario. Since we haven’t been able to contact Colonel Abrams, the base commander, I’ve given the go for a Delta response.”
“Mr. President, local civilian police can get here faster.”
“I’m not putting civilian police up against a trained Al Qaeda assault force. I’ve made my decision.”
“Yes sir.”
President Jackson broke the connection and turned to his chief of staff. “Carol, get my press secretary in here. I’m going to have to make a statement in the next hour or so.”
“I called her fifteen minutes ago. Gretchen’s on her way, along with the rest of your national security staff.”
“That’s good.” The president didn’t intend to say what he was thinking, as if by refusing to give his thoughts voice he might avert what they foretold. But somehow, the words found their way out of his mouth. “Looks like another all-nighter.”