chapter 65
MCLEAN, VIRGINIA
NASH stood at the back of the Operations Center on the sixth floor of the National Counterterrorism Center and stared up at the wall at the far end of the room. The big fifteen-by-twenty-foot screen was divided in four. One section showed the estimated casualty numbers from the attack, and the other three showed images of each blast site. The smaller screens along each side were providing live feeds from FOX, BBC, CNN, Al Jazeera, Al Arabia, and the local NBC affiliate.
They had hit three restaurants at almost precisely 12:30. Right in the middle of the lunch rush. The estimated numbers of casualties were staggering. The number on the board right now was at three hundred. Nash was so shocked by it that he had to ask Art Harris if it was a typo. The FBI's deputy assistant director for the CTC Division said his guy actually thought it might be low.
Nash stood there and stared in semi-disbelief. He'd seen carnage up close over in Afghanistan and Baghdad, but he was just a visitor over there. It was different when it was the city you lived and worked in. On top of all of that was the agonizing fear that the terrorists had gotten their hands on one of the NCTC's own threat assessments. This attack was right out of a scenario they'd been warning about for several years. All three targets - the Monocle, Hawk 'n' Dove, and Bobby Van's - were actually named in the report as locations of extreme concern.
Nash's assistant, Jessica, approached and said, "The director is on the line for you, and so is your wife."
"Tell Maggie I love her and I'll call her later." Nash stepped forward and put his hand on the shoulder of the man who ran the floor, Senior Operations Officer Dave Paulson. "Dave, you mind if I use one of your phones?" Paulson had four computer screens and three phones on his desk.
He pointed to the one on the far right.
Looking to Jessica, Nash said, "I'll take it here."
Five seconds later, the phone began beeping. Nash picked it up and said, "Hello."
"Mike," said Kennedy, "I'm in the Situation Room at the White House. When are we going to get those traffic cameras up and running?"
"Any minute, I'm told."
"Do we know what happened?"
"The system was hacked. They thought they could handle it, but that's obviously not the case, so I put Marcus on it. I talked to him five minutes ago and he says he's close."
"There's a bit of an incident here. The CBS correspondent just asked the press secretary to confirm a report that these were radiological devices. She claims to have a source in Homeland. Do you have any information that would support that claim?"
Nash could tell by the tension in her voice that she was pissed. "I have heard nothing of the sort. We're barely an hour into this thing, but our sensors would have picked up a dirty bomb immediately."
"That's what I told the president," she said with frustration, and then asked, "Have you heard any rumors?"
"No, and I'm standing in the Ops Center right now. DOE has their teams at each site, and they've given us the all-clear."
"You're positive, because the president wants to address the nation in ten minutes. He wants to step on this thing before it creates a panic and people try to flee the city."
"Hold on a second." Nash leaned over and asked Paulson, "Dave, have you heard anything about a radiological device?"
"Nothing." He shook his head vigorously. "Fire and rescue reported nothing, Metro said nothing, and DOE gave it the once over and came up all clear."
"Thanks." Nash took the phone off his chest and said, "We've got nothing here. She's either fishing or the rumor mill is working overdrive."
"I agree. Hold on a second."
Nash could hear Kennedy passing his assurances onto someone else. After about twenty seconds she came back on the line. "Before I let you go, could you clarify these casualty numbers for me? Why is the Hawk 'n' Dove so low and Bobby Van's so high?"
"Apparently a city bus full of people was stopped in traffic when the bomb went off at Bobby Van's. Also, Bobby Van's seats more people. The Hawk 'n' Dove is smaller, and they're saying the meters were full in front so the guy had to double-park next to a pickup truck, which, fortunately, absorbed most of the blast."
"Do you have any names for me?"
Nash was afraid this was coming. The Hawk 'n' Dove was located on the House side of the Capitol and was a favorite haunt for congressmen. The Monocle was on the Senate side, and on any given day you could easily find a half dozen senators having lunch. Bobby Van's was a block away from the White House, and right across the street from the Treasury Department. Nash had heard nothing concrete at this point, and he wasn't going to be the one to start any rumors. In a noncommittal voice he said, "I don't have anything yet."
"Well," Kennedy said, her voice hinting of bad news. "This is not for distribution, but Secretary Holtz and Secretary Hamel were having lunch at Bobby Van's."
"Shit," Nash said softly as he looked at his bird's-eye view of the rescue effort on 15th Street. The secretary of the treasury and the secretary of commerce in one fell swoop. Two cabinet members.
"We're not getting much information from the Monocle. Do you have any updates?"
Nash glanced up at the big screen and looked at the image that was being provided by an air force Predator drone circling over the city. He had just spoke to Art Harris, who had spoken directly to one of his agents on the scene. "It's not good."
"Elaborate," she said.
"Complete structural failure. The initial blast tore away half of the building, and then the upper floors came down on whatever was left. Harris told me a few minutes ago that one of his guys on the scene says the only way anyone survived was if they were in the basement, and even then it's iffy."
"So these estimated casualties at the Monocle are likely to be fatalities."
"I'm afraid so. We're calling every senators' office to see if we can get an idea of who might have been in there." Again, he listened while Kennedy relayed the news to someone else. He thought he heard the president's voice, and then Kennedy came back on.
"What about these suspects that Mitch picked up?"
"They should be here any minute. Last I heard they were stuck in traffic. He wanted me to make sure you talked to Senator Lonsdale, though."
"I did. The president dispatched a car and two agents to pick her up. I'll have someone follow up with an update."
Nash looked nervously over each shoulder and saw that no one other than Paulson was close enough to hear what he was about to say. He turned away from Paulson and asked, "What are we going to do about these guys that Mitch is bringing in?"
"I'll leave that up to Mitch."
"Irene," Nash said anxiously, "a third of the people in this building are Feds. I'm talking real Johnny Law types. This isn't the Hindu Kush. We can't drag these guys out in back of some mud hut. The Feds aren't gonna to like any rough stuff."
Kennedy sighed, "Just let Mitch be Mitch. We'll sort it all out later."
Nash was not reassured. "That's the damn problem, boss. All these gutless pricks will look the other way today, when it's convenient, but a year from now, when the panels and committees are doing their after-action reports, they're all gonna act shocked that the suspects were manhandled."
"I don't know what to tell you, Mike. You're probably right, but the priority right now is to get answers and make sure we find these guys."
"Why is he bringing them here?"
"It doesn't matter at this point. The cat's out of the bag. The FBI has agents crawling all over the mosque. Bringing them to Langley is out of the question. NCTC is a shared facility. You guys are the lead agency on counterterrorism, so you're the logical choice."
"Why can't we just lose them for a couple of hours? Let him do the rough stuff off-site."
"Trust me... I've wondered the same thing, but if I've learned anything over the years it's to let him do what he wants to do in these situations. He has it all figured out. He wants a rapid-fire interrogation. Set them all up in separate rooms, and go right down the line. Plus, he needs a secure video feed to Bagram. He's convinced the best way to get al-Haq to talk is to have Lonsdale tell him their deal is off. He either talks or we hand him over to General Dostum."
"Did Lonsdale say she'd cooperate?" Nash asked in near shock.
"I think this attack has crystallized the issue for a lot of people."
"I suppose."
"I have to run. Call me in thirty with an update."
"You got it." Nash placed the phone back in its cradle and looked up at the casualty tally on the big board. There were 327 injured and 31 confirmed fatalities, and that wasn't counting anyone at the Monocle. Nash thought of Johnson. His was a name that would never be added to the list, even though it should. Nash felt a pang of recrimination for not raising the alarm earlier. Maybe the entire disaster could have been averted.