“But then, as I got past the satisfaction over the thought of that overbearing elite class being gone, I started thinking about all the others.
“There are so many people who aren’t like that. You know? People who work hard to provide for their family. Despite all the bad people and all the evil that goes on day in and day out, there are those other people who aren’t part of that. Simple people. Innocent people. People who only want to live their lives and enjoy those they love.”
Jack leaned in. “Angela, what are you talking about? Who is it that you think is going to die?”
“Lots of terrible people the world would be better off without, but also lots of innocent people who don’t deserve to die. People who fight every day to keep us all safe. People who work every day to keep their own families safe.
“Those people deserve to live their lives, kind of like the way innocent people get to live now that I killed Cassiel. He won’t be able to go on to slaughter any more innocent people. Those people will never ever know that they will get to live their lives because tonight I killed the monster who otherwise would have murdered them.
“But they don’t need to know that what I did saved them. I know. That’s all that matters.”
Jack listened to the candles sputtering for a moment. “I understand how lonely that can be, Angela. I work to eliminate that kind of person, too.”
“I know. I can see the things you’ve done in your eyes, the people you’ve killed, and why you do it. I can see you saving a woman named Kate. A woman you love.”
Jack swallowed. He tried to push those painful memories aside and instead focus on the problem at hand.
“So, as I thought about it,” she said, “even though it was momentarily satisfying to think of the justice of those people dying, I realized I couldn’t do it. There are far too many innocent lives at stake. I’m not a monster like the monsters you and I hunt. I’m not a murderer like the ones I kill.”
“That’s why I do what I can to help people like you, Angela.”
“Well, I could use your help, now.”
Jack shrugged. “Okay. What’s up?”
“There’s a second nuke.”
SIXTY-TWO
The hair on the back of Jack’s neck lifted and stood stiffly on end.
“What?”
“The bomb we stopped before was supposed to go off in New York City later this afternoon—at four o’clock, when the city is full of people working as well as tourists and rush hour traffic that would have the streets clogged. The more people outside, the more radiation and burn deaths there would be.”
“Angela, we stopped that from happening.”
“Yes, but there’s a second bomb. This one is going to go off in Washington, DC, later today at the same time—four p.m. The terrorists wanted two bombs to strike at the heart of the Great Satan—New York and Washington. We stopped that first bomb, but there’s a second one. It’s completely assembled, it’s in place in Washington, it’s live, and it’s ready to detonate.”
Jack almost felt as if he were having an out-of-body experience, as if he were looking down on himself having this conversation.
“Angela, how do you know this?”
“I saw it all in Cassiel’s memories as I held his dying brain in my hands.”
Jack took a breath to compose himself. He told himself that it wasn’t possible, that she was simply imagining the worst. And yet, he had already seen this young woman do the impossible.
“What did you see in these visions, or memories? Can you tell me exactly what you saw that makes you believe this?”
“I saw the leader of the terrorist group responsible for the entire mission, for both bombs. His name is Rafael. Rafael always had Cassiel stay close by him.
“Rafael and his team are Iranian, but they grew up speaking Spanish, eating Mexican food, and dressing as Mexicans so that they would be able to easily infiltrate the US. Mexicans can go virtually unnoticed here in the US. That was their plan: blend in as Mexicans.
“But make no mistake. They are Iranian, steeped in the Iranian goal of world dominance. They believe that the ISIS caliphate is illegitimate. They intend to bring about the real caliphate.
“They’ve spent their entire lives training for this mission. They’ve studied with not only Iranian nuclear scientists, but nuclear scientists from North Korea and Pakistan. Rafael knows enough to be a physicist, but this mission is his purpose in life, his only purpose. They want to die with the bombs they have built, the culmination of their life’s work.
“The first time I saw those four, I thought they were Mexican. The entire team snuck into the US illegally posing as Mexicans. Out of all of them, only three were caught. American lawyers helped get them out of detention and got them a court hearing six months from now. They vanished into America as the lawyer knew they would. The authorities didn’t stop any of the others, and some sanctuary cities and states even protected them, like my own state did, and like California did.
“Cassiel wasn’t raised with Rafael and his team. An Iranian commander named Hasan saved Cassiel from execution for murder and assigned him to go with Rafael. Rafael didn’t like it. Neither did Cassiel.
“Rafael left half of his team to complete the assembly of one of the two bombs. That was the bomb we found. That team was supposed to take that bomb to New York City when it was finished, but they all died in the explosion when they were attacked.
“When Rafael could no longer get in touch with any of that team, he rightly assumed that they had been discovered and were dead. He knew they would blow up the place and themselves with it to prevent any chance of discovery of their larger plan. They wanted Rafael’s part of the mission to go on to succeed. When they detonated those explosives, it left it all up to Rafael to complete the mission he and his team members were raised to do.
“That was why Rafael had split his group—to increase the odds that one of them would succeed. Once split, the two teams had minimal contact.
“Rafael built the second bomb at another location—on a long, backwoods loop off the main road not far from here. That loop, Duffey Road, only goes past a scattering of houses and camps. Most of the houses belonged to factory workers and have been long abandoned. Rafael’s team finished the construction of the second bomb in a barn on one of those properties. Anyone who saw them thought they were Mexicans who didn’t speak English.
“When it was finished, Cassiel rode in the cargo van with Rafael as he took the bomb to Washington, DC. The other members of his team went in separate cars so they wouldn’t all be together if anything went wrong.
“Yesterday they set up the bomb on the top floor of a tall building owned by a shell company owned by a series of shell companies owned by their Iranian-backed terrorist group. The building was selected to get the bomb as high in the air as they could to create the maximum destruction and death possible. Everything has been in the planning stages for decades.
“Cassiel was the one part of the mission that had not been part of the plan. Cassiel didn’t want to die a martyr with the rest of them.
“Once they got the bomb in Washington, Cassiel had time to kill, literally. So, he snuck away when they weren’t paying attention to him, stole a car, and came here to kill me.”
Jack pressed his hands to his head. “Where is this bomb? We need to call people who can stop it.”
Angela was shaking her head. “I can’t tell you where it is.”
“What? Why not?”
“I only know where they built the bomb, here, in Milford Falls, in a place on Duffey Road, because I recognized that road in Cassiel’s memories. But I’ve never been to Washington, so those snippets of his memories don’t tell me the location of where it is now.”
Jack gestured down at the brain in the bowl between them. “Can you touch it or something and get more information?”
Angela made a face. “It’s dead, Jack. It’s just gray mush, now.”
Jack stood, pressing his hands to his head again as he paced. “We have to stop it. We can’t let it go off.”
“That’s why I could use your help.”