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"What kind of plane?"
Abdullah closed his eyes. "A cargo plane."
"What carrier, and from where?"
"I do not know."
Rapp kept the pistol firmly in place. It was unclear how much, if any, of what he'd just been told was true, but either way he had to report it to Kennedy immediately. An idea popped into his head and he decided to go with it. He stood, reached down to grab a handful of his prisoner's hair, and started dragging him across the floor.
He looked at Urda and said, "Load the other two up. We're going back to the base." When he reached the door he held it open with one hand while he pulled his prisoner across the threshold. Then, in a moment of inspiration, he decided to stop and slam the door into the terrorist's shattered knee.
Abdullah shrieked in pain. Rapp waited a few seconds and slammed the door into his knee again. Abdullah's eyes rolled back into his head, and he began to hyperventilate.
Rapp bent down and growled into his ear, "Guess where we're going?"
Abdullah either didn't hear the question or was in too much pain to answer so Rapp yanked his hair and screamed the question a second time.
"I don't know," Abdullah answered, with tears streaming from his dark brown eyes.
"Ground zero, you stupid prick." Rapp pulled him out into the bright sunlight. "I'm going to strap your ass to the Washington Monument so you can have a front-row seat."
Rapp began pulling Abdullah toward the waiting vehicles. He couldn't even attempt to remember the last time he'd been so enraged. It had finally come to this. These nutbags were actually going to plunge the world into chaos.
"Hey, Abdullah," Rapp said in a sarcastic voice, "maybe I'll have your mom and dad picked up along with all of your brothers and sisters and nieces and nephews." Rapp pulled him roughly over a crumbled wall. "The whole Abdullah clan. That's what I'm going to do. I'll call my buddy the crown prince and have them sent over."
"The crown prince," hissed Abdullah, "is no friend of yours."
"Sure he is," replied Rapp in a jovial voice. "He owes me a big favor, actually." Rapp reached the back of one of the vehicles and let go of his prisoner's hair.
Abdullah's head hit the ground hard. With an angry face he said, "This proves you are a liar. I know the crown prince." Abdullah wheezed in pain and added, "He is a true believer, and he would never ever speak to someone like you."
Rapp laughed. "The crown prince believes in Allah, but he does not buy into all that Wahhabi crap."
"Liar!"
"Remember fat Omar his h
alf brother? Sure you do. Omar used to send you money to wage your little twisted jihad." Rapp squatted down and pointed to himself. "I was the one who killed him in Monaco last year, and the crown prince thanked me personally for saving him the trouble."
The look on his captive's face was beyond priceless.
Rapp popped the tailgate. "Yeah, I'll have to make that call. That way your family can thank you in person for getting them all killed. Every last member."
* * *
Twenty-Three
WASHINGTON, D.C.
Irene Kennedy stood at the back of the Global Ops Center on the seventh floor of the Old Headquarters Building at Langley. She slowly placed the handset of the secure phone back in its cradle. She didn't move or speak for close to a minute. Around her the room buzzed with every manner of modern communication available. All of it-every voice, beep, whir, churn, and tap of a keyboard-blended into a seamless thrum of background noise, and she blocked it out.
The national security of America was serious business, and Dr. Irene Kennedy had never thought otherwise. The specter of a nuclear attack, however, did strange things to people. She was not incapacitated by fear. On the contrary. She was merely trying to comprehend the full importance of what Rapp had just told her, for she knew there was no turning back once she took the next step. There would be no standing down, at least not for the next few hours. This would likely be her last chance to make a calm assessment of the situation before a myriad of people and agencies got involved: secretaries, undersecretaries, directors, deputy directors, generals, admirals, and of course the president himself and the grab bag of political advisors who came with him. Some of these people were good at keeping secrets, but most of them were not.
Kennedy looked up at the three massive TV screens that dominated the front wall of the room. They were all tuned to twenty-four-hour cable news networks. There was no big news at present, and she hoped that would remain the case for the next twenty-four hours until they could get a handle on this thing.
Somewhat reluctantly, Kennedy picked up the handset of the secure phone. She scanned the numerous buttons for the proper speed-dial label and found it. Several seconds later the duty officer for the Secret Service's Joint Operations Command answered.
"This is Director Kennedy. Patch me through to Agent Warch ASAP."