stand. In addition, there were SWAT agents inside the hotel, two in the chrome-and-laminate lobby lounge, and two at the concierge stand. Each SWAT agent carried a concealed Springfield .45-caliber semiautomatic pistol with an eight-round magazine and an additional round in the chamber. One of the agents at the concierge stand, a veteran of the Iraq surge, was the designated shooter. He planned to approach the target, subject number two, from behind. If ordered by the president—and if no innocent lives would be lost—he would employ lethal force.
All eight members of the SWAT team tensed as the elevator doors opened and the two women, subjects one and two, stepped out. A new camera followed them across the foyer to the edge of the lobby. There the blond woman stopped abruptly and placed a restraining hand on the arm of the dark-haired woman. Words were exchanged, inaudible inside the NCTC, and the blond woman pondered her mobile phone. Then something happened that no one was expecting—not the FBI teams inside and outside the hotel, not the president and his closest aides in the Situation Room, and surely not the four spymasters watching from the Operations Floor at the NCTC. Without warning, the two women turned away from the lobby and set out along a ground-floor corridor, toward the back of the hotel.
“They’re going the wrong way,” said Carter.
“No, they’re not,” replied Gabriel. “They’re going the way Saladin told them to go.”
Carter was silent.
“Tell the SWAT teams to follow them. Tell them to take the shot.”
“They can’t,” snapped Carter. “Not inside the hotel.”
“Take it now, Adrian, because we’re not going to get another chance.”
Just then, the Operations Floor flashed with an intense burst of white light. An instant later there came a sound like a sonic boom that shook the building violently. Carter and Paul Rousseau were momentarily confused; Gabriel and Fareed Barakat, men of the Middle East, were not. Gabriel rushed to the window as a mushroom cloud of fire rose over the facility’s main security checkpoint. A few seconds later he saw a large cargo truck careening at high speed into the forecourt separating the NCTC from the Office of the Director of National Intelligence.
Gabriel whirled around and shouted like a madman at those closest to the windows to move to safety. He glanced briefly at the giant video screen and saw the two women, subjects one and two, entering the parking garage of the Key Bridge Marriott. Then there was a second explosion, and the video screen, like everything else, turned to black.
In the Situation Room of the White House, the screens went black, too. So did the videoconference link with the director of the NCTC.
“What just happened?” asked the president.
It was the secretary of homeland security who answered.
“Obviously, there’s some sort of problem with the feed.”
“I can’t order the SWAT teams to move unless I can see what’s going on.”
“We’re checking, Mr. President.”
So was every other principal, deputy, and aide in the room. It was the director of the CIA, thirty seconds later, who informed the president that two loud sounds, possibly explosions, had been heard in the McLean–Tysons Corner area, near the intersection of Route 123 and the Beltway.
“Heard by whom?” asked the president.
“They could hear the explosions at CIA Headquarters, sir.”
“A mile away?”
“More like two, sir.”
The president stared at the blank video screen. “What just happened?” he asked again, but this time there was no answer in the room, only the concussive thump of another explosion, close enough to rattle the White House. “What the hell was that?”
“Checking, sir.”
“Check faster.”
Fifteen seconds later the president had his answer. It came not from the senior officials gathered inside the Situation Room but from the Secret Service agents stationed atop the Executive Mansion. Smoke was pouring from the Lincoln Memorial.
America was under attack.
61
THE LINCOLN MEMORIAL
HE HAD ARRIVED ON FOOT, a single man, dark hair, about five eight, wearing a bulky woolen coat against the evening chill and carrying a backpack over one shoulder. Later, the FBI would determine that a Honda Pilot SUV, Virginia plates, had dropped him at the corner of Twenty-third Street and Constitution Avenue. The Honda Pilot had continued north on Twenty-third Street to Virginia Avenue, where it made a left turn. The man with the heavy woolen coat and backpack had headed south, across the far western end of the Washington Mall, to the Lincoln Memorial. Several U.S. Park Police officers stood watch at the base of the steps. They did not challenge or even