I didn’t call anything on the radio; instead I looked at JP and nodded for him to continue. If Oliver needed anything, he would call me. Or at least yell really loud.
With the sound of sporadic gunfire continuing below us, JP pushed through to the right and I buttonhooked to the left in the tight confines of the room. We scanned for about two seconds before realizing it was another dry hole. No way could the injured senator be in here.
As we moved out of the engine room and made our way toward Oliver and his team, I heard the words I loved to hear:Jackpot! We’re good—you can stay up there!
In this case,Jackpotmeant Senator Coleman R. Harrison. What a relief. The second part of the message was odd, but I gave JP the nod to move on.
As we descended to the crew deck, I could smell freshly burned gunpowder from the firefight. Brass casings littered the floor, while the yacht’s interior walls were paneled in splintered wood. Four dead bodies lay scattered around the stateroom.
“Senator Harrison is alive,” Meg reported. “But just barely. Blunt-force trauma to the head and chest. His left hand has been amputated, and he’s lost a lot of blood. We’ve got to get him to a surgeon ASAP.”
Then I saw Oliver, his left arm drenched in blood, propped against a wall and facing an open door. As JP and I moved toward him, he spoke very clearly, enunciating each word for impact.
“As I said, I’m okay, just don’t move. I’m serious:Don’t. Fucking. Move.Harrison’s wired.”
CHAPTER 53
Paris, France
The man in Paris, Haracat al Marrak, watched the video for the third time. The movie cameras, laptops, and lights hadn’t delivered the high production values he’d envisioned, but the message was clear: Senator Harrison’s battered body was easily identifiable against a backdrop covered in Arabic script.
His mind was methodically reviewing the events of the past twelve hours. The attack on the beach house had been executed flawlessly. The men in the American waters had done their jobs exactly as he had planned. The woman had perfectly made the double-blackmail deal with the Secret Service agent. The last-minute change was also perfectly handled.
His only concern was the Russian. The Russian was not a believer by faith—only in the money and the power—and he was late for his call. Almost an hour late, to be more precise. Still, the Russian had fulfilled his end of the transition a weekago with the last delivery of explosives. Perhaps he was dead. If not, it could certainly be arranged.
It was time for the American infidels to pay for their sins and face the fearsome events he was about to unleash. It was time for the world to see his masterpiece.
CHAPTER 54
Atlantic Ocean
Senator Harrison lay on a gurney, wearing a vest outfitted with wires and explosives. His prospects looked bleak.
“Hang in there—it’ll be okay,” Meg reassured him, though no response was audible.
Wolf knelt beside her, surveying the mess of explosives and wires. “I’m cutting this shit off,” he said. “No visible triggering device. No igniter. No blasting cap to power the explosives. I think this vest is a dud.”
“Buddy, it’s all you,” Meg replied as she scanned the room, looking for a possible alternate triggering device.
It took Wolf an hour-long minute to carefully cut wires from the faux detonator and explosives attached to the senator’s body. He gingerly removed each and placed the pieces on the floor, careful to separate the things that go bang from the things that make things go bang. His last chore was to delicately feelall over the senator’s body one last time before he called the all clear.
“All clear!” Meg repeated.
* * *
JP was already at Oliver’s side when the all clear came, helping him to a couch in the galley aft to begin first aid.
“It’s just a flesh wound!” Oliver said, in his best Monty Python accent.
JP gave a quick assessment of Oliver’s condition: “He’s got a through-and-through, left shoulder, lost some blood but he’s going to be fine. Looks like it cauterized itself on exit and didn’t hit any bone. I’ll give him an IV and bandage him up. He can still shoot.”
“Wolf, what do you got for me?” I said as I moved to enter the room where he and Meg were tending to Harrison.
“That vest they put on the senator is worse tech than the IED we found on the road in Nantucket.”
“Got it.” I entered the room and in two seconds registered the whole event. Torture, videotaped, agony, horror, message to be delivered loud and clear. Everyone in the world with an internet connection would either weep or cheer over images they would never be able to unsee. The video would be a horrible blow to any successes our country had achieved.
The enemy had accomplished their mission by launching the most personal attack against the United States since September 11, 2001. A graphic assault against not just any American, but a sitting US senator and prospective President of the United States.
