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Karim moved closer to the screen while the reporter talked with an anchor up in New York. There was nothing left of the building except a half wall on the southwest corner. “It’s gone.” Karim practically giggled. “Look!” He pointed at the screen. “There is nothing left. There is no way anyone survived that.”
Hakim looked at all the emergency vehicles. Men with axes and shovels were climbing over the rubble, and two dogs could be seen sniffing the pile. “I think you’re right.”
A new image came up on the screen of hundreds of people standing at the south end of the parking lot. A reporter was sticking a microphone in the face of a young girl who was crying. Hakim thought she couldn’t have been more than twenty.
“Look where they are standing!” Karim said with great enthusiasm. He checked his watch. “This is perfect. We will have front-row seats this time.”
Hakim wasn’t so sure he wanted a front-row seat.
“Oh,” Karim said, clapping his hands together, “I almost forgot. I must check in with Ahmed.” He grabbed his mobile phone and pressed down on the number seven. The phone automatically dialed Ahmed’s phone. After three quick rings, the Moroccan answered. “How are you?” Karim asked.
“Good,” the man answered in a quiet voice. “Things are very busy here. I assume everything worked on your end.”
“Yes…to perfection.” Karim imagined the Moroccan lying in the woods, burrowed into a pile of leaves and pine straw.
“Congratulations. As you predicted, this place is busier than a beehive.”
“Wonderful. We will stick to our original timetable. If anything changes, I will inform you.”
“I’ll see you in a little bit.”
CHAPTER 67
RAPP stepped off the elevator with his ragtag crew. In addition to Ridley and the four men he’d picked up, he had two of D.C.’s finest with him. Both cops were roughly the same size as t
he man Rapp had knocked out. After Rapp had cuffed all four men and duct-taped their mouths, he stuffed two of them in the back of the squad car and brought Aabad and one other with him.
Ridley moved ahead and entered his number into the cipher lock on the door to the Operations Center. Rapp entered first with Aabad, and then the cops brought up the rear, one on each arm of the big man. Apparently, he had given them some trouble while in transit. After the man had tried to break one of the side windows with his feet, the cop riding shotgun was forced to hit him in the face with a blast of pepper spray. With his wrists cuffed behind his back, the man was left to writhe in anguish as the spray burned his eyes. If it was up to Rapp they’d all have canvas bags over their heads right now, but he didn’t have any.
Nash and two other agents met the group as they came through the door. Behind him the big screen went blue. “Where do you want them?”
“Upstairs,” Rapp said, looking up at the balcony. They didn’t have four separate conference rooms, so Rapp had to come up with a solution. “Take these three,” Rapp pointed to the big guy and the two others, “and put them in one room, facedown on the floor. If they so much as look at each other, you guys have my permission to kick the shit out of them.”
Nash looked nervously at the two cops. He was surprised to see that they were nodding with approval.
One of them actually offered to help, and Rapp took him up on it saying, “That’d be great. Follow these two agents.” As the men moved off, Rapp said to Ridley, “Why don’t you take dumb-ass here upstairs and get started. I’ll be along in a minute.”
“Gladly,” Ridley said, “Come on, dumb ass.” Ridley grabbed him by the elbow and Aabad howled in pain.
“My shoulder!” he screamed in pain. “I think it’s dislocated!”
Rapp got right in his face and said, “It’s not dislocated. If it was, you’d probably pass out from the pain. It’s only separated, but when I get upstairs, if you don’t tell me everything I want to know, I’m going to rip that fucking shoulder clear out of its socket, and then I’m going to stick your hand up your own ass.”
“Come on,” Ridley said to the prisoner, this time pulling him by the collar of his jacket.
Nash looked around the big room and noticed the majority of the analysts had been watching Rapp’s tirade. He put himself between Rapp and the rest of the room and said, “I need to talk to you about a couple things.”
“Make it quick.”
Nash put his hands on his hips and was about to start talking, when Art Harris came walking up.
“Guys, you didn’t hear this from me,” Harris said in conspiratorial whisper. “I just got a call from HQ. They’re sending a team.”
“What kind of team?” Rapp asked.
“Prosecutors and Investigators. They found heavy trace amounts of explosives at the mosque as well as blood.”
“So,” Rapp said, still not getting it.
