“If you don’t mind,” Bahar said when Abdul swung open the car’s door, “I’ll remain behind.”

“Of course.” Mohammad stepped out into the humid air and unsheathed the knife he kept strapped to his forearm.

18

WASHINGTON, D.C.

THREE WEEKS LATER

THE PRESIDENT’S SECRETARY HAD BEEN WITH HIM FROM the very beginning when he decided to parlay his up-by-thebootstraps story and gift for oratory into a political career. He put his law practice on hiatus and ran for mayor of Detroit and won in a landslide when his opponent had withdrawn from the race to “spend more time with his family.” The truth was, his opponent’s wife had found out her husband had been cheating and was preparing divorce proceedings. From there he did two terms in the House and another in the Senate before launching his presidential run. Eunice Wosniak had dutifully followed him from his one-man practice to the mayor’s office and on to Washington, and now to the most powerful post in the world.

She guarded her boss almost as fiercely as his chief of staff, Lester Jackson. Jackson was a Washington insider who’d latched onto the president’s coattails early on and never relinquished his grip.

While she had a support staff of several dozen under her, one of the tasks Eunice insisted upon performing herself was giving the president his coffee when he strode through her office on the way to his. She’d just finished adding milk—the First Lady insisted on two percent, but it was actually whole milk poured into a two percent carton—when her fax line rang.

It wasn’t without precedent, but faxes were somewhat archaic in today’s world so the machine usually sat mute for weeks on end. When it had spit out a single page into the tray, Eunice scanned the contents, bewilderment turning to genuine concern as she read.

This had to be a hoax, she thought.

But then how did the sender get this line? It wasn’t listed in the White House directory because of all the prank faxes sent to the president, along with the prank letters and e-mails. Those were all screened off-site. Only a few dozen people had easy access to the fax machine behind her desk.

What if this wasn’t a hoax? The very idea sickened her. She sat heavily, barely noticing the hot coffee she’d spilled in her lap.

Just then, Les Jackson strode in. His hair was frosted at the temples, and his eyes were starting to retreat into wrinkled pouches, but he still moved like a much younger man, as if the stress and strain of his job invigorated him rather than wore him down.

“You okay?” he asked. “You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”

Eunice wordlessly held up the fax, forcing Jackson to reach across her desk to get it. He was known as a speed-reader and had the single page finished in just a few seconds.

“This is bogus,” was his opinion. “Nobody can get that information. And the rest is just typical jihadist drivel. Where did it come from?”

He let the piece of paper flutter to her desk.

“It just came through on my fax, Mr. Jackson.” Though she’d known him for years, she insisted on formality with her superiors. Jackson did nothing to dissuade her from that particular habit.

He considered that for just a moment, then dismissed it. “Crackpot with your fax number. Bound to happen.”

“Is someone sending you dirty faxes, Eunice?” the president asked with a knowing chuckle.

Two years into his first term hadn’t taken much of a toll on the man. He was tall, with broad shoulders, and such a captivating voice that audiences were still enthralled with him even when they disagreed with his policies.

Eunice Wosniak shot to her feet. “No, Mr. President. It’s nothing like that. I, eh ...” Her voice simply trailed off.

The president picked up the fax, pulled a pair of cheater glasses from the breast pocket of his Brooks Brothers suit, and settled them on his aquiline nose. He read it almost as quickly as his top aide. Unlike Jackson, the president blanched, his eyes widening. He reached into his hip pocket and removed a piece of plastic about the size of a credit card. It had been exchanged with a similar one by an NSA courier as soon as he’d left the presidential apartment. It was a morning routine that never varied.

He broke open a seal and compared the numbers printed on the card inside with those that had been written on the fax. His hands began to tremble.

“Mr. President?” Jackson asked with considerable concern.

The little plastic card was nicknamed “the biscuit.” Issued to the president every day since shortly after the Cuban Missile Crisis, it contained a series of numbers that was generated randomly at the National Security Agency at Fort Meade, Maryland, by a secure computer. This was the presidential authentication code to launch nuclear weapons.

Without doubt, these numbers were the most closely guarded secrets in the United States.

And someone had just faxed today’s code to the Oval Office.

“Les, call together the National Security Council. I want them here as fast as humanly possible.” While someone possessing the codes couldn’t possibly launch a nuclear weapon, the very idea that the biscuit codes were no longer secret was the greatest breach of security in U.S. history. This alone called into question the level of protection of all other areas of national defense.

It took several hours to get the NSC assembled in the Situation Room, a windowless bunker deep under the White House. Because of prior travel arrangements, the only people in on the meeting were the vice president, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs, the secretary of defense, the secretary of state, and, by special invitation, the head of the NSA and of the CIA.

“Lady and Gentlemen,” the president started, “we have a crisis on our hands the likes of which this nation has never faced before.”

He passed out copies of the letter but continued speaking. “A little over two hours ago that fax was sent to Eunice Wosniak, my personal secretary. The authentication code on it is genuine. We will have to wait and see if the threat is genuine as well. As for the demands, they are something we might be forced to discuss.”

“Hold on a minute,” the commanding general of the NSA said. “This isn’t possible.”

“I know,” the president responded. “And yet here we are. The code comes from a random-number generator, and all personnel who handle the biscuit have gone through a Yankee White background check, right?”

“Yes, sir. It is totally secure. And no one other than you ever actually sees the numbers. I’ll check on the status of the courier. Was the seal on the biscuit broken?”

“Intact.”

“This is impossible,” the general repeated.

The vice president spoke up. “This psycho says he is going to shut down the power to Troy, New York, for one minute at noon. Shouldn’t we warn someone? And why Troy, of all places?”

“Because it’s close enough to New York City to get our attention but small enough that when he diverts that much electricity, it won’t overload the grid and cause a cascade shutdown like the blackout of ’03.” This came from Les Jackson, who had been a lobbyist for a utility umbrella organization. “And if we warn them, they’re going to want to know how we knew. If this is legit, do you want the administration facing questions like that?”

“Oh. Right.” The vice president had been brought on to balance the ticket and not for his keen intellect.

“This isn’t just some computer hacker,” said Fiona Katamora, the secretary of state. She’d been the national security adviser in the previous administration and had been tapped for this more public office because she was quite simply one of the most accomplished people on the planet. “The demands read like Osama bin Laden’s Christmas wish list.”

She read from the fax: “The United States will immediately announce a halt of all military and nonmilitary aid to the State of Israel and will henceforth provide the same amount of money to the Palestinian Authority and to the Hamas leaders on the Gaza Strip. All prisoners currently held at Guantanamo Bay will be released immediately. All U.S. and NATO troops must leave Iraq by the end of this June and be out of Afghanistan by the end of the year. All military aid to Pakistan will be immediately halted. American military bases in Kuwait and Qatar are to be dismantled by the end of the year. The president will formally condemn the building of Jewish settlements on the West Bank and will further condemn the banning of headscarves for Muslim women in France and any other European country which enacts such a ban. All Muslim groups currently listed internationally as terror groups will have that designation lifted. There will be no further sanctions against the nation of Iran, and all such sanctions currently in place will be lifted by the end of the year.