"Mitch, I already told you, we need to do the diagnostics first."

"Can't they do that in the air?"

"What if the terrorists placed an altimeter in the fire set and the second this thing gets a hundred feet off the ground it blows?"

Rapp hadn't thought of that. "All right, but what's the plan if the SEALs can't defuse it?"

"We're working on that right now."

Rapp watched the two men in the sealed suits walk down the boat ramp carrying a piece of equipment. "What do you mean, you're working on it?"

"Our first choice would be to take it out to sea."

"That's a.s.suming you'll have enough time. It's at least a hundred miles to the Eastern Sh.o.r.e."

"And the beaches are packed right now, and the wind is blowing to the west, and that's just for starters, Mitch. We game this stuff all the time. The environmental impact, the economic impact, we've looked at it from every angle."

"If taking it out to sea isn't going to work, then what's the other option?"

"The only other option is to take it someplace remote, where the blast and fallout will do the least damage."

"That's it?" said a shocked Rapp. "That's our last and best option?"

Reimer didn't answer right away. "There is one other option, but it has never been fully studied. I don't think the president would ever authorize it. I know the Pentagon would flat out say no."

"Why?"

"Because it involves destroying a multibillion-dollar government facility."

One of the SEALs in desert fatigues came jogging down the dock toward Rapp. "What facility?" asked Rapp.

"Mitch, that's the president on the other line. I'm going to have to call you back."

"Don't*" The line went dead and Rapp cursed.

"Mr. Rapp?"

It was the SEAL who was now standing next to the boat. Rapp let out a long sigh and said, "Yes?"

"Lieutenant Troy Mathews." The officer stuck out his hand. "General Flood told me to keep you in the loop."

He shook the officer's hand. "What's the status with this thing?" Rapp pointed at the cooler. The two men in s.p.a.ce suits were moving a device around the outside of the cooler, pausing every few feet and then moving on.

"That's a portable X-ray machine. They're snapping some photos for us so we know what's inside."

"Lieutenant," one of the men in the s.p.a.ce suits yelled. "I'm counting six separate firing systems."

"Six?" the officer asked in a shocked voice.

"Yes, and I think they used plastique for a molded charge. It's covered with at least two dozen blasting caps."

"Six firing systems? You've got to be s.h.i.tting me." Mathews looked toward the parking lot and shouted, "Mike, I need the drill and the fiber-optic camera right away."

Rapp found none of this comforting. "What's going on?"

"I'm not sure." The lieutenant started rolling up his sleeves as he climbed in the boat.

As the lieutenant stepped over the dead bodies Rapp asked, "How long is it going to take you to defuse this bad boy?"

"It all depends on how they're wired, but I can tell you it isn't going to be a cakewalk."

Rapp watched as one of the lieutenant's men ran down the ramp and into the water, where he handed over a cordless drill and a black bag. A hole was carefully drilled through the top of the cooler, and then the pencil-thin camera head was delicately inserted. The lieutenant knelt down over the cooler and watched the small TV screen as his men took several minutes to try and glimpse as much as possible.

Finally, they pulled the camera out and one of them said, "No trip wires, sir. I think it's safe to open."

The lieutenant placed both hands on the top of the cooler and slowly lifted the lid. Rapp stood behind him looking down into the jumbled ma.s.s of wires and counted the six separate sets of red numbers. They had fifty-three minutes until the bomb blew.

Rapp swore and then said, "Lieutenant, I need a no bulls.h.i.t a.s.sessment. Can you and your team disarm this thing in less than fifty-three minutes?"

The lieutenant studied the wiring, looking at it from the left and then the right. "I'm not sure."

"Well,I'm not sure isn't going to cut it. You see any altimeter in there, or anything else that would preclude us from putting the device on a helicopter, and getting it farther away from the city?"

"No." Mathews looked at his two men in the s.p.a.ce suits. "Guys?"

They both shook their heads.

Another minute ticked off on all six screens and it was Mathews who swore this time.

They'd never make it to the ocean in time. Rapp's hands were suddenly covered in sweat. "Lieutenant Mathews, this is what we're going to do. I want your men to place this cooler in the back of that blue-and-white helicopter sitting in the parking lot."

"I'm going to have to call the Pentagon for an okay on that."

In a very calm, but firm voice, Rapp said, "Lieutenant, we don't have time to argue. While your men are putting the device on the helicopter, you are going to a.s.sess your chances of defusing it, and I'm," Rapp held up his phone, "going to call the president and General Flood. If you can't tell me with absolute certainty that you can stop this bomb from going off, the most important next step is to get it as far away from the city as possible."

The lieutenant stared down at the jumble of multicolored wires and then nodded. "Okay*it sounds like a reasonable precaution."

"Then let's move it quickly and carefully."

"Mike*Joe," Mathews yelled. "Bring down the lead blankets. We're going to move it."

Rapp got off the boat and started walking down the dock. He dialed a number and put his phone up against his ear. He was going to call the president, but not just yet. There was one other person he needed to talk to first.

Ninety-Three.

The rope that held the cooler in place was cut, and with Lieutenant Mathews supervising, a lead blanket was draped over the cooler and it was carried up the boat ramp and placed in the back of the Bell 430 helicopter. Two older members of the Blue Team as well as one of the Search Response Team members climbed in the back of the chopper and studied the device. Then one-by-one the three of them exited the helicopter, shaking their heads.

Rapp watched all this while he stood in front of the helicopter, his phone stuck to his ear. He guessed correctly that the two older members of the Blue Team were both master chiefs. Master chiefs were the backbone of the SEAL Teams, and when it came to explosives they were some of the most knowledgeable people in the world.

Rapp looked at the two pilots who were still in the c.o.c.kpit of the CIA helicopter. He held up his right index finger and began twirling it in the air. The pilots nodded and started flipping switches and checking displays. Rapp's mind was already made up. Every second was going to count, and he wasn't going to sit around wasting a single one of them.

He began walking toward the helicopter and said into the phone, "So one of your scientists thought this up?"

"Yes," answered Reimer.

"And you think it'll work?"

"I know it'll work. We've run all the calculations."

The engines on the helicopter fired up and a second later the rotors began turning. "Paul, you get all the facts you need to convince the president. I'll call you back in a minute when I'm in the air."

Rapp didn't have to go find Lieutenant Mathews because he was already on his way over. "I need an answer. Can you do it or not?"

"My chiefs say we've got a fifty-fifty shot at best."

"Not good enough," said Rapp, who immediately turned away from the lieutenant and toward the helicopter.

"What did the president say?"

"He said if you can't guarantee success, he wants this device as far away from the capital as possible." Rapp hadn't spoken to the president, but he was sure that at least on this, they would share the same opinion.

Mathews followed Rapp, "Where are you taking it?"

"I'm not sure just yet," Rapp lied. He got in the back of the helicopter, closed the door, and asked the pilots, "What's the top speed of this baby?"

"She's rated for one hundred and sixty miles per hour, but at that speed we can only stay up for approximately one hundred miles, depending on wind conditions."

"We're not going that far. Okay, let's get the h.e.l.l out of here. Head due west as fast as you can and as low as you dare. Once we clear the city by at least ten miles we'll start heading north. I'll give you an exact heading in a few minutes."

Rapp sat down, and as the helicopter lifted off the ground, he did the math in his head. They had to go approximately sixty miles. At top speed the helicopter would cover 2.66 miles every minute. That meant it would take less than thirty minutes, not counting takeoff and landing, to get there. He rounded it up to thirty-five just to be safe, and then moved the heavy lead blanket and lifted the lid to the cooler. The closest LED told him the bomb would detonate in forty-six minutes. That wouldn't give him much time to handle the rest but it was doable. Rapp set the timer on his watch and covered the cooler back up with the blanket.

His phone rang and he answered it instantly. "Yep."

"Are you ready?" It was Reimer.

"Yeah, we're already in the air."

"I'll patch us through."

There were a couple of clicks on the line and then Rapp heard the president's voice. "Mitch?"

Rapp leaned his head against the leather headrest. "Yes, Mr. President."

"Good work today."

Rapp was caught slightly off guard. For some reason he was expecting to get his a.s.s chewed out. "Thank you, sir."

"Paul tells me that our technical people aren't sure they can stop this thing from going off. Is that what you're hearing?"

"Yes, sir. I was told defusing it was a fifty-fifty proposition at best."

"How much time do we have?"

Rapp looked at his watch. "Forty-five minutes, sir."

Reimer quickly interjected, "That's not enough time to take it out to sea, Mr. President."

"Then what do you propose we do?"

"We have two options, sir. We can dump it in the Chesapeake, in which case the immediate fatalities will be limited to the number of boaters in the area, though due to the fact that the bay is not very deep the fallout will be significant. We'd end up with a sizable cloud of radioactive vapor that would spread for hundreds of miles, and since the wind is coming from the east, it would move toward the more populated areas."

"Could it reach Washington?"

"Possibly."

"How many fatalities?"

"Initially*probably somewhere around a hundred, but the fallout could drive that number easily above a thousand as cancer rates would skyrocket. It would also take decades for the Chesapeake to rebound, as well as the contaminated surrounding areas that take the brunt of the fallout."

There was silence. "What's the second option?"

"The second option, sir, is a bit controversial, but it is also the one that would result in the fewest casualties, and do the least harm to the environment."

"Let's hear it, then."

"Take the bomb by helicopter to Mount Weather and put it inside. Then close the blast doors to limit the fallout."

Mount Weather was a secure hardened facility built in the 1950s, located fifty-five miles from the White House. It was the main location in the Federal Relocation Arc, a system of just over a hundred shelters in five states designed to house key government employees in the case of a nuclear attack or other emergency.

"Mount Weather!" someone shouted. "I'm at Mount Weather! You can't bring the d.a.m.n thing here!"

Rapp recognized the voice as belonging to the attorney general. Rapp pictured the look of panic in the man's face and smiled. Every cloud had a silver lining.

"Mr. President," said the Director of Homeland Security, "Mount Weather is the backbone of our emergency command-and-control system. The replacement cost would be staggering*it would be at least several billion dollars."

"We're a rich country," answered Valerie Jones. "We'll build a new one. Mr. President, you can't drop this thing in the Chesapeake Bay."

Rapp was slightly taken aback. He thought this was probably the first time he'd ever agreed with Jones on anything.

"FEMA has offices located on that mountain, sir," countered Secretary McClellan. He was referring to the Federal Emergency Management Agency. "And the Blue Ridge Mountains are as much a national treasure as the Chesapeake Bay. The Appalachian Trail runs within two miles of the place."