They would never see him coming.

Stephanie knew of no way to reestablish contact. Zorin was gone, still loose somewhere, his phone surely off and soon to be destroyed.

"Sue," she called out.

The younger woman reentered the hospital room.

"There's no way to talk with your father?"

"He's going to be out until at least tomorrow. The doctor said he was lucky the smoke didn't kill him."

Which narrowed her options.

The monitor beside Luke's bed continued to bump its green charted line across a video screen, the soft blipping like clockwork. She reached down and pressed the button that would summon someone. Time to throw her weight around. The nurse appeared and she told the woman to find Luke's doctor. When she was met by resistance a flash of her badge emphasized that it was not a request. Finally, the nurse relented and left the room.

"Tell me all that you know," she said to Sue. "As you can see, I'm not in the mood for bullshit."

"Dad told Luke about a journal from the society, written by Benjamin Tallmadge. He said that Charon may have it hidden somewhere in the house. Dad thought he knew where that might be, so we went to check."

Petrova had been after the same thing, so she now understood why Luke had risked his life. "And you have no idea as to its significance."

"Dad never spoke of this until the past two days. But he told Luke that a long time ago some Soviet may have got a look at the journal."

Which Peter Hedlund had also reported.

The doctor entered the room and she told him that she wanted Luke revived.

"That's impossible," he said. "Much too dangerous. He needs to come out of it himself."

She'd known that would be the response so she displayed her badge again and said, "I can only say, Doctor, that what's at stake here is vital to this country. I have less than three hours to figure something out and I have to speak with my agent. I assure you, Luke would want you to do this."

The man shook his head, holding firm.

She had to know, "Is there a stimulus you can give him that will bring him out of it?"

"There is, but I'm not administering it."

Sue stepped toward the bed and yanked Luke upright, slapping him hard across the face.

Okay. That'd work, too.

The doctor moved to stop her, but Stephanie cut him off with her drawn weapon.

"Get out," she said.

Shock came to the man's face as he fled.

Sue slapped Luke again, then shook him. Luke began to cough, opening his eyes like someone roused from sleep, his pupils slow to focus and darkly stained beneath. More than a two-day stubble dusted his chin. He did not look or act like himself.

"It works in the field," Sue said.

Stephanie smiled. That it did. "Luke, I need you to wake up."

She could see that he was trying hard to do just that.

"I have to know if there's anything to find in that house."

She glanced at Sue and decided there was no choice, so she nodded and another slap popped the side of his face.

His eyes went wide, looking straight at Sue. "Did you ... smack me?"

She grinned. "Only with the greatest of respect."

He rubbed his cheeks. "That hurt."

"Did you hear what I asked?" Stephanie said.

"Yeah, I got it. But I'm having a hard time breathing."

Oxygen lines wrapped his head and fed air straight to his nostrils. She gave him a moment to savor a few breaths of clean air.

"The roof collapsed," he said. "How did I get out?"

Stephanie pointed at Sue. "She saved your ass."

"Looks like I owe you one."

Stephanie found her phone and dialed. When the connection established she hit SPEAKER. Danny had been waiting for her call, he too knowing they were dead in the water except for what Luke might know.

"That Tallmadge journal is ... in the house," Luke said. "We were reading it. Begyn and I." He rubbed his head. "But we ... didn't finish ... before the shooting started."

"The house burned bad," Sue said. "But it is still standing."

"So the journal is gone," a new voice said.

Danny. Through the phone.

Luke saw the unit in her hand. "No, it's not."

"Talk to us, Luke," Danny said. "I got the entire U.S. government coming through the gates. Do I need to get them out of here?"

"That journal," Luke said, "is inside a fireproof cabinet in the master bedroom closet. A secret chamber Begyn knew about."

It seemed to take all he had to get that out.

She gestured that he should take it easy.

"Stephanie, you're the closest we have," Danny said. "Petrova wanted that journal in the worst way. We need it."

And Zorin doesn't have it, yet he continues to move forward.

"I'm headed there now."

"I'll send some help by chopper. But get there first and check it out."

Malone stared at Danny Daniels. When the call came from Stephanie the president had walked across the second-floor hallway into the sitting room where he and Edwin Davis had set up headquarters. Downstairs was far too busy, with too many people for even a semblance of privacy. New staff were eagerly beginning to claim their assigned posts as the old closed out their desks.

"I should go to that house," Malone said to the president.

Daniels shook his head. "You and Cassiopeia are the only ones who know exactly what Zorin and Kelly look like. I'm going to need you both in the security center. We have cameras everywhere. See if you spot either one of them outside the fence."

"That's not much of a defense."

"It's all we've got."

"Shouldn't you be downstairs greeting guests?"

"Like I give a damn. And by the way, they don't give a crap about me. I'm yesterday's toast."

So far they hadn't been able to locate the car Zorin stole, but agents were still examining traffic cam footage. A be-on-the-lookout alert had been issued to every law enforcement agency, but estimates were that nearly a million people would be in town today and tomorrow.

"He's got a bomb," Daniels said. "You and I both know that."

Malone agreed. "He might even have more than one."

"He's going to try and blow this whole place to kingdom come," Daniels said. "And we can't do a damn thing about it short of causing a panic. And if we're wrong? There'll be hell to pay." Daniels glared at him with a look of resignation.

The lack of concrete evidence of a definitive threat continued to make their case next to impossible to press.

"I don't know why we don't just do this damn swearing-in at the Capitol, Sunday or no Sunday. If the idea is to respect the Lord's day, we're working harder today than we will tomorrow."

Malone heard the frustration.

"The experts tell me Zorin's got to get close," Daniels said. "Which means he has to tote that case with him."

Along with a sledgehammer, bolt cutters, and a hasp lock, which Zorin had made a point to retrieve. Daniels was right. Monitoring the perimeter cameras seemed like a smart thing.

He stood.

So did the president, dressed in a sharp suit and tie. Tomorrow it would be black tie and tails for his last appearance on the platform before the Capitol.

"They also tell me that it ain't like on TV," Daniels said. "There's no digital counter on these things beeping away. They were made long before those ever existed. In fact, there's no counter at all. That's too many moving parts. They kept it simple. To shut it down just flip a switch inside or pull the wires from the battery. That stops the charge, which builds the heat, which triggers the reaction. But if there's enough heat and that trigger snaps, there's no way to stop anything."

He did not like the sound of that.

"Thought you should know," Daniels said. "Just in case. I'll be downstairs. Doing what lame ducks do."

Malone glanced at his watch.

10:20 A.M.

1 hour and 40 minutes to go.

CHAPTER SEVENTY-FIVE.

Zorin found St. John's.

He'd made his way toward the church through myriad back streets, blocks from the White House, staying off the busy thoroughfare that fronted the main doors. He'd hunched in his overcoat against the chill and stayed alert, looking for surveillance cameras, or someone stumbling upon him by chance, or anything that might stop him, intensely aware of his vulnerability. Especially after the call to the American woman. This was definitely the most precarious moment.

Luckily, the area behind the church came with trees and hedges that offered plenty of cover. Earlier, while it was still dark and before anyone may have been on alert, he and Kelly had secreted the bag with tools. He now carried the aluminum case, something else that made him obvious, but he'd been able to hustle down an alleyway behind an adjacent building, then slip unnoticed through the fence onto the construction site.

He took a moment and peered at Lafayette Park, less than a hundred meters away, a heavy blanket of noise billowing up from the crowds there and filling the closed portion of Pennsylvania Avenue that fronted the White House. Vehicular traffic had not been allowed there in twenty years, but pedestrians were free to come and go.

Today it would be a busy place.

The fence encircling the church offered perfect cover as it was sheathed with black plastic that prevented any views through. At spots, bare trees flanked the barrier, their trunks black as iron. He considered the fact that the church was closed for repairs a sign, not from the divine, as God was never a part of his life, but more from fate. Perhaps a gift from fallen comrades, watching his progress, urging him on.

Kelly had told him all he needed to know about the church and he quickly moved to the north side of the building, carrying the heavy aluminum case and nylon bag. He kept careful with his steps, his boots occasionally skidding on the accumulation of snow. Beneath the scaffolding, among the trees and shrubbery, past a black iron railing, he spotted the basement entrance. He laid the case and bag down and found the bolt cutters. The way in was blocked by two hinged metal plates, bound by a shiny lock. Kelly told him about his tour of the church and how the curator had taken him into the basement. The belowground space was surprisingly roomy, added to the building about twenty years after the church had been built.

He snapped the hasp and the lock clattered away.

He replaced the bolt cutters in the bag, then thrust open the two panels, exposing a set of concrete steps. Originally, Kelly would have replaced the lock with the new one bought earlier, sealing him inside. With Sunday services happening, it would have been a way not to draw attention to the fact that someone was below. He would have entered hours ago and simply waited for noon to come. The church being closed changed things and had also allowed for Kelly to perform a much more vital function.

Still, he decided a little subterfuge might be wise.

First, he carried the bomb and nylon bag below. Then he attached the new lock to one door panel, bringing the two together, slowly allowing them to close onto each other from below. Only up close could it be seen that the lock was not fully engaged to both panels.

He descended the steps and found a switch, activating overhead lights. The brightly lit space was about fifteen meters square, littered with equipment and entangled with ducts, pipes, wires, and valves. Most of it appeared to be for electrical, heating, and cooling systems. Machinery purred, churning out warm air up into the church, some of which also heated the basement.

He removed his coat and gloves.

And stared across at the wall.

Stephanie drove out of Manassas and, using her smartphone's navigation, found the Charon estate. Sue had been right. The fire had gutted the house. Most of the roof was ash, one wing collapsed, but the central section and a second wing still stood up two floors. The whole thing had become a charred, smoldering mess no longer screaming affluence.

The firefighters were gone, the scene almost funereal. The gutted-out window frames that remained hung like gaps of dark shadow in the sooty facade. Clouds scudded in the wind, soiling pale sunlight and threatening more snow. She hurried toward the hulk, turning up her collar to the cold wind. Yellow crime scene tape stretched across the perimeter, understandable given that three people had died here last night. Investigators would probably return sometime today, so she should hurry.