FBI Special Agent Catalina Pea wasn't going to fail the people this time. She would think outside the box. She would be proactive. She would anticipate. She would be a step ahead and not a step behind. She would work 24/7/365. She would not waste her time reading the newspapers or watching TV, not even Walking Dead. She would not be a friend on Facebook or a follower on Twitter. She would eat, sleep, and work, and she would eat and sleep only when necessary. And when she slept, she would sleep alone. She had no one to go home too, so why go home? She had her parents, but no man. Hard to get a man to stick around when you carried a gun and could kick his ass into next week. Men don't like strong women, especially armed women.

So she was burning the midnight oil.

Again.

A seven-thousand-pound fertilizer bomb had brought down a nine-story office building; could it bring down a football stadium? Would a larger bomb be required? Twice as large? Or even larger? But how would such a massive bomb be transported into the stadium?

Was that possible?

But what if the "bomb" wasn't an explosive bomb but another kind of bomb? A dirty bomb? Or gas? She googled "nerve gas," which led her to VX and sarin. She searched sarin. Twenty-eight million results came up. Sarin is a colorless, odorless liquid that quickly evaporates and becomes gaseous upon exposure to the environment. It is heavier than air, so it sinks to the low ground. If the gas is breathed in, death occurs in less than ten minutes, usually from paralysis of the respiratory system. The victim suffocates. Sarin was first developed as a pesticide by German scientists in the 1930s and weaponized by the Nazis. It is five hundred times as deadly as cyanide. The Nazis so feared sarin that they did not deploy it in World War Two. But Saddam Hussein did in 1988; he used sarin to kill five thousand Kurds. Anarchists killed a dozen people with sarin in a Tokyo subway in 1995. In 1997, the United Nations outlawed its production and use, but that did not prevent Syria's use of sarin in 2013 in its civil war, killing hundreds in Damascus. All of this she read. And then she read this: In February, ISIS seized a large cache of sarin in Libya.

"What are you doing, Pea?"

Agent Beckeman stood over her with his hands on his hips. Agent Stryker stood next to him. Stryker was second in command on the Task Force. He was also Beckeman's body double and an ex-Marine. He had served under Beckeman his entire adult life. Beckeman issued orders; Stryker implemented them. He still addressed Beckeman as captain.

"Researching sarin."

"Why?"

"I've been thinking."

"Your first mistake."

She ignored his remark, a survival skill in the FBI.

"Do you know how big the Oklahoma City bomb was?" she said.

"Seven thousand pounds."

"Then you know they'd need a bomb five times that big to bring down the stadium."

"Eight times. Almost. Fifty thousand pounds, give or take."

"How would they smuggle a bomb that size into the stadium?"

"Not very easily."

"Exactly. So what if the bomb isn't really a bomb? What if it's something else?"

"Like what?"

"Like sarin. ISIS has sarin. What if the bad guys deployed sarin into the ventilation system at the stadium? The roof will be closed for the Super Bowl and the playing field is below ground level. It's a perfect target for a gas attack. They could kill a lot of people."

Beckeman sighed as if he were a teacher and she a student who couldn't grasp an easy lesson. The student wanted to punch the teacher.

"A, we got the bad guys. They're in jail.

"B, the tip was about a bomb, not about sarin.

"And C, to weaponize sarin requires a state-of-the-art lab and expertise with chemicals. If amateurs tried to mix the chemicals, the only people they'd kill would be themselves."

"Anything else?" Pea said.

"Put me down for two breakfast tacos. Eggs, cheese, and beans."

"Same for me," Stryker said.

They turned and marched off. Pea offered their backs her middle finger. Beckeman yelled over his shoulder.

"And D, it is absolutely impossible to smuggle sarin into this country!"

Four hundred miles due south, Jorge Romero steered the motorized rubber raft across the Rio Grande. The river stunk more than usual that night-or was it the two gauchos that accompanied him? Jorge was a lieutenant in the Chihuahua Cartel. His jefe was Hector Calderon. The cartel had been founded in Chihuahua but was now based in Nuevo Laredo. Of course, Hector spent most of his time in Cancun, at least for the last year. He had found a woman there, a woman who liked the beach. So while Jorge was working that night on this stinking river, Hector was having sex with a beautiful senorita on the white sand beach of Cancun like the gringos. But Jorge did not complain. He followed el jefe's orders without question or comment. That night, his orders were to bring this shipment across the river to America and then drive it to Dallas. Consequently, Jorge found himself in this fucking raft at eleven-thirty on a cold night in January.

The trip across the river was short; he could throw a small child across the Rio Grande. They made landfall in America, as Jorge had done on more occasions than he could recall. For Mexicans, it was much like going to the corner grocery store for the gringos. Ricardo jumped out and tied the raft to a juniper bush. Pedro followed him onto the bank. Jorge found a dry spot to step onto then gestured at the shipment in the raft.

"echale!"

Jorge climbed the steep embankment to the dirt road above. There he found Manny sleeping in the cab of the pickup truck. Jorge rapped his pistol on the driver's door; Manny jumped and banged his head on the roof of the cab. Jorge laughed.

"I hope you have slept well, Manny. You will drive. I will sleep all the way to Dallas."

Ricardo and Pedro appeared; each carried a two-gallon metal container. Jorge opened the hatch to the bed cover; they placed the containers inside.

"Cuidado," Jorge said.

"And hurry," Manny said. "We do not want to attract the Border Patrol."

Jorge chuckled. If two hundred million pounds of human beings could cross this border each year without impediment by the Border Patrol, getting two hundred pounds of this product across was child's play. Still, he hastened his men.

"echale, ganas!"

The gauchos returned five more times. By the last climb, they were noticeably weary. Pedro's footing failed him, and he went tumbling back down the embankment.

Pedro Martinez rolled down the soft dirt all the way to the river; he came to a safe stop. The container he was carrying tumbled down alongside him, but it did not come to a safe stop. It hit a sharp rock and punctured. Clear liquid oozed out of the gash.

"Shit!"

It would be the last word Pedro Martinez spoke in life.

"Hey! Pedro!" Jorge yelled down the embankment. "Are you dead?"

Jorge laughed, and the others laughed as well. But Pedro did not respond. Jorge gestured to Ricardo to check on Pedro. Ricardo headed back down the embankment without even a grunt of disapproval.

"Manny, give me the cigarette."

Jorge took the cigarette and scratched a wood match along the rusty side panel of the pickup. They did not transport shipments in late model vehicles as a tricked-out Ford 150 King Ranch Edition driven by two Mexicans might attract unwanted attention from a state trooper. Jorge had smoked half the cigarette and still Ricardo and Pedro had not returned.

"Hey! Ricardo! Pedro! Are you both dead?"

No answer came back from below. Jorge sighed and pulled out his flashlight.

"I will get my new boots muddy."

Jorge favored cowboy boots handmade by Juan Castillo, the best boot maker in all of Mexico. Hombres came from all around to have Juan make their boots. The normal waiting period often exceeded a year. But when Jorge Romero walked into Juan's shop, his order went to the front of the waiting list. And he would be visiting Juan Castillo when he returned from Dallas.

"Shit."

His new boots now looked like shit.

"Ricardo! Pedro!"

He arrived at the river and shone the light around. When it landed on the two men, Jorge recoiled. They were dead. Their bodies twitched, but their eyes told of their death. Jorge took only one step closer and put the light on Pedro's eyes, open and fixed. His pupils were pinpoints. Jorge checked Ricardo's eyes and found the same condition.

Jorge backed away but not before making the sign of the cross.

EIGHT.

Wednesday, 20 January 18 days before the Super Bowl The city lay quiet, like the morning after a big party, as if Dallas suffered a hangover. Perhaps it did. Or perhaps it was just the consequence of coming down after the adrenaline rush of a big victory.

Dallas had defeated the terrorists.

The girls couldn't wait to get to school the next morning and enjoy their fifteen minutes of fame. Scott had assured them that all the attention would soon die down and that that was a good thing.

They didn't believe him.

He pulled into the carpool lane and saw the principal standing there, eyeing each car as if searching for truants. When Scott arrived at the drop-off point, Ms. Williams squinted at him then broke into a big smile. She yanked the back door open for the girls; they jumped out to a waiting throng of kids screaming their names-"Boo! ... Pajamae!"-as if they were movie stars on the red carpet at the Oscars. Ms. Williams stuck her head inside.

"Judge Fenney, the superintendent asked me to invite you to be the graduation speaker this year."

"You're inviting me in carpool?"

"Well, I know how busy you must be, fighting terrorists and all."

"I'm not fighting them. I'm just the judge."

"Oh, you're too modest. Will you please consider the invitation?"

"I will."

"You'll make some man a fine wife, Pea," Agent Baxter said.

"Fuck you."

"You wish."

Upon her arrival, the male agents had deluged Pea; it wasn't her pleasing personality. It was her mom's breakfast tacos. Being teased by the male agents was part of the job description for a female agent. She had been a competitive athlete in college, so she arrived at the Bureau hardened to foul language; it was part of the cop culture just as it was part of the athlete culture. She responded in kind. She shot Baxter the finger with her right hand and snatched his cash with her left. But she did worry that she was becoming too coarse. Too much a man.

"Uh-oh," Agent Carson said with a dumb-ass grin. "She's got IBS."

"Irritable Bowel Syndrome?"

"Irritable Bitch Syndrome."

The other agents laughed at her through mouthfuls of her mother's breakfast tacos. She felt her brown face flush red. And mad. She grabbed his tacos like a purse-snatcher and tossed his cash in his face.

"That's it, Carson. No tacos for you."

He went into shock.

"No, Pea, come on, I was just kidding. It was a bad joke, okay?"

"Nope. You fucked up."

The other agents abandoned Carson faster than street dealers when a black and white rolled up; loyalty took second place to breakfast tacos.

"Please. I love your mother's tacos. I'm sorry."

Pea stared at Carson a moment. Her partner, Ace Smith, stood frozen next to her, as if waiting to see is she would punch, kick, or shoot Carson. The thought had crossed her mind.

"Ace," she said to her partner, "does that apology sound sincere?"

"No, it does not."

"Pleeease."

Pea sighed. "It might sound more sincere if he was on his knees."

"Might at that," Ace said.

Carson hit his knees faster than a drunken sorority girl.

"Please. I'm really sorry. I'll never say that stuff again."