"He will."

Another reporter shouted: "So there are more plotters at large?"

"Apparently."

"Do you have any leads as to their whereabouts?"

"No."

"So the stadium bomb plot is still active?"

"Possibly."

"What do you plan to do about that?"

"Find the two Arabs and kill or capture them."

"In twelve days?"

Beckeman checked his watch. "And ten hours."

"Was the judge hurt?"

"No. They did not harm the judge. In fact, he is back in his courtroom at this time."

"Tough judge."

"So it would seem."

"What about Mustafa?"

"He's not going anywhere. The Arabs demanded that Judge Fenney release Mustafa, or else, in their words. That backfired on them as the judge ordered his detention pending trial. These Arabs underestimated the judge."

His little brother gave Abdul a questioning look.

"We will see about that," Abdul said. He checked his watch. "I must go to the law school."

"Our targets are two Arab males, both in their twenties, one tall, one short. The tall one wears yellow Nike sneakers. They were last seen wearing Ronald Reagan and George Bush masks."

"Senior or junior?" an agent asked.

"What?"

"George senior or George junior?"

"W.".

Beckeman had exited the interview room, marched down the corridor, and entered the war room. He stood before the whiteboard. On the board were twenty-four photos: Mustafa at the top and lines drawn to his twenty-two codefendants and one Aabdar Haddad. A red X had been drawn across Haddad's face. Beckeman drew two circles on the board and wrote "25" and "26" inside the circles.

"People, this is Zero Dark Thirty. You've all seen the movie. Now you're living it. We know the date, the time, and the place. We just don't know the enemy. We've got to identify them, find them, and kill or capture them. And we've got twelve days to do it."

"How?"

"As the judge's abduction proves, this plot begins and ends with Mustafa. They work for him. Go back to the top and work down. Tear the mosque apart, find every male who's ever prayed there."

"Boss, we checked every male at the mosque."

"Check them again. We're missing two men. The judge said they referred to themselves as brothers."

"They're all brothers and sisters."

"They might be."

"This is exactly what they want," Agent Pea said.

"Exactly what who wants?" Beckeman said.

"It's a diversion."

"What is?"

"Grabbing the judge."

"They grabbed the judge to get Mustafa out."

"Then why'd they release him? Why didn't they hold him hostage until we released Mustafa? It's a diversion."

"From what?"

"The plot."

"The plot begins and ends with Mustafa."

"The plot begins in Syria and ends at the Super Bowl."

Agent Baxter ran up. "Chief, we located the white van. They torched it, but the Evidence Response Team is on it, see if they can find anything."

"We won't find them in this world," Pea said. "They're in the dark Net talking to ISIS in Syria."

"Because Mustafa's in jail," Beckeman said.

"Because they're the bad guys. They're running this op, not Mustafa."

"Bullshit. This plot is too complicated for two lone wolves."

"Why don't we just waterboard Mustafa?" Baxter said. "He knows them. He knows everything."

"We enforce the law, so we obey the law," Beckeman said.

But he wanted to waterboard the son of a bitch himself. He sighed. How does a civilized society fight uncivilized barbarians? Politics say we fight by the rules; but reality says there are no rules, not in this war. This was a war of ideology. Beliefs. Religion. There's only dead or not dead. Survival or extinction. Victory or fear. What rules apply when you're fighting for your way of life? When they are fighting for their god?

FBI Agent Eric Beckeman had fucked up.

He had assumed he had all the bad guys in jail. That he had won. If not the war, at least this battle. But he had assumed wrong. The battle was not yet won. That wrong assumption could have cost a hundred thousand people their lives. Because he had forgotten the most basic rules when fighting Islamic jihadists: There will always be more of them.

They will never lose.

They will never win the war, but they will never quit the fight.

We can beat them, but we cannot defeat them.

Because they are fighting for God.

FBI Agent Catalina Pea stared at the photo of Aabdar Haddad with the red X across his face. She had searched his life from birth to death. Twenty-two years on this earth, now he was part of the earth. He had been born to Bedar and Fatema Haddad of Houston, Texas. They were Muslims, but mainstream. The father owned an ethnic restaurant; the mother had raised their six children. Aabdar was the oldest and the first to attend college. His Facebook page contained nothing related to ISIS or jihadists. He had uploaded no videos to YouTube. Nothing had been tweeted from his Twitter account in over a year. He had a steady girlfriend. He was an A student studying architecture at the University of Texas at Arlington. He had good friends-college kids, grad students, law students at SMU. Muslim kids who were going somewhere, not Muslim kids who wanted to kill someone. He had prayed at the Imam's mosque, as had apparently every Muslim in the Dallas-Fort Worth metroplex. As Agent Beckeman himself had said, "Mustafa, he's the Joel Osteen of Muslims." The search of his apartment had uncovered no ISIS propaganda, no jihadist recruiting videos, no evidence that he was involved in the stadium plot or any terrorist plot. He was just a college kid. Beckeman had killed the wrong guy.

"Bullshit!"

Which was Beckeman's only response when Cat had submitted her report, that and he threw the report back at her and told her to rewrite it. She stared at her boss. He had fucked up. He had killed the wrong guy. He had arrested the wrong bad guys. He had not stopped the plot.

"We have twelve days, people, to find them and kill or capture them. This is twenty-four/seven. Task force meetings twice a day, nine and six. Vacations, leave, and sleep are revoked. We don't sleep, we don't rest, we don't stop. Until we've stopped them. Find the Arabs."

"Captain, what about the judge?" Agent Stryker said.

"Twenty-four/seven security detail."

"How many agents? Two?"

"One. He ain't the president." Beckeman hesitated then said, "No, two. I'm not going to have a dead federal judge on my record."

That night, a black sedan with two FBI agents sat parked on the street outside the Fenney house in Highland Park. Scott peeked out through the blinds then checked on the girls.

FOURTEEN.

Tuesday, 26 January 12 days before the Super Bowl When a horse bucks you off, you have to climb back into the saddle. Fast, or fear will get the best of you. Scott had always heard that cowboy saying, but he wasn't a cowboy so he didn't know if it were true. But it sounded true. So at dawn the next morning, Judge A. Scott Fenney got back on the horse. He dressed in his running gear and headed to the back door.

"A. Scott ... don't go."

He turned back to Boo standing in the hall and rubbing her eyes.

"Don't worry, honey, the FBI agents will be with me."

"I'm scared."

He went to her and squatted before her. "Boo, if I let these men bully me into not running, it'd be like the bullies at school running Pajamae out of Highland Park. She's staying, and I'm running. We're not going to let the bullies win."

She wrapped her arms around his neck.

"We can't lose you, A. Scott."

"You won't."

When Scott came around to the front of the house, the door to the FBI car opened and two white males in black suits got out.

"Uh, Judge-where are you going?" one agent said.

"I'm going for my run."

"You really think that's a good idea?"

"I can't live in fear, Agent ..."

"Jones. This is Agent Smith."

"Smith and Jones."

"We're assigned to protect you."

"Then run with me."

"A, we're not dressed for that, and B"-he patted his well-fed belly-"I'm not in shape for that. And Smith is too old for that."

"Well, Agent Jones, if I live in fear and hide out in my house, the terrorists win. I'm running."

Scott ran west. Two blocks down, he glanced back. The FBI car followed slowly behind him.

"This is bullshit," Agent Jones said to Agent Smith. "We're here to protect his judicial ass, not to follow him around like his private bodyguards. This ain't happening tomorrow morning."

The judge turned the corner so Agent Smith turned the corner.