"Why didn't you say so at the house?"

"She was scared," the judge said. "They told her they'd behead her."

"And cut my head off."

"I told you we were in New York the last week," Saddam said.

"Then how do we have Saddam Siddiqui logged in to a computer at the law school almost every night during that time period? How'd you do that when you were in New York?"

"I gave Abdul my passcode. He cannot afford a laptop. He talks to friends back home in Pakistan."

Beckeman turned to Abdul Siddiqui. "So you were in Dallas the whole time?"

"Not me. Abdul jabbar."

"That's you. Abdul jabbar Siddiqui."

"No. I am Abdul jabaar. J-a-b-a-a-r. He is Abdul jabbar. J-a-b-b-a-r."

"Where the hell do you people get these goofy names?" Agent LeCharles D'Wandrick Jefferson said.

Beckeman turned to the agent. "Seriously?"

Agent Jefferson shrugged. Beckeman turned back to the Siddiqui boys.

"Abdul and Saadi, they are brothers," Abdul Siddiqui said. "We met them at the mosque. They were from our village, but we did not know them there. They moved here from Pakistan with their mother about the same time we did. Their father was also killed by the same drone missile that killed our father. The U.S. government moved us to New York City and them to Minneapolis. I have struggled with my father's death. I became angry. Very angry. But not angry enough to hurt anyone."

"You didn't try to sex me?" the judge's other daughter said.

"No. It was not me."

"Sorry I hit you."

"You hit hard for a girl."

"Go on," Beckeman said.

"Abdul and Saadi, they moved down here a few years back. We became friends playing soccer. Abdul is a skilled player. Saadi, not so much. He wants to go to law school."

"I think he can cross that off his bucket list now," Beckeman said.

"What about those yellow sneakers?" the judge said. "I saw you at the law school wearing those sneakers."

"What size are they?" Abdul asked.

Beckeman grabbed a sneaker and checked. "Twelve."

Abdul held his foot up. "I wear a nine. Look at my shoe."

Agent Jefferson pulled Abdul's shoe off. "It's a nine," he said.

"Wait," Pea said. "I checked out every male in the mosque records. There was no Abdul jabbar Khalid or Saadi Khalid."

"Aliases," Beckeman said. "No doubt they're off the grid. No credit cards, no utilities in their names ... not even Internet. Fake IDs, fake social security numbers, fake driver's licenses, prepaid cell phones ... They're ghosts." Back to the brothers. "What were they doing in your house?"

"They said their house was being painted, asked if they could stay there for a few days while we were in New York. We said okay. They drove us to the airport."

"When?"

"Sunday."

"The day before the girls were abducted," the judge said.

Agent Carson entered with document. "Boss, we got these boys on a time-stamped ATM machine at LaGuardia last Sunday. And their tickets on American."

"Shit. We've got two sets of brothers and two Abduls." To the Siddiqui brothers: "Where do they live? Abdul and Saadi."

"We don't know. We don't know where they're at."

"I do."

"Where?"

"They're at the stadium."

TWENTY-EIGHT.

3:45 P.M.

15 minutes before kickoff Cowboys Stadium offers thirty-five hundred television screens strategically placed throughout so no fan will miss a second of the game. You can watch the game in line at the concession stand or in the restroom, in the corridors looking at the art collection, in the pro shop buying Cowboys jerseys, and even outside on massive screens mounted on the stadium's exterior. All thirty-five hundred monitors plus the massive HDTV screen hanging above the field are controlled by one laptop. The technician manning that laptop wore an employee badge that identified him as Sam Taylor. To his brother, he was Abdul jabbar Khalid.

"The chopper's waiting on the roof," Beckeman said. "Let's go."

"Where?" Scott said.

"To the stadium."

They stood outside the interrogation room.

"She's not going to the stadium."

"I need her there."

"I need her safe."

"She's the only person who can ID the Khalid brothers."

"Who might have brought a bomb in the stadium."

"If they did, only she can find them so we can stop them."

"How can she see everyone coming in?"

"Facial recognition software. We've got everyone's face on film."

"Evacuate the stadium."

"If we evacuate, they'll detonate. We have to find them before they detonate."

"Chief," Cat said, "you need to call the president. He needs to make that decision."

Beckeman sighed. "I know."

"She's not going," Scott said.

The judge stared down the FBI special agent a long moment until the moment was broken by a soft voice from below.

"Judge Fenney, I have to go." Scott closed his eyes. He knew she was right. "If I don't go, all those people will die."

Scott squatted before his daughter. "But you might die."

She shrugged. "I'll be in heaven with mama."

"If she's going, I'm going," Boo said.

"But I want Cat with me," Pajamae said.

Cat smiled at Beckeman.

"Fine," Beckeman said.

"I want my gun and badge," Cat said.

"Fine."

"Mighty fine," Louis said.

"Damn fine," Carlos said.

They had settled into their seats on the fifty-yard line.

"Super Bowl, autographs, dates with the cheerleaders ... I'm probably gonna have to get a calendar to schedule them all in."

"You live in a nice little fantasy world, don't you?"

"Yes, I do. And I'm very happy there."

Carlos eyed every girl in sight. Louis eyed the stadium. It was amazing.

"She is," Carlos said. "Amazing."

"A feat of engineering genius," Louis said.

"You don't think hers are real?"

Abdul jabbar Khalid was a structural engineer by training and an Islamic jihadist by choice. He had obtained the stadium's architectural plans from Aabdar Haddad and studied them diligently. Every structure had a weak spot. He had determined that the arches were the point of attack.

Abdul had calculated that a fifty-thousand-pound fertilizer bomb detonated directly beneath one arch just before it entered the concrete supports might buckle if not break the steel of the arch. Render the arch unstable. Unable to transfer the force of gravity into the ground. Perhaps the arch would succumb to gravity, just as the Twin Towers had. The arches were 65-grade steel, supposedly indestructible. Perhaps. The Twin Towers were also supposed to be indestructible. But no one had anticipated commercial jets flying into the towers; they had not anticipated the heat a jet fuel fire could generate. Perhaps no one had anticipated a fifty-thousand-pound bomb detonating just feet from an arch. The 9/11 hijackers were very lucky that day. Perhaps Abdul Khalid would also be lucky this day. One unstable arch could bring the roof down on the spectators; if he were very lucky, it could collapse the entire stadium and render it a mass grave of infidels. And render Abdul jabbar Khalid a hero for all time.

That was Plan A.

The FBI director had briefed the president. There was a chance-albeit a small chance-that a bomb had been placed in or about the stadium.

"I agree with Beckeman," the director said. "If we evacuate, they'll detonate."

"First sign of trouble, cut the TV feed," the president said. "I don't want the world to see a hundred thousand people killed on live television."

"Anything else?"

"Can we cut the spot?"

"No, sir. It's too late."

Abdul Khalid sat in his perch between the HDTV screens that hung ninety feet above the playing field. It was a steel grid box with screens on four sides and in the space between there were catwalks, a control booth, and a retractable elevator for the technicians to gain access. Once he rode the elevator up, he was there for the duration of the game. The only way down during the game was to jump. His laptop was in his hands and his destiny at hand. From his vantage point, he could see the entire stadium below him; but no one could see him, no one could shoot him, no one could stop him.

Down below a hundred unbelievers unfurled a massive American flag and held it above the playing field. A military honor guard marched onto the field, and Abdul thought, Oh, good, we will kill some enemy soldiers as well today. This day just keeps getting better. Three girls called the Dixie Chicks stood at a microphone and started singing.

"Oh, say, can you see, by the dawn's early light, what so proudly we hailed, at the twilight's last gleaming, whose broad stripes and bright stars, through the perilous fight, o'er the ramparts we watched, were so gallantly streaming, and the rockets' red glare, the bombs bursting in air, gave proof through the night that our flag was still there. Oh say, does that star-spangled banner yet wave. O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave?"

Abdul jabbar Khalid thought, I will show you the land of the free.