The Last Line

by Anthony Shaffer

  The thought that by tomorrow most of these people, these innocents, would be dead or dying was disturbing.

  Past Stanton Park, more and more of the faces on the sidewalks were white. Now the Capitol Dome rose directly ahead—the seat of American political power both in America and throughout the world.

  Constitution Avenue NE came in from the left. A man in shorts and a T-shirt and carrying a bottle of water jogged past on the right. On the other side of the street, a group of twenty or thirty kids straggled along the sidewalk, moving toward the Capitol Dome—part of a school field trip, no doubt. Reyshahri had heard the term “tourist Washington,” but never really understood it.

  Reyshahri told himself that it was … necessary, sometimes, that the innocent die for the greater good.

  “Start looking for a parking place,” Hamadi said. “We’re close enough now.”

  “No parking … no parking…” Moslehi said, reading signs. “No parking…”

  The Senate office buildings went by on the right. Then they passed an entrance to the Capitol Building on their left—with stop signs, barriers, and a guard shack manned by several men in blue uniforms, bulletproof vests, and automatic weapons. More heavily armed guards were at the entrance to the offices on the right, watching the traffic. Security was tighter than Reyshahri had thought it would be. Was that because the city had been alerted? Or was it always this way?

  Parking was allowed in front of Upper Senate Park, but every space was full. They kept driving, past heavily tree-lined parks. At First Street NW they turned left, driving slowly between the Capitol Building and the Capitol Reflecting Pool. No parking … and police up ahead were erecting some sort of barricade.

  “We should just detonate now!” Hamadi said. “They are searching traffic!”

  “This is not a suicide mission, Mohamed,” Reyshahri told him. “We plant the weapons, we walk away, we detonate them by remote control. That is the plan.”

  The line of cars going south on First Street had stopped. A large white van was coming toward them on the left, moving north.

  “Besides, the weapons must be armed,” Gallardo said.

  “Turn right here,” Reyshahri said. It was the beginning of Pennsylvania Avenue. The street had only one lane going each way, but there were four lanes given over to diagonal parking, one to each side and two in the middle.

  Better yet, there was a construction site on the right, at the corner of Constitution Avenue and Third Street NW.

  With parking spaces. “There,” Reyshahri said. “Pull in there.”

  As Moslehi parked, Reyshahri turned to face the two men in the back. “Underneath the front seats,” he said. “Pull out the plastic vests.”

  “What are these?” Gallardo asked.

  “Your disguises. Put them on, then get out of the car.”

  Reyshahri could hear the fluttering roar of a helicopter nearby.

  “Drop the weapon in that Dumpster over there, then get back in the car. We don’t have much time.”

  NEST 2/2

  OVER HOUSE WEST FOUNTAIN

  0852 HOURS, EDT

  “Jackpot!” Walthers cried. “One of our units tagged them!”

  “Where?” Teller demanded.

  “Close! In front of the Capitol Building.”

  The scan image was coming through on the screen, relayed from one of the ZBVs patrolling the area immediately around Capitol Hill. The target was a ghosted four-door sedan, with four male passengers. Two bright white masses, like thick, heavy suitcases or travel trunks, were riding side by side in the trunk.

  “Both of them!” Dominique exclaimed.

  “Get us over there!” Teller ordered.

  Walthers talked to the pilot, and the helicopter started to rise.

  “Damn it!” Walthers cried. “They lost them! The target turned onto Pennsylvania Avenue and they lost them!”

  The Super Stallion was rising now, passing low above the Rayburn Building. They’d been flying south of the Capitol Dome, searching vehicles along D Street SE from the air.

  “Did they get a license?”

  “Negative! You can’t see a license plate on the backscatter, or the color—and by the time they reached the police on the ground, the vehicle had disappeared!”

  Teller looked out of a port-side window. The distinctive glass roofs of the United States Botanic Garden passed below, then the green waters of the Capitol Reflecting Pool.

  “Get us over Pennsylvania Avenue,” Teller said, “and start scanning cars!”

  REYSHAHRI

  PENNSYLVANIA AVENUE NW

  WASHINGTON, D.C.

  0853 HOURS, EDT

  They’d backed into one of the diagonal spaces, and Moslehi and Hamadi had gotten out of the car. Each was wearing a bright, yellow green plastic vest of the sort worn by D.C. construction workers, and a white helmet. Operation Shah Mat had never been intended to be a suicide mission. The idea was to plant a weapon, arm it, then drive off, using a cell phone trigger to detonate it later from a safe distance. Where the weapon was to be planted had been left up to the operatives. Favored hiding places included on the street underneath a parked car, tucked away in the corner of a public parking garage, or inside a Dumpster at one of the construction sites that so heavily populated official Washington. Because each weapon was so heavy and bulky—sixty-five pounds—Reyshahri had acquired the construction helmets and vests when he and Moslehi had passed through Washington a couple of days ago. His contact here, the man who’d called himself “Duke,” had gotten them somehow and passed them on to him in the yellow plastic bag at the park bench on the Mall.

  It was a good disguise. Americans, Reyshahri had noted, never paid attention to people whom they assumed belonged there. Two men hauling a heavy case across a sidewalk or tossing it into a Dumpster would be suspicious—but if they looked like city workers, then passersby, even police or security guards nearby, wouldn’t give them a second glance.

  The helicopter’s roar was getting louder. Looking back over his shoulder, Reyshahri saw the black aircraft coming low across the Reflecting Pool, its rotor wash lashing the water into a white frenzy. “Arm the bombs!” Reyshahri screamed. “Arm the bombs!”

  NEST 2/2

  OVER THE CAPITOL REFLECTING POOL

  0853 HOURS, EDT

  “Damn it, I can’t see!”

  Teller wished he could be up in the cockpit, where they would have a decent view of Pennsylvania Avenue. The backscatter scanner was too slow to show what was happening in real time; Kaminsky touched a control, and three parked ghost-cars slowly drew themselves on the screen side by side … all empty.

  “We need someone on the ground!” Teller said. “Tell the pilot to find a clear spot to hover, and drop the rear ramp!”

  Dominique saw him draw his pistol and chamber a round. “I’m coming, too!” she said.

  “No!” he told her. “I want you to coordinate with the police and other NEST units! Tell them we have the bad guys spotted, and where. Have them cordon the area off.” He looked at Walthers. “After he drops me off, have the pilot pull back. Two miles at least.”

  “Damn it, Chris, that’s sexist bullshit!”

  “No. It’s command-control bullshit! If this goes bad here, we need someone in the air to coordinate the search at the Pentagon.”

  And yeah, he thought, I don’t want you caught in the blast, Jackie. He didn’t say that out loud.

  “I got them!” Kaminsky yelled. “On the big display screen, a ghosted car slowly appeared. Two men sat in front, while two bent over the opaque white suitcases in the trunk, comically nude.

  “Get me down there, close as you can!” Teller yelled. He grabbed a startled Dominique with one arm, pulled her close, and kissed her hard. “See ya!” he said.

  The rear ramp was grinding open, flooding the rear of the Super Stallion’s cargo deck with morning light. Holding the pistol, Teller trotted down to the end, dropped to his knees, and peered out. He was over the broad, curving espla
nade along the western edge of the Reflecting Pool. He took a moment to judge the helicopter’s forward drift, then rolled off the ramp, dropping five feet to the pavement.

  He hit with a sharp jolt but took the shock with flexing knees, collapsed into a roll, and nearly went into the pool. The helicopter thunder grew louder as the aircraft began moving forward and up once more, the rotor wash a living thing tearing at Teller’s clothes and exposed skin.

  Just ahead, the esplanade opened onto Pennsylvania Avenue NW. Teller turned left and jogged onto a patch of green parkland with scattered trees, a part of the landscaping surrounding the eastern end of the Washington Mall.

  He could see all the way down the Mall from here, a distance of over a mile to the slender white needle of the Washington Monument thrusting into the morning light. Dodging in among the trees, he crested a low rise, jogging toward the intersection of Pennsylvania Avenue with 3rd Street NW.

  And then he saw them—sixty yards ahead, two men in bright yellow vests and white helmets standing by the open trunk of a white four-door sedan. One was holding something like a large fat suitcase, balancing it over his shoulder. Both men were distracted, staring up into the sky as the Super Stallion peeled away toward the northeast.

  He had to get closer. Sixty yards is a long reach for a handgun, with little guarantee of accuracy. Holding the .45 Glock in both hands, he bent into a crouch and started zigzagging between the parked cars.

  One of the Tangos, the one without a suitcase nuke on his back, saw him and pulled a handgun of his own from beneath his shirttail. The other was lugging the heavy suitcase across the sidewalk, angling toward a construction Dumpster on the grass.

  The one with the gun opened fire.

  The windshield of a Ford next to him crazed as a round punched through. At a range of thirty yards now, Teller came to a halt, brought the pistol up in a two-handed grip, and squeezed off five rounds, shifting from one target to the other. The gunman kept firing as well, putting a second round into the side of the car with a harsh, metallic thud and sending another snapping through the air somewhere above Teller’s head. Teller moved forward, trying for a better angle past the parked cars. The one with the suitcase was partially obscured now by a parked pickup truck; he shifted his aim back to the one with the pistol, squeezed off four more rounds, and saw the man stagger and twist, one hand clutching at his side. He fired again at the other man as he emerged from behind the truck, saw the man crumple to the pavement beneath his heavy load.

  The white car jerked forward, tires squealing, open trunk flapping with the movement. Teller took aim, squeezed the trigger … and realized his .45 was out of ammo. Shit.

  Thumbing the Glock’s magazine release, he dropped the empty magazine and slapped in a fresh one just as the car jumped through the intersection against the light. Horns blared, brakes shrieked, and then two cars slammed into each other, but the white sedan made it through the intersection, accelerating quickly.

  “Two Tangos down!” Teller yelled—and then he realized that in his excitement he hadn’t brought along a tactical radio. Reaching the suitcase nuke, he pulled his cell phone out of a pocket and speed-dialed Dominique.

  “Chris!” he heard her say.

  “Yeah! Two Tangos down, and we have one of the weapons. Get the NEST guys here fast as you can! Two more Tangos now in white four-door sedan, Virginia plates, partial license Charlie Mike 3, heading northwest on Pennsylvania Avenue. We need to stop those bastards now!”

  “Walthers says we’re on the way,” Dominique told him. “And we’ve contacted the Capitol Police.”

  “You!” someone shouted behind him. “Drop the gun!”

  “They just got here,” Teller said, turning. A policeman was coming across the street toward him, a pistol aimed at Teller’s chest. Other law enforcement officers were converging on the scene, including one member of the Park Police riding a Segway. “Hello, Officer.”

  “Drop the weapon!”

  “Federal officer,” Teller said, carefully pulling out his wallet and flipping it open to his ID. “And that suitcase on the sidewalk is a small nuclear weapon. You’ll want to cordon off the area until NEST gets here.”

  The cop squinted as he looked at the badge and read the credentials, then lowered his pistol slightly. “A fed? Jesus! Is that really a nuke?”

  “Yes. This is not a joke,” Teller said with deadly seriousness. “This is not a drill.” The Segway rolled up, and Teller pointed at it as the cop stepped off. “And I’m requisitioning that vehicle.”

  “Hey, wait just a—”

  “A horse would be better,” Teller added, climbing onto the contraption, “but since Congress took away your horses, I’ll have to make do with what’s available.”

  The Capitol Police had had a mounted unit until a few years ago, which they’d used to patrol the Hill, but a cost-cutting move had ended the program. He leaned into the handlebars and the machine whirred into motion.

  He thought the things were comical, but Teller had used a Segway before, renting one for a tour of downtown D.C. Like riding a bicycle, you never forgot how. You moved forward by leaning forward, and the transporter sensed the shift in weight and accelerated; you turned by leaning left or right. Top speed was only about twelve and a half miles per hour, but the avenue along the Washington Mall was thick with cars. Slaloming through the traffic, Teller rapidly closed with the white sedan, which had moved a hundred yards down Pennsylvania and come to an abrupt halt behind a D.C. tour bus. He raised his Glock, muzzle pointed at the sky, wondering if he could disable the car … but there were far too many people and cars in his line of fire. He leaned forward more, trying to coax another bit of speed from the transporter, and hoped to hell that the batteries were well charged.

  The car up ahead was turning …

  REYSHAHRI

  PENNSYLVANIA AVENUE NW

  WASHINGTON, D.C.

  0856 HOURS, EDT

  Moslehi swung the wheel and turned south onto Fourth Street, between the National Gallery of Art and its East Annex. Reyshahri glanced into the right-side rear mirror and caught a glimpse of someone careening through the traffic on a device that looked like a pogo stick with wheels.

  The figure had a gun … and was catching up.

  TELLER

  FOURTH STREET NW

  WASHINGTON, D.C.

  0856 HOURS, EDT

  He made the turn onto Fourth Street, still following the white car up ahead. Traffic here was a lot lighter, and the sedan was accelerating. Tucking his pistol back into his waistband, Teller pulled out his phone and thumbed Dominique’s number.

  “We’re back over Capitol Hill!” her voice said. “Where are you?”

  He told her. “This has got to be a first!” he added. “The U.S. Army in hot pursuit on one of these ridiculous Segway things!”

  He heard the helicopter off to the east, the roar muffled to a dull clatter by the Art Gallery’s east building. Twenty yards in front of him, the sedan swerved suddenly right at a stoplight.

  “Target is turning west onto Madison!”

  “Chris … the pilot says the target is in sight. He wants to know … how are they going to detonate those bombs?”

  Teller had been wondering exactly that.

  He only wished he knew the answer.

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  REYSHAHRI

  WASHINGTON, MALL

  WASHINGTON D.C.

  0857 HOURS, EDT

  22 APRIL

  They swerved right onto Madison and smashed into the rear bumper of another car, an expensive luxury model. Madison Drive NW was a one-way street running past the northern tier of Smithsonian museums—the Art Gallery, Natural History, and American History. “Back up! Back up!” Reyshahri yelled. Damn this traffic! “Get around him!” Horns blared. The driver of the car ahead opened his door and stepped onto the street, glaring as he started walking toward them.

  “I can’t get through!” Moslehi screamed back.

  The
man looked furious, stalking toward them, fists clenched.

  Reyshahri pointed to the left, through the trees lining the Mall. “That way!”

  The car nosed left, threaded its way between two parked vehicles, then bumped up onto the sidewalk, crashed past a park bench, and plunged through a light mesh fence into a park area with widely scattered trees. Pedestrians scattered as Moslehi floored the accelerator. They bounced across the wooded area, crashed through another mesh fence, and emerged on the broad, open expanse of the Mall.

  Reyshahri suddenly felt very small, trapped in this vast openness between the Capitol Dome and the Washington Monument.

  They had to act now.

  TELLER

  WASHINGTON MALL,

  WASHINGTON, D.C.

  0857 HOURS, EST

  He followed the sedan onto Madison, narrowly missing a bicycle-propelled rickshaw and eliciting an angry flurry of horn blasts. A silver El Dorado had been rear-ended by the quarry, and the driver was in the street, shaking his fist. Teller could see where the white rental had gone, though, knocking down a mesh fence and careening out onto the mall. He followed—and nearly fell as the Segway hit the curb—but then he was on hard-packed gravel, and then on the sidewalk.

  He wasn’t convinced the little electric personal transporter would navigate the grass beyond, though, so he swung right again and raced down the sidewalk. He could see the sedan now, through the trees, heading southwest across the Mall in the general direction of the Air and Space Museum.

  How did the Tangos plan to detonate their nukes? Some sort of timer would be simplest—but did they also have some sort of remote control device, something that would let them set the bombs off with the touch of a finger?

  Would they detonate the weapons if they found themselves trapped, unable to flee?

  Sirens wailed and howled as emergency vehicles converged on the Mall. Everywhere, civilians were running, scattering, some screaming, some standing openmouthed and oblivious.