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  I stepped closer to the bay and looked inside before turning back to the guard. “Do you have video surveillance? Anything we can look at to see what Fleming was doing in here right before he left?”

  “No,” he replied. “Like I told you, the facility is secure already.” As the guard talked, another man appeared just outside the doorway and the guard we were talking to waved, letting him know that everything was okay. “As you can see, we have security walking the perimeter twenty-four seven. Nobody gets in or out without us knowing. All vehicles are checked by the Secret Service before they enter and, like I mentioned, they monitor the whole loading and unloading process. What do you think Fleming did?”

  “That’s what we need to find out,” said Jami. “Blake, we have to go through Keller’s belongings right now.”

  I nodded. “Are you in any rush once the van gets here?” I asked the guard.

  “White House staff will remove President Rouse’s belongings before moving in Keller’s. You have time.”

  THIRTY-SIX

  AS JAMI AND I started going through Keller’s boxes, the guard stepped away, saying that he needed to get ready for the truck that would be arriving shortly. “I’ll be back in a few minutes,” he said and left.

  After we had gone through five of Keller’s boxes, Ron Gibson called.

  “Are you making any progress?” he asked.

  “We’re still here. Fleming was in charge of overseeing Keller’s personal effects. We’re not sure what he did here before leaving to go to Donovan’s, but we’re trying to figure it out by going through Keller’s boxes.”

  “You need to stand down, Blake.”

  “Why do I need to stand down?” I asked and put the call on speakerphone for Jami to be able to hear.

  “We found the Somalis. They had taken the Acela Express train from New York. The men purchased their tickets a week ago and the FBI traced the online purchase back to a credit card tied to an alias for one of the men. They got on at Penn Station in Manhattan last night at nine o’clock and arrived in DC just before midnight. We didn’t learn all of this in time to pick them up when they arrived at Union Station, but the FBI found that they had made another purchase with that card for a one-night stay at a nearby hotel.”

  “Did we get them?” I asked and looked at Jami as Gibson continued to bring us up to speed.

  “The men went to the Phoenix Park Hotel. The FBI has been keeping everyone in the dark while they set up a perimeter around the hotel and moved in just a few moments ago. The men are in custody.”

  As I was wrapping up the call with Gibson, Jami stepped away to speak with Morgan Lennox. I took Gibson off speakerphone. “What are the FBI’s next steps?” I asked.

  “They say they’re confident that they have the right people responsible for the planned attack. Weapons were found in their vehicle including assault rifles, a sniper rifle, as well as several explosives. I’ve spoken with Keller and Billings and brought both of them up to speed as well.”

  I paused for a moment, trying to decide what my next steps should be.

  “Blake, I’m aware of what you did to that officer a few hours ago. You know the Secret Service wants you.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Stand down, Blake. Come on back to Blair House and meet Keller and me here. We stand by your actions today. Come back here and meet with the Secret Service before the FBI finds you.”

  Gibson was right. If these agencies were looking for me, turning myself in to the Secret Service would be the best choice. Keller would be able to vouch for me. If MPD got me, they would just turn me over to the FBI. And if the FBI had me in custody, there’s no telling what Landry would do to me.

  “Alright,” I replied.

  “Good. See you soon,” the defense secretary said and disconnected the call. I slid the phone into my back pocket. I thought about the truck on its way to the facility. The Secret Service would be with them.

  I walked over to Jami on the other side of the room where we had been going through Keller’s boxes. She was still talking to Morgan and told him to hold on. “Okay, Blake can hear you now – go ahead,” she said.

  “Blake, I can’t hide that I’m helping you from Shapiro for much longer. He knows I’ve helped you in the past. Any minute now he’s going to wise up and start monitoring my calls to keep me from talking to you.”

  “It doesn’t matter anymore,” I replied. “I just spoke with Defense Secretary Gibson. He said the FBI found the Somalis. Traced them using a credit card. They took a train from New York to DC and were at the Phoenix Park Hotel near Union Station. They got them, Morgan. I need to turn myself in now.”

  “But what about Keller’s boxes, Blake? What about Carson Fleming? What’s the connection?” asked Jami.

  “I don’t know what the connection is, but the Secret Service will be here any minute now,” I replied.

  “Then you better get going, Blake,” said Morgan.

  “Why?”

  “I was just telling Jami – I accessed the surveillance footage at the South Mountain Welcome Center.”

  “The rest area?”

  “That’s it. You’re going to want to chase this lead,” he continued. “I got a perfect angle of the shooting. There were two cameras, one captured the murder, and another got the license plate of the getaway car.”

  Jami looked at me and smiled. “That’s great, who does the car belong to?” I asked.

  “It’s a rental, Blake. I traced it back to Chicago – the vehicle was picked up yesterday morning.”

  “They drove all the way here from Chicago? Were they following Hartmann?”

  “I’m not positive. That was my first thought. But the video of the woman shooting the two men in the rest area–”

  “Did you say a woman?”

  “Yes, Blake. The video was grainy since there was very little light in the parking lot. I was able to enhance the image and remove many of the shadows to be able to see the woman clearly. Blake, you need to see it.”

  “Okay, send it over.”

  “I have it here,” said Jami.

  I walked next to her and she brought the video up on her phone’s screen. We watched Paul Hartmann pull into the rest area and park. He and his passenger got out, spoke for a few seconds, and headed toward the building. Hartmann looked like he had taken a call before going inside. Moments later, the men emerged.

  But first, a car entered the rest area. We watched a woman get out, hide behind the vehicle, and watch Hartmann and the other man return to their van and climb inside.

  The woman stood, walked to the driver’s side, and drew her gun. Shots were fired. We watched as she paused, then she fired again. Morgan switched views and paused the frame for us to see her face. I grabbed the phone from Jami.

  “Do you recognize that woman, Blake?” Morgan asked.

  Of course I did. I could never forget the face of the woman who tried to kill me five months earlier.

  THIRTY-SEVEN

  JAMI BROUGHT MY hand down so she could take a look at the screen. “God, Blake – it’s Claudia Nazir,” she said.

  “If Claudia is involved, then her husband is, too,” I added.

  Claudia was the wife of Aasaal Nazir, former imam at the Islamic Civic Center, a mosque in downtown Chicago. When Jami and I searched for the kidnapper of then-Senator James Keller last August, the trail had inadvertently led us to Aasaal Nazir. The last time I saw Claudia, I had coaxed her out of her upscale condo and held a gun to her head while entering her home to try to take her husband by surprise.

  She managed to stab me in the process and ran to a back room while Aasaal emerged from the back.

  I always believed that Aasaal Nazir was helping Keller’s kidnapper, Marco Lopez, who admitted to murdering my wife Maria, moments before I put a bullet in his head. Based on the upscale condo that the Nazirs lived in, they had plenty of money. I knew they had to be funding Lopez. I just never could prove it.

  “We know everything ab
out you,” Aasaal Nazir had whispered to me as FBI agents rushed in and ordered me to stand down as I held a gun to his throat. Just like I could never forget Claudia’s face, I could never forget his words, either. They’ve haunted me since that day in the downtown Chicago high-rise.

  Jami never figured out exactly how the Nazirs were connected to the Jihadi Coalition or the terror plot for kidnapping James Keller. Neither did the DA. Charges were dropped and the Nazirs disappeared.

  I went looking for them after I got fired from DDC. Never found them. Morgan told me back then that he believed they may have fled the country. If he couldn’t find them, nobody could. So I moved on.

  “Blake? Are you okay?” Jami asked, jolting me back into the present moment.

  “Looks like you were right, Jami. If the Nazirs are behind this, they may have sent the Somalis–”

  “As a diversion,” she said, finishing my sentence. “Or the Somali threat was actually real and they leaked the information to take out their rivals if the Nazirs already had something planned for later today.”

  “With terrorists, you always have to watch the other hand,” we heard Morgan say. “Well done, love.”

  Jami turned to me. “Blake, you have to get out of here. The Secret Service will be here any minute now.”

  “What about you?”

  “Something happened here, I’m not sure what yet. I’ll keep looking through Keller’s boxes and try to figure it out. When the agents arrive, they’re going to ask about you. I’ll tell them the truth – that you left to follow up on a lead. They’ll grill me but I’ll say I don’t know where. I’ll tell them about Carson Fleming.”

  “Morgan,” I said and turned to look through the facility doors that were still ajar. “Can you find Claudia?”

  “I don’t know, Blake. I’ll try to figure something out.”

  “Hurry, before Shapiro steps in. Figure it out and call me back on my cell. I’m headed back to DC.”

  Jami disconnected the call. I was concerned about parting ways. “I don’t think we should split up.”

  “Blake, we have to figure out what’s going on. And we have to find the Nazirs and stop them.”

  “But stop them from doing what?”

  She shook her head slowly. “I’ll be fine, Blake. Take this.” She removed the Kevlar vest Chris and I had given her and handed it to me. “You need this more than I do.” Jami looked at the open doors. “Now go.”

  I ran outside and saw the man who had been walking the perimeter to my right. He had just walked past the open doors and I knew I’d have a few minutes before he’d emerge again from the other side of the building. I jogged to the fence with the guardhouse and Chris’s truck on the other side.

  “Open the gate,” I yelled.

  The guard on the other side stepped out and shook his head. “Mr. Jordan, please stay where you are.”

  “Open the gate now!” I yelled again. I watched the guard reach for his weapon and hold it down at his side. I had just a few minutes until the other guard would come up from behind me. And even less time before the Secret Service would arrive, I guessed. Quickly, I grabbed my Glock and aimed. I closed an eye and pulled the trigger. The bullet hit his gun, causing it to fly out of his hand.

  The man was terrified. “I’m a pretty good shot, so I suggest you open the gate now. Do it!”

  He held his hands up and cautiously walked inside the guardhouse. A moment later, the gate started moving. As it opened, I walked out, still pointing my Glock at the guard. He kept his hands up as I got to the vehicle and opened the door. “If you hurt my partner, I’ll kill you,” I said and climbed inside.

  After getting it started, I turned the truck around and headed down the path that Jami and I had entered.

  The trail was hard to see so I put the high beams on and kept moving. I could see headlights from the occasional car passing on Jones Mill Road. One car passed very close so I knew I was near the entrance.

  “Stop!” I heard someone yell from behind me. I tapped the brakes and saw the other guard, the one who had been walking the perimeter, coming after me. He must have heard me fire my gun at the other man. I gunned it and didn’t slow down until I got to where I thought the road was on the other side of the brush.

  When I emerged on the other side, I pulled out onto the road and turned left.

  Thirty seconds later, a caravan of three black SUVs rushed past me and in the rearview mirror, I watched them slow down and turn into the wooded area that I had just emerged from. Then they disappeared.

  Instead of turning west on Jones Bridge Road, I decided to keep going straight. I kept moving south, taking backroads on my way back to DC as I waited for Morgan to get back to me.

  Jones Mill turned into Beach Drive which I took for another twenty minutes, becoming more anxious with every passing minute. I found myself on a two-lane road, driving through endless woods. They reminded me of the woods from a few hours earlier. I thought about Claudia and Aasaal Nazir. The look on his face when he told me he knew everything about me. I thought about the pain in my side when Claudia had stabbed me. For some reason, that made the back of my head start to throb. “Son of a bitch,” I whispered when Beach deposited me onto Park Road close to Donovan’s house. Right back where I started.

  THIRTY-EIGHT

  “WHERE ARE WE?” Donovan asked as he and Claudia Nazir walked down a long staircase.

  Claudia led Max along the dark path and when they reached the bottom, a man handed her a flashlight. “Aasaal is expecting you,” he said and motioned for Claudia to continue following the same path that she and Donovan were on. She shined the light on the walls around her. Graffiti seemed to cover everything.

  Two large openings appeared as they kept walking, one on their left and the other to the right. “Keep going straight,” the sentry yelled from far behind her, his voice echoing against the tiled ceiling and walls.

  When Claudia and Max got to the far end, the path curved to the right. Claudia heard something move near her feet. She lit the area and watched a rat scurry across and disappear under a pile of cardboard.

  “There’s a light up ahead,” said Donovan as the two veered left down a side path and it began to brighten.

  Claudia continued to light their path with the flashlight, but her eyes were now fixed at the end of the passageway as she searched for her husband. They walked into a room outfitted with computer equipment. There was a monitor set to C-SPAN with the audio on mute. The station would soon be airing the swearing in of Keller, the inaugural address, and the parade. Another monitor was attached to a computer that Aasaal Nazir had been using to monitor local and national news Websites for updates.

  “Were you followed?” Aasaal asked, stepping into the light and catching Claudia and Max off guard.

  Two of his sentries approached from behind as Claudia turned to face her husband. “I was very careful, Aasaal.”

  He walked around Max Donovan who extended his hand out to the man. Aasaal ignored the gesture.

  “This is Max Donovan,” Claudia continued. “He’s been instrumental in helping our cause so far.”

  “Mr. Donovan,” began Aasaal. “Do you know where Blake Jordan is?”

  Max shook his head.

  “Of course not. What about the woman he was with? And Carson Fleming – what about him?”

  Max looked at Claudia, then back to Aasaal. “Fleming is meeting the rest of our men to brief them on the status of the package he assembled in Maryland. He’ll come up with a plan for the diversion that the team will execute as the bomb is detonated to throw off law enforcement and dilute their efforts.”

  Nazir nodded. “If I told you that Mr. Jordan and the woman are at the Bethesda facility right now, that Carson Fleming is in police custody, and that the men at your home are all dead – what would you say?”

  Donovan didn’t know what to say. He again turned to Claudia looking for help.

  “Claudia,” said Aasaal. “Are you sure you weren’t followe
d? Because if this is what careful looks like–”

  “I’m sure, Aasaal. I don’t know what happened with Jordan or Donovan’s men. But Hartmann is dead.”

  “And the other man?”

  “Also dead.”

  Aasaal Nazir looked at Max as he continued to pace. “Mr. Donovan, based on your stellar performance over the last several hours, I hope you’ll forgive me in asking this – is Jordan going to find the package?”

  “I received confirmation that the package left the facility a short time ago. Jordan won’t find anything.”

  Nazir stopped moving and turned to his wife and Donovan before nodding to a man who stood behind them. A small, metal pipe struck Donovan on the head and he collapsed onto the cold concrete. Claudia watched as Donovan’s hair became wet as the blood started to run and soon surrounded him on the floor.

  She let out a gasp. “Aasaal! What are you doing?”

  “Take him away and watch over him until I get further instructions. Make sure he won’t be a problem,” Nazir ordered and the sentry grabbed Donovan by the wrists and dragged him into another room.

  “We needed him!” Claudia screamed as she watched a trail of blood being left behind as Max was taken away.

  “We didn’t need him, Claudia. The fact that his men are all dead doesn’t matter, either. A diversion when the bomb explodes isn’t necessary. All we needed him for was to make sure his man got the package onto the truck so that it would be where we needed it, at the right place, at the right time. He confirmed it was.”

  Claudia stepped closer to her husband. “It’s not Max Donovan that I’m worried about, Aasaal.”

  Nazir grabbed his wife and pushed her away. Claudia almost fell over, struggling to stay on her feet.

  “Claudia,” he began, turning away from her. “Who do you think asked me to take care of him?”

  Claudia Nazir felt a wave of terror sweep her body. She realized that the man that Max worked for had no further use for him and thought that he was expendable. A liability to be mitigated. Her husband did, too.