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  “Tom, we’re serious. Talk before we turn you into a bag of splintered bones.”

  Bob nodded. Something more was needed and he didn’t have a clue what lie to offer. He was about to say something stupid. He just knew it.

  But as he opened his mouth, he heard a loud crunch coming from the front door. Four battle-armored men crushed the door and ran in pointing Uzis at his three captors. His operatives had arrived, and just in time.

  * * *

  One of the operatives cut Bob’s bindings. “How’s that hand?”

  “Hurts like the devil.”

  The operatives all stared at Gloria, so Bob turned to see why their faces showed surprise.

  Gloria had unzipped her snorkel parka, In her left hand was a small conical device. Its top blinked red. The open parka revealed that she was wearing a bomb vest. “Drop your weapons. Now. Or we all die.”

  Bob scanned the room, then shrugged. Each operative placed his automatic weapon on the floor. He faced Gloria. “Done.”

  “Bill, Wally, pick up the guns, then plastic-cuff the bozos.” She held the armed trigger over her head. “Don’t make me nervous. We’re all wearing the latest fashion, and these devices could blow away all the houses for the next three blocks in every direction.” Bill and Wally opened their jackets to show their vests, then all three of the bombers zipped up. “Time to go and play.”

  In under a minute, the bombers and the disarmed operatives walked in tandem along with Bob, out into the blizzard.

  * * *

  The operative on Bob’s team who’d been assigned the role of backstop lay prone on the flat roof of the house across the street as eight people marched in lockstep toward a black minivan waiting curbside. His role was to mop up if the hit team failed to stop the bombers. He could see the blinking trigger held by the only female as she entered the van and sat in the shotgun seat. An easy job had just become impossible. He’d been ordered to keep the bombers from leaving the house if the team failed. Whatever else happened, the bombers must be prevented from reaching the oak-lined street where the Israeli prime minister was to preside over the dedication ceremony for the new synagogue. Even worse, the backstop had heard the rumor that, in an attempt to improve tattered relations between Israel and the United States, the President of the United States would be present. Jacob David Weinstein, nicknamed “JD,” cursed silently in Hebrew, German, English, and Russian.

  The backstop pulled his cell from his pocket. There was only one number programmed in and he activated it now. “JD, ID 71459-Alpha-George. Confirm.” He heard a five-digit number followed by two letters. “We have a mission complication. The targets are wearing armed bomb-vests hard-wired to a hand-held detonation switch. I can end them, but we’ll lose the entire team, including the surveillance tracker. The blast radius might include me, might even go for several blocks. No way to stop them here without doing that. You have about fifteen seconds before they’re gone.”

  The backstop didn’t have to wait. Their handler spoke in a raspy voice. “Kill them. Kill them all, and may the lord forgive you.”

  He took aim, and tried to pull the trigger, but nothing happened. The trigger was frozen in place. Snow must have gotten into the trigger mechanism, melted, and refrozen. He took a breath and spoke into the cell. “Rifle compromised. They’re leaving, heading north to the intersection. Get the PM and the POTUS away from the synagogue.”

  * * *

  The Israeli prime minister had been an IDF sniper in a war decades long past, and he feared nothing. At least that was the story he’d helped spread. The reality was different. He feared what his country was becoming, and he feared that he was responsible for squandering opportunities to craft a better future. He knew he was ruled by his emotions, and anger was what was driving him today. He believed the President of the United States was a well-meaning man, incredibly smart, who’d made a series of bad choices. When the PM decided to visit this house of worship for its first day of operations, he’d not wanted to meet the President here. It would look too much like a surrender. Still angry at the man, he feared he might not be able to control what he said when they met.

  As they all emerged from the limo, one of his bodyguards touched the earbud he wore, whispered a few words, and turned back to the PM. “Got it.” The guard pointed to the back of the limo. “We’re compromised. Out of here.”

  The PM shrugged, then dived into the back of the limo. In less than ten seconds they were headed west, away from the synagogue.

  * * *

  POTUS sipped coffee in the back of the synagogue. In just a few minutes, he’d have another opportunity to renew his acquaintanceship with an old, useless man who’d given him so much grief. He rehearsed what he’d intended to say, and changed a few of the sharper words for softer ones. No, that wouldn’t work. He rethought his handling of their last meeting.

  One of the Secret Service men, nicknamed “Sleepy” by POTUS’s wife, had tapped his shoulder. “Mr. President, we have to leave now. This site is compromised.”

  “What?”

  Sleepy pointed to the side door of the synagogue and began trotting there. Three other Secret Service appeared, surrounding POTUS. He recognized them, nicknamed by his wife “Dopey,” “Stupid,” and “Wretched.” They all walked through the dense falling snow and entered the limo.

  But when the limo pulled from the curb, a mass of other vehicles merged into their lane and kept them from further progress. One of the Secret Service men pulled his cellphone out and began screaming into it.

  * * *

  The backstop drove a black car and spoke into the cell’s mike, offering a running commentary on the progress of the van containing the captured team and the bombers. The van was now only two cars in front of him and moving like a broken-field runner to avoid cars stalled in the snow filling the middle and sides of the road. The visit of the president and the prime minister had hit the airways and drawn supporters from both sides of their arguments into this public venue. It was a treacherous mess of vehicles driven by people who had little experience dealing with the worst of winter.

  Drifting snow now coated the black ice. Raleigh had yet to plow the snow off the streets, and the few hours of yesterday afternoon’s heat had temporarily melted some of what now lay under the snow. By now, the ice that had nested itself in his sniper rifle’s trigger was gone, and he was sure it would work. But being in the driver’s seat kept him busy navigating and driving, and the rifle lay untouched on the seat beside him. He was running out of distance to the synagogue.

  * * *

  Bob and the team of operatives were each trussed into the back seats of the van and held there with duct tape. They had no way to stop the bombers. Bob knew anything he tried would fail, but even so, and even if it ended his life, he had to try something. He thought desperately for a plan to stop the van. He failed to conjure a workable idea.

  Gloria pointed with her free hand. “The road is jammed. We’ll never get close enough unless we find a back route. Take this left.”

  Wally turned the van into a side street that went from two lanes to one in its first hundred feet. The van slipped on the ice and turned around like a merry-go-round, revolving twice before it drifted into a truck parked on the street. Gloria was tossed like a child’s toy into the front passenger’s side window, but she never let go of the trigger.

  Wally tried to back the van out from the truck, but the van’s bumper was lodged under the truck’s fender. It wouldn’t budge. He gunned the engine, and the van took off in reverse, crunching into a car on the other side of the street. Gloria still grasped the trigger tightly in her hands. But this time the engine went quiet. Wally failed in his attempts to restart it. “The van is toast. We’ll have to hoof it.”

  Gloria got out first and moved behind the truck. “Leave the bozos tied up in the truck. They’ll never free themselves in time.” Wally and Bill exited and moved behind the truck where Gloria stood. The three bombers walked as a group toward the synago
gue, five blocks away.

  * * *

  The backstop had exited the car and climbed on top of its roof. He took aim at one of the male bombers and squeezed the trigger. The man’s head exploded, leaving a few shreds of flesh hanging from his neck. The man’s body dropped to its knees and then stopped moving altogether. As Gloria screamed, JD aimed at the second of her accomplices and fired again. The second accomplice also lost his head. Since she held the trigger, JD knew their deaths wouldn’t also kill her.

  * * *

  The backstop whispered into his cellphone. “Two sent to a better place. The female is now alone as you requested and she has no way to strip the bomb-vests from her two male companions. I hope you have a good plan for her.” He listened to the voice in his cell. “That tech is unproven. Nasty time for a beta test.”

  As the woman wearing the armed vest trotted down the street toward the synagogue, the backstop raced to the van and released Bob from the duct-tape holding him into the back seat. “We have to get the mini-EMP from your car trunk,” he told Bob. “I’ll explain everything.”

  Bob nodded and cut the duct tape from the other operatives. “Guys, return to your unit.” He faced JD. “Drive me to my car.”

  * * *

  Using Army soldiers to stop bombers on US soil was unlawful. It could only be done by National Guard or local law enforcement. But when the US had failed to act on the intelligence delivered by the Israelis, protocol and legal niceties fell away. That’s when Bob Gault of The Swiftshadow Group had been offered this assignment. As a new employee, he was desperate to prove his worth.

  Bob was overweight and aging ungracefully. If Gloria exploded herself as well as him, no one would miss him. His job was to convince Gloria to surrender so she could be interrogated and her handler discovered and terminated. He felt little guilt in the knowledge that if he succeeded, her interrogation would amount to chemical torture.

  He watched as she turned the corner onto the street where he waited. They were separated by less than thirty feet. Bob could feel the raging snow and biting wind. He smiled at her. “Hi! I’m Bob. Remember me?”

  * * *

  Gloria stopped short. She was four blocks from her objective and the stout gray-suited man wearing a red rep tie that she’d had as a prisoner ten minutes ago seemed as out of context as the melting clocks in the Salvador Dali painting.

  “I thought your name was Tom.”

  Bob shrugged.

  She thought about Wally, her boyfriend, and Bill, Wally’s best friend. They’d all met in college, in the poly sci class they’d taken last summer. Now, her two friends lay dead on the sidewalk, but both their voices kept babbling in her head, speaking about self-sacrifice to achieve political objectives. Wally had told her repeatedly that the only way to change their government’s policies was to provide the people of the country with a tragedy. At first she thought them crazy. But as the summer faded into autumn, their logic had started to make sense. She prayed in her heart that her country would reconsider its warlike policies if the current president was turned to ash.

  She shook her hand at him. “Stay back.” She pointed to the detonator. “It’s armed.”

  Bob pulled a small device from his pocket. “So is this.”

  She tilted her head. “What’s that?”

  He shrugged. “It’s a toy my employers wanted me to show you. New tech. A mini-EMP. It destroys electronic equipment, such as your detonator. Granted, it might not work, and if it fails, it just might trigger your vest. If that happens, we both die, along with a few hundred of those innocents huddled in their homes around us. If it works to spec, your bomb vest will simply be disabled. I was told this is a beta version. No way to tell in advance what happens next.” He held up the small device. “Shall we play a game?”

  Gloria shook her head. “Fuck off.”

  “I know your objective. End it here and you fail. So, here are the rules. Nod your head if you understand.”

  It took a few seconds but she nodded.

  “Good, good. Can you disarm the bomb-vest? Hey, I mean theoretically.”

  “Fuck off.”

  “It’s okay if you don’t want to play anymore.” He used his other hand to point to the mini-EMP. Ready to die together?”

  She fumbled in her pocket for the Beretta, but Bob held up his empty hand.

  “If you pull that weapon out, two things happen very fast. I push the button I’m holding and a sniper blows your head off. Ready to play?”

  She growled and he smiled.

  “One more time. Can the vest be disarmed?”

  She nodded.

  “Good, good. If I take the trigger from you, you’ll go to prison but you’ll be alive. You can tell your story at your trial. If you deploy the bomb, we both die along with innocent people you don’t want to murder. Do you believe in God?”

  She nodded, defeated. But then she snarled, and Bob knew he’d lost her. He pressed down the button on the mini-EMP. Time stopped. They both took a breath but the trigger’s red light went dim.

  She screamed and pulled out the handgun. From his perch on the roof of the car across the street, JD blew her head off in a swirl of red.

  Bob shook his head. She could have told them so much. What a waste. Now there was no way to tell who was brainwashing America’s college youth.

  But before he could even take a breath, his cell buzzed. He pulled it out. “Gault.”

  The raspy voice said, “Control. Turns out, they weren’t alone. There is another group walking towards you. ETA two minutes. Get ready.”

  Control had been monitoring the local cellphone communications.

  Bob shrugged. Another chance to find out who was responsible.

  * * *

  Three bombers, all female, walked as fast as they could through the heavy falling snow, on toward the synagogue. They were about five blocks away, passing tall, leafless oak trees that lined the boulevard.

  The females were dressed for the cold and snow, but under their heavy coats, each wore a bomb vest.

  The oldest of the three said, “Faster. We don’t know how long the president and the prime minister will be there.” The other two picked up the pace but only just a bit.

  When they rounded the corner, they saw a snow-covered man, rubbing his hands to keep warm. He nodded his head. “Hello, there. I’m Bob Gault. Please tell me your names.”

  The three women stopped and stood still. The oldest one stared at Bob, then at the other two. “What should we do?” the youngest asked.

  The oldest pointed at Bob. “Who the fuck are you?”

  “I was sent here to keep you from finding the death you seek. Listen, I know what you aim to do, but you’re too late. Both the president and the prime minister left the synagogue when they heard about your plans. We’ve already wiped another team wearing bomb-vests. Oh, and I should tell you that there’s a sniper across the street. If you have weapons and try to use them, well, he’ll end you.”

  The oldest removed the wireless detonator and pressed its button, but nothing happened.

  Bob held up the mini-EMP. “Too late. I already disarmed you. So either put your hands atop your heads or you can die right here.”

  The two younger ones immediately did as they were told. But the oldest took three fast steps toward Bob and pulled a handgun from her pocket. Before she could aim, her head disappeared in a blur of pink.

  The shell that killed her continued on, taking off the leg of one of the others, just below her knee. She fell to the ground, howling.

  “Medic!” Bob ran to the wounded woman and pulled off his jacket. He wrapped it around the stringy flesh that hung in tatters from her kneecap. The wounded woman had fainted.

  From nowhere, an ambulance skidded in front of them and two whited-jacketed men emerged. In under a minute, Bob and the uninjured woman were seated in the back of the ambulance, and the wounded woman lay on a stretcher, her leg in a tourniquet and hooked to an IV. Bob asked the uninjured woman, “What’
s your name?”

  “Susan.”

  Bob touched Susan’s shoulder. “I’m sorry about your friends. But I need to know who convinced you this was a good idea.”

  Susan’s lips moved but no words. Bob could tell she was in shock, and he wasn’t sure how to act to get the intel he needed from her.

  He tried smiling at her. “Listen,” he said in a soft voice. “You need to tell me now.”

  Susan held up a hand. She stared at Bob. “You offering a deal?”

  Gault paused. He needed to get this correct. “I have no authority. My deal is, you get to save the lives of any other group hell bent on destroying themselves and many others who are innocent.”

  Susan giggled. “You’re an idiot. ‘Us,’ all of us, our lives are already forfeit. The rich have taken everything from us. We used to have a chance for a life. Now, all we have is the same set of opportunities as suicide bombers in the Middle East.”

  Bob nodded. The United States was beginning to look like the Third World. “You can’t believe it’s really that bad.”

  She shrugged. “It is, and it’s getting worse. All of our parents are working two jobs just to survive. The piddling few who believe there might be a better life if their children graduated college are sinking deeper into debt and taking us with them as they force us to go to college.”

  Bob tried to understand. “But you’re in college now. After you graduate, you’ll have a chance at a good job.”

  “You are truly stupid. There aren’t enough jobs to give most of us any chance. And when we graduate, we’re burdened with a huge debt of college loans at exorbitant interest rates. We’ll never be able to repay them. My entire generation will be slaves.”

  Bob understood now. He nodded.

  She stared into his eyes. “Our best hope is to use our lives to effect change. These bomb-vests are the only statement that the public will notice. It’s our only chance to cause the system to reset.”

  * * *

  Bob’s jaw went slack. He knew his handler was listening through the mike on his earbud, and that it was being recorded. He turned his head away from Susan. “You get all that?”