The Island--A Thriller Page 13

  Air Force One began its initial approach to JFK in Queens. At the same time the blue-and-white jet touched down, an identical plane landed at La Guardia Airport, twelve miles away. The doppelganger was a distraction, empty except for the two pilots.

  Upon landing at JFK, the president climbed down from Air Force One under a bright early-morning sky. He crossed the tarmac, walking alone, as a line of photographers took photos. He was trailed by a small team of Secret Service agents. Dellenbaugh climbed onto Marine One and the chopper’s rotors accelerated into a feverish whirr, slashing the air.

  In seconds, Marine One was airborne, en route to Manhattan.

  * * *

  Once high in the sky, the president stared through the windows at Manhattan in the distance. The city’s skyscrapers refracted bluish steel, silver, and orange. Dellenbaugh flew in silence, looking at the city from above, a privilege to be sure, and yet he could not enjoy it, for today Dellenbaugh was entering the lion’s den.

  Dellenbaugh had dark brown hair, parted on the right side. It was combed neatly when he left the White House, but by now his hair was slightly tousled. Dellenbaugh stepped out of the helicopter at a private helipad on the roof of a skyscraper above Wall Street. He was led to an elevator where he descended to street level, then climbed into the presidential limousine.

  A man was already seated inside the vehicle. He had shaggy blond hair and was heavyset, with round, gold-rimmed glasses, and a handsome face despite the dishevelment of his wardrobe—jeans and an untucked, wrinkled button-down, worn cowboy boots, and a green sweater with a bright yellow stripe across the chest.

  This was Mike Murphy, the president’s top political advisor.

  The motorcade cut up the East River, onto the FDR.

  The motorcade was twenty-two vehicles in total, as well as several NYPD motorcycles. A dozen freshly washed NYPD cruisers, several sedans filled with VIPs—the governor of New York, the mayor, a few large donors with an interest in foreign policy—then, concentrically closer to the center of the motorcade, white vans carrying reporters and White House advance staff, and, still closer, a hardline security cordon of four black Chevy Suburbans loaded to the teeth with weapons, Secret Service agents, and Special Forces soldiers.

  The motorcade took the FDR for a few miles then cut off into Manhattan and moved along shut-off avenues and boulevards toward the UN. As the president came close to the UN, the sidewalks were lined with a frenzy of Dellenbaugh supporters, along with news cameramen and police. Dellenbaugh waved as the motorcade sped quickly toward the United Nations. Then he looked at Murphy.

  Murphy was a wunderkind in the world of politics. He’d run his first presidential campaign at the age of twenty-three, and won his first at thirty. He was also waving at the passing crowds of people, more enthusiastically, though with a hint of sarcasm. He’d been there so many times now he was cynical.

  “You like me!” said Murphy, waving to the crowds there to see Dellenbaugh. “You really like me!”

  Dellenbaugh laughed.

  “I guess they can’t see your sweater,” said Dellenbaugh.

  Murphy ignored the taunt.

  “This is the only way to visit New York, Mr. President,” said Murphy. “By motorcade with a bunch of armed guards.”

  “You don’t like New York?” said the president.

  “Are you kidding?” said Murphy. “I hate it. I’ve won eleven statewide elections here, but every time it’s like sleeping with your sister.”

  Dellenbaugh took a sip of coffee. It was too early for Murphy’s opinions, yet he wouldn’t see him for a week. He took the bait.

  “How so?” said Dellenbaugh.

  “It feels good but then afterwards you’re like, what did I just do?” said Murphy as he waved at the crowds.

  Dellenbaugh momentarily gagged, then coughed.

  “Why are we having this meeting, Mike?” said President Dellenbaugh, taking another sip of coffee.

  “I wanted to see you tell these assholes off,” said Murphy. “Cory sent me the speech. I love it.”

  “Is that the only reason?” said Dellenbaugh.

  “No,” said Murphy.

  “We’re winning by twenty points,” said the president. “Frankly, this whole election cycle is a little disappointing. I was looking forward to a real election.”

  “Mr. President, this isn’t about the election,” said Murphy, becoming serious, “and I didn’t come to see your speech. Danny Donato was killed almost five months ago.”

  As both men knew, Donato—the former vice president—had been killed off the coast of Hawaii, his jet shot from the sky.

  Murphy’s voice took a sharp edge. He leaned forward and pointed at Dellenbaugh with his index, middle, and ring fingers extended, like a blade. “By law, you need to nominate a new vice president. You should’ve nominated someone five months ago, the day after Danny Donato went down in a plane.”

  “Show me someone I could see being president, Mike,” said Dellenbaugh, staring daggers.

  “If you die, the Speaker of the House becomes president.”

  Murphy didn’t have to say his name. Cam Healey, the U.S. Speaker of the House, was a bare-knuckles Irish Democrat from Boston. Dellenbaugh knew what Murphy was saying. Were anything to happen to Dellenbaugh, Healey would become president.

  Dellenbaugh leaned back.

  “I’ve put four viable candidates in front of you. Two governors, including the governor of New York, and two solid Republican senators. Fine, you passed. But it’s not academic anymore, sir. You need to nominate someone so we can get both houses of Congress to approve, before the election. You have majorities in both houses, but we’re about to take a fucking bloodbath. You’ll win reelection easily but the Senate and House are both lost. You’ll have to cut a deal after reelection. Your vice president will be someone you don’t want. That’s the political situation. The real-world situation? You’re tremendously exposed due to the lack of a vice president. The country is exposed. Mathematically, you can’t lose. Although actually, you can. You know how? There’s one way: you die.”

  “Are you saying what I think you’re saying?” said the president.

  “That depends on what you think I’m saying,” said Murphy.

  “Are you saying Healey might do something?”

  “No,” said Murphy. “I’m saying, before he thinks of it—or God forbid, before some nutjob or foreign country assassinates you—nominate someone to be vice president, sir.”

  29

  7:38 A.M.

  200 ORANGE TURNPIKE

  SLOATSBURG, NEW YORK

  The gas station wasn’t very busy. It was hard to compete with the twenty-four-hour Exxon/Mobil station a few miles away, on the highway. But maximizing profit was far from the minds of the men now lurking inside the unlit garage. The owner of the station didn’t necessarily care whether or not they sold gas at this hour.

  The garage had four bays and, in a separate building attached to the garage, a brightly lit room at the front where the cash register was, along with cigarettes and various other nicotine products, and refrigerators filled with beverages for sale.

  A middle-aged Hispanic woman sat behind the register, in the store, alone. She was watching something on an iPad, the sound of canned laughter from the show the only sound in the store.

  In the garage, behind a locked steel door, four white vans were illuminated under dim lights cast by head lanterns on the men. There were four men in all—Shahin, the man in charge, who’d rented the place a few months before, and three others, Farhad, Mohsen, and Dariush. They were all Iranian. All were soldiers in QUDS Force, though each man was disgraced, for whatever reason.

  All four had overstepped the boundaries, but Mansour saw their inherent fealty to Iran. These were talented, decorated soldiers—operators, who’d crossed lines and now they would give their lives as recompense to Suleiman and the Republic, who would use them, in turn, in an endless war, whose next chapter was about to be written. It
was the way the Iranian government harvested its people, ammunition in a war of retribution against America.

  The four men lugged blocks of heavy gray wrapped in plastic, almost as heavy as a similar-sized piece of concrete. These were blocks of an advanced explosive polymer called octanitrocubane. Originally developed for Czechoslovak military use and export, octanitrocubane eventually became popular with paramilitary groups, guerrilla fighters, and terrorists, due to the difficulty of detecting it. It had no smell and was undetectable by existing airport technology. Octanitrocubane was used to take down Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland, resulting in the deaths of 270 people.

  The composite was a distilled version of the basic explosive entity; there was little filler, just pure chemical. The vans were packed up to the rafters. Each van had more than a ton of octanitrocubane inside, enough to destroy a city block, an airport, a government building.

  But none of the above were the target this day.

  As the sun awoke in the early sky, the four Iranians drank coffee together.

  A Dodge minivan pulled up in front of the bays. A man emerged from the driver’s seat, as well as another man from the passenger seat.

  Shahin, Farhad, Mohsen, and Dariush stood between two of the vans. Each man was perspiring profusely.

  All eyes turned to the windows of the garage bays. The two men who had just arrived were stocky, and clad in black tactical clothing.

  All the men knew the man on the right. His name was Mansour. He was an infamous warrior inside QUDS, then Hezbollah.

  None of the men in the garage recognized the other man, but his size and demeanor spoke volumes. He was tall, six-foot-three, and walked with a swagger. He held a silenced Glock .45 in his right hand.

  When Mansour entered the garage the light was dim, but their eyes had adjusted, and refractions of the sunlight illuminated the garage. Mansour stepped forward and examined the four men in the gray light. He looked into their eyes as he walked close to each man, a stony look in his eyes, and no words.

  Mansour removed a small, powerful flashlight and went to the farthest van. Over a silent few minutes, Mansour inspected each van.

  When he was done, he stepped toward the bombers—Shahin, Farhad, Mohsen, and Dariush—without emotion.

  “The preparations are not flawless, but they are good, and I thank you on behalf of the Supreme Leader and the Republic,” said Mansour, in Persian, in a gravelly voice. “You each are making payment for errors of the past, and I too have made mistakes, but I want you to know, Shahin, Farhad, Mohsen, and Dariush, that, rest assured, when we are successful, your families will be rewarded with the gratitude of the Republic. I have personally seen to it. If I die today, which I expect I will, like you, I have arranged for your families to be taken care of.”

  Mansour paused and looked each man in the eyes.

  “If you believe this will be easy you’re wrong,” Mansour said, looking at the tall twenty-five-year-old, Shahin. “Shahin, what is your tunnel and best route?”

  “I’m going to the Queens-Midtown Tunnel,” said Shahin. “Over the Tappan Zee and down.”

  Mansour stared at Shahin. Mansour knew that each tunnel was important, but the Queens-Midtown Tunnel was the most important. It emptied into Manhattan just below the United Nations complex. It was critical that Shahin succeed. Yet, Mansour didn’t say anything; he knew that any of the men could get pulled over on their way to the tunnels, or, God forbid, get cold feet, and he didn’t want any possibility of one of them saying something. By compartmentalizing the operation into three silos—tunnels, UN, and active shooters—Mansour was ensuring that each attack could stand on its own.

  “Dariush?” said Mansour, looking at another man.

  “The Battery Tunnel, sir,” said Dariush. “I’m going down through New Jersey and will come from the west through Staten Island.”

  “Very good,” said Mansour. “Mohsen?”

  “I have the Holland Tunnel,” said Mohsen. “I’ll take a similar route as Dariush, then cut over near MetLife Stadium and down through Jersey City.”

  “What about you, Farhad?” said Mansour.

  “I will be destroying the Lincoln Tunnel, sir, on behalf of the Republic,” said Farhad. “Same route as Mohsen, just a few exits earlier.”

  “Very good,” said Mansour. “Dariush, you need to get moving and drive as fast as you can without getting arrested.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “It is imperative that each of you get as far into the tunnels as you can by nine o’clock. Then detonate the bombs at the same time,” continued Mansour. “Do you understand how important it is in the overall mission that you detonate the bombs together? It is the difference between success and failure! Drive slowly if you are ahead of schedule. If you’re early, get to the end of the tunnel and pull over and pretend you’re having car trouble. But be in the tunnel, hopefully far into it, by nine A.M. or everything will be lost. Everything we have worked for.”

  The four men nodded in acknowledgment.

  “This is the last time we will speak,” said Mansour. “Thank you for your sacrifice. May we meet again in the afterlife, my brothers.”

  Mansour turned and walked toward the door.

  The four Iranians climbed into the vans. The engines went on just as Shahin pressed a remote and the bay doors lifted up into the air. They all watched as Mansour tore away from the garage, heading south, toward Manhattan.

  30

  7:50 A.M.

  SS DORSET

  NEW YORK HARBOR

  Breakfast after the clays was casual, a buffet of pancakes (blueberry, raspberry, and plain), bacon and sausage, kippers, lox, and fried eggs. Dewey took a plate and piled up a few eggs and blueberry pancakes, along with a pile of bacon, sausage, and some toast. He was surrounded by competitors from the shooting party, each congratulating him. Several servants also congratulated him.

  He sat on a deck chair with Jenna’s father and mother, along with a few other people.

  “So, Dewey, where are you from?” asked Jemima, Jenna’s mother.

  “Maine,” said Dewey.

  “Where in Maine?” she said. “I absolutely love Maine. I went to summer camp there … a few years ago.”

  “Years?” said Farragut. “At this point it’s decades, dear.”

  “Oh, do be quiet,” Jemima said as everyone laughed.

  “Castine,” said Dewey.

  “Castine?” said one of the individuals seated in the loose semicircle, in a refined British accent. “I believe that was the site of a great naval battle between England and the Colonies?”

  Dewey nodded. “Yes, I believe you’re right, though it was no longer a colony.”

  “Yes, thank you,” the man said. “Your Paul Revere was in charge of the military operation. The Penobscot Expedition. Until Pearl Harbor, America’s greatest naval defeat. Of course, soon after that I believe you routed the bloody hell out of us!”

  Dewey smiled. He was drinking a Bloody Mary. After finishing a sip, he looked around, and at the man, but he said nothing.

  “I’ve actually been to Castine,” said Farragut, breaking the silence. “It’s a beautiful town practically surrounded by water.”

  For some time, they grilled Dewey on Castine, on BC, where he’d gone to college, and then tried to probe into his military background, with Dewey admitting to little more than the fact that, yes, he’d been in the military.

  The boat was crowded with other similar groups of guests of the Farraguts, gathered at tables, or some even sitting right down on the deck, talking and laughing. He saw Jenna seated with another group, one floor above, toward the back of the boat.

  Meanwhile, a servant kept his Bloody Mary fresh, and he soon found himself enjoying the conversation with Jenna’s parents. Jenna’s mother looked like Jenna, except that her hair was auburn. Farragut didn’t look like her at all, though he saw Jenna in her father’s sharp intelligence.

  The yacht was like a castle on the water, and
every detail was attended to, down to the green aging of the copper patina on the balustrade closest to Dewey.

  The massive harbor in the direction of New York City was dotted with boats, and a helicopter flew occasionally by, a news chopper or someone commuting to the city from Long Island.

  Dewey stood up and thanked the Farraguts. He retrieved another Bloody Mary and found his way back to his room belowdecks. He wanted to take a shower. The shooting had been a workout. He took off his clothing and opened the door to the bathroom between his room and Jenna’s.

  31

  8:10 A.M.

  HARLEM RIVER DRIVE

  NEW YORK CITY

  Mansour sped the minivan down the Henry Hudson Parkway, moving down the eastern side of the island. When the highway split, in the Washington Heights section of upper Manhattan, he stayed right, following the Harlem River Drive into Washington Heights, and exited almost immediately into a large complex of brick tenements, finding the parking lot at the southern end of the massive apartment complex. There, five vans were parked in a line. They were different colors. All of them were used and even a little beat-up. Mansour and Ali climbed from the minivan. Mansour turned the vehicle off but left the keys in it and crossed the parking lot, and climbed into the front passenger seat of the closest van.

  The vans left the lot even as the city was drowning in the traffic of the morning commute.

  Mansour looked back, eyeing six men in the van. Each was cloaked in black with close-fitting communications-wired shock helmets and sunglasses, and was dressed in tactical gear from the waist up. Each soldier had on a black weapons jacket with the letters FBI in bright neon yellow across the front and back. The attire was based as closely as possible on what Federal agents would be wearing. If even one sniper paused first because he believed one of the Iranians was a Federal agent, it could be the difference between success and failure.

  Mansour said nothing as he reached beneath the seat and pulled out a weapons jacket, stacked with mags, then reached to the ceiling and pulled down a rifle. It was a Steyr AUG A3 M1.