Twenty-Six

WASHINGTON, D.C.

Peggy Stealey was in the middle of a rather violent dream. She had just delivered a crushing blow to her karate instructor's groin, but that wasn't enough. With great speed and precision she moved on to his solar plexus, throat, and then finally nose. The last blow was a textbook palm strike and sent the man to the mat, blood dripping from his flattened nose. She saw herself standing over him, her hair a disaster, her cheeks flushed, and her skin glistening with sweat. A look of profound accomplishment spread across her face, and then something happened. A stimuli that wasn't supposed to be in her dream.

Her eyelids flickered and then opened. She looked over at her bedside clock, things still not quite registering. The blue letters told her it was 2:28 in the morning. She realized her victory was only a dream and was pissed. It was the best one she'd had in months. She laid her head back down and closed her eyes. She should have known that kicking her sadist instructor's butt was too good to be true. She told herself if she fell back asleep fast enough she might be able to pick up where she'd left off.

Seconds later Stealey figured out what had pulled her from her dream. Her pager over on her dresser was vibrating. Stealey grabbed a pillow and clamped it down on her head. She wanted to return to her dream. Weren't twelve-hour days enough? She was almost always up by five, never asleep past six, and always brought work home with her. She was lucky if she got five hours a night, so was it too much to ask for them not to bother her between midnight and when the sun came up?

Stealey whipped her pillow across the room, and cursed herself for not having the courage to ignore the damn siren call of work. No wonder she couldn't find a steady boyfriend. There wasn't time for herself, let alone anyone else.

She swung her long, toned legs from under the covers and walked over to the nightstand. When she reached out for the pager, she realized why she had been dreaming about throttling her karate instructor. Stealey winced as she was reminded of her sore left breast. Always pushing herself to get better, Stealey, a third-degree black belt, had gotten overly aggressive while sparring with her instructor. She had landed a glancing blow to the older man's head, but in the process left herself wide open. Master Jing, not one to let such a mistake go unpunished, responded with a lighting-quick strike that knocked her clean off her feet. Stealey could still picture Master Jing standing over her, chiding her for such a foolish mistake. She would have attempted a reply if it wasn't for the fact that there was no longer any air left in her lungs.

She picked up the pager and looked at the small readout. When she saw the number staring back at her she said, "Oh shit."

Stealey ran from her room. The Department of Justice had a twenty-four-hour command center, and there were only two reasons why they would be calling her in the middle of the night. She reached the kitchen, where she immediately noticed the blinking message light on her answering machine. Stealey pressed play and grabbed her cell phone to turn it on. She kept a fan on in her bedroom and turned off the ringers at night so she could sleep. The pager was kept in her bedroom on the off chance someone really needed to get hold of her.

The attorney general's voice came out of the small speaker on her answering machine. His only direction was to call him immediately. Even though the message was brief she could tell something was wrong.

She grabbed her phone and dialed his cell phone number. He answered on the first ring. "Peg, are you on a land line?"

"Ah...no. I'm on a cordless."

"Where the hell have you been?"

She pulled her hair back trying to think of an excuse and finally told him the truth. "Sleeping."

"Listen to me. I can't discuss this with you over an open line. Get to the Joint Counterterrorism Center immediately and call me back."

Before she could ask what was going on the line went dead.

Stealey just stood there in her kitchen, left dumbfounded and staring at the cordless phone. The new Joint Counterterrorism Center was only a few miles from her apartment. The facility was near Tyson's Corner, on the far western edge of the Beltway, and had just recently opened. The idea behind the top secret facility was twofold. The first was to get the FBI and the CIA working together on the war on terrorism, and the second was to get the FBI's counterterrorism people out of downtown.

The rationale behind that move was pretty straightforward. FBI headquarters was a target of high value for terrorists, and if they succeeded in destroying the building, they would take with it the very agents who were supposed to investigate the attack.

The gravity of what must be going on began to seep in. She was supposed to keep a Go Bag packed at all times for just this type of situation. Stealey cursed herself for not paying more attention during all the exercises.

They'd given her three phones, and two pagers, and instructed her to carry all of them with her at all times. Her feeling had been that the entire thing was overkill. One phone and pager were designated to be used during the normal course of business. The second phone and two way pager were given top priority on cellular towers, and the last phone, which was still in its box, was an iridium satellite phone to be used if regular service was knocked out.

All she'd wanted was five hours of sleep. She placed the cordless phone back in its cradle and said, "This better not be a damn drill."

Even as she started down the hall to get dressed, she knew it wasn't. Stokes would have told her, plus they didn't wake the attorney general up in the middle of the night for drills. Stealey picked up the pace. She threw on a gray pants suit and stuffed some toiletries and extra garments into the bag she was supposed to have packed, and then headed back to the living room. She took a quick look at herself in the mirror by the door. Her hair was a mess and she still had sleep lines on her face.Screw it, she thought.I'll have to do it in the car.

Stealey yanked open the front hall closet and started chucking boxes out of the way until she found the satellite phone they'd given her more than a year ago. She doubted the battery was charged, but she'd bring it anyway. She was almost out the door when she realized she didn't have her purse, so she went back to the kitchen table to get it. She threw the bag over her shoulder, grabbed her purse, and left, forgetting to lock the door. Stealey was already in the garage by the time she realized her mistake and cursed herself up and down. She almost went back and then thought better of it. Something told her now was not the time to worry about unlocked doors.