Stokes's reward came only seconds later, when President Hayes smiled approvingly at his attorney general and said, "Well put, Martin."

Forty-Four

CHARLESTON

As someone who usually ran two to three marathons a year, Debbie Hanousek wasn't afraid to break a sweat, but this was ridiculous. It wasn't even midmorning, and the temperature in the warehouse was already pushing an extremely humid ninety degrees. That meant inside her anticontaminant suit it was closer to 100 degrees, but there was no taking the helmet off to wipe the sweat from her face. She and her team had been through enough training exercises and real-life scares to have mastered the fear of suffocating in the suits. She'd never panicked herself, but she'd seen plenty of others do it.

She'd been watching each member of her team for signs of stress. They were well trained and efficient at what they did, but they'd never faced anything like this before. In fact no one in the NEST program had ever faced anything like this. There had been plenty of false alarms; mostly small radiological devices, usually made from medical sources, simply misplaced or forgotten, but nothing of this magnitude-actual bomb-grade nuclear material with enough mass to create a twenty-kiloton yield.

The scientific brain trust located at the various labs were still poring over the data Hanousek had provided, and they were all in agreement that this was in fact the real deal. The signature of weapon-grade nuclear material was not something that was mimicked by anything else in nature. They had already begun trying to deduce where it could possibly have come from. For Hanousek the question was truly academic. Right now she just wanted to render the thing safe.

When the man-portable X-ray machine was finally in place, Hanousek gave them the nod to start out at low power, not wanting to affect any electronic circuitry that could be part of the device's fire set. The first shot showed them almost nothing. This was no surprise to any of them. They were moving cautiously. The two techs looked at Hanousek for permission to increase power. She nodded, and they took a second look. Hanousek peered through the Plexiglas shield of her helmet and looked at the digital picture on the laptop before her.

This one was a little better. She could just barely distinguish the outline of a volleyball-sized object. Hanousek put her thumb out and gestured for the techs to increase power. The third shot was decent. She could clearly make out the configuration of the device, but that was it. The design was simple classic implosion, a spherical core of nuclear material surrounded by explosives, only there was one problem.

"Increase power again," Hanousek called out.

The next shot came over the screen and she frowned. Hanousek pressed a button on her hip and said, "Paul, are you getting all this?"

"Yeah...a second or two after you do."

She paused just long enough to make sure Reimer was looking at the fourth shot. "Well...any idea where the detonators and fire set are?"

"None."

Hanousek gestured for the techs to increase power one more time. When the image appeared on the laptop, she was still mystified. "Paul, I'm going to shoot a cross section from underneath."

"I concur."

Based on the shots they'd already taken, the technicians quickly calculated the exact location of the device and crawled under the trailer. They placed the portable X-ray machine within inches of the bottom side of the container and took the first shot. They were right on the mark and Hanousek had them increase power immediately. After three shots they had what they were looking for.

Again, Hanousek asked Reimer, "What do you think?"

"I think I need to call the president."

"I would agree."

"Okay. Stand down, and wait for Green to get there."

"Roger."

"And, Debbie..."

"Yes, Paul?"

"Nice work."

"Thank you."

Forty-Five

SOUTHWEST ASIA

The CIA's G-V had already reached a cruising altitude of 41,000 feet and left Afghanistan air space. There was no need for Rapp to bring all the files and maps with him. Everything had already been scanned and placed on a disk. He did, however, bring two of the three prisoners and enough morphine to keep an entire crack house happy for a couple days. He'd taken Waheed Abdullah and Ahmed Khalili, the young man from Karachi. Both were currently bound, sedated, and sleeping. It appeared the third prisoner was nothing more than a bodyguard, but Urda would nonetheless hold on to the man and see what he could get out of him.

Rapp had accomplished what he'd set out to do, and he saw no need to waste a second more than he had to in Southwest Asia. Especially with everything that was going on back in the States. The mere thought of someone like Mustafa al-Yamani loose on American soil was enough to drive him into a fit of rage, which he would gladly take out on Abdullah if he found out the Saudi had lied to him again.

For now he was stuck on hold, waiting for his boss to come on the line. He used the time to pull up the scanned documents on his laptop. Rapp planned on spending most of the long flight back to the States in search of any clue that would help him track down al-Yamani. He would also have to find the time to get a little shut-eye or he would be worthless when they landed.

Kennedy finally came on the line. "Mitch, anything new?"

"No. What's going on with the ships?"

Kennedy told him everything they'd learned since the last time they'd talked, and then she went on to quietly explain the dissention in the National Security Council over how things should be handled in Charleston.

Rapp groaned in frustration. "Irene, listen to me. We don't have a lot of time. I need you to cut through all the bullshit and call Skip directly." Rapp was referring to Skip McMahon, the director of the FBI's Counterterrorism Division. "Don't go through Director Roach...don't even tell the president you're calling him. This thing is about to blow, and I don't mean the bomb...I mean the story, and once that happens these terrorists are going to be gone. Skip needs to get some agents to the ports and find out if anybody is waiting to pick up these containers. They might have people working at the docks."

"I was thinking the same thing."

"We're only going to get one chance at this, Irene, and then they're going to be scared off. We need to track the shipments all the way to their final destination and uncover these cells."

"I'll call him right now."

Rapp heard a voice in the background and Kennedy said, "Let me call you back in a minute."

REIMER'S VOICE ONCEagain filled the room from the overhead speakers, but this time there was something noticeably different about it. Homeland Security Secretary McClellan was the only one in the conference room at the Mount Weather site. Treasury Secretary Keane had gone off to speak to the chairman of the New York Stock Exchange, and Vice President Baxter was off licking his wounds somewhere. General Flood and Secretary of Defense Culbertson were busy handling the situation with the other three ships. So that left the president, Chief of Staff Jones, CIA Director Kennedy, Secretary of State Berg, and National Security Advisor Haik.

Upon hearing Reimer's voice, everyone stopped what they were doing and turned to look at him on the screen.

Reimer's no-nonsense scowl had been replaced with a bit of a grin. "Mr. President, I have some good news to report."

"By all means, let's hear it."

"We've X-rayed the container and believe the device in question to be a naked physics package."

The term was lost on President Hayes, but he assumed by the broad grin on Reimer's usually dour face, that there was something positive in this discovery. "Mr. Reimer, I have no idea what a naked physics package is, but since this is the first time I've seen you smile all morning, I'm going to assume that in this case, naked is better than fully clothed."