Just as General Flood had promised, a pickup truck was waiting for them next to the helipad. It was pointed toward the concrete reinforced tunnel entrance that led into the mountain. Rapp checked his watch. They were down to twelve minutes. He yanked the lead blanket off the cooler and checked the timers. They read 00:12:26. A little less than twelve and a half minutes.

Reimer had informed him that the calculations had been based on taking the device into the center of the facility and putting it in an elevator that would drop it down another hundred feet into the bedrock. He promised Rapp there would be plenty of time to accomplish this. Rapp hoped he was right.

The CIA helicopter set down in the center of the pad. Rapp pushed the door open immediately, and grabbed the handle of the cooler. He dragged it to the edge, and the four men dressed in blue battle dress uniforms from the Federal Protective Services came to his aid. Like attendants from a mortuary hauling a casket, they took hold of the cooler and loaded it into the bed of the idling pickup truck. Three of the men then jumped in the back with the cooler, and the officer in charge of the group slid in behind the wheel. Rapp got in the passenger seat and they took off.

The sunny afternoon disappeared behind them as they entered the long tunnel. The man driving the truck glanced over and said, "You must be the man Secretary McClellan and A. G. Stokes have been bitching about for the last twenty minutes."

"That would sound about right."

The tunnel narrowed a bit and they passed some type of decontamination station. The driver honked the horn and kept his foot on the gas. "We have to start closing the doors now."

Rapp looked at his watch and nodded. They were cutting it close.

"McClellan says you're a real pain in the ass." The man said this with great amusement.

Rapp smiled and shook his head. "Yeah...well, actually, McClellan doesn't even know his head from his ass, so I'm not sure he's the best judge."

"You ain't going to get any argument out of me." The driver nudged his way around an abandoned golf cart and hit the gas. "So what's in the cooler?"

Rapp kept his eyes focused on the tunnel. He still couldn't see an end to it. "They didn't tell you?"

"Nope."

"Here's the deal, Lieutenant, when we get to the elevator I'll tell you what it is."

"Well, whatever it is, it can't be good. Here comes the elevator right up here."

The truck began to slow and then skidded to a quick stop on the concrete floor. Everyone piled out. The head of the security detail opened the freight elevator and Rapp helped the other three men carry the cooler. They placed it in the middle of the large elevator, closed the gate, and hit the button for the bottom floor. Rapp watched it disappear and then jumped back in the truck just as it had finished turning around.

As they peeled out he looked at his watch. They had a little over eight minutes to go.

"So what's in the cooler?" asked the driver.

Rapp laughed. He supposed the young man was going to find out sooner than later. "A bomb."

"What kind of bomb?"

"A nuclear bomb."

"You're kidding me?"

"Nope. You'd better step on it, because it's going to go off in about eight minutes, and if those blast doors don't hold we're screwed."

The young man punched the gas and they accelerated down the tunnel. Less than a minute later they skidded to a stop in front of the first blast door, which was already half closed. They abandoned the vehicle, and everyone hit the ground running. They ran one by one past the second blast door and up the road out into the bright afternoon sun. The head of the FPS detail told his men what was in the cooler. The news was received with shocked looks. All Rapp could do was laugh in the face of such insanity.

They reached the helipad with just under three minutes to spare and everyone piled in. The helicopter lifted off and raced eastward. Rapp called Reimer and told him the device was safely tucked away. Reimer advised Rapp that if they were more than a mile away by the time the device blew they wouldn't have to worry about the electromagnetic pulse of the weapon, which could potentially down the helicopter. Rapp told the pilots to keep flying and stay low.

Rapp looked at his watch, counted the seconds, thought of his wife, and willed the helicopter to fly faster. With ten seconds left before detonation he yelled to everyone in the helicopter, "Cover your eyes-don't open them until I tell you."

Rapp counted the seconds in his head. He got to ten and still hadn't heard anything, so he kept going. After twenty seconds he grabbed his phone and dialed Reimer. "What happened? Did it blow?"

"It sure did. We felt the tremor all the way over here across the state line."

"Did the mountain contain the blast?"

"I don't know. You're in a better position than I am."

Rapp asked the pilot to turn around so he could have a look. Rapp gazed out across the beautiful tree covered range in search of any sign that the bunker had failed to contain the blast. There wasn't a plume in sight-not even a puff of smoke.

Rapp smiled and said, "Tell the president we did it. It worked."

"I think you should be the one to make the call," Reimer insisted. "You're the one who did all the heavy lifting."

"It was your idea, Paul. You call him. I'm going to take a quick nap." Rapp closed his phone before Reimer could argue further. He suddenly felt the need to talk to someone.

He looked up the number for the cabin on his phone and punched send. After six rings the familiar voice of his wife answered.

"Don't tell me you're not coming." Her voice was full of disappointment.

"Come on, honey, have a little faith."

"You're going to make it?" she asked excitedly.

"Yep, I'll be there by dinner." Rapp figured after what had just happened he could wrangle the Agency's G-V executive jet for a little personal trip.

"So, everything's all right?"

Rapp looked at the communications towers that were still standing atop Mount Weather. "Yes, honey. Everything is just great."

Epilogue

MONDAYMORNING; MEMORIALDAY

The birds were singing, the sun was peeking through the sides of the window shade, and somewhere off in the distance the thrum of an outboard engine punctuated the still morning air. It was summer. Rapp stirred and reached out expecting to find the smooth, soft skin of his wife. All he found was a lumpy pillow. He clutched it and rolled over, not yet sure if he wanted to keep sleeping or get up. The guest cabin at his in-laws' north woods retreat was a great place to sleep. It sat a mere twenty feet from the water's edge, and when there was a slight breeze the water would lap up against the shoreline rhythmically, sending you into a prenatal slumber. It was nature's version of a mother's heartbeat.

On this particular morning, however, there was no breeze, which presented an entirely different problem. In addition to the thrum of the outboard engine, which was fading, there was the sound of another boat on the water-a boat he was very familiar with. Rapp's in-laws were big water skiers, and when at the Rielly cabin, there were only two times to ski: either early in the morning or late in the evening. Early in the morning was always preferred. The evenings were a bonus.

On Saturday, Rapp had left D.C. almost immediately. He'd talked briefly to Kennedy, and it didn't go very well. The full reality of what they had narrowly avoided had begun to gnaw at him almost immediately. In his typical straightforward manner, he told Kennedy what he thought of certain high-ranking people in the U.S. government. She asked him to keep his opinions to himself, and he hung up the phone without responding.