The entire room had stopped to watch this one man shooting at an inanimate object as if he’d lost his mind.

As Rapp reached for his last full magazine, he screamed, “They have suicide vests! Art,” Rapp yelled as he hit the slide release on his gun. “I need help with these bodies! We have less than thirty seconds before these vests start…” Rapp’s words were muffled by his and Nash’s gunshots as they emptied their magazines into the window.

A jagged hole had now appeared; roughly big enough to fit a garbage can through. Rapp holstered his gun and yelled to Nash, “Grab the other side.”

They bent down and grabbed the paralyzed man by the legs and the side of his vest. They lifted him and started running across the room toward the partially punched-out window. Rapp began yelling at others who were standing by, watching. “Grab a body! Hurry up!”

As they neared the window, Rapp shouted, “Don’t slow down.”

He and Nash continued at near full speed and chucked the man headfirst into the uneven opening. The glass bent and then gave way as the body sailed past and down to the concrete ramp below. Rapp and Nash did not wait to see the impact. They turned and ran back to the floor. More men and women were jumping in to help now, some of them wounded. Rapp and Nash grabbed the last of the six men and started back across the room. Up ahead, they could see others throwing the terrorists out in the same fashion they had.

Three more bodies quickly went out the window. Rapp was beginning to think it was going to work when the people in front of him and Nash lost their grip and dropped the body. Nash started to slow and Rapp yelled, “My side,” and kept moving.

They ran around the two agents, one of whom was now collapsed on the floor with blood dripping from his right arm. The hole was now much larger, so Rapp and Nash tossed their body out the window from a couple of steps away and then raced back to help the agents who had stumbled. Others were stepping in to help at the same time. Four of them ended up each grabbing a limb as they hoisted the body toward the opening, and then threw it clear into the open blue sky.

Rapp was about to stick his head through the opening to verify that the men had in fact ended up in the concrete-walled drive that led down into the parking garage, when he realized how stupid that would be. Nash grabbed him by the shoulder and began pulling him away from the window. They pushed everybody back as they went, and then the blast echoed from below, rolling up toward the shredded window.

Rapp turned to Nash, elated that they had pulled it off. He saw his friend looking down at the ground in semi-shock and followed his gaze. There on the ground with a bullet hole in her forehead was their assistant, Jessica.

CHAPTER 75

IT was almost midnight when Nash pulled into his driveway. He wedged the minivan into the garage, put it in park, and just sat there for a minute, both hands on the top of the steering wheel, his forehead resting on his knuckles. He hadn’t wanted to leave the office. It had nothing to do with not wanting to see his wife and children; he just didn’t want to leave while there was still work to be done. The death toll at NCTC had reached thirty-eight, with another seventeen injured, three of them critically. The only consolation was that it could have been so much worse.

That was the mantra that had been picked up by virtually everyone as a way to offer comfort to those who had gone through it. Men like Rapp and Nash, who had seen death up close were more equipped to deal with the situation, but for quite a few of the analysts who had witnessed close colleagues and friends blown away in the place they worked every day, it was too much. A few got back to work, because subconsciously they knew it was the only way they could take their mind off what had happened, but a surprising number either became hysterical with grief or went into shock.

As Nash helped move the mentally wounded to the cafeteria, the realization hit home that these people were civilians. They were not trained for combat like his marines. Langley sent over people to help, as did the FBI and other agencies. There had been a hell of an argument early on between Art Harris and another bigwig from the bureau who wanted to quarantine the entire Operations Center and treat it as a crime scene. Harris was adamant that they get the Ops Center up and running again as soon as possible. The other agent wouldn’t budge, however, and ordered everyone to stop the cleanup. He wanted the bodies left exactly where they were until forensic teams showed up. The two men began screaming at each other, and then Rapp decided to settle the issue. He walked over, coldcocked the agent, and ordered everyone back to work.

Nash had talked to his wife just once. He’d called her to let her know that she might start to hear some things from the press. He couldn’t talk about it, but he was fine and he would call as soon as he had a chance. Nash couldn’t even remember how long ago he’d made the call. He guessed it was probably around dinnertime. Maggie would be worried sick.

He pulled the keys out of the ignition and got out. After shutting the garage door, he walked up to the house. The light over the kitchen sink was on, as was a lamp in the study. Otherwise, the house was completely black. Nash slid his key into the back door and entered the mudroom. He turned off the alarm, closed and locked the door, and turned the alarm back on. He put his gun and holster in the gun safe and made a mental note to fill the magazines for the.40-cal in the morning.

Nash took off his suit coat and set it on the back of a chair in the kitchen. He quietly walked down the hallway and looked in the study. Maggie was sitting in the big chair next to the fireplace with a blanket and a book on her lap. She must have sensed his presence, as her eyes fluttered open, and she looked up at him with a warm smile that vanished almost as quickly as it had appeared. Her eyes traveled from her husband’s face to his shirt.

Nash had forgotten that his shirt was stained with blood.

“What happened?” Maggie asked with concern.

Nash didn’t know how much he could say, and he really didn’t want to relive what had happened. “I’m fine, honey. This isn’t mine.”

“When you called, you said you were fine,” she said as she tossed the book and blanket off her lap. “You never said you’d been in danger.”

“I wasn’t, honey. This is from helping with the wounded.”

“That building in McLean… the one that they showed on TV with all the emergency vehicles racing in and out – is that where you were?”

Nash was hit suddenly by the bizarre requirements of his job. His own wife didn’t even know exactly where he worked. She knew only that he had an office at CIA headquarters. She knew nothing about his role at the National Counterterrorism Center. She probably didn’t even know the organization existed.

“I was there,” he admitted, “but I can’t tell you much more than that.”

She wrapped her arms around him and gave him a tight squeeze. “The kids were really worried.”

“I know. I wish I could have gotten home sooner but…” Nash’s voice trailed off.

“You can’t talk about it,” she finished for him.

It was the company line. It represented the strange nonbalance of their marriage. She talked about her job whenever she wanted and as often as she wanted. He didn’t speak of his even at times like this, when it would have made his life a lot easier. “How did things go with the dean and the De Graffs after I left?”

Maggie took a half step back and looked up at her husband with a proud smile. “Let’s just say Dean Barnum Smith and I got the De Graffs to drop the entire matter.”

“Really?”

“Yes, and Rory and I sat down and had a good talk this afternoon. I asked him if he was happy at Sidwell.”