Mike kept her Glock trained on him as she took a step toward him. “Vanessa told you the truth, Mr. Spenser. We will treat you fairly, but you must help us, you must tell us where Darius is. Did you know his real name is Zahir Damari? He’s an assassin, not a comrade in arms. He used you, simple as that. Does he intend to kill the vice president? Or the president? Did he manage to get one of your bombs to Tehran?”
Matthew began to laugh again, and Mike edged a little closer, her weapon steady.
Matthew looked from Nicholas in the doorway, to the three agents crowded in behind him, to the woman who shot him, to the woman with the red hair. The pain in his arm and hand was immense, thudding and pounding, making him want to scream, but he didn’t. When he spoke, his voice was steady, firm. “Darius, or Damari, whatever, I don’t care, what he’s going to do is just, it’s righteous, no matter his motives. You’re lying about Iran and Hezbollah, Darius was English, and like me, he understood loss and pain. As for the bombs, he doesn’t have any.” He stopped cold, then slowly shook his head.
So Damari had stolen one.
Spenser looked from her to Nicholas and down at Carrie. “You people don’t understand. Vanessa never understood. I know there isn’t a single person in this world who thinks clearly when it comes to the terrorists. They aren’t one country, one group, they’re an entire section of the world stuck in the Middle Ages, and their sole purpose is to kill us. Our current administration believes we can work with them, show them how we respect their beliefs, their religions, regardless of their sects.
“We’re told we should be tolerant, we should excuse what they do to women, do to anyone who disagrees with them, and then, if we do, we’re assured they’ll stop hating us and wanting to kill us. What a joke that is.
“Our own president wants to placate them, appease them, give them endless concessions, drop sanctions, let them come and go as they please. And the minute we agree to do these things, they will smile at the peace table and drink a toast to peace with us, then parade in and slit our throats, chop off our heads, burn us to death.
“They hate us, they hate everything we stand for. We are a pestilence to them, nothing more.
“They must be stopped, to be shown once and for all that we will stand up for ourselves, that we will not let them murder us. I’m taking the first step. I’m killing that idiot who would hand us over to the terrorists on a silver platter.” His voice rose to a yell. “No more appeasement!”
He smiled at each of them in turn, a triumphant smile, one that scared Mike to her toes. His hand came away from his wounded arm. He was holding a cell phone.
He paused only a brief instant, then, “I’m the beginning!”
He pressed a button on the cell phone an instant before Mike pulled the trigger.
Spenser went down hard. The phone spun away out of his hand, hit the floor, and rolled out into the hall.
Everyone dove for cover, bracing for the explosion.
It didn’t happen.
Nicholas was out the door, scooped up the phone, and began to frantically search. Mike stood at his elbow, leaving Carrie to see to Spenser.
“No bomb,” Carrie called out.
“Nicholas, what’s on there?”
“I don’t know yet. It has to be some sort of trigger. There’s a countdown going. We better clear out of here in case he dropped something in a trash can on his way in.”
The agent who’d spoken to them over their comms, shouted, “I didn’t see him put anything anywhere. He walked in, didn’t stop, didn’t toss anything. He never took his hands out of his pocket except to pull out the knife, so I think we’re okay.”
A huge relief, Mike thought, since clearing an ICU would be a nightmare.
Nicholas pulled out his laptop, set it on the counter. “I’m going to plug it in, see if I can override the program.”
The phone was an Android and he had a cord for it in his bag. It didn’t look like it could do much, yet the countdown was still going on.
He plugged it in, set his code to override the countdown and break into the phone’s software.
After a few minutes, he said, “I’m in. Phone was encrypted, but I have it now.”
“Where’s the bomb?” Mike asked.
Nicholas was staring at the screen of his laptop.
“Nicholas, what is it?”
He turned the screen. She saw silver metal, a complicated control system, half-moons in blacks and oranges, blues and greens. An altimeter, a horizon, engine loads.
“It’s a plane. Spenser planted a bomb on a plane.”