10:08 A.M.
FLOOR 18
UNITED NATIONS SECRETARIAT BUILDING
FIRST AVENUE AND FORTY-SECOND STREET
NEW YORK CITY
Mansour followed a trail of fresh blood from near where Sayyari had been shot. Whoever had shot this man was still alive.
At the same time, he scanned the bomb-scarred floor for J. P. Dellenbaugh. Many people were missing limbs, several were unrecognizable due to blunt trauma in and around their heads. It was like a plane crash.
He and the other two men searched, with Mansour leading a path out across the destroyed office space, stepping over furniture and bodies. Following the trickle of crimson.
Mansour found Dellenbaugh against the wall, facing out near the broken windows. He was clutching a gun, but he was weak and nearly unconscious. He saw Mansour and tried to move the weapon but could not.
Mansour’s men pulled the American president down the hall and into an empty office suite, part of the floor that hadn’t been destroyed.
They sat Dellenbaugh in an office chair and flex-cuffed his arms behind his back, so that he couldn’t fall over. One of the men stepped back and started to frame the scene in his phone, preparing to video the fallen president. He hit the flashlight on the cell and suddenly the bleeding president was illuminated in bright light.
The second man removed an object from his shoulder pack. It was a folded-up black flag with the Hezbollah white crest in the middle. He hung it over a painting on the wall behind the president.
Mansour approached the president. In broken English, he said, “If you say you are the Great Satan, I will spare your life.”
Dellenbaugh’s eyes were glassy and weaving around as he attempted to stay alive. He looked at Mansour.
“Fuck you,” he coughed, spitting a mouthful of blood at Mansour.
Mansour raised his submachine gun and brought it to within an inch of Dellenbaugh’s bloodshot eye. Then he remembered: the moment was coming. The message would be captured on video and sent to TASS, CGTN, CNN, DNC, Al Jazeera, and The New York Times, and then every other news outlet in the world, those first outlets being the first to see the video because they would quickly seek to exploit the killing of Dellenbaugh for their own ends.
Mansour would ultimately be the one who killed Dellenbaugh.
He couldn’t believe how everything had gone according to plan.
Mansour lowered the PS90 as one of the others prepared to film the assassination of the president. Mansour pulled on a black balaclava and removed a knife from a sheath at his waist. He stepped behind Dellenbaugh. He put the sharp edge of the KA-BAR against Dellenbaugh’s neck.
“Go,” said the man filming on his phone.
As he was about to slash the president’s neck, Mansour heard gunfire from just down the hallway. He sheathed the blade and charged through the empty office and into the hallway with the submachine gun out in front of him and his finger on the trigger.
As he came around a corner, he saw a figure. He was too far away for an easy shot but he set the gun to full auto. A man was walking across the silent floor of dead bodies and broken glass, clutching a submachine gun. Mansour recognized him.
After everything, after the failure in Georgetown, he couldn’t believe how easy it would be to kill this man. It felt almost anticlimactic—though now that he thought about it, that was how he felt about the entire day. It had been hard, and yet so easy. Dewey Andreas.
Mansour stepped forward into Andreas’s blind spot as Andreas searched for Dellenbaugh. Then the American turned.
By the time Dewey noticed him, Mansour was less than ten feet away and Dewey’s MP7 was aimed in the wrong direction and both men knew it.
Andreas’s eyes met Mansour’s as Mansour marked him in the crosshairs of the SMG. Dewey remained still.
“Where is he?” said Dewey.
Mansour was quiet as he trained the gun on Dewey. As he held Dewey tight in the aim of the PS90, Mansour nodded toward the hallway.
“If you put your gun down onto the floor, I will take you to him,” said Mansour.
“Why not just kill me?” said Dewey, still clutching the MP7.
“Because I want you to see him die,” said Mansour.