9:15 A.M.
MISSION THEATER TARGA
NATIONAL CLANDESTINE SERVICE
CIA HEADQUARTERS
LANGLEY, VIRGINIA
Mack Perry, the thirty-one-year-old director of Special Operations Group, was pulling into the outer entrance to CIA Headquarters when his cell phone suddenly shrieked a high-pitched series of repetitive beeps.
He tapped his ear.
“Perry,” he said. “I’m just pulling in. I need a breaker at the gate.”
“You got it,” said a female voice. “Opening in five, four—”
“Thank you,” said Perry as he swerved around a corner of the parking lot. He pulled an IV from his forearm, a mobile unit of chemo he’d made the hospital rig up for him.
No one knew yet about Perry’s cancer. Today, at least, he wanted to keep it that way.
“Patching you in,” said the woman.
Perry heard a few clicks as he veered out of the line of cars.
The gravelly voice of Bill Polk, the head of the National Clandestine Service boomed in his ear.
“Mack, where the hell are you?” said Polk, his boss.
Perry drove a slightly beat-up white Chevy Suburban, and slammed the gas as he moved out of the line of cars and bolted toward a special entrance at the north corner of the gate.
“I’m pulling in. Where are you?”
“Targa,” said Polk.
“Be right there.”
He spun the wheel and was soon barreling toward a high steel fence, which was slowly opening electronically. He shot through the opening and came into a half-empty basement-level embankment, barely lit.
In Perry’s ear:
“What’s your MANSET at the UN?” said Polk.
“What happened?” said Perry.
“All four tunnels leading into or out of Manhattan were blown up,” said Polk. “Destroyed. We have an extraction team airborne to get Dellenbaugh but what’s your MANSET?”
“I have a team on the river,” said Perry. “Six frogmen.”
Perry parked, opened the door, and threw up. When he finished, he sprinted to the closest door, which was being held open by a man in a suit and no tie.
“Where’s the team?” said Polk in Perry’s ear.
“Fifty-second Street, under the FDR,” said Perry.
“Who’s running the go boat?” said Polk.
“Ferrara,” said Perry.
Perry charged down two flights of stairs, then went through a steel door into a brightly lit, eerily modern, windowless hallway carpeted in white, silent enough to hear a pin drop. He saw Kaufman—the CIA general counsel—ahead; the fact that he was at the meeting signified everything.
The shit was hitting the fan.
He heard Polk’s voice in his ear just as he came to the door to Targa.
“Hold,” whispered Polk.
A moment later, Perry’s eyes met Polk’s through the open door. Polk nodded. He wanted to tell Perry something before he entered.
“Do not come in yet,” said Polk, still whispering.
“Roger.”
Again, Polk, barely above a whisper:
“The president’s chief of staff, Adrian King, is live-wired watching this,” said Polk. “So is the SECDEF. Get Ferrara running right now, before you walk in. We’ve lost contact with the president, and his last known position was the eighteenth floor of the UN.”
Perry watched Polk talk into his hand, hiding his words, from fifty feet away.
“Full recon, right?” said Perry.
“Affirmative,” said Polk. “Safeties off. Watch your point of attack, and watch your fields of fire.”
“Okay, give me a sec.”
Perry moved down the hall, past the operations theater.
“CENCOM, cut me in to Ferrara.”
“Yes, sir.”
He heard a beep.
“Vinny?”
“Yeah, Mack.”
“Are you aware of the situation?”
“Affirmative.”
“There’s an air crew coming in to extract Dellenbaugh but this thing is a shit show,” said Perry. “When you see choppers, your team is go, move out. Don’t go until you see the choppers. Got it? Get close by and use your ‘not nice’ side. We got to assume the worst.”
“Roger that,” said Ferrara. “But just so we’re clear, what do you mean by ‘worst’?”
“This is Extreme Priority,” said Perry. “Assume the helicopter exfiltration doesn’t work. You need to get in there and get him out some other way. Take the building and get to eighteen. Start looking for the president there. Enemy is already at the UN.”
“Got it,” said Ferrara. “I need commo on the air crew.”
“CENCOM, live-wire all comms through SIPRNet,” said Perry. “We’re in a full-combat situation in Manhattan. Sanitize any actions taken by NCS personnel inside or near Manhattan. This is an open-territory situation and their actions will be deemed necessary on behalf of the U S of A, per Perry as of this event.”
“Yes, sir,” came a female voice from CENCOM.