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“Cell phones,” Marcus said.

“What about them?” Roseboro asked.

“Shouldn’t you turn off the towers anywhere near the stadiums during each Mass? You know—no calls, no Wi-Fi, no way for anyone inside or out of the stadiums to communicate with each other, much less activate a device? Remember what happened in Jerusalem.”

“You’re right,” the director said, jotting something down on a notepad. “We’ll have all security services operating on encrypted radios and satphones. And everyone will be told ahead of time that phones and other electronic devices—aside from digital cameras—won’t be allowed in.”

“Good,” Marcus said. “Now what are you doing to prevent airborne attacks?”

“Foster is lending us Patriot antiaircraft batteries, one for each stadium.”

“Only one?”

“It’s all the Pentagon has stateside. All the others are deployed overseas.”

Marcus wasn’t satisfied, but there wasn’t time to bring additional Patriots back home. Instead he asked about medical facilities, how they were being staffed, and what type of backup plans were in place if the primary medical teams on-site were killed, injured, or otherwise incapacitated in an attack.

Roseboro explained that they were setting up multiple mobile field hospitals in tents, paired with fleets of ambulances, on the outer edges of the parking lots. These would be located well away from the stadiums themselves but still much closer than local hospitals, as he feared the prospect of ambulances having to thread their way through mass-panic traffic jams. Roseboro also explained that helicopter landing pads were being established next to the field hospitals in case patients with severe injuries needed to be transported to local hospitals. Plus, he was putting fleets of National Guard and Coast Guard choppers on standby to assist in any rescue efforts.

Marcus turned to the radiation that had been detected in the tunnel under the Rio Grande. What was being done to prevent the detonation of a dirty bomb in or near the sites?

Roseboro told him that the Department of Energy’s NEST unit was deploying rapid-response teams to New York, Houston, Miami, and Chicago, as well as beefing up their activity in and around Washington, D.C. By the following morning, NEST would be conducting 24-7 patrols of the grounds of each stadium and surrounding neighborhoods with state-of-the-art sensors capable of “sniffing” radioactivity that could suggest the presence of nuclear weapons.

What’s more, Roseboro explained, they were also working with Homeland Security’s Domestic Nuclear Detection Office and the Pentagon’s Defense Threat Reduction Agency to install special weapons-detection sensors throughout the stadiums, throughout all parking facilities, and on all bridges, train tracks, and intersections within a five-mile radius of the stadiums. The sensors were capable of detecting not just nuclear devices but chemical and biological weapons as well.

The new director then had a question for Marcus. “I’m heading to Miami tomorrow to review the site and plug any holes. Why don’t you and your team come with me and give me your take?”

“We can’t tomorrow. We’ve got conference calls all day starting with Saudi intelligence, then the Emiratis, the Bahrainis, and the Jordanians. It’s nonstop. What about later this week? Where will you be?”

“Chicago Friday and Saturday,” Roseboro said. “Houston on Sunday. Then straight back here to prepare for the pope’s arrival on Tuesday.”

“All right,” Marcus said. “Let me talk to my guys and get back to you.”