Andrew Kaplan - Carrie's run

They watched on the monitor as the truck with the pizza restaurant name on its side drove up to the refrigeration facility and parked in the curbside loading space. The two men, Yassin and the unknown man who looked Middle Eastern, both dressed in white coveralls, got out of the truck. They took a steel flatbed handcart out of the truck into the storage building.

“Move into position,” Sanders said into his phone. “Take ’em down.”

They saw a squad of ten men, now dressed in full SWAT gear with HK33 assault rifles, the backs of their jackets marked “FBI HRT” in yellow Day-Glo letters, come out of the building across the way and split into two teams, deployed against the refrigeration building on either side of the door.

Watching, Carrie knew there were also at least two snipers who would now position themselves for firing on the roof of the building from which the team had emerged. She couldn’t see the armored trucks and the rest of the team deploying to block off both sides of the street, but from Sanders’s conversation on his cell phone, she assumed they were moving into position.

Koslowski and Gillespie looked at each other and nodded.

Koslowski called Raeden.

“Go,” he said. “It’s all yours, Tom.”

“We’re on,” Gillespie said into his cell phone to the NYPD commander outside the Waldorf.

The two Hercules teams inside the Waldorf were now in motion, Carrie knew. They would be making their way down the stairs to the floor where Dima and the Jordanians were. Anyone they encountered on the stairs or in the hallway from this point on would be taken into custody. Then, on the monitor, she saw first one, then a number of the Hercules team members emerge into the corridor and move toward the room. One of the undercover maids was with them. In her hand was a Beretta nine-millimeter pistol.

The team positioned themselves on both sides of the room door. They wore Kevlar vests and were armed with M4A1 assault rifles and snub-nosed shotguns.

“Captain, tell them not to kill her,” Carrie said to Koslowski. He didn’t answer, his eyes riveted on the screen. They watched the maid knock on the door.

At that moment on the other TV, the two Arab men emerged from the refrigeration facility pushing the handcart stacked six rows high with large cartons.

It was the largest amount of HMTD Carrie had ever seen. There had to be a good thousand pounds there. The largest amount of it she’d ever even heard of. They really were going to take something serious down.

The HRT teams swarmed toward them, rifles aimed, shouting for them to put the boxes down and raise their hands in the air. For an instant, the two men hesitated.

The Jordanian, Yassin, started to reach into his pocket. Cell phone! He’s going to detonate, Carrie thought. Shoot! Now!

Instantly a bullet ripped into his head from across the street. The cart started to roll. It’s going to tip over! she thought, instinctively tensing for the explosion. They’re all going to die! As Yassin’s body hit the pavement, the cart started to tip. It was like watching a disaster in slow motion. Her mind screamed, It’s going to blow! At the same time, two HRT men opened fire on the second man, who crumpled to the pavement.

Don’t hit the cartons! she thought, cringing in anticipation of the explosion. If just one of those bullets hit. . They watched in horror as the handcart tipped over, the cartons spilling into the street, one of them bursting open to show something white inside. The HMTD.

Nothing happened.

They lucked out, Carrie thought, breathing again. The HMTD was still cold enough to keep it stable, otherwise they would have all been killed. The HRT team swarmed around the cartons and the two downed men.

“Both dead,” Sanders announced to the room.

They’d been incredibly lucky. They’d have to get the HMTD back into refrigeration right away. It was just lying out there in the street. She barely had time to complete the thought.

“Housecleaning service,” the undercover maid in the hotel corridor on the other monitor said, and then stepped away and out of range of the door.

“Come back later,” said Dima’s voice from behind the door.

Raeden, the Hercules team leader, nodded. A second man put a card key-Carrie assumed it was a master key-into the door slot, grabbed the handle when it turned green and pushed the door open.

“I said come back later,” a woman said. It was Dima. Carrie could see her coming toward the door. Only one of the men, Bassam al-Shakran, was visible as the team barged into the room. He was holding what looked like an AR-15. Dima screamed as the Hercules team charged into the room.

The helmet camera of the lead Hercules team member showed a jumpy image as Bassam dived to the side and fired his rifle. The cousin fired a second AR-15 at Raeden as a storm of shooting erupted inside the room, loud popping shots sounding dense as hail. The helmet camera dropped to floor level, showing the room sideways. Raeden. Is he dead? she wondered. Are they all down? What’s going on? All she could see from the helmet camera were legs moving; hard to tell whose.

It was over in seconds.

“I can’t see. What about Dima? Is she alive?” Carrie cried out.

Gillespie was shouting into his phone to secure the site. Sanders was barking into the phone, calling the Secret Service. Koslowski was looking at the monitor and listening to someone on his cell phone. Probably one of his team inside the room.

“Is she alive, dammit?” Carrie shouted.

Koslowski turned to her, his face a mask.

Lenox Hill, New York City

They took Dima to Lenox Hill, the nearest hospital trauma emergency room. Carrie, Saul and Koslowski raced straight up Park Avenue to Seventy-Seventh Street in a squad car. By the time they got there, several other members of the Hercules team were with Raeden, who’d been knocked down by a round from an AR-15.

Carrie raced past them and found a group of doctors and police around a curtained space. Two NYPD patrolmen stopped her.

“Is Jihan in there?” she asked.

“Let her through,” Koslowski said, and they pushed past the police. A youngish doctor and a nurse were making notes on a computer screen. Dima was lying motionless on a gurney, her eyes open.

“Is she dead?” Carrie asked.

“She was already dead when she arrived,” the doctor said over his shoulder. “Are you a relative?”

“No, nothing like that,” she said, looking at Dima, her blouse open, her chest unbelievably bloody between her breasts, and thinking, Why did you do it? You were the party girl, not a true believer. What were you playing at this time? Who put you up to this? She hated seeing her exposed like that. Looking around, she found a folded sheet at the foot of the gurney and pulled it up over Dima’s body and face.

She backed out and went over to Raeden, surrounded by his team. His shirt was off and there was a red bruise the size of a man’s hand on his chest right over his heart.

“You okay?” she asked him.

He nodded. “Thank God for Kevlar. Saved my ass.”

“It wasn’t your ass that round hit,” one of his teammates said, and the others sniggered.

“You Mathison?” Raeden asked her.

“Yes.”

“We had to take her down. I’m sorry,” he said.

“So am I,” she said. “I had questions only she could answer.”

When she came out of the curtained-off area they’d put Raeden in, she saw David Estes standing with Saul, Koslowski and Sanders. They were watching a television news conference on a TV mounted on the wall near the nurses’ station. Deputy Commissioner Cassani was standing there, along with the mayor and the police commissioner. The mayor was doing the talking.