Brian Freemantle - The Watchmen

“Please leave it in situ,” came the urgent voice of Paul Lambert. “We don’t want it moved. Touched.”

Tibbert gave another of his heavy sighs. “Thank you for the timely reminder. We are now going to put an extension walkway over the damaged area to enable us to cross to continue the examination. And thank you in anticipation, guys, but we do know that they’d expect us to do exactly this, so it would be the place to set the trap.”

But there wasn’t one. The ascent, afterward, was even slower, testing for wires or trips, and it was a further hour before they reached the top.

Tibbert said, “I could never be bothered to wait in line with all the tourists, but this really is a hell of a view.”

Relaxing too quickly, thought Cowley, unable to lose the foreboding. “This was obviously a timed detonation and there’s still a lot of places-the elevator shaft and its workings the most obvious-where God knows what else could be waiting to go off. Don’t you think you should get out of there?”

“That Special Agent Cowley?”

“Yes.”

“We really do appreciate your concern, Mr. Cowley,” said the man. “But while I’m admiring the view, the guys with me are running all sorts of checks on every electrical box and installation we can find up here, like we did at the bottom. And we’ve got some dinky little gizmos that can actually check the wiring in the shaft itself, even with the power off, for any nasty things that might be humming along it. And when we’ve done all that we’re going to climb back down even more carefully, in case we missed something. ’Cause that’s our job and we know how to do it.”

Cowley moved to speak, but before he could Paul Lambert said, “A lot of guys who were friends of mine thought they did, too, up in New Rochelle. You watch your ass, Nelson, you hear?”

“I hear,” said Tibbert, no longer patronizing. “And I’m sorry. Everything checks out up here. We’re on our way down.”

They did descend as carefully as the man promised. It took two more hours. By the time they emerged through the small service door it was daylight, and the only helicopters overheard were maintaining the air clearance. It was only when he stood that Cowley realized he seemed to ache in every part of his body, not just his ribs, from tensing against a fresh disaster. Pamela followed him from the van, stretching the cramp from her shoulders.

“I seem to remember some promise that you weren’t going to get actively involved: just sit at a desk and think?” complained Pamela. If there was an understanding-or whatever the hell he chose to call it-then they had an understanding.

“I forgot,” he said carelessly.

“Thank God your premonition was wrong.” Son of a bitch! But it wouldn’t be politically-personally-right to protest any more. She needed to remember, though.

Cowley shook his head. “There could still be enough explosives somewhere in there to blow away half of Washington. I want those forensic guys in and out of there in double-quick time.”

A shout from one of the scanner operators stopped Cowley as he was about to join the FBI group, already in a debriefing huddle around the bomb disposal team.

“There’s been a claim! And a message!” announced the duty officer at the bureau watch room when Cowley identified himself.

“Where from?”

“Bastards have hit the Pentagon again! But differently this time, thank God.”

The message read:

AMERICA AND RUSSIA ARE ENEMIES, NOT FRIENDS.

AMERICA IS BEING DECEIVED BY THE EAST. TO REGAIN

DOMINANT WORLD LEADERSHIP CANCERS NEED TO BE

EXCISED AND DECEPTIONS EXPOSED.

It was sighed THE WATCHMEN. Cowley and Pamela stood shoulder to shoulder, gazing down at the printout.

“The Pentagon?” demanded Pamela, baffled.

“And from the Pentagon they accessed www.fbi.gov-the bureau’s home page-and put themselves at the top of the Ten Most Wanted list,” said the duty officer. “They just don’t want to terrorize us. They’re humiliating us: showing the world how good they are and how bad we are. Which they’ve done, big time. They used the government’s address-www.fedworld.gov.-to get not just to us but on every other United States federal department and agency home page. Even as we talk, this is being read by thousands everywhere in the country-maybe in every overseas embassy beyond. They’re giving us the stiffest middle finger you ever saw.”

“How can it be simple, breaking into what should be the most protected and secure system in the world?” challenged Pamela.

“Because there’s no such thing as a perfect and totally secure system,” the man said patiently. “There’s always what’s known in the trade as a back door. And always someone clever enough to open it. We’ve had hackers get into the Pentagon before. Once there was a kid of fifteen who endangered satellites, for Christ’s sake! Anyone wrongly using an access is known in the business as a cracker!”

“If the distribution is anything like you say it’ll leak to the media,” Cowley predicted wearily.

“It already has,” said the man. “It was a flash on the six A.M. radio and television news, right on top of what you’ve been doing all night out there in the Mall.”

“What about tracing them, through however it is they got into the Pentagon system?”

“Forget it,” advised the man. “The military will try, obviously. Got to. But guys this clever will have come in from another unsuspecting cuckoo’s nest. We’re in shit, Bill. And sinking.”

“I knew there was something wrong,” said Cowley, matching the cynicism. He said to Pamela: “The Watchmen?”

“Never heard of them,” said the woman.

There was a downside to every move they made. Switching the crisis venue to Pennsylvania Avenue because of its more guaranteed security was at once picked up by the vulture-hovering media as yet another example of the bureau’s reactive instead of proactive helplessness, but so overwhelming were the attacks that Cowley relegated them to the farthest edge of his consideration. At its forefront, while the conference was being organized, was the persistent nag that something had still been overlooked.

After suggesting the obvious additional people necessary that day, Cowley left the actual organization to the bureau director’s assistant and Pamela Darnley at her own computer to return alone to the still-sealed Mall.

Washington was virtually gridlocked by the closure of its very heart, so the only way to move was on foot. And that was like edging, with wincing nervousness, through a Super Bowl crowd so big it was virtually shoulder to shoulder by the time Cowley got to 14th Street. There was, fortunately, a barricade-free lane for official vehicles, which Cowley walked along after identifying himself at the police line. He was almost into the park before he was recognized by anyone in the crowd. At once his name began to be called and there were a lot of camera clicks and flashes. He ignored it all.

Nelson Tibbert and his team were still there, although there were some new armor-shielded men just going into the obelisk when Cowley reached the scanner.

Tibbert recognized him and said, “Your guys have gone, with all they want. This is our fourth sweep. It’s a bastard, trying to climb that high in this sort of gear. I’m sure there’s nothing on the stairway itself. We’re concentrating on the electrics, stuff like that.”

“You know what’s worrying me?” Cowley said, rhetorically. “Something going off when the elevator’s run, full of people: a charge big enough to bring the whole fucking monument down.”

“Ahead of you,” assured the team leader. “The elevator is the most obvious. After this final sweep I’m going to crank the doors open manually, go through the shaft and the cabins. Actually using electricity is the last thing I’m going to do, and then by remote control. Take the elevator up and down, an itty bit at a time, in the hope of localizing any explosion.”