Steve Martini - The Rule of Nine

Quickly he climbed above the streetlights and over the trees. In the distance he could see the bright lights on the Capitol dome as the bat gained altitude. It crossed over the intersection at Second Street just as a Capitol police car cruised by beneath it.

Thorn maneuvered the plane with the joystick, varying the speed of the motor with a small wheel that he rolled back and forth with his other thumb. Banking to the left, he saw the brown copper dome of the Library of Congress illuminated by the torch on top of the cupola. He aimed the bat directly at it. He wondered if he should circle around one time just to get the lay of the land and then decided against it. The brightness from the cupola was too much. Thorn needed to get it down and out of the light as quickly as possible.

As he approached the dome, he lined it up with one of the crosshatched ornamental iron pieces. These ran from the balustrade at the base of the cupola down to the lower edge of the dome. There were eight of them. Thorn had studied the photographs for weeks. As he approached within a foot of the ironwork, he abruptly pulled the joystick and rolled the power wheel back. The nose of the little plane, along with the camera, suddenly pointed straight up. A flash of blinding light filled the camera’s lens from the Torch of Learning, followed by the blackness of the night sky.

The plane stalled. Then it fell tail first. The image on the screen shook and pixilated as the bat hit the domed roof. Thorn sucked in air and held his breath as he winced. The plane teetered on its tail. If it flipped onto its back, it would be over. The little brown bat would slide down the dome until it either fell onto the walkway below or became wedged behind one of the ornamental pediments at the edge of the roof. Either way, it would lose its signal and Thorn would no longer be able to control or retrieve it.

A second later the plane flopped forward, and the image shook and broke up a little as the camera’s tiny transceiver absorbed the shock. A few seconds later the picture stabilized. The four powerful magnets on the feet of the little bat clung to the ornamental iron like glue.

Thorn smiled. They would have to pry the little beast off if they wanted to get their hands on it. He let out a palpable sigh of relief, then laughed. He had to catch himself before he made too much noise or wandered out into the glare of the streetlights. He felt absolutely giddy. The rest would be a piece of cake. Unless the Arabs flew the jet into a ditch, the mission was a lead-pipe cinch. All they had to do was deliver the package.

Thorn had been training for the maneuver with the bat for almost a month. But until he actually put the little plane at risk, there was no way to be sure if he could pull it off.

Peering into the computer’s screen, Thorn was looking up into the lights of the cupola over the main reading room of the Library of Congress. The balustrade around the base of the cupola was no more than ten feet away. Hunting and pecking he hit a few keys on the computer.

He could throw the joystick away now. Instead he ran his finger over the laptop’s touch pad. The tiny servomotor kicked in and the small camera began to pan. The camera and the laser diode were mounted on a gimbal, like a compass on a ship. They could turn in any direction, right or left, up or down. He aimed the camera at the target, lifted his finger off the pad, and looked at the screen. It was perfect. He couldn’t believe it. A few adjustments in the morning and he would be set.

He held his breath. One final test. He clicked a few more keys on the computer and suddenly he heard the signal, a periodic beep. He had to turn down the volume on the computer, otherwise somebody on the street might hear it. It was like a human pulse. The only thing pounding harder at the moment was Thorn’s heart.

Quickly he turned off the diode to save the battery, shutting down all the power to the little bat. It was settled into its nest for the night. Now if only the wind stayed calm and the weather clear, Thorn had it made. He had already checked Weather Underground, one of the major weather prediction sites on the Internet. The forecast for tomorrow was bright and clear, with a high of seventy degrees. All they had to do was deliver the bomb, and Thorn would take care of the rest.

By the time we reach the Hotel George in downtown Washington, it’s already late. Joselyn and I are exhausted. Herman slept on the plane while Joselyn and I talked, so by the time we land, Herman has gotten a second wind. He wants to go and at least take a gander at the Washington Court Hotel, where Thorn is checked in.

“Listen, leave it alone,” says Joselyn. “Everything is under control. The FBI has already confirmed that he’s checked in, and they have him under surveillance.”

Joselyn has assured us both that her contact in the Capitol has everything in hand, and that Thorpe is on board. According to Joselyn, Zeb Thorpe has received firm instructions from the director of the FBI as well as the attorney general. They have Thorn under round-the-clock surveillance. They would pick him up, but they want to know if he is working with anyone else. So for the time being, they are watching and waiting.

Joselyn’s source has warned us to be careful, not to take any chances. He has assured her that the Hotel George, where we are staying, only half a block from the Washington Court Hotel where Thorn is booked in, is now under full protection. Both city PD and federal authorities are now watching it.

It was five A.M. and Flannery and Son’s cement contractors were scheduled for a major pour. The framing crew was finishing up the last few forms as the cement-pumper truck set up over the site at the Fulton Street subway station.

There was already a line of seven heavily laden cement trucks queued up on the street outside the gate, each one waiting to disgorge ten cubic yards of concrete. More trucks were on the way. They would be rolling in and out all day, dropping their load into the hopper of the pumper truck as the cement crew moved the hydraulic-powered chute around, pouring the concrete as they spread and leveled it.

“Hey! You got a problem.” One of the drivers milling around outside the gate yelled over the sound of the idling diesels. He pointed to the second truck in line. Its giant mixer barrel on the back was not revolving.

The driver of the truck leaned out of his open window. “I know. Batch plant didn’t give me enough water. Had to shut my mixer down. How about I get inside to use your hose to get some more water in the mix?”

The guard at the gate looked at the officer in charge. Both private guards and transit police provided security for the construction site. The transit cop nodded, and the private security man with the clipboard wrote down the license number of the truck as well as the owner’s name and contractor’s license number from the driver’s-side truck door. He then swung open the gate and waved the truck inside.

The guard raised his hand and stopped the truck just as it was about to enter. “Two water trucks parked over there.” The guard pointed off to the left, a fair distance from the site of the giant open hole over the subway. “Tell ’em to give you a hose. They should have more than enough water.”

The driver smiled, nodded, and drove through the gate.

Ahmed sat in the left-hand seat as the 727 climbed through twelve thousand feet. He could see the white surf and the azure blue shallow waters just off the beaches on the southwest coast of Puerto Rico as he and Masud held the plane on a steady course headed north.

They had a full load of fuel. The two air-to-air missiles were now slung under the wings, attached to the pylons that Ahmed and his comrade had helped to install.