James Patterson - Kill Alex Cross

“Different, how?” I asked.

“Well, let’s just say Zoe spends a lot of energy trying not to be the perfect First Daughter everyone expects her to be. And Ethan’s kind of the opposite. He gets an A-minus, and all he sees is that minus.”

She laughed softly, but in a melancholy way, as if she were remembering something one of them had done at some point. Maybe also wondering, like everyone else, if she was ever going to see Ethan and Zoe again.

“Those poor kids,” she said. “God, those poor, poor kids. I wish somebody could help them.”

Yes, so did I.

Secretary of State Martin Cho’s Motorcade was running behind schedule, as usual. He’d kept the House and Senate Intelligence Committee chairs waiting most of the morning, and now he was almost an hour late for the Saudi ambassador.

“Call the office, tell them we’re on our way,” Cho said to the aide sitting across from him in the short Mercedes limo. Her name was Melissa Brandt. She was a recent Harvard grad and young for the job, but promising. Also maybe a little naïve.

“Mr. Secretary, they’ve been notified by the scheduling office already. I called them—”

“Just do it again, please, Melissa,” he said. “Make sure the ambassador knows we’re thinking of him. That’s important to them. They’re sensitive people. The ambassador has been pampered all his life.”

“Yes, sir,” the aide answered.

Crisis talks had been quietly taking place between the two countries for several days now. With the president indisposed, as he was, it was up to the secretary to put in the face time on this one. So far, it had been a dour affair. The pre-9/11 days of arm-in-arm policy making with the Kingdom seemed like a quaint bit of history now.

As Melissa Brandt pulled up the State Department on her phone, she craned her neck to see outside and check their progress up Constitution Avenue.

“Hi, Don, it’s Missy with the secretary’s office,” she said, still looking out the window. “We should be there any minute. We’re just passing by the, um—”

All at once, the young woman’s pale blue eyes flew open wide.

“ Oh my God! ” she said. “They’re going to hit us! Secretary Cho, look out!”

Secretary Cho turned just in time to glimpse the grill of a white pickup before it slammed full-speed into the side of their car. A black Lincoln Navigator from the motorcade raced up to ram the intruder, a fraction of a second too late. All three vehicles came to a sudden and violent stop.

The space inside the limo’s backseat seemed to fold in half. Cho felt himself thrown sideways. A searing pain tore through his chest as one of several broken ribs punctured his right lung.

“Mr. Secretary?” The head of Cho’s security detail, bleeding from the forehead, scrambled to turn around from the front seat. “Sir? Can you hear me?”

Cho could hear, but he couldn’t move. The slightest shift sent a shock wave of agony through him, as the panic rose.

Even now, his eyes were on the truck outside the car. The driver was getting out of the cab. He was young — just a boy. In his hand, there was a cylinder of some kind. Silver and red. What was that?

“Sir?” the agent tried again. “Sir, can you hear me?”

Cho’s mouth flapped open and then closed immediately. Air was supposed to fill his lungs, but it didn’t. Words were supposed to come out, but there were none. There was only the thought, screaming through his brain.

Bomb! He’s got a bomb! That boy —

Because the secretary knew enough to have recognized the thing in the boy’s hand just before he turned to run away. It was a detonator.

The blast ripped through all three vehicles when it went off. Drivers in the nearest cars saw a white-hot flash, then a much larger orange fireball, before the whole thing coalesced into a rolling cloud of charcoal gray smoke. Glass gravel peppered the area. Chunks of metal rained down onto the pavement, some of them still in flames.

It was all followed by a much softer shower, of leaves and small branches from the trees lining the avenue, before everything went oddly, eerily still once again.

“Tariq, come and look! hurry in here. you have to see this.”

Hala was glued to the television. It was a ridiculous business, this nonstop diarrhea of news, but it had its advantages. Within minutes of the deadly car bombing on Constitution Avenue, she had a front-row seat at the spectacle.

There was no word on victims yet. Still, the sight of the burned-out limousine was all she needed to know that the assignment had come off flawlessly. Secretary of State Martin Cho, one of the primary architects of American foreign policy, had been taken out — right here on American soil, here in the capital city.

It was a stunning blow for justice and retribution. Tonight there would be dancing in the streets of Riyadh. And there could be much more to celebrate soon.

Tariq came in from the bedroom and stood behind the couch, watching.

“ We are coming to you live from Washington, DC, where a possible terrorist attack has just taken place moments ago... ”

“Where is that?” Tariq asked. “Is it close to our hotel?”

“Not far,” she said. It was tempting to walk over and have a look for herself, but that was an unnecessary risk. Police would surely be filming the crowds.

She scrubbed her hair dry with a towel as they watched. The color hadn’t changed much — a little more toward brown — but it was much shorter now. For better or worse, she was starting to look like an American.

Tariq put his hands gently on her shoulders. “You did it, Hala. You are the one responsible.”

“Not me,” she said. “The Family did this.”

She knew that it was vanity to focus on her own role. It was wrong to be seen taking too much pleasure in the accomplishment. But even so, the images on the television filled her with an indescribable sense of pride. One of the worst devils in America was dead because she alone had decided that he should go first. When Hala reached up and pulled Tariq closer, he stiffened at first. She’d forbidden any intimacy since they’d come to the States. It was a distraction, she’d told him. One they couldn’t afford.

But as they both knew, Hala was in charge in America.

“Kiss me,” she said then. “Right now. Here.”

Tariq needed no second invitation. He leaned down and kissed her neck softly — but not too softly. His hands were moving on their own now, across her face, her soft breasts. One might not have guessed it to look at him, but Hala’s husband knew exactly how to pleasure a woman.

Her heartbeat quickened as he came around the couch to face her.

“I love you, Hala,” he said. “So much. I’m so proud of you.”

“I love you, too,” she said. And she did.

He knelt down on the carpet and parted the fabric of her white hotel robe. He kissed her thigh. Hala breathed deeply, allowing the pleasure to rise up inside her.

“ ... what we can tell you is that this attack was on an official government motorcade, but as to who was inside those vehicles... ”

When Tariq reached for the television remote, she put out her hand to stop him.

“No,” she said. “Leave it. Let it play.”

She kept her fingers in his hair and her eyes on the screen, while Tariq’s hands and mouth found somewhere else to be. And for just a little while, Hala felt more at peace than she’d ever known it was possible for a woman to feel.

The minute that word of the bombing came in, a special team of Secret Service agents left their command post, officially known as W-16. From the long rectangular room, they ascended a single flight of stairs and, without knocking, entered the Oval office directly above.