BooksBarbecue
Back Politika Save as PDF
Chapters (49)
  1. Title Page
  2. Acknowledgements
  3. ONE - THE KREMLIN, MOSCOW SEPTEMBER 24, 1999
  4. TWO - SAN JOSE, CALIFORNIA OCTOBER 6, 1999
  5. THREE - CAUCASUS REGION NEAR THE CASPIAN SEA, RUSSIA, OCTOBER 10, 1999
  6. FOUR - THE WHITE HOUSE WASHINGTON, D.C. OCTOBER 26, 1999
  7. FIVE - KALININGRAD, RUSSIA OCTOBER 26, 1999
  8. SIX - KHABAROVSK TERRITORY NEAR THE RUSSIA-CHINA BORDER OCTOBER 27, 1999
  9. SEVEN - KALININGRAD, RUSSIA NOVEMBER 2, 1999
  10. EIGHT - WASHINGTON, D.C. NOVEMBER 5, 1999
  11. NINE - KALININGRAD REGION NOVEMBER 16, 1999
  12. TEN - BROOKLYN, NEW YORK NOVEMBER 28, 1999
  13. ELEVEN - NEW YORK CITY DECEMBER 23, 1999
  14. TWELVE - NEW YORK CITY DECEMBER 28, 1999
  15. THIRTEEN - VARIOUS LOCALES DECEMBER 31, 1999
  16. FOURTEEN - SAN JOSE, CALIFORNIA DECEMBER 31, 1999
  17. FIFTEEN - NEW YORK CITY DECEMBER 31, 1999
  18. SIXTEEN - SAN JOSE, CALIFORNIA DECEMBER 31, 1999
  19. SEVENTEEN - NEW YORK CITY JANUARY 1, 2000
  20. EIGHTEEN - BROOKLYN, NEW YORK JANUARY 1, 2000
  21. NINETEEN - NEW YORK CITY AND SAN JOSE, CALIFORNIA JANUARY 1, 2000
  22. TWENTY - WASHINGTON, D.C. JANUARY 2, 2000 FROM THE
  23. TWENTY-ONE - NEW YORK CITY JANUARY 3, 2000 CALVARY CEMETERY, QUEENS
  24. TWENTY-TWO - MOSCOW JANUARY 6, 2000
  25. TWENTY-THREE - WASHINGTON, D.C. JANUARY 6, 2000
  26. TWENTY-FOUR - SAN JOSE, CALIFORNIA JANUARY 7, 2000
  27. TWENTY-FIVE - SAN JOSE, CALIFORNIA AND NEW YORK CITY JANUARY 8, 2000
  28. TWENTY-SIX - NEW YORK CITY JANUARY 16, 2000
  29. TWENTY-SEVEN - BROOKLYN, NEW YORK JANUARY 16, 2000
  30. TWENTY-EIGHT - BROOKLYN, NEW YORK JANUARY 16, 2000
  31. TWENTY-NINE - BROOKLYN, NEW YORK JANUARY 16, 2000
  32. THIRTY - NEW YORK CITY JANUARY 20, 2000
  33. THIRTY-ONE - BROOKLYN, NEW YORK JANUARY 26, 2000
  34. THIRTY-TWO - WASHINGTON, D.C. JANUARY 26, 2000
  35. THIRTY-THREE - WASHINGTON, D.C. JANUARY 28, 2000
  36. THIRTY-FOUR - NEW YORK CITY JANUARY 29, 2000
  37. THIRTY-FIVE - KALININGRAD, RUSSIA JANUARY 30, 2000
  38. THIRTY-SIX - THE KREMLIN, MOSCOW FEBRUARY 1, 2000
  39. THIRTY-SEVEN - ANKARA, TURKEY FEBRUARY 7, 2000
  40. THIRTY-EIGHT - CAPPADOCIA, SOUTHEASTERN TURKEY FEBRUARY 9, 2000
  41. THIRTY-NINE - KALININGRAD REGION FEBRUARY 9, 2000
  42. FORTY - KALININGRAD REGION FEBRUARY 10, 2000
  43. FORTY-ONE - NEW YORK CITY FEBRUARY 9, 2000
  44. FORTY-TWO - KALININGRAD REGION FEBRUARY 10
  45. FORTY-THREE - SAN JOSE, CALIFORNIA FEBRUARY 10, 2000
  46. FORTY-FOUR - MOSCOW FEBRUARY 11, 2000
  47. FORTY-FIVE - MOSCOW FEBRUARY 12, 2000
  48. FORTY-SIX - DAGOMYS BLACK SEA COAST, RUSSIA FEBRUARY 12, 2000
  49. FORTY-SEVEN - NEW YORK CITY KENNEDY INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT FEBRUARY 17, 2000

The cop in the ESU radio surveillance van had enough time to notice a blip in his monitoring equipment, some kind of low-frequency transmission in the thirty-to-fifty-megahertz range—less than you might pick up from a pager or cellular phone, but much more than you’d get out of an electronic car-door opener of the sort drivers carried as key-chain fobs.

He turned to his partner on the stool beside him, figuring it was sufficiently unusual to be worth mentioning.

“Gene,” he said, “what do you ma—?”

The roar of the blast sucked the words out of his mouth as the van, its crew, and everything else in it were vaporized by a sweeping wave of fire.

11:55 P.M.

On the corner of Sixth Avenue and Forty-second Street, Gilea had been waiting for midnight, her detonator tucked in her palm, when the explosion filled the sky with unimaginable brilliance. The sound of it came next, rolling over her with physical force, hammering her eardrums, sending tremors through her bones, shaking the ground under her feet. Car and burglar alarms began howling everywhere around her. Windows shattered in office buildings up and down the avenue.

Akhad, she thought, her heart racing, the metallic taste of adrenaline flooding her mouth.

Breathless with exhilaration, Gilea reached out to steady herself against a wall, facing west toward Times Square, her eyes reflecting jags of light from the red-orange mountain of flame rising above it.

“Magnificent,” she muttered. “My God, it is magnificent.”

SIXTEEN - SAN JOSE, CALIFORNIA DECEMBER 31, 1999

SIXTEEN

SAN JOSE, CALIFORNIA DECEMBER 31, 1999

IT WAS FIVE MINUTES PAST MIDNIGHT IN NEW YORK.

Where the television cameras had been quick-cutting between scenes of raucous celebration in Times Square, they now showed a mass of orange flame, shot with glare, bulging upward within a spray of smaller blazes that, viewed from above, resembled glowing matches scattered across a dark tabletop.

Matches, Roger Gordian thought. If that were only the case.

His face ashen, horror and disbelief slapping through his brain, he gripped the armrest of his sofa with a hand that would not stop trembling. The glass of Courvoisier that had slipped from his fingers lay overturned on the floor, a wet purple splotch soaking into the carpet around it. He was oblivious to the spreading stain, oblivious to the fact that he had dropped the glass, oblivious to everything but the unfolding tragedy on the screen.

Five past midnight.