“I’ve got everything we need. It’s all on tape. He’s cracked. This has broken him.”

“Okay,” the voice said. “You know what to do with it.”

Keller nodded. “Right. But none of this comes back to me. Agreed?”

“Agreed. We’ll have someone play the salient parts for him, but he’ll think he was bugged. You’ll have nothing to do with it.”

“Good,” Keller said. “I suggest you have someone play it for him after he’s gotten some sleep, when he’s a little more lucid. When I left him, he was barely making sense anymore.”

“Very nice,” the voice said.

Keller smiled. “Yes. It is.”

After they hung up, Keller dropped the telephone on the ground. He stomped on it, three, four, five times, until it broke apart. He picked up the shattered plastic casing and tossed it over the protective fence and into the river. Then he did the same with the metallic interior, where the sensitive data might be.

He watched the silver metal hit the dark water and then disappear beneath it. Then he kicked apart the last bits and pieces of black plastic still on the sidewalk.

The phone was gone. The conversation had never happened.

And pretty soon, maybe as soon as later this morning, David Barrett would relinquish his duties as President.

CHAPTER TWENTY THREE

9:25 a.m. Arabian Standard Time (1:25 a.m. Eastern Daylight Time)

Al Alam

Near Tikrit, Iraq

“There’s the river,” one of the young British soldiers said.

To Luke’s ears, it sounded like “Thay-uhs the rivah.”

Four Black Hawk helicopters moved across the pale desert landscape toward an undulating line of green. The green marked a fertile area on either side of the Tigris River. In some places it was a narrow band. In others, it seemed a mile wide. It snaked on into the far distance.

Luke, Ed, and four guys from the British Special Air Service, or SAS, rode in the lead chopper. In the second chopper, there were another six of the Brits. A dozen men in all were on this mission. The Brits all wore black balaclavas across their faces and goggles on their eyes. It was hard to see who they were. The two last choppers were empty—they were meant to carry the arrestees. It seemed like it might be a little bit of overkill to take one man and his family into custody.

In the near distance, oily black smoke rose into the air. A narrow strip of road seemed to lead directly to where the smoke was coming from.

“Something’s going on,” Ed Newsam said.

He was right. As the chopper moved closer, Luke could see that red and orange flames were still burning, apparently out of control. The flames reached into the sky in several places.

“Attention,” the chopper pilot said. “Estimated time of arrival to the target is one minute. Prepare for disembark.”