The jacket was thin and he supposed he should be cold, but in the excitement of the moment he felt no discomfort. He looked at his digital wristwatch, which was synchronized to the timers in the bomb detonators.

The time was 12:14:19. The ceremony had been under way since noon. With bombs, he’d learned in his exhaustive research, you always gave people the chance to settle in, for stragglers to arrive, for guards to grow lax.

12:14:29.

One nice aspect of these particular bombs, he reflected, something fortuitous, was that Joanne the florist had filled the vases with hundreds of tiny glass marbles. Anybody not killed or badly injured by the explosives themselves would be riddled with these pellets of glass.

12:14:44.

Hale found himself leaning forward, his weight on the balls of his feet. There was always the possibility that something would go wrong—that security would make a last-minute sweep for explosives or that somebody had seen him on the video camera entering the building then leaving suspiciously after a short period of time.

12:14:52.

Still, the risk of failure made the victory against boredom that much sweeter. His eyes were riveted on the alleyway behind the HUD building.

12:14:55.

12:14:56.

12:14:57.

12:14:58.

12:14:59.

12:15:00—

Silently a huge fist of flame and debris shot out of the conference room window. A half second later came the stunning sound of the explosion itself.

Voices around him. “Oh, my God. What—?”

Screams.

“Look, there! What’s that?”

“God, no!”

“Call nine-one-one! Somebody . . .”

Pedestrians were clustering on the sidewalk, staring.

“A bomb? An airplane?”

Concern on his face, Hale shook his head, lingering for a moment to savor the success. The explosion seemed bigger than he’d anticipated; the fatalities would be greater than Charlotte and Bud had hoped. It was hard to see how anybody could have survived.

He turned slowly and continued up the street, where he descended once more into the subway station and took the next train uptown. He emerged at the station and headed toward the Allertons’ hotel, where he’d pick up the rest of his payment.

Charles Hale was satisfied. He’d staved off boredom and had earned some good money.

Most important, though, was the breathtaking elegance of what he’d done. He’d created a plan that had worked perfectly—like clockwork, he thought, enjoying the self-conscious simile.

Chapter 39

“Oh, thank you,” Charlotte whispered, speaking both to Jesus and to the man who’d made their mission a success.

She was sitting forward, staring at the TV. The special news report about the evacuation of the Metropolitan Museum and the halting of public transportation in the area had been replaced by a different story—the bombing at the HUD building. Charlotte squeezed her husband’s hand. Bud leaned over and kissed her. He smiled like a young boy.

The news anchorwoman was grim—despite her restrained pleasure at being on duty when such a big story broke—as she gave what details there were: A bomb had gone off within the Housing and Urban Development building in lower Manhattan, where a number of senior government and military officials had been attending a ceremony. An undersecretary of state and the head of the Joint Chiefs were present. The cameras showed smoke pouring from the windows of a conference room. The important detail—the casualty count—had not come in yet, though at least fifty people were in the room where the bomb detonated.