The doctor kneels between Dominique’s legs and lifts her gown. ‘You’re right, you’ve dilated to ten centimeters.’

‘No shit!’

The sounds of the mob grow louder. ‘Okay, forget the Caesarean, we’ll do this the old-fashioned way. Where’s that nurse?’

‘Selling us out to the media,’ the rabbi says. ‘I don’t want her in here.’

Dr. Wishnov shoots the rabbi a harsh look. ‘Then scrub up, I’ll need your help.’

The black limousine continues north on Route 441, inching its way toward the hospital through bumper-to-bumper traffic. Designed by the United States Army, the ‘smart-limo’ contains a variety of offensive and defensive systems. Tinted bulletproof glass and lightweight Kevlar armor shields the chassis. High-voltage door handles and pepper-spray blasters keep hostile crowds at bay. Conformal arrays of super-bright LED lights in the front, sides, and rear can blind enemies looking directly at or pursuing the vehicle. A retractable antenna and bowling-ball-sized weapons platform can deploy from inside the trunk, providing night-vision images and laser-designation capabilities.

Two men are seated up front. Riding shotgun, sporting a trimmed black beard and mustache, is Mitchell Kurtz. At five-foot-eight and 160 pounds, the forty-year-old Caucasian looks anything but dangerous, but the CIA-trained assassin has killed a dozen times in the line of duty.

What he lacks in physical stature Kurtz more than makes up in advanced gadgetry. His sleek wraparound ‘smart’ sunglasses contain tiny lasers embedded in the frames that beam light into his eyes, offering crisp wide-angle images from the miniature cameras. The camera lenses are telescopic, enabling him to zoom in on objects over great distances, using either day or night vision.

Concealed beneath the former FBI agent’s shirt, strapped to his right forearm and powered by a waist-worn battery pack is a ‘pain cannon.’ Designed for riot control, the weapon fires pulses of millimeter waves at its target, heating the victim’s skin as if the subject had just touched a hot lightbulb. The pain cannon can scatter every living being within a three-hundred-yard radius or deliver a death blow to a specific target up to half a mile away.

Driving the limo is Ryan Beck, an immense African-American, whose six-foot-six frame carries 285 pounds of sculpted muscle. The former Green Beret holds black belts in several martial arts, is an expert with guns and knives, and once took a bullet for California governor Arnold Schwarzenegger. The scar is still present beneath the man’s shirt collar.

Affectionately known around the Oval Office as ‘Salt and Pepper,’ the duo have spent the last ten months guarding one client.