Twelve Hours (10 page)

“Morgan? Morgan?” Chambers swore and hung up the phone. The Pershing Square Café was silent, hanging on his reactions.

“What is it?” asked Frieze, who was standing beside him.

“We’ve got gunfire inside!” yelled a freckled, redheaded man wearing a headset.

“I lost contact,” said Chambers.

“Do you think he’s dead?” Frieze asked. Conley seemed to be disturbed by this possibility—a look of concern and vulnerability came over his face. Whoever this Morgan guy was, this was personal for Conley.

“I don’t know,” said Chambers. “Where the hell is that chopper?”

“Delayed, sir,” said a short curly-haired woman in a black button-down. “Ignition issue. We’ve got a second one preparing for takeoff as we speak.”

“Not fast enough,” said Chambers. “It’s time to use explosives to breach. Frieze, set it up. I want this ready within the hour. Let’s get those hostages out of there.”

The clock ticked on. The passage of each second held unbearable meaning to Alex Morgan, who with clenched fists tried to do what her father had asked of her and stay put. But when she heard the gunfire, she knew it could only have been aimed at him. Her father needed help, and she was the only one who could offer it. She stood up on the catwalk.

“Mr. President,” she said to Ramadani, who had been lost in thought. “I’m sorry, but I’m going to need the gun.”

“You’re going to go help your father.” He exuded a deep serenity.

“The rescue helicopter should be here any minute,” she said. “You don’t need me, or the weapon, anymore.”

“You’re right,” he said. “I don’t. But I am not about to let a young girl go up against armed men.” He stood up with a quiet groan. “I will go. You stay.”

Alex laughed. “Save it,” she said. “Chivalry’s one thing, but you’re President of an entire country. It’s more important for you to live than me, any day.”

“That is very noble,” he said. “But I would be no kind of man if I did not go instead of you.”

“I’m not saying this just to seem noble,” she said. “It’s true, and you can’t deny it. No, I won’t let you go. And you can’t stop me unless you shoot me. And if you don’t give me that gun, I’m going without one.”

He chuckled. “There is no way—”

“I
will
wrestle you for it,” she said. “With all due respect.”

Ramadani unslung the MP7 and handed it to her. “You are a brave young woman,” he said. “And persistent. Do you know how this works?”

“My father taught me,” she lied, checking the safety and feeling its weight in her hand.

“He’s a good man, your father.”

“The best,” she said. “So you know why I need to do this. Wish me luck, Mr. Ramadani.”

Morgan dashed through Vanderbilt Hall, six of Soroush’s men in hot pursuit. He took the ramp down looking to lose them on the lower concourse, but he heard shouting from below—some of them had gone around to intercept him. Only one place to go now.

Morgan pushed open the heavy wooden door to the Oyster Bar. He made a running jump over the counter, knocking over a pile of glasses to shatter on the floor. He checked the magazine in his gun. Five rounds.

Morgan figured he was worth more alive than dead—they needed him to tell them where the President was. He just had to keep them at bay long enough for Alex and Ramadani to be rescued.

For his own sake, he intended to be captured. It was his best chance at survival. But he was damned if he wouldn’t take at least one of them with him.

He heard the squeak of the door opening. Morgan stood, gun raised, and emptied the magazine, sending four of the bullets into the man in front, with the fifth missing its target. Morgan continued to pull the trigger and feigned surprise when the bullets ran out and the gun clicked again and again. Sure that he was no longer a threat, the two remaining Iranians just trained their weapons on him, stalking in his direction. Morgan dropped his empty piece and raised his hands.

Zubin brought up the stairs to the balcony the man who was causing so much trouble—a short, muscled, dark-haired man in a soiled and torn white undershirt whose eyes bore a look of wild defiance. One less man was returning than had gone.

“What about Hossein?” asked Soroush. Zubin just shook his head.

“And who are you?” asked Soroush once the American was brought to face him.

“This is the man, I think, who took the President,” broke in Masud. “He killed Behdad in the Lost and Found, I believe—he had his gun.”

“That is him,” said Touraj. “He killed Davar as well. That is the man.”

Soroush walked a few paces forward to face him head-on.

“Is that true?” Soroush asked, looking the prisoner square in the eye.

“I didn’t really bother to learn their names.”

“And what is yours?” asked Soroush.

“Morgan,” he said.

“Mr. Morgan,” said Soroush. “You need to tell me where you took Mr. Ramadani.”

“The only people who tell me what to do are my wife and my doctor,” said Morgan. “And even then—” Soroush backhanded him across the face. Morgan ran his tongue over his split lip.

“Insolent,” said Soroush. “But we have ways of dealing with insolence. Get him to the control room.”

Under the Park Avenue viaduct, Frieze tried Morgan’s phone for the twelfth time. Again it rang with no response.

“Frieze,” came Chambers’s pissy voice. “I need you to tell me something good.”

“No answer from Morgan,” she said. “He’s not going to pick up.”

“Goddamn it,” he said, kicking a plastic Gatorade bottle down the street. “And where is the goddamn rescue helicopter?”

“On their way,” said Nolan. “ETA ten minutes.”

“It should have been here
twenty minutes ago.
Nolan! Do we have the information on Soroush?”

“The Iranian embassy is not forthcoming,” said Nolan. “State Department is pushing on that front. Meanwhile, we have CIA reports. I’m sending them your way now.”

“What about the explosives teams?” asked Chambers.

“We’re a few minutes from being able to breach,” said Frieze.

“Have them ready to go on our signal. We’re timing this to the rescue of the President. I don’t want those hostages in there one minute longer than is necessary.”

Alex Morgan clutched the MP7 in clammy hands as she stood flat against the wall of the flight of stairs that led up to the catwalk. She had gone all the way up there looking for her father, only to find that he was downstairs in the concourse. She made her way down slowly, so that she wouldn’t be heard or bump into the attackers.

The MP7 felt awkward in her hands. She had gone with her father to the shooting range before, but this was heavier than a handgun, and she had no idea what the accuracy or recoil would be like. She hoped she wouldn’t have to fire.

She was out of her depth.

She heard the movement ahead of her, right outside the control room. She listened as they passed, counting three, from the sound of the footsteps.

She waited until they had gone through the threshold to creep around the corner and stand at the door. In the control room, mere feet from the door, were two armed men and her father, with their backs to her.

“Freeze,” she said. “And drop ’em.” She punctuated this by cocking the handle. The men tensed up but didn’t turn around. “I said drop them.”

The men unslung their submachine guns. A victorious grin was forming on her lips when rough hands grabbed her from behind. The MP7 was wrenched from her hand and she was pushed aside, stumbling into a desk.

“Now, who is this?” said the man behind her in a cool British accent. “And what is she doing here?”

Alex turned to look at him, the tall, steel-gazed leader of the terrorists. The man who Ramadani had called Soroush.

She stood in defiant silence against his cold authority. He ran his hands over her pockets, and she pushed them away, which led him to punch her in the stomach. Pain rang in her head and bile surged up her throat, leaving her doubled over and retching. He reached into her back pants pocket and pulled out her student ID.

“Alexandra
Morgan,
” he said, looking at her father. “Do I detect a family resemblance?”

Through tearing eyes, Alex saw the fury on her father’s face. Soroush grabbed her by the hair and bent her over against the table, cheek against the cool smooth surface. An
I love New York
snow globe sat inches from her face, obscuring most of her view. She struggled but couldn’t get free. Soroush then gripped her left arm and pinned her hand. He released her hair, and she looked back at him to see that he had drawn a black serrated folding knife from his pocket.

“I was going to torture you,” Soroush said to her father. “But I like this better.” He grabbed her index finger, pulling it back so hard it felt like he’d broken it, and she screamed in pain. He set the knife against the base of her finger. “Where is Navid Ramadani?”

“Don’t tell him
shit,
Dad,” said Alex, through sobs of pain and fear.

“Quiet, love, the adults are talking,” said Soroush. “Morgan. Where? And if you send me up a blind alley, I will cut off her finger. Next, it might be her pretty little nose.”

She could hear her father’s heavy breathing.

“Don’t,” she said. “Don’t tell him.”

“Suit yourself,” said Soroush. Alex took a deep breath and braced for the pain.

“No!” Morgan roared. “Don’t. I’ll tell you. I’ll tell you. Just let her go.”

“No, Dad,” she said. “You can’t do this. Not because of me.”

“Quiet,” her father said. “You’re not the one who decides. He’s up in the clock. You get up there through the door in the conference room up those stairs.”

Soroush relaxed his hold on her and drew the knife away. “If you are lying, it will be more than a finger.”

“What did you do?” Alex said. “Dad, what did you do?”

Soroush spoke in Fasrsi to one of his men, who ran toward the situation room. Soroush and the other guard backed off, giving them some space. Her father bent over her and ran his hand through her hair. “I would cause World War Three if it meant saving you,” he whispered to her.

“Dad, no . . .”

“Now I’m going to get you out of here,” he said. “Get ready to run.”

He took the snow globe from the desk and threw it at the man with the submachine gun. That was her cue. To the sound of shattering glass, Alex Morgan ran out the door with her father close behind.

“The chopper’s making its approach,” said Nolan. They all moved outside, everyone who was not engaged at their workstation, all looking up with nervous anticipation. Frieze could hear whispered prayers around her. She turned and saw that Peter Conley was standing next to her. He caught her eye and took her hand in his. They were large and calloused. The gesture carried more comfort than she’d like to admit.

Squinting against the blue sky, she spotted the chopper once it cleared the surrounding buildings, an AS365 Dauphin painted red and white. It began its slow descent until it came to a stop, hovering in place a few yards above the ornate Tiffany clock. The window on the clock face was already open, but no one came out.

They waited interminable minutes for the figure of the President to appear. It was Conley who said it first.

“There’s no one there.”

The undeniable fact sank in. Chambers threw a clipboard against the pavement.

“What the hell do we do now?” asked Frieze.

“Now we hit them hard,” said Chambers. “Nolan, are the teams ready to breach the entrances?”

“Yes, sir. The explosives are in place.”

“Have them be in position and hold for my order. Let’s smoke out those sons of bitches.”

The desk squealed as Paiman pushed it against the outer door of the control room. Soroush watched from the window of the situation room. He had decided not to have him go after Morgan and his daughter, but to wait for Masud to bring down Ramadani. That was the prime target. Morgan was nothing more than a distraction, a rock in his shoe. From behind him, Soroush heard the clamor of the two men descending a steel ladder. Ramadani emerged first from the door, visible through the floor-to-ceiling window of the raised situation room. Masud came next.

“Give me the cell phone you took from Morgan,” said Soroush as Masud escorted Ramadani down the stairs. Soroush took the Nokia brick phone from Paiman and hit redial. It rang twice, and then a man picked up.

“This is Chambers. Morgan, where is Ramadani?”

“I’m afraid I have some bad news,” said Soroush. “Morgan is gone, and we have custody of Navid Ramadani now.”

“Who is this?”

“I will now offer you proof,” said Soroush. He held the phone near Ramadani’s mouth. “Speak.”

“This is President Navid Ramadani. I am a hostage to—”

Soroush pulled away the phone before he could say the name and backhanded the President. “You come in now,” he said, “and he dies. Along with as many other innocent bystanders we can take with us.”

Morgan led Alex to the safest place he could think of inside Grand Central—underground. He tramped down the steel staircase toward the basement from which he’d come, above Track 61. He felt tired. His legs were weak. Now that they were away from danger, his pace slowed and he felt the deep weariness of the day.

“Dad,” Alex whispered. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean for that to happen. I swear, I—”

“Don’t,” he said. “You risked everything to save me. I can’t blame you for that. I did the same. I did worse.”

“Dad . . .”

They reached the short service hallway where Morgan had hidden from the MTA police earlier that day, with its twisting pipes. It seemed so long ago now.

“It’s okay,” said Morgan. “I just need to sit down for a while.”

He rested against the cool concrete wall, shirt clinging to his back with sweat. He closed his eyes, shutting out the dim light. The only sound came from Alex, sitting opposite him and sobbing.