Thursday, September 15, 10:25 a.m. EDT

Washington, DC

When the footsteps first began echoing off the arched ceiling, Khadi ducked behind one of the many pillars that ran the length of the nave. She reached into her purse, removed its contents, then scanned the back of the church and spotted what she was looking for.

Trying to keep the pillar between herself and the front of the church, she raced to the back wall. As she ran, she speed-dialed Scott.

“Nobody move!” she heard a voice say over the cathedral’s sound system.

Scott answered on the first ring.

“What’s—?”

“It’s starting. Multiple gunmen. Mute your phone; I’m going to try to keep the line open.”

Pulling some brochures forward, she slid the gun and then the phone into an information rack. She prayed that Gooey would be able to enhance the audio enough to make it useful.

The voice on the microphone said something else, but the screams had already started and it was impossible to make out his words. Taking a deep breath, she stepped back into the open. Immediately, one of the men in black spotted her. His assault weapon pointed straight at her. Khadi recognized it as an AK-103—Probably got it from the Venezuelans; they’re manufacturing those things down there now, and they’d be pleased as punch to help deal us a blow.

“Get over here and sit down!”

Khadi let out a scream, and pointed to herself.

“Yes you! Get over here now!”

Prissily, she scampered—still barefoot—to where the man indicated. Look helpless! Gotta buy time!

“Please don’t shoot me! Please don’t shoot me! I’ll do whatever you say! Just please don’t hurt me!”

Just then, a particularly desperate scream sounded from the front of the sanctuary. Khadi looked in time to see J.D. Little drop to the ground, the back of his head gone.

She swallowed back the raging NO!! that formed in her mouth and tried to transfer the emotion to a look of fear and desperation. Dropping into the chair the gunman indicated, she put her head in her hands and began to sob.

A tender arm went around Khadi’s shoulders, and the tense air was discordantly filled with the smell of lilac.

“There, there, dear. We’ll get through this,” a woman’s voice said through vocal chords that sounded like they’d been scuffed by many years of usage. “I can’t say I’ve been through worse, but the Good Lord’s always found a way to help me survive, no matter the situation.”

Khadi could feel the woman start when she whispered to her in a tone thickened by frustration and rage, “Is he gone?”

“What was that?”

“Is . . . he . . . gone?”

“He’s moved forward, if that’s what you’re asking. But he’s still nearby.”

Khadi looked up and saw that the gunman was no longer looking in her direction. She had just begun counting the enemy force, when that same terrorist got into an argument with a man about seven rows up from her. Without warning, the gunman raised his silenced rifle and shot the man. Complete chaos ensued as the man’s wife draped herself across her fallen husband, even as others instinctively pulled themselves away from the gore.

Three shots rang out from the front of the church, startling everybody to attention. In a moment of bizarre dissonance, Khadi realized that even with everything that had taken place over the last five minutes, those were the first unmuffled gunshots she had heard.

“Silence!” came the command from the man on the platform.

The screaming ceased, but the crying continued. It was a sound that wouldn’t leave the sanctuary for hours to come, Khadi knew. Eventually it would become no more than white noise, the basal hum from which all other sounds grew.

“Give me a pen,” Khadi whispered to the older woman next to her as she began counting again.

“Who are you?” The woman was now looking at Khadi with nearly as much fear as she seemed to have for the terrorists.

“I’m sorry to be curt. My name is Khadi Faroughi. I work with the counterterrorism division of Homeland Security.”

The man up front was saying something about collecting guns.

The woman’s face lit up. “Khadi Faroughi? I thought I recognized you. I’ve seen you in Time magazine. You’re friends with that football player, Riley Cunningham, aren’t you? My name is Gladys Cook, and I’m—”

Another shot rang out, followed closely by one more.

“Oh my, that’s terrible—just terrible,” Gladys said.

“Again, I’m sorry to be so short, but I need a pen.” Twenty-four was the number she counted, although she couldn’t be sure whether there was anyone outside of her view.

Gladys began rummaging through her purse. “Don’t you worry about me, honey. You just do your job. And I’ll just sit here and pray—that’ll be my job.”

The man up front was threatening to kill a lot more people if his orders were not obeyed. Khadi began scanning the pillars until she found what she was looking for, no more than twenty feet from where she sat.

“I’ve got ballpoint or permanent,” Gladys whispered, holding a pen in each hand down below the sight lines of the gunmen.

“Thanks,” Khadi said, taking the ballpoint. “I’ll take some hand sanitizer, too, if you have it.”

In numbers large and thick enough to fill her entire palm, Khadi wrote 2 on her right hand and 4 on her left.

“Gladys, stop looking in your purse for a moment,” she said, taking her neighbor by her cold, bony hand. “I want you to tell me when they’re not looking. Can you do that?”

“Listen, honey, you’re talking to a member of the World War II WAC. Whatever you tell me to do, you can consider it done.”

“You’re wonderful,” Khadi said, giving the woman’s hand a quick squeeze, then releasing it.

As soon as she let go, Khadi began loudly sobbing again. She dropped her head and covered her ears with her hands. Gladys’s arm went around her shoulders once more.

Seconds later, Khadi heard the voice of the man who had ordered her to her place.

“Shut up! Tell her to shut up,” he said.

“Oh, go away,” Gladys said defiantly.

Did she seriously just tell the rifle-wielding terrorist to go away? Khadi marveled.

Again, Gladys spoke, “And you can point that thing somewhere else. Are you going to shoot a defenseless, ninety-year-old woman? What do you think your Allah-god would say about that? Now scoot and let the poor dear get it out of her system!”

A few moments passed, then Gladys whispered, “Okay, you’re clear. I think you have about two minutes before the men collecting the guns get here.”

Still sobbing, Khadi opened her hands away from her ears and toward the surveillance camera she had spotted up on the pillar. She knew that the first thing Scott would do when he tapped into the feed would be to look for her. She wanted to reward that loyalty with some information. Hopefully, the sobbing fit would attract his attention, so he could see her message.

“He’s turning,” Gladys said.

Khadi clamped her hands back on her ears.

“Clear,” Gladys said again.

Khadi again opened her hands. She counted to fifteen, then lifted her head.

“I don’t have any hand sanitizer, but if you’re looking to clean the ink off your hands, I do have a bottle of water.”

“Perfect,” Khadi said, letting Gladys pour a little onto her palms. She began rubbing them together. “Did you really tell that guy to scoot?”

Gladys winked at her. “Don’t get on the wrong side of a tough old lady who’s got nothing to lose.”

Khadi checked her palms to confirm that the numbers were gone, then said, “You just be careful. I want to see both of us get out of here in one piece.”

“You just worry about saving yourself and all these other people. Let me worry about me.”

The men with the duffel bags were getting closer. After the threats the man up front had made, she prayed they wouldn’t find the gun she had hidden. Deep breaths—analyze the situation.

The men passed by, not giving her a second glance. When they reached the rear of the sanctuary, they jogged back up to the front and placed the bags on the stage behind the man with the microphone. As they did that, for the first time Khadi really took notice of an older man standing behind and off to the right of the main guy.

He’s got to be the one in charge. The one with the mic is the general, but that old man is the commander in chief.

“Now, I want all cell phone batteries,” said the general. “As the bags come by, I want cell phone in one hand and battery in the other. Again, same rules apply. If I find a cell phone battery not turned in, people will die.”

The men began moving down the rows again. One by one, the thin plastic batteries dropped into the bags.

“How do you get the battery off of this thing?” Gladys asked, picking at her phone with a rose-pink fingernail.

“Let me help,” Khadi said, taking the phone and snapping the battery off the back.

“Why do they just want the batteries?”

Handing the phone back, Khadi answered, “Without a battery, the phone is useless. However, with the battery all sorts of things can be done. It can be turned on remotely, it can be used to pinpoint location, it can be tapped into and used as a listening device.”

“Oh my, no wonder I don’t like them. That’s simply Orwellian.”

“You don’t know the half of it.”

An argument broke out ten rows up.

“I don’t have a phone,” a man protested, desperation in his voice. Khadi recognized him as a congressman, Dennis Robbins, from one of the Midwest states.

“Everyone has a phone,” the terrorist with the bag countered.

“What I mean is that I do have a phone, just not with me. I forgot it at home this morning.”

“Liar! Where is your phone?”

“I swear, I don’t have it!”

The man with the bag nodded to his partner standing next to him. The gunman reached across three people, grabbed Robbins, and lifted him out.

The man with the bag pressed the muzzle of a pistol to Robbins forehead. “What’s your name?”

“Robbins. Dennis Robbins. Congressman,” he sputtered.

Khadi saw the two terrorists exchange a glance.

“What’s your cell number? And if you give me a wrong number, I’m pulling the trigger!”

Robbins rapidly rattled off a number. Then sucked in a breath when the gunman lowered the pistol and pulled a phone from his own pocket.

The terrorist dialed the number Robbins had given, then held the phone to his side. A mechanical hum sounded in the sudden quietness. The woman who was sitting next to Robbins’s empty seat gasped.

“She didn’t know it was in there! I swear! I put it in when—”

Robbins’s protests were silenced by the stock of an AK-103 coming down across his head. He dropped to the ground. The men began kicking him with their boots, continuing until there was no more movement. The man with the bag knelt down and felt for a pulse on Robbins’s neck. Satisfied with what he felt, he nodded to the other man.

Standing back up, he said to the quaking woman, “Give me his phone.”

With trembling hands she pulled it out of her purse and passed it to him.

“Do you swear before God that you had no knowledge of what this man did?”

“I-I s-s-swear,” she said, barely keeping control.

“Very well.” The terrorist popped the battery off the back of the phone. The battery went into his bag, but the phone he dropped onto the tile floor. Lifting his leg, he drove his heel onto the phone, crushing it.

“A warning: do not mistake my mercy for weakness,” he said. Then he moved on.

Why did it matter that he was a congressman? Khadi asked herself. Other peopple have been killed without a second thought. But the congressman was just beaten.

Then another thought hit her.

“Oh no,” she said out loud.

“What is it?” asked Gladys.

The man with the bag was now only four rows away.

“I dialed CTD, then stashed my phone in the back of the church. They’ll want to know where it is.”

The man stepped forward a row.

“Then take mine,” Gladys said.

“No way. They’ll want to know where your phone is.”

“Take it . . . and trust me,” Gladys ordered, putting her phone and battery into Khadi’s hands, then wrapping her small fingers around Khadi’s, sealing the deal.

The man with the bag moved forward another row and glared at Khadi and Gladys. Khadi slowly raised her hands with the battery in one and the phone in the other.

After collecting all the batteries from the row in front, he stepped next to Khadi. She handed him the battery from her hand, followed by one after another as all the batteries were passed down the row.

“Where is your phone?” he asked Gladys.

“I don’t carry one of those gadgets. They’re annoying and rude,” she answered matter-of-factly.

“Everyone has a phone,” the man countered angrily. “Give me yours!”

“Listen, young man, I didn’t have a phone in my house until after I was married, and somehow I found a way to get along just fine. So, I’ll be danged if, just because it’s the twenty-first century, I’m going to be tied to one of those devices twenty-four hours a day!”

“I don’t believe you! Everyone has a phone!”

“I don’t care what you believe! And you watch your tone with me, young man! I didn’t make it to ninety years old just to have nasty young punks like you give me sass. Besides, you should be ashamed of yourself! I can hear in your voice that you’re American born and bred. If I were your mother—”

The gunman had heard enough. He leaned in and pulled his hand back. Khadi lunged forward and grabbed his arm before he could strike. Her grip was strong, and he looked at her, surprised.

“I’m so sorry,” she said, quickly softening her grip. “My grandmother doesn’t always know what she’s saying. Please, forgive me. I’ll control her.”

Leaning back out of the row, the man said, “You’d better.”

“Control me? You’re going to control me? Listen, little girl, I remember putting you over my knee and spanking your bare behind when you were just a tyke, and I’m not afraid to do it again today.”

“Just shut her up,” the bagman said before moving on.

“I will. Thank you,” Khadi said. “Grandma, hush now.”

The men with the bags finished their circulation and returned to the front. A group of them conferenced with the general, then moved to the side wings of the sanctuary. Soon all the people from that seating area began moving into the nave.

Once everyone was in the main sanctuary, the terrorists began a long process of sorting people into groups. Khadi could count three. One seemed to be collecting all the celebrity politicians. Another contained primarily women and the few children that were in the building. The third seemed to be a hodgepodge of those who didn’t really fit into either category.

Helpless and frustrated, all Khadi could do was watch. Please, Scott, come up with something fast. I don’t know what they have in mind, but I do know that this isn’t going to end well.

But what about you? You need to do something. You can’t just wait for Scott while this whole thing goes down! Do something!

Try as she might, Khadi was at a loss. Deflated, defeated, she sagged into her seat. Soon a cold, bony hand opened Khadi’s fist and slipped into her grasp. She turned to Gladys and saw her smiling.

“Just give it time, dear. God always finds a way.”

Khadi did her best to smile back. She covered Gladys’s hand with her own. Okay, God, Gladys says you’re going to find a way. If you’re going to do it, you better do it quickly, or else you’re going to end up arriving a little too late, and this party will be over—for all of us.