CHAPTER FORTY FOUR
1:31 p.m. Eastern Standard Time
The Situation Room
The White House, Washington, DC
“So we’re saying that Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb has an atomic bomb,” General Loomis said.
Susan sat in her customary seat. It infuriated her to look at Frank Loomis’s narrow weathered face, to listen to his voice. She was certain—no, almost certain—that he was the leaker. Once she became one hundred percent certain, he would never set foot in this room again.
But in the meantime, he did have a point. Al-Qaeda appeared to have done something that was long a dream of theirs—they had acquired the bomb. She hadn’t thought of it that way until just this moment.
She sipped her coffee. She had long ago lost track of how many cups she had ingested today. Her tongue felt like it had ha
