The Templar Reprisals (The Best Thrillers Book 3) by James Best (read any book txt) 📕

binding. The problem … how much damage would it do? The cover might be all you’d need if you had shrapnel material surrounding it … but without it, how lethal would it be? I’m not an explosive expert, but I know one I can call when we land.”

Evarts eyes were unfocused as he peered out the plane window. He knew enough about explosives to doubt that a PETN book cover could cause the level of damage desired by committed terrorists. However, if a large number of small bombs went off together, then it might—

Baldwin interrupted his thoughts. “Tell your explosives expert that the book will be over eight hundred pages and encased in a presentation metal box.”

“How do you know that?” Wilson asked.

“What book is all of Washington anxiously anticipating?” Baldwin asked. “Everyone who has been in this town for more than two years can’t wait to see if they’re mentioned in it?”

“Oh, my God,” Wilson said. “The Vault, by Senator Richard Huntington. The Vault! The terrorists could make a commemorative edition encased in a mock vault.”

“Wait a minute,” Evarts said. “When’s that book due to be published?”

“In about two months,” Baldwin answered. “These could be positioned as collector review copies. Designed to get blurbs and blow-back from the prominent denizens of this naughty little swamp. This book has been hyped to the rafters. So much so, preorders have blown through every record. People will assume these fancied-up review copies are more pre-publication promotion … or they might think the publisher is giving them an opportunity to rebut slanderous revelations. Brilliant.”

“This is the greatest secret in the publishing world,” Evarts said. “How could the Ikhwan get a copy?”

“That’s what’s so brilliant,” Baldwin said. “They don’t need to. Nobody’s seen it, so nobody knows the contents. Pay some professor ten thousand dollars and he’ll write a manuscript that could survive a few minutes scrutiny. Then it’s blown to smithereens. Easy. Name-drop like crazy, make up some salacious stuff, put in some highfalutin words about the Founders, and use the senator’s own articles and speeches for fill. A creative academic could flush out eight hundred pages lickety-split. Two months tops. Especially if you don’t care if the readers dismiss the whole thing as utter trash. They’ll be dead within minutes of reading it.” She smiled. “You’d be surprised what you can get if you drag a ten-thousand-dollar bill through a campus.”

“This could be it,” Wilson said. “What makes this fit is that it crosses political lines. You nail both sides of the aisle. Huntington was dumped by his own party for corruption, and he hates them for jerking him away from his place at the trough. He already hated the other side, so everyone’s game. He promised the biggest tell-all book of all time. On the talk shows he’s been saying there’ll be blood flowing from Capitol Hill down to the White House.

“I thought politicians didn’t read books, they just went to the index to see if they’re mentioned,” Evarts said.

“That’s the beauty of a review copy,” Baldwin said. “When they open the back, it will say the index is still in-work. Indexes are compiled by gnomes in a sub-basement across the Hudson River. Review copies often get sent out before they’re publication-ready.”

Evarts thought a minute. “So, you’re saying the terrorists will use members of congress as their suicide bombers. Five hundred and thirty-five bombers about to scatter to every corner of the country.”

“Plus, staff” Baldwin said. “Could be triple that number.”

That’d be devastating,” Wilson said.

“If we’re correct in our assumptions,” Evarts said. “We need verification. Some meat around this theory.”

“Can we check with the publisher?” Wilson asked.

“That won’t do any good,” Baldwin answered. “The publisher will have no idea their book is about to be used in a plot like this.” She thought. “These need to be delivered near simultaneously. There are only a couple delivery services large enough to handle this size job. That’s where we go for verification.”

“But if they use UPS or FedEx,” Wilson said, “they wouldn’t even know until the parcels are given to them to deliver. If dropped off in the city, those companies can do same day delivery.”

“Right to their offices?” Evarts asked.

“No,” Wilson said, shaking her head. “No one can deliver direct to a Congressional office. Couriers deliver to the Congressional Acceptance Site, and the Post Office, FedEx, and UPS deliver to an off-site mail processing center.”

“Surely they would detect explosives,” Evarts said.

“PETN can’t be detected by x-ray or sniffer dogs, but there are chemical, infrared, and nano sensors that can detect it,” Wilson said. “We use all three at the Pentagon, so I’m sure they have them at the Acceptance Center and off-site mail processing center.”

“So, our minds have wandered off into left field.” Evarts said. “This doesn’t look like a viable scenario.”

Baldwin cleared her throat. “There’s another way. I’ve done signings on the Hill for all my Lincoln books. Senators, congress members, and staff just walked off with them. I presume they can personally carry things to their office.”

Everyone just looked at each other.

“Crap,” Everts moaned.

Chapter 46

Was this scenario plausible or an imagined horror? Evarts felt anxious. The plane’s engine noise was the only sound as the three of them became lost in their own thoughts. Unless they found verification it was unlikely anyone would listen to an off-the-wall theory. Especially, since the powers-that-be had already landed on a pet hypothesis. Even if they were right, they might not get anyone’s attention; if they were wrong, they might convince people to divert resources away from a real plot at Reagan International. Lots of ways to lose. But one thing was certain, the three of them couldn’t do this on their own. Before seeking help, they needed to convince themselves first.

Evarts thought through the logistics of a book-bomb. The content could be written quickly or even left blank if opening triggered detonation. Offshore printing and binding? No problem. An explosive cover? Evarts knew the Islamic world had labs with enough