Foreign Influence_ A Thriller - Brad Thor [4]
He only had one rule: no matter how late the students stayed out the night before, they all had to be back by breakfast. They were good kids, sweet kids—the kind of kids that parents had a right to be proud of. None of them had broken his one and only rule. The fact that they hadn’t showed respect, and it was mutual. This was the best summer group he had ever had the pleasure of teaching. And as much as his colleagues complained about the “future of America,” these young men and women proved that America’s future was bright, quite bright indeed.
Checking his watch, Carafano addressed the students. “I can see that some of you are moving a bit slower than normal this morning and I’m not going to inquire as to the reason. I think I know why.”
A wave of polite laughter swept the breakfast room. When it died down, he continued. “You’ve got ten minutes to load up on caffeine, aspirin, whatever it is that helps make you human, and then I want to see everyone in the lobby, checked out, with their bags ready to go. Okay?”
Heads nodded and with the scrape of chair legs across the tile floor, the students rose to get more coffee and return to their rooms to finish packing.
Depending on traffic, the professor knew that the drive south from Rome to Pompei would take a little over two and a half hours. Halfway there was a church with amazing mosaics that he wanted them to have plenty of time to study and sketch. After that, they had reservations for lunch at one of his favorite trattorias overlooking the Bay of Naples.
Half an hour later, the tiny hotel lobby was awash in a sea of suitcases and backpacks. As a handful of students made one last dash to the breakfast room for coffee, others helped the program’s bus driver, Angelo, load the bags into the belly of the bright yellow motor coach. In the chaos of everyone checking out, none of them noticed that one of the bags didn’t belong to their group.
After a final head count to make sure everyone was on board, Tony Carafano gave Angelo the okay to depart.
As the Italian maneuvered the coach through Roman traffic, the professor distributed the day’s itinerary. Walking down the aisle, he found his students engaged in their morning ritual of texting friends back home, checking e-mail, and listening to their iPods. Few were bothering to take in their last glimpses of one of the most beautiful and historically significant cities in the world.
With one of Rome’s most popular landmarks drawing near, Carafano called his students’ attention to it. “If anyone’s interested, we’re about to pass the Colosseum on our left.”
Some of them looked up. Many, though, were too busy. It was a shame that even though they had all seen it before, a thing of such wondrous beauty should go ignored. Especially considering what was about to happen.
As the bus pulled even with the ancient arena, a spotter on a rooftop half a mile away removed a cell phone from his pocket and dialed the number he had been given.
Six seconds later, an enormous explosion rocked the city as the motor coach erupted in a billowing fireball.
CHAPTER 3
FALLUJAH, IRAQ
THE NEXT DAY
As his Russian GAZ sped down the dusty road, Omar-Hakim was fuming. The local Iraqi National Guard commander had been engaged in plenty of blackmail schemes, but always as the perpetrator—never the victim.
Next to him sat the man who had ensnared him and who had broken his hand when he had gone for his gun. He never should have agreed to meet with him. In fact, he should have shot him on sight. But now it was too late. He was trapped and there was nothing he could do.
The man in question was a forty-year-old American who spoke