Meanwhile in the White House, the President went ballistic over the program. “This must be stopped immediately! The damage they're doing could undo all our efforts to turn this economy around!” he yelled for the tenth time in the past 10 minutes.

Helen's voice came over the intercom to inform him that the Chief of Police for the City of New York was on the phone. He took the call.

“Mr. President, I presume you are watching the WNN broadcast. We strongly suspect that broadcast originates from beneath the old Yankee Stadium in the Bronx. Clearly, many people in that audience possess hidden handguns on their persons, in direct violation of our local gun control bans. I realize that the FBI has requested that we do nothing in this case without your direct order, but we want to raid the place and get the guns. My counterpart in the Bronx agrees. Do you agree, sir?”

“Yes, dammit! Take the place!” the President roared. “Do it quickly!”

“Yes, sir!” came the quick reply.

“The repercussions, Mr. President!” his chief of staff interjected. “We must consider the possible political considerations!”

“We don't have time for that!” the President fumed. “It's time for action!”

When the word got passed to the officers surrounding the stadium, they began pounding on the doors at all five known entrances, demanding they open.

“This is the Lieutenant Harold Wilson of the New York Police Department! The entire stadium is surrounded,” the lieutenant said into the entrance intercom on 58^th Street. The police chief had assigned him temporarily to head the team surrounding the stadium, in part because of his handling of the Knight shooting the previous week. “Open up immediately!”

After a moment, the voice came over the intercom saying, “Do you have a warrant, sir?”

“We don't need a warrant!” the lieutenant replied. “Open this door immediately!”

While this and similar conversations took place at each of the five entrances, someone tracked Janice down in the audience during the interrupted broadcast and informed her of the developments, while Spitzer attempted to restore some semblance of order on stage.

“Prepare to execute Protocol E,” she told her underling as she checked her watch. It showed 7:55 p.m. “Get going, and pass the word.”

The messenger ran off to do as she asked. Meanwhile, the discussion on stage finally resumed.

Spitzer said, “Well, after that rather frightening interlude, let's get back to the business at hand. Obviously, these questions raised here this evening have significant repercussions for the American people. A number of people directly impacted by the mortgage crisis have joined us in the audience tonight. Let's take some questions, shall we?”

Janice walked out on stage unannounced and spoke into a hand-held microphone, “I'm sorry, Mr. Spitzer, but I'm afraid that won't be possible at this point. Forces from the FBI and the New York Police Department have surrounded this location and are attempting to gain entrance as we speak in order to arrest persons seen on TV brandishing weapons during the little skirmish we had a moment ago. We must end this broadcast and carry out certain contingency plans in order to protect the persons here under our protection. I hereby order all TST personnel to execute Protocol E immediately.”

With that, she gestured with her hand, and an AU technician pulled the plug on the broadcast. Across the country in millions of homes, the signal went dead.

A moment later, an announcer came on screen and said, “Well, it seems that contact with the AU's underground location has been broken. We will attempt to reestablish contact. In the meantime, Barbara, what do you think of the report we just saw from Dolf Spitzer?”

Inside the auditorium, Janice waved everyone quiet and announced into her microphone, “Don't worry. We hope to get everyone out safely.”

A shout came from a rather large man who stood up in the audience and said, “They're going to have to rip my gun from my dead, cold hand before I'll give it up to them!”

A roar of approval greeted this sentiment from many people in the audience, although many others looked glum at the prospect.

Janice shouted for quiet. “Be that as it may, we hope to prevent that eventuality from taking place. We will attempt to evacuate this facility in groups. TST personnel should start evacuating our guests on stage, following the first few rows in the audience. We request that everyone please remain calm. We estimate that it will take less than three hours to complete the evacuation, but with your cooperation, we will complete it.”

“Three hours?!” someone from the audience called out. “The police will enter the place by force before that!”

“If we're surrounded by cops, how will we get out?” someone yelled.

Janice replied calmly, “Nothing will be gained by panicking, so please remain calm and...”

While she hoped this statement would relax the audience, it had the opposite effect. Immediately, a number of voices called out, interrupting her.

“We'll fight our way out!”

“Oh, my God, we're all going to get arrested!”

“To heck with that, we could be killed!”

“Is this the security we paid our hard earned money to get from the AU?”

The audience continued to buzz loudly in reply to Janice's comments as well as these and other, similar outbursts. She scanned the faces and saw a wide range of emotions displayed there. Many faces showed clear signs of panic. Many other faces showed anger just as clearly, although she couldn’t tell whether they directed their anger toward the AU or the NYPD. Commotion erupted in a large number of places around the auditorium as a number of audience members gathered up their things and prepared to head to the exits.

“Let's get out of here!” she heard more than one voice say.

She yelled into the microphone, “QUIET!” The noise abated somewhat as she said, “Quiet please! Protocol E is a carefully planned procedure. We will get you all out of here safely. Please follow the instructions of TST personnel, who will work to make this evacuation as smooth as possible. Please remain in your seats until TST personnel instruct you to get up and leave with them. TST personnel who have posts elsewhere in the facility under Protocol E should leave for their posts immediately.”

A large number of persons in the audience took out TST credentials hanging from lanyards and pulled them over their heads, thereby identifying their official capacity. Most of these people moved quickly to the auditorium exits to take up their posts in various locations throughout the underground facility. The ones who remained behind divided up the audience among themselves and began the process of identifying and explaining to audience members which TST personnel they should follow when their appointed time came.

Janice walked up to Spitzer, Justin, and Paul, to whom she said, “If you gentlemen will follow Mark here,” as she pointed to a young TST officer walking over from the opposite side of the stage.

“No!” Spitzer protested. “I don't want to leave. My team and I want to film the evacuation and any subsequent raid by NYPD and the FBI.”

“Very well,” Janice replied. “You might not get to film everything you want to film. You must follow instructions you receive from TST personnel immediately at all times without question if we allow you to stay. We also reserve the right to review what you've filmed before you release it to your network, to make sure that none of our important secrets have been compromised. Do you agree to these restrictions?”

“Fine, fine,” Spitzer uttered distractedly, and he quickly turned to give instructions to his own staff.

8:12 p.m. – Above ground, the two Yankee Stadiums, one old and one new, sat serenely side by side across the street from one another. Police cars engulfed the old stadium and most of the side streets nearby, while traffic officers redirected traffic away from the scene. If anyone dared to breech the no-fly zone above the city, they would have seen a huge sprawl of flashing red and blue lights on the ground. A SWAT team arrived and began to deploy itself. News vans and reporters surrounded the barricades established by the NYPD to keep people away from the scene. All of the major television networks, including WNN, had camera crews on the scene providing coverage to a nation riveted to their TV screens by the evening's events.

“We interrupt our regularly scheduled programming to bring you this special news report. With the full story, let's go to News Channel 4's own Anne Franklin in the Bronx. Anne?”

“Jerry, I'm standing just three blocks from the old Yankee Stadium where NYPD officials tell us that the WNN broadcast originated this evening. With me here is Special Agent Casper of the FBI. Agent Casper, can you tell us what's going on?”

“Well, Anne, the FBI is a bystander in the situation at this point. Our Director ordered us not to take any actions at this time. Our understanding is that the NYPD plan to raid certain locations around the stadium,” Casper said.

“Why won't the FBI take the lead in this investigation?” Franklin asked.

“The allegation is that local gun control ordinances have been violated. That makes this a local matter,” Casper answered.

8:18 p.m. – “Get Fred on the line, right now!” the President roared to his secretary upon hearing Casper's remarks as they broadcast across the nation.

“Fred Cooper, the FBI Director?” Helen asked him via intercom. “Is that who you mean, sir?”

“Yes, yes, get him now!” he yelled back as his eyes remained glued to the large flat screen TV he watched from his chair behind the Resolute Desk.

“Agent Casper, can you tell us what evidence led the NYPD to conclude that the broadcast originated from this location?” reporter Anne Franklin asked him.

“Obviously, I can't comment on that,” Casper replied. “You'd have to ask the NYPD about that.”

“But the NYPD aren't talking right now,” Franklin protested.

“I can't help that,” Casper answered with a shrug and a little smile. “Sorry.”

“Well then, can you tell us whether this situation has something to do with the shooting of Justin Knight in lower Manhattan last week?” she persisted.

“Obviously, the fact that Mr. Knight appeared on the national broadcast this evening suggests a connection of some kind,” Casper replied. “However, I cannot speculate regarding the nature of such a connection. The only thing I can say for certain is that apparently Mr. Knight survived the shooting just fine.”

“He did more than that, didn't he? He and Paul Regan of the now defunct Western American Bank raised startling new evidence during the national broadcast this evening regarding the banking crisis and the future of our economy. Doesn't that suggest that there might be a political motive for the police trying to raid this facility so quickly afterward?”

“No,” Casper disagreed. “I think they're just trying to do their jobs.”

“The rumor circulating on the street is that the Chief of Police didn't authorize this upcoming raid until he had the permission of the President of the United States,” Franklin persisted. “So it seems strange that the President wouldn't also give similar instructions to the FBI.”

“I have no knowledge of that. My instructions in this case come from the Director himself in Washington, D.C.” Casper informed her.

8:32 p.m. – FBI Director Frederick Cooper interrupted his attention to the TV screen to take the call.

“Yes, Mr. President.”

“Fred! What the hell are you doing? You've got to give support to the NYPD on this!” the President blared at him.

“Sir, you seem to have forgotten what I said to you earlier.”

“Did you just threaten me, Fred?”

“No, Mr. President. I simply stated a fact,” Cooper replied, refusing to take the bait. “Besides, what's your hurry? They ended the broadcast. If Roone is correct about the broadcast originating from the stadium, then they can't get away. The NYPD have the entire location surrounded. Anywhere the AU or the participants in the broadcast pop their heads up, the police will grab them easily. The best thing you can do now is to end this as peacefully as possible.”

“Listen to him, sir,” the President's Chief of Staff told him. “He's talking sense! With the election just days away, we need to handle this situation very carefully. We can walk you back from the order you gave a little while ago. Now that the broadcast is over, let's call New York and tell them you want to negotiate a peaceful settlement. Cooper can make that call for you.”

The President sat there, still seething over what happened during the broadcast.

“Fred, are you still planning to stab me in the back with the little press conference you've got planned?”

“I hope that does not become necessary, Mr. President,” the Director replied. “It all depends on what you decide to do.

The President sighed in frustration.

“Very well. Call off the dogs, but the birds better not manage some kind of miracle escape, Fred, or I'll have your butt in a sling!”

“Yes, Mr. President. I'll make the call now,” Cooper replied before disconnecting. Then he placed his call to New York.

8:46 p.m. – Inside the five entrances, TST personnel erected barricades from which to fight, in anticipation of the coming battle. The TST leader on the scene issued order after order in an attempt to get everything in place as quickly as humanly possible for the defense of their underground location.

“They might try to blow away the doors and walls to get in here.”

“Count on it, Andy,” one of his men confirmed. “This will get bloody very quickly.”

Andy nodded. “Jackson, keep bringing as many heavy objects as your team can find to the exits. Doors, appliances, chairs, tables, desks–whatever you can find. Build a barrier to protect us when the blasts come.”

“Will do, Andy.”

He walked up to one of the exits directly and spoke with the woman negotiating with the forces outside the wall.

“Report, please. How goes it?”

“I don't know how much longer we can keep them talking. Their rhetoric is becoming very belligerent out there.”

“What are they saying now?”

“The usual stuff. They want us all to come out and give ourselves up.”

“Have they given us any deadlines?”

“Several. The latest is that if we don't surrender within 10 minutes, they're going to take action.”

Andy nodded pensively. “We need time. Tell them anything they want to hear. Tell them that there's dissension in here; some people want to come out, but they're afraid the others will shoot them in the back if they try. Emphasize that there are children in here, and that we're willing to negotiate a way to get them out, but it will have to be done carefully and slowly. Tell them we need time to separate some of the children from parents who don't want to release them. Tell them anything! Just keep making stuff up to give us the extra time we need.”

She nodded her understanding and continued to communicate with the police negotiator on the other side of the intercom system.

Andy pulled his cell walkie-talkie out of his pocket and said into it, “Randall, is your team making any progress wiring the intercoms for remote operation?...Good. Just make sure you get it done quickly.”

As he disconnected, he walked back to inspect the barricades while his people built them. They now filled the available space quite well.

“Where's the first team? They should be on this wall by now!” he roared. “We haven't got all day, people. Let's move!”

9:01 p.m – Back at street-level, Lieutenant Wilson took the call from the chief of police.

“Yes, sir.”

“What's your situation, Wilson?” the chief asked.

“Well, these structures are mostly steel and brick, with no windows at street level. They're built like fortresses. We're trying to track down the property owners to see if we can gain entrance that way, but so far we haven't had any luck,” Wilson reported.

“Any windows further up the walls you could scale?”

“The fire department could put ladders up, but they're reluctant to put their men in the middle of the line of fire.”

“I'll see if I can get them to budge at my end, Lieutenant,” the chief replied. “I had a call from Washington. Now that we stopped the broadcast with your brief attempt at entry, the word is to go slow and make this a peaceful surrender if possible. Got that?”

“Yes, sir.”

“You have all the exits covered?”

“Well, as you know, we found five of them. I've got men and vehicles covering every side street in the neighborhood, just in case.”

“Get some people patrolling the parking lots and down by the riverbank too, in case they've got some hole that far away,” the chief instructed him. “I sent you some people experienced with hostage negotiations to help you carry on discussions with the people inside the five entrances. They should arrive momentarily.”

“Yes, sir. They already arrived, and I've got them communicating with AU representatives inside.”

“Good. Get this done right, Wilson. The entire country is watching us.”

“You can count on me, sir!”

Immediately after the call, Wilson met with his demolition team leader.

“Do you have the entrances wired up yet?”

“Almost done, sir.”

“How much damage will the blasts do?”

“Well, the explosives we're using are very precise and focused. They should leave a gaping hole in the walls large enough for men to enter, but the damage should be fairly well contained,” his subordinate explained.

“What kind of damage will occur on the other side of the wall?”

“Well, it's hard to say, sir. It depends on their defenses.”

“What would you do, if you were in their shoes?”

“If it were me, sir, I'd expect some kind of detonation from this end. I'd try to put up barriers of some kind. Almost anything they can put in front of their men would help to reduce damage to their personnel from the blast,” the demolition expert suggested.

“So we're likely to face a firefight at that point?”

“Yes, I'd say so, sir.”

“So would I. Jenkins!” Wilson called out. “Get that SWAT commander over here!”

9:17 p.m – FBI Director Fred Cooper sat quietly in his office, thinking carefully. After getting off the phone with the New York chief of police 25 minutes ago, he had sat there brooding, concentrating, trying to anticipate the AU's next move. Now, he still had no clear cut answer–at least, not one on which he would gladly bet his career.

The facts showed that the AU wouldn't panic, despite the fact that the FBI and the NYPD had them surrounded. Casper's reports told him that while the AU kept trying to establish negotiating positions, no sense of urgency or fear came from the voices of their negotiators. Yet, every indication showed that the FBI had them trapped. So why didn't they behave like it? What faint hope did they have to hang onto?

The more Cooper ruminated on this inference, the more it bothered him. He felt sure they had missed something. All of them had missed something: the men on the ground, the men at New York's City Hall, the man in the Oval Office, and yes, even he himself had missed something.

The AU had planned this location for many years. He personally knew some of the people who now worked on the AU's side. As he had told Regan earlier, some of those people used to work as FBI agents. No doubt they had anticipated all possible contingencies. They knew that the day would come when someone would discover their underground location beneath Yankee Stadium. When the time came, they would need a comprehensive plan for getting all the people hidden in that location out safely. They could not afford the big mistake of overlooking such a contingency.

They needed a sixth exit, one that neither he nor the NYPD nor the White House anticipated. Somehow, they had to position it outside the police lines that currently dominated the grounds surrounding the old stadium. He had no evidence of such an exit, of course, but that sixth exit had to exist somewhere out there. He felt it in his gut.

How many people did they have in there? He didn't know for sure, but he could estimate. His spies had told him that a new auditorium in there seated about 200. With the other offices, storefronts, etc., they could have 250-300 people down there. He marveled at the engineering feat that managed to provide sufficient air supply, food, electricity, water, and other essentials in an underground space like that, all while endeavoring to keep the location secret. No matter what one might think about the AU's aims, their methods deserved respect.

So assume 300 people. How long would it take to get them all out of there? It all depended upon the nature of this sixth, as yet undiscovered rabbit hole, particularly its location. Since it needed placement outside the immediate area surrounding the stadium, they could find it a significant feat to move them all, particularly if they had to move a long distance.

On the other hand, the AU had to know that if/when their underground fortress got discovered, they would have only a short time to get everyone out. He couldn't imagine how they might accomplish it, but they certainly must have planned on doing it in under three hours...possibly even in two.

He checked his watch. 9:19 p.m. The broadcast ended unexpectedly at 7:55 p.m. They'd been off the air for one hour and 24 minutes. So logically, whatever evacuation plan they had–assuming they had one (he reminded himself)–could not have been completed yet. If he could just keep the police from forcing their way in until after 10:55 p.m, he would know that he had given the AU as much time as he reasonably could to make their escape.

Now he just had to wait and see how much longer the President would willingly hold back before ordering the NYPD to burst in. Just a little longer.

The President's actions, of course, had caused all the problems in this case in the first place. Imagine it...a President of the United States ordering him, the Director of the FBI, not to investigate a kidnapping, while also ordering him to act as a fence for a stolen video. If he hadn't heard the original order from the President himself two weeks ago, he simply wouldn't have believed it.

It had placed the FBI in an untenable position. On the one hand, he didn't dare inform the entire country of the President's betrayal of trust. That would send the worst signal possible in the middle of a major financial crisis. On the other hand, the prospect of not acting rubbed him the wrong way. It bothered him that he had to rely so heavily on the AU in this case, but then again, that is why he had taken such painstaking steps over the years to prepare for this day. Unlike most of his predecessors in the job, he had an understanding of economics. He knew that the monetary policies the country followed must eventually lead to disaster. So he had done everything possible to prepare for the day that disaster might finally come. He wanted the FBI ready to act!

The phone on his desk rang, and he picked it up.

“Cooper,” he said.

“Sir, this is Casper. You ordered me to keep you informed. NYPD are planning to go ahead with the raid, sir. They're going to do it now.”

“The devil, you say! Give me–what did you say his name was? Wilson? Give me Wilson!” Director Cooper ordered.

“One moment, sir,” Casper replied. He heard nothing but background noises for a minute. Finally, he heard the voice he awaited.

“Lieutenant Wilson here.”

“Lieutenant, this is FBI Director Frederick Cooper. Special Agent Casper tells me you're preparing to penetrate the AU's entrances right now. I thought the plan was to take it slow and easy, one step at a time?”

“Yes, sir, that was the plan, but the President himself just called me. He told me we need to end this now and told me to proceed to dig those people out. He ordered me specifically, although I didn't realize I had to take orders from the President of the United States. Still, he's the President. I have to obey him, don't I? Sir?”

The Director gritted his teeth. It was now or never. Fail to act, and what he believed was the AU's best chance to help good people escape might not succeed...if such a plan even existed! But if he acted now, he would end his own career. It might even cost him his pension, possibly even his personal freedom. Perhaps even his life. It took him a split second to decide.

“Lieutenant, you're being played.”

“What's that, sir?” Wilson said, obviously confused.

“Don't complete the raid yet. Give it a while,” the Director suggested.

“I can't, sir! My orders come from my chief and from the President of the United States!”

“Damn it, Wilson. Listen to me! You're being played by the President. I can't say anything more specific over this line, but if you follow his orders right now, I promise you it will come back to haunt you tomorrow morning. I'm going to call a special press conference in 30 minutes, and you won't want to miss it. At least hold off until then. You'll be able to watch it on TV; all the networks will carry it live. What I have to say will shock the nation. Do yourself a favor. You have nothing to lose by waiting just 30 minutes. If, after you see, it, you're not convinced, you can follow through with your raid. Waiting that long will cost you nothing!”

Wilson paused at the other end of the line. He was just a cop. He didn't want to play all these high level political games. Why did he have to get caught in the middle of whatever this was?

He sighed. “Okay, you've got 30 minutes. But, sir, if I don't hear something from your press conference that convinces me otherwise, I'll have to go ahead with the raid.”

“Of course, Lieutenant. You made the right decision. Now excuse me, but I have to go arrange an emergency press conference,” Cooper said. Then he disconnected and called his secretary, who had given up her evening at his request to assist him. “Arrange the press conference we discussed earlier for Conference Room Three downstairs. Schedule it to begin at 9:55 PM. I want all the major TV networks there,” he told her.

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