Elk Grove, Virginia

Maggie didn’t like what she saw. The address in the note was in the middle of a quiet neighborhood of well-kept bungalows that were surrounded by huge oak trees and carefully manicured yards. The house owned by Anne B. Kellerman could be any house in any suburb in the country. Why had he chosen here?

A red bicycle with tassels on the handlebars was left in the driveway. Two houses down a gray-haired man raked leaves. A moving truck was parked at the end of the street where a woman paced the sidewalk, directing two men with a sofa.

No, Maggie didn’t like it at all.

Why would anyone want to set off a bomb in a sleepy, suburban neighborhood? In the middle of the morning the only ones home were preschool children and their caregivers and a few retired people.

Is that what he meant by, YOUR CHILDREN ARE NOT SAFE ANYWHERE AT ANY TIME?

Perhaps the bomber wanted to make a statement, targeting the innocent, the vulnerable. Did he want them to know he had no limits, no qualms? That he could and would strike anywhere? After all, they might be able to beef up security at airports, in subways and train stations, but there was no way they could patrol every residential neighborhood in the D.C. area.

“I don’t like this,” Cunningham said.

They were curbside in a white panel van with an orange-and-blue plumbing logo that looked authentic, but inside, three FBI techs tapped at keyboards and watched wall monitors that showed four different angles of the house in question. The cameras relaying those angles were attached to the helmets of SWAT members getting into place. A duplicate van was parked behind them. A public-utility van was a block away, waiting with a bomb squad.

Maggie readjusted a purple-flowered jacket she’d never own, but that fit perfectly over the bulletproof vest. She had found it in one of BSU’s closets that housed an odd assortment of potential disguises. Unlike her copper-colored suit jacket that said, “Warning, FBI agent knocking at your door,” the purple flowers hopefully would get a “welcome” nod. That is, if no one noticed the bulge of her gun.

She readjusted her shoulder harness and the Smith & Wesson in its holster. Other agents had updated years ago to Glocks, but Maggie stayed with her original service revolver. Situations like this she couldn’t help thinking it didn’t matter what kind of gun she used. The bulletproof vest wouldn’t make much difference either, especially if they tripped an explosive device. Guys who sent invitations to law enforcement officers usually did so because they enjoyed blowing apart a few of them.

Cunningham had put in place as many precautions as he could. Unfortunately, a house-to-house evacuation was impossible. And they were running out of time.

Maggie glanced at her wristwatch: 9:46. Her eyes searched the neighborhood again—at least what she could see from the tinted back window.

He was probably here.

Watching. Waiting.

Maybe he had the detonator.

“What about the moving truck?” Maggie asked.

“Too obvious.” Cunningham dismissed, without looking away from the monitors.

“Sometimes the ordinary becomes the invisible.”

He glanced at her and for a second she thought it might be a mistake to quote his own words to him. His eyes darted back to the monitors but he fingered the miniature microphone clipped to his lapel and said into it, “Check the moving truck.”

In a matter of seconds they watched an agent dressed in a tan jumpsuit with the same plumbing-company logo slip out the back of the van behind them. He approached the truck, checking the addresses on each house against a clipboard in his left hand. He was still talking to the truck’s driver when Cunningham pointed to one of the other monitors, an impatient chess player anticipating the next move.

“Can we make out anything inside the house yet?” Cunningham asked the tech tapping the computer keys without a pause.

Maggie watched the moving truck, but glanced at the monitor that Cunningham was anxious to view. Somewhere behind the house in question, one of the SWAT-team members wore a helmet-mounted thermal imaging camera. The infrared-sensor technology could pick up body heat, distinguishing between a sofa and the person on the sofa. Hot objects appeared white, cool ones black. Anything above 392 degrees showed up in red. Firefighters used the cameras to find victims in smoked-filled buildings. Here they hoped to get a heads-up of how many people—whether victims, hostages or bombers—waited for them inside.

“Small heat source in the first room,” the tech said, pointing at the screen as the first white mass glowed bright white. A few seconds later he was tapping the coordinates of the second heat source. “Maybe a bedroom. The person’s lying down.”

They waited, Cunningham leaned over the tech’s shoulder, pushing up the bridge of his glasses. Maggie sat back where she could keep an eye on the other monitors and glance out at the moving truck. The agent waved a thank-you to the driver, but he walked around the open back of the truck, continuing his charade of checking addresses.

“Is that it?” Cunningham finally asked the tech. “Just two heat sources?”

“Looks that way.”

Cunningham glanced out the window then looked to Maggie as he buttoned his jacket, a worn tweed borrowed from the same closet where Maggie found the purple-flowered one.

“Ready?” he asked as he grabbed a handful of campaign flyers and adjusted the Glock in his shoulder harness.

She nodded and scanned the neighborhood one last time.

“Ready,” she said, then followed him out the back of the van.