by Dalton Fury
He fed three rounds into the rifle’s internal magazine and then began adjusting the scope to his zero.
“What am I supposed to be doing?” Dooley asked.
Miric rolled onto his side, looked up at him. Dooley had set the shotgun aside and was resting on his knees, looking completely lost.
In their rehearsals, it had always been Dooley behind the gun—the patriotic warrior striking the first blow in the war against tyranny, launching the second American Revolution. But even if he had possessed the skill, to say nothing of the nerve, to actually make the shot, allowing him to do so had never been part of Miric’s plan. Dooley had a very different part to play in the endgame.
“Just one thing,” Miric told him. He got up to his knees facing the young man and proffered the semiauto. “Take this.”
Dooley accepted the weapon, reversing it so that he was holding the pistol grip in his right hand, but his uncertain expression remained. “What should I do with it?”
Miric reached out with both hands, covering both the pistol and Dooley’s hand as if preparing to offer a benediction. “Just this one thing.”
He slipped his thumb into the trigger guard, and then in a single swift motion, thrust the weapon up under the young man’s chin and pulled the trigger.
Blood and gray matter erupted from the top of Dooley’s head, splattering the ceiling and the wall behind him. Miric let go, allowing both the weapon and the young man’s body to fall away, and then lowered himself once more behind the rifle.
* * *
Although the area in the immediate vicinity of the 9/11 Memorial had been closed off to both vehicle and pedestrian traffic, the crowds gathered on the other side of the barricades were large and boisterous. When the first of nearly twenty police motorcycles traveling ahead of the motorcade rolled into view with lights flashing, the noise spiked toward a crescendo. A high school marching band, which had been playing their familiar game-night repertoire for nearly an hour, went silent, except for the drum line, who began pounding out a martial rhythm in anticipation of the impending appearance of the most important man in the world.
Twenty yards away from the band, “Digger” Chambliss had to press one hand to the side of his head in order to hear the comms traffic coming over the earwig in his right ear. He could feel every beat of the large bass drum reverberating through his body like some kind of sonic weapon. The band seemed like a particularly bad idea, not only because it was completely at odds with the solemn nature of the occasion and the intent of the memorial’s designer to create a place for quiet contemplation and reflection, but also tactically. With the volume cranked up to “11” it would be almost impossible to hear shouts of warning or even gunshots.
But it was POTUS, so by God somebody was going to play “Hail to the Chief.”
The motorcycles were followed by several police cars, marked and unmarked, and then the six imposing vehicles that looked like Cadillac Escalades straight off the showroom floor. They were, in fact, custom-built armored machines constructed on truck chassis. Digger didn’t know which one held the president, designated Stagecoach, or sometimes “the Beast,” but he guessed it probably wasn’t the fourth in line, the one equipped with the Warlock electronic countermeasures system.
The ECM vehicle was readily identifiable because of the distinctive cylindrical antenna protruding from the roof. That antenna effectively blanketed the area with intense RF interference, disrupting wireless communications and making it impossible for a bomber to use a cell phone or some other remote device. The Warlock, and a similar system called Shortstop, could even be configured to trigger radio-controlled devices prematurely, but while that was a partially effective deterrent against IED attacks on convoys in war zones like Iraq and Afghanistan, it wasn’t feasible for use in America’s largest city, and not just because intentionally detonating IEDs on city streets might put the civilian population in danger. Americans were in love with their smartphones, and disrupting the local cellular network was not something to be done lightly. The Secret Service had the ability to shut down all mobile devices in a two-kilometer radius, but rarely did so because of the shitstorm it inevitably caused.
The Secret Service operated on a restricted radio frequency that wasn’t jammed by the Warlock, which was the only way for Digger to keep track of what was going on, and, if absolutely necessary, communicate with his mates. As far as the Secret Service was concerned, there was no ambiguity about Delta’s role. They were observers only. Guests doing a ride-along. And guests, like fish, had a shelf life.
There had been no real friction between the two groups, but the general attitude of the PPD was that Raynor was chasing shadows. Baltimore had been a failed attempt, but it would have failed regardless of Delta’s illicit interference. Of course there was a threat. There were dozens of threats, and managing them was what the Secret Service did. Every day.
Digger hoped that Racer was wrong—hell, Raynor probably hoped that, too—but wishful thinking was a recipe for disaster, so until the boss called it quits, he was going to keep doing his job.
But he really hoped Racer was wrong.
The motorcycles and police cars cruised past but the armored vehicles stopped right in front of the memorial. A dozen more vehicles pulled up behind Stagecoach and the decoys: vans carrying journalists; police cars; a blue shuttle van carrying the president’s emergency medical team; ambulances; and a black truck that contained a mobile arsenal for use by the Secret Service in the event of a large-scale attack.
The drums abruptly went silent, the drum major holding his baton high, poised to give the signal that would begin the customary ruffles and flourishes.
The moment seemed to drag on forever, but then doors began opening and Secret Service agents began getting out, forming the protective bubble that would envelope POTUS as he moved from Stagecoach to the more sheltered dais between the two pools where he would be delivering his prepared comments.
The drum major dropped his baton and the horns and drums sounded.
Digger’s head was on a swivel, scanning the crowd then coming back to the motorcade, back and forth, looking for any hint of a threat.
A message came over the comms, letting everyone know that Champ was about to make his move. Right on cue, the band began playing “Hail to the Chief.” Digger glanced over and saw President Noonan, standing just outside the second armored SUV, smiling and waving, presumably for the cameras since very few in the crowd could actually see him with the vehicles blocking their view. After a moment of this, POTUS ducked down and extended an arm into the car, and then Mrs. Noonan emerged.
There was another radio update. “Challenger is out.”
“Challenger” was the Secret Service code name for the first lady of the United States, who was now standing beside her husband, smiling and waving as well. Then, walking arm in arm, the first couple began moving toward the memorial plaza.
Digger was just starting to turn away again when, out of the corner of his eye, he saw a faint haze of red in the air, but it wasn’t until he heard the screams that he knew something terrible had happened.
SEVENTEEN
Raynor’s heart sank as he heard the eruption of chatter in his earpiece. The frantic voices were almost incoherent, but he didn’t need to understand what was being said to know what had happened. Someone had hit POTUS while he and Slapshot had been wasting time hanging out on the roof of a high-rise tower a mile and a half away. Maybe it had been Shiner, or maybe someone else, but regardless, the worst had happened, and he was in absolutely the wrong place.
He turned to Slapshot, noted the grimace of helpless frustration that mirrored his own expression. He didn’t need to say anything.
They bolted down the steps, back into the tower, and sprinted to the elevator foyer. Raynor had to fight the urge to step on the Secret Service transmission, asking for details. If this had been Greece, he would have done so already, but now that the situation had gone beyond merely a potential threat, the only thing for him an
d his operators to do was stay out of the way.
But he had to know.
Slapshot hit the button to call the elevator, punching it repeatedly as if doing so might bring the car even faster. It wouldn’t, Raynor knew, but saw no point in disabusing his friend of that belief. Just then, he felt his phone vibrate in his pocket.
The caller ID showed New York City as the point of origin and a 212 area code, but Raynor didn’t recognize the number. He accepted the call anyway. “Yeah?”
“Boss!” He recognized the voice immediately. It was Digger, and he sounded like he had just run the four-hundred-meter dash. “Shit’s happening down here.”
Raynor instantly grasped that Digger had sprinted to the nearest landline in order to call him. With cell phones jammed and no freedom to use the Secret Service radio freq, it was the only way to make contact.
A chime sounded, announcing the arrival of the elevator. As the door opened, Raynor put out a hand to stall Slapshot. He couldn’t risk losing the call.
“Challenger got hit,” Digger went on. “Don’t know how bad yet. They’re medevacking her now.”
“Challenger,” Raynor repeated, mostly for Slapshot’s benefit. If POTUS had been the primary target, then the assassin had missed, striking the first lady instead. It was small comfort. “Did they get the shooter?”
“Negative. Still looking, but … Boss, it was a sniper.”
“You’re sure?”
“Pretty sure. High-velocity round. If I had to guess, I’d say it came in from high up and out of the west. Boss, that’s where you are, right?”
“He’s not here. We were on the roof when it—”
Just then, an ear-splitting klaxon sounded. Emergency strobe lights began flashing all along the corridor.
“Shit!” The suddenness of the alarm had startled Raynor, but he just as quickly realized that it could not be a coincidence. “Digger, stay right there. We gotta bolt.”
After the first iteration of alarms, a voice came over the PA system, instructing everyone to remain where they were, secure their doors, and wait for the police to arrive. Since it was not only impractical, but damn near impossible to evacuate high-rise buildings in the event of a fire or some other disaster, the safer alternative was to only evacuate the people occupying the floors closest to the incident and send them up or down as far as needed to escape immediate danger. The fact that the occupants of the top-most floor were being told to stay put and lock their doors meant two things: whatever was happening wasn’t on this floor but it was close—probably just two or three floors down—and it wasn’t a fire.
“Active shooter protocol.” Slapshot yelled to be heard over the alarms. Raynor saw that he had his old M1911 out. “He’s in the building.”
“Stairs!” Raynor drew his own weapon—a Glock 23—and sprinted down the corridor, following the path marked by the flashing arrows on the exit signs as the klaxons sounded again. He hit the heavy fire door at a run, and started down the austere concrete steps.
“Which floor?” Slapshot called out.
Raynor didn’t know the answer to that question, but figured eventually they would run into someone who could tell them. Sure enough, over the din of the alarms, he could hear voices coming up the stairwell from just a couple floors down. As they rounded the corner onto the fortieth floor, they almost collided with a group of people headed up. One of the women in the gaggle saw their guns and started shrieking.
“Ma’am, it’s okay,” Raynor said, flashing his cover creds and trying for his best soothing voice, which was a challenge since he had to shout to be heard. “We’re the good guys.”
“Yeah,” Slapshot added. “Where are the bad guys?”
“On our floor,” said one of the men indignantly, as if they ought to have already known that. “I knew this would happen. It was only a matter of time.”
“Which floor?” Raynor pressed.
“Thirty-nine,” supplied the first woman. She had stopped screaming but seemed on the verge of a relapse. “Oh my God. It was right next door. I heard everything but no one believed me.”
Raynor pushed through the cluster and kept going, bounding down the steps two at a time. When he reached the thirty-ninth-floor landing, he dashed to the fire door, grasped the handle, and was about to throw it open when a heavy hand came down on his shoulder and pulled him back.
“Slow down, hero,” Slapshot growled in his ear. “You forget how we do this?”
“Damn it, Slap, we don’t have time for ‘slow is smooth’ bullshit.”
Slapshot’s hand did not move.
Raynor knew his mate was right. There was no telling what they were going to find on the other side of that door, so they had to treat it and every other door, blind corner, and intersection like it was an ambush waiting to happen. With just two of them, clearing the floor was going to take a while, but it was the right call.
He backed away from the door, his Glock raised to avoid flagging Slapshot. “You get the door, I’ll go through first.”
“The hell you say, boss,” Slapshot said, gesturing toward the door with his pistol. “I lead, you follow me.”
Kolt nodded. Slap was more than just an operator, he was a seasoned assaulter, and no self-respecting Unit non-com would ever let the officer lead into the breach. Yeah, Kolt got it.
He got in position, and after a three-count, yanked the door open. Slapshot moved, leading with the pistol, covering the left side of the corridor beyond. Kolt was right behind him, covering the right side.
The hall was empty.
They got oriented and headed toward the east side of the building, bypassing dark and deserted office suites as they went. There wasn’t time to clear them all, but Slapshot kept checking their six o’clock as they moved to make sure that no one was coming up from behind them. They rounded the corner to the side of the building that faced the Hudson, but stopped before crossing in front of a pair of glass doors leading into a suite with the lights still on.
Raynor pressed himself against the wall. “This is the one.”
“See anyone?”
“Not yet.” Still leading with the pistol, he pied the corner. The reception area appeared to be empty, but he saw something else that confirmed his earlier appraisal. “The door is chained shut. From the inside.”
“Some employee’s good idea. Keep the shooter out?”
“Possibly, but I’m not buying it,” Raynor said. “Slap, Shiner’s in that office. Has to be.”
“Lock himself in to buy time?”
“Only way to make sure no one could stop him.”
“Yeah, but now he’s trapped in there. You think he knew this would be a one-way trip?”
Raynor didn’t answer. He had never bought into the idea that Miric would martyr himself. In fact, Kolt’s entire rationale for hunting the sniper in spite of his apparent death in the explosion in Athens had been predicated on the idea that Miric was not suicidal. “Maybe he’s got another way out.”
“What, like a ladder? A rope?”
“Parachute, maybe. We’re high enough for that.” Raynor eyed the chain holding the doors shut. There weren’t any wires or explosives attached to it. “We need to get in there.”
Slapshot sighed. “Yeah, I suppose we do. You got a brick we can throw through that glass?”
Raynor reached behind his back and slid out the SureFire can. “Just this. Ready?”
“Do it.”
Kolt finished tightening the suppressor on the threaded barrel, aimed the weapon at the top corner of the door on the left side, and pulled the trigger. The entire pane of half-inch-thick tempered glass instantly went opaque and then collapsed in a shower of fragments that looked like giant diamonds on the carpeted floor. Slapshot raked the remnant glass left in the door’s bottom corners and moved in, pistol held out before him in a modified-isosceles shooting stance, ready to engage any target that presented itself on the left-hand side of the room. Raynor took the right.
They did not sto
p to check the bodies in the reception area or the hallway. Their job was to neutralize any threats that presented before attending to casualties.
The air stank of burned gunpowder, more than Raynor’s single shot to break the glass door would account for. Another body lay in the doorway of the office at the end of the hallway. Beyond, Raynor could see daylight and feel the rush of wind flowing in through an open window.
But skyscraper windows didn’t open.
He paused outside, waiting for Slapshot to catch up. When they were both set, he gave a three-count and moved in, clearing left as he had done before.
He saw the whole room in that instant, but did not allow his conscious brain to process any of it until he was certain that there was no threat. There was only one person in the room, lying awkwardly on the floor with his legs folded up under him like Freddie Mercury doing a knee slide, but while he did have a pistol in one outflung hand, along with a Remington 700 SPS and a short-barreled Mossberg 500 pump-action shotgun within easy reach, he wasn’t a threat. The top of his head was missing.
“Clear,” Raynor muttered.
“Clear,” Slapshot echoed. “Is that your guy?”
Raynor glanced down at the body. “Nope. Must be the accomplice. Likely the guy that was with him in Baltimore.” He moved to the window and looked out, searching for Shiner’s escape route. He half expected to see a parachute canopy floating out in the river, or maybe one of the window-washing scaffolds lowering down the side of the building, but nothing looked out of the ordinary. “Maybe there’s another exit.”
“Maybe there’s another explanation,” Slapshot retorted. “Like the obvious one. This guy was the shooter. He came up here, locked himself in, killed everyone, took the shot at POTUS, and then popped himself.”
Raynor turned back, fully prepared to challenge the scenario, but then Slapshot added, “Oh, and he missed, which according to you, Shiner never does.”
That stopped Kolt. Shiner didn’t miss. He wouldn’t have even taken the shot unless he was certain of success, both of the hit and the exfil.