The second guard pulled his gun, moving to take aim at Mitch, but Christa darted forward with lightning fast reflexes and karate kicked the his arm, breaking it instantly. In a single fluid movement, she spun expertly on the ball of her foot and delivered a perfect round house kick to the guard’s head, knocking him out, putting into practice for the first time nearly ten years of training. The second guard crumpled as she snatched the gun from his hand, never for a moment losing her balance.
Mitch exchanged glancing blows with the first guard, then he rolled on top of the guard, deflected a blow with his arm and head butted the guard on the bridge of his nose. The guard grunted as his head hit the floor and passed out, blood oozing across his face. Mitch stood clear, seeing the second guard lying unconscious at Christa’s feet. “So you can do more than shoot,” he said with genuine approval.
Christa looked from the bloodied guard to Mitch, heaving for breath. “That was clumsy,” she said disparagingly. “Maybe you should leave the rough stuff to me.”
“Next time, I will,” he said, then retrieved and pocketed the first guard’s gun.
Mitch went to the wall and activated the red fire alarm mounted near the fire exit. A warbling siren filled the convention center, quickly silencing the hall's cacophony of voices. He pushed the fire exit door open, motioning for Christa to go. “When that crowd starts to panic, two guards a door won’t stop them.”
“I thought you said there was nowhere to run.”
“There isn’t. That doesn’t mean these people don’t deserve a fighting chance, outside.” Mitch pushed his radio into her hand. “Take this. When you get outside, get as far away as you can. Maybe the subway is the safest place. Use the radio. Tell Mouse to cut the power. Tell Lamar to evacuate the area, get everyone back several blocks at least. And keep running.”
She glanced down at the radio, confused. “Aren’t you coming?”
“No. What I have in mind, I can do alone.” She opened her mouth to protest, but he cut her off. “And one of us has to get outside where the radio will work. You’re elected. Now get going, there isn’t much time.”
She hesitated, then pulled his face down to hers and kissed him quickly on the lips. “For luck.”
“You do like Neanderthals!” he grinned.
“Only those who make a difference!”
He gave her a gentle push toward the stairs. “Hurry.”
When she passed out of sight, he stepped back inside to discover the occupants of the hall had quieted, confused by the wail of the fire alarm. Very few were moving toward the exits. He ran back up toward the sound crew, knocking people aside in his haste. When he reached the sound desk, he yelled at the lead technician. “Is the public address system working yet?”
The head sound technician looked up irritably. “Does it matter with that damned alarm going?”
Mitch pointed a gun in the man’s face for the second time that day. “It matters to me.”
The sound technician focused on the gun then slowly pulled off his headset and handed it to Mitch. “Use this,” he said, as he threw a switch on the console.
Mitch held the microphone close to his lips as he turned to look over the convention floor. “Listen to me,” he yelled, his voice echoing through the hall. “There’s a bomb in this building! Everyone get out, now! The security guards are in on it. Don’t let them stop you!”
Instantly, screams of terror rang through the convention hall, and in one movement thousands of people started for the exits. There were brief scuffles as red jacketed security men tried to stem the tide, but they were overwhelmed by the numbers now determined to escape. Mitch tossed the headset on the console. The sound engineers nearby were staring at him, shocked looks on their faces.
“It’s not a hoax! If you want to live, start running.”
The sound men looked at each other, then one of them started for the nearest exit. It took only a second for the other three to follow.
Mitch looked up at the heavy nets supporting the balloons filled with the unknown petrochemical explosive. Metal gantries suspended from the ceiling, snaked through the darkness above the balloons, where the supporting cables holding up the nets met at several release points. In the gantry shadows, Mitch saw movement in several places. He'd already guessed the balloons would have to be dropped at the right moment to catch the full force of the electric arc, to detonate with maximum effect. That meant someone had to coordinate the drop. He vaulted over the sound desk and sprinted to the metal ladder at the rear of the hall. As he climbed the ladder toward the shadowy ceiling, he glimpsed red jackets moving across the gantries to their assigned positions.
They're programmed to drop the net, he realized, even at the cost of their own lives.
He climbed two rungs at time until he reached the level of the balloons and saw up close that they were full of liquid. They were colored like ordinary balloons, but made of a thick plastic material that sealed in not only the flammable contents, but any odors that the sniffer dogs might have sensed.
Mitch glanced down, judging the height of the balloons above the convention floor. Too high and dark for the FBI to realize what they are.
He climbed up onto the gantry, while below, the large speaker with the positive charge began to flicker tiny tongues of electricity. The charge was almost ready to be unleashed, while the convention center was still crowded with thousands of people pushing frantically to escape. Standing on the gantry near the center of the convention hall were three red jacketed security men, each at a release point ready to dump the balloons onto the detonating arc.
He ran toward them, his every footfall rattling the metal walkway alerting them to his presence. The nearest security guard ponderously raised a gun. Mitch dived onto the metal grating as the guard fired. Screams sounded below as the gunshot echoed, frightening the people pushing for the exits, driving them closer to panic. More shots peppered the gantry around him, as ricochets sparked off the metal guard rails around him.
Mitch took aim and fired once along the walkway. The security man stumbled as the bullet caught him in the knee. The wounded guard grabbed the guard rail for support and aimed again. Mitch fired another shot from the deck, hitting the security man in the chest and knocking him back over the railing. The red jacketed body crashed into the colorful balloons, in a splash of thick black viscous liquid as dozens of balloons ruptured. The guard’s body came to rest when it struck the heavy netting, while the oily substance rained down over the crowd below. Frightened cries filled the cavernous room as the pungent smell of gasoline assaulted their senses. Mitch jumped to his feet and ran toward the two remaining guards, now aware of the crescendo of crackling that indicated the positive charge was moments from release. Panic erupted below as hundreds of people surged toward the exits and fire escapes in a tide of self preservation.
The second and third guards drew their weapons as one, but their movements were as strangely slow as the first guard’s had been.
Programmed? Slow reflexes! Mitch thought as he ducked and fired at the closest guard, felling him before he got a shot away.
The guard fell face down onto the gantry as his companion fired. The bullet grazed Mitch’s left shoulder, spinning him off balance against the railing. He suppressed the sudden pain, knowing without looking it could only be a flesh wound, and emptied his gun into the third guard, who staggered a moment and collapsed. Mitch dropped his empty gun and ran forward, his mind racing. He knew there was no hope of stopping the electric arc now, and once the charge ignited the balloons, the city would become a blistering inferno.
When he reached the central release point of the web of cables that spread in all directions, he saw immediately the simple mechanism that would launch the spheres of liquid explosive into the deadly arc. Mitch hesitated, just long enough to see the tiny sensor mounted in the ceiling overhead and for the idea to flash into his mind. One look below confirmed every exit was wide open and jammed with fleeing people on the verge of trampling e
ach other. Red jacketed guards stood passively against the walls, pushed aside by the surge of people rushing for the exits. Other less fortunate guards lay on the floor, overpowered by the panicked crowd, no longer an obstruction. He was struck by the fact that in spite of everyone else running to escape, the red jacketed guards stood mindlessly waiting, as if the mass movement was outside their programming, leaving them unable to decide what to do.
Mitch tore the gun out of the hand of the third security guard and aimed at the heat ampoule in the sprinkler sensor above his head. He fired a single shot, rupturing the sensor. Instantly, the fire control system activated hundreds of sprinklers simultaneously, unleashing a deluge upon the densely packed throng below. More shocked cries rose from the rapidly thinning crowd as the water began to drench them. None of the conditioned security guards, standing abandoned in the hall, showed any interest in the sprinklers or the water now spraying down over them. He waited another anxious minute, giving the last people time to escape through the exits and for the water to soak the floor below.
Mitch yelled down to the oblivious security guards. “Run you idiots, get out!” But not one of them even looked up.
The positively charged loud speaker flickered with hundreds of tongues of electricity, and Mitch knew he could wait no longer. He released the cables from the first control point, then ran along the clanking gantry toward the second. The rigging had been designed to allow the balloons to be released together if three men worked in unison. Working alone, only part of the net sagged, causing an avalanche of fuel filled balloons to slide out of the net and crash onto the floor, bursting into a black oily lake that slid across the pooling water. Mitch released the second cluster of cables and a second wave of balloons cascaded onto the floor below like a massive multicolored landslide. The security guards standing below were drenched in the petrochemical, but seemed hardly to notice. The last of the people fleeing the convention center disappeared through the exits, leaving behind the red jacketed guards, isolated and oblivious to what was happening. Black fuel floated around their ankles on a layer of water that spread across the floor. The sprinklers continued pouring water into the hall, which ran out through the main doors and seeped into the fire exits, carrying the oily substance away with it.
Mitch reached the third control point and released the last of the balloons, sending them hurtling to the floor like a wave crashing onto the shore. The guards were now drenched in the black oily chemical, and most were covered by the fallen netting. Some tried to wipe the black chemical from their faces, instinctively reviled by its noxious smell, yet unaware of the imminent danger. He watched as water swept layers of oil out through the exits, diluting the concentration remaining in the auditorium. A blinding lightning bolt erupted from the positively charged speaker, arced through the air across the convention hall, into the negatively charged speaker, shattering both boxes and igniting the black oily lake between them. A firestorm instantly swept across the floor of the convention center, turning it into a violent torrent of fire. The security guards in their red jackets vanished from sight, consumed by the conflagration. Mitch heard their screams for several agonizing moments, then mercifully, they fell silent as the convention hall filled with the roar of the inferno below.
A sea of fire reached toward the gantry, boiling up toward him, searing everything it touched, while water blasted down from the sprinklers, starving the inferno of the power to devour the gantry. A wave of intense heat filled the hall, forcing Mitch to shield his face with his arms, as the sprinklers drove the worst of the flames back and soaked him relentlessly. He gasped, as the air was consumed by the fire. He pulled his coat over his mouth, trying to filter the fumes and acrid smoke from what little air remained. Flames ran out through the exits, chasing the accelerant that flowed from the hall, incinerating parked cars and threatening nearby buildings. Terrified crowds outside scattered before demonic snakes of fire, that swept along street gutters and poured into subterranean drains.
Mitch was plunged into a flickering half night as the power failed, and only the light of the fires burning furiously below lit the hall. He started back along the gantry, stumbling through the blasting water of the sprinklers, gasping for every breath. He waited at the ladder while the inferno gorged itself on the fuel, then as it receded, he began his awkward descent. His left arm, weakened from the flesh wound, couldn’t be trusted to take his full weight on the ladder, making his climb down clumsy and slow. He waited until the flames immediately below were finally extinguished by the sprinklers, then he completed his descent. The lowest part of the auditorium, in front of the podium, had trapped a large pool of the chemical accelerant, which continued to burn with unrestrained ferocity. Waves of heat radiated towards where Mitch stood among the highest seats, at the far end of auditorium. The convention center was a charred ruin, soaked from water, and reeking with the toxic smell of gasoline and smoke.
Mitch coughed, fighting back nausea from the fumes and the lack of oxygen. Keeping his nose and mouth covered, he edged his way around the rear of the hall toward a fire exit, passing the charred remains of several security guards. The exit light had gone out, and the fire exit itself was a black cave, but he knew very soon there would be no breathable air left in the building. He plunged into the concrete stairwell, holding the guard rail for guidance as he stumbled down through the darkness towards a dim glow below. When he reached the bottom, he found the fire exit door to the outside had been wedged open.
He stumbled into the street, doubled over and coughed uncontrollably, trying to clear his tortured lungs. Rivers of fire were everywhere, snaking across streets and following gutters for many blocks in all directions. Cars and trucks burned furiously, while firemen fought a dozen battles. Mitch took it all in at a glance, then staggered toward the cross street where he'd last seen the ENP satellite truck. The cross street was crowded and chaotic, as fire engines tried to squeeze their way in and fire crews rushed to hook up hoses, while the media throng jostled with the police for pictures.
Mitch dodged between running reporters, dripping wet conference attendees being treated by paramedics, and shocked spectators. Every few steps, he croaked out a rasping cough, as he staggered past firemen spraying foam at the flames that ran along gutters into the city's drains. News helicopters circled above, filling the air with the thump of rotor blades as black smoke billowed skyward from the convention center. He pressed on towards the ENP satellite truck, which he soon found to be abandoned. The black cable linking the satellite truck to the large ENP semi was missing and the flimsy FBI barricade had been pushed over.
He headed toward the rendezvous point, looking for Mouse and Gunter, while uniformed police cleared a cordon around the smoking building. As they moved the crowd back, a military Blackhawk helicopter came in low over the buildings, and landed in front of the convention center. Lamar stepped through the police line as it touched down, and walked toward the chopper. The helicopter’s doors slid open, and an athletic looking general in his early fifties jumped down and hurried forward. Mitch pressed forward through the crowd to see Lamar shake hands and begin talking rapidly to the general, explaining the situation. He couldn't hear what Lamar was saying, but his eyes were transfixed by the silver pin clipped to the general’s collar.
Three stars!
He remembered the video of the Blackhawk helicopter landing at the Newton Institute and of the three star officer who'd alighted from it. There was no way of knowing if this was the same officer, but the coincidence was hard to ignore. Reporters tried to push past the police lines, calling out questions to the general and thrusting microphones toward him for a response. Mitch edged his way through the crowd as the police pushed back a path for Lamar and the general as they swept past toward the FBI command center.
A young anchor woman yelled, “General Gray, why are you here, sir? What does the military know about the explosion?” The general ignored her question, leaving the reporter to curse under her breath and motion to the
cameraman to switch off his camera.
Mitch pushed through the crowd to the reporter. “Do you know that officer?”
“I’ve seen him around Washington a few times. Why?” She noticed Mitch was soaking wet and covered in sooty grime.
“What does he do?”
“Mostly lobbies for money for the military. What happened to you? Were you inside?”
Mitch nodded.
She waved quickly to her cameraman to switch the camera back on. He immediately hefted it onto his shoulder as she raised her microphone. “Can you tell me your name, sir, and what happened inside?” she said, then pointed the microphone at Mitch for an answer.
Gunter reached up behind the cameraman and switched the camera off.
“Hey!” The cameraman said as he pulled the camera off his shoulder, wondering what had happened.
“No interviews,” Gunter said, as Mouse took hold of Mitch’s arm and pulled him away. Gunter fell in beside them as the reporter wondered if Mitch was worth pursuing, then a loud speaker hissed at the far end of the street. A police officer announced the building was in danger of collapsing and requested everyone to vacate the area immediately.
“We thought you were dead,” Mouse whispered.
“I almost was,” Mitch replied hoarsely.
“Christa radioed us,” Gunter said. “Something about a fuel air bomb.”
“Next birthday, no balloons.”
“We’ve got to get out of here,” Mouse said urgently, glancing around. “This place is going to be low rent, real soon. I saw Bradick arrive with some muscle, at the other end of the street.”
“Did you see the general?” Mitch asked. “Three stars.”
“Yeah, we saw him,” Mouse nodded. “Funny how he was so close, like he was ready to drop in after the big one.”
Gunter glanced back. “The general and Agent Lamar seem friendly. That could explain how the ENP truck managed to park where it did.”
The Siren Project Page 27