First, she removed the ten-round magazine and extracted the two cross pins on the lower receiver of the rifle, one forward of the magazine, the other adjacent to the butt plate. Next she pulled back the charging handle until the bolt head was withdrawn and cleared away from the barrel extension. Though nervous, she worked quickly and efficiently; the countless hours spent blindfolded breaking down and reassembling the rifle were now paying off. With a few more flicks of her wrist, she detached the upper and lower receivers of the gun, removed the bolt and carrier from the lower receiver, and collapsed the barrel into the upper receiver. She had now disassembled a lethal, 57-inch semiautomatic rifle into five separate components, each of manageable length. She placed the sections of the rifle into her hardcover carrying case and snapped it shut.
She slid the case into a compartment on her custom-designed baby stroller, a critical component of today’s masquerade. All other items used for the assignment—the card-key decoder and other electronics devices, hand tools, suction-cup gadget, binoculars, and hydrofluoric acid—were already hidden within another compartment. She checked her watch again as she moved to the door of the office; less than sixty seconds had passed since the fatal shot.
At the door, she took a final glance around the room. Earlier, she had planted evidence to keep the law busy—and perplexed. It was all part of the game. Her eyes passed over the items on the floor first, which lay near her firing position, then the little display on the windowsill. A ghost of a smile appeared at her mouth.
My little parting gifts ought to make things interesting.
Ten seconds later, she was at the service elevator, which she had electronically disabled. Here too she had left behind a little surprise for the authorities. She pushed the stroller inside, reactivated the elevator, hit the button for Parking .
As the elevator plummeted to the garage fifty-two floors below, she removed her gloves, stashed them in the stroller, and examined herself in the elevator mirror. She was pleased with what she saw. Her blond wig, dyed eyebrows, blue contact lenses, and white facial powder masked her Mediterranean heritage perfectly and gave her an Aryan appearance. She wore an oversized pink dress that draped past her knees. The garment, though not quite a maternity dress, was larger than normal, like those worn by women in the ensuing weeks of childbirth. Beneath the dress was a synthetic waist pouch that gave her a prominent tummy, lending her a distinctly mommyish look, an air of maternal innocence. She appeared pudgy and harmless, cute and wholesome.
The light for the thirtieth floor lit up as the elevator continued its rumbling descent.
Now for the final part of her disguise—the baby. The animatronic infant in the stroller was surprisingly lifelike, with rosy cheeks and a pacifier in its mouth. It was obscured by a hood and covered with pink blankets and a wool baby cap, so that very little of its face was exposed. One would have to peel back the hood and peer inside to see the baby was not real. Skyler reached into the stroller and flipped the control switch on the little anthrobot, which began wiggling gently beneath the blanket and making faint sucking noises. Together, her maternal disguise and fake baby would be the perfect foil. The cops and federal agents swarming the streets below would not suspect a woman pushing a stroller with a baby. They would be looking for a man.
A certain kind of man.
Suddenly, she felt the elevator slowing down.
Looking up, she saw the fourteenth floor light up as the elevator shuddered to a halt. Her heart lurched in her chest. She tried to scramble around the cumbersome stroller to press the Close Door button, but was unable to reach it in time. The doors began to part and there was nothing she could do to stop them. Instinctively, her hand latched onto the grip of the Swiss-made SIG-Sauer P228 concealed in her thigh holster.
The door opened all the way.
She stood face to face with a casually dressed man and woman. Two young professionals, who had come in on a Sunday to get some work done, but were now, by a monumental stroke of misfortune, standing before one of the deadliest assassins on the planet.
They were close and the lighting was good, so they would be able to give the police an accurate description, even with her disguise. They were most likely heading outside, where they could point her out or describe her to the authorities within a matter of seconds, thwarting her escape. Though Skyler was reluctant to kill them, failing to do so could pose a serious risk.
And that was unacceptable.
No one knew what she looked like or her true identity, except her control agent, Xavier. Most of her killings over the years were attributed to Diego Gomez, her fictitious male alter ego, and that was the way she had to keep it. She would be breaking a cardinal rule of her profession if she allowed them any chance to later identify her.
You know what you have to do—there’s only one option.
The woman smiled refulgently when she saw the baby in the stroller. Skyler knew, by their relaxed expressions, that they were unaware of the chaos in the plaza below.
They started to enter the elevator.
CHAPTER 5
THE NICKEL SLIDE of the noise-suppressed 9mm semiauto glinted murderously in the artificial light as Skyler stood up on her toes, raised the weapon above head height, and pointed it slightly down, so the shot would appear to have been fired by a much taller person.
She dropped the man with a single shot to the forehead.
The woman screamed as her companion fell back into the hallway.
Skyler jammed her foot against the door, keeping the elevator from closing. She knew she had to kill the woman too. But for a brief instant she couldn’t bring herself to fire. She had never killed a woman before—her targets were always evil men—and the very thought of killing a fellow female sickened her.
But you can’t just let a witness get away!
The woman stood there paralyzed with fear, unable to run or speak.
Skyler’s mouth, full and sensual on most occasions, curled into a primal frown. She had to act quickly before the woman screamed for help or started to run. She was an assassin; she could not imperil herself by showing sympathy toward some total stranger, even a kindred female.
Biting her lip, Skyler stood up on her toes, raised the gun high, and squeezed the trigger twice.
The woman collapsed on the carpeted floor, two red stains on her blouse.
Lord, forgive me for what I just did and for what I am about to do.
Locking in the Emergency Stop button, she stepped to the man, took aim at his head, and fired once more, execution style, to make certain. Then she repeated the process with the woman.
There, it was done.
She looked at her hands and saw that they were trembling.
A voice called out inside her: Get a grip, Angela! Don’t lose sight of the objective!
She looked at her watch. This unanticipated interruption had cost her critical seconds. Damn!
Feeling a stab of panic, she picked up the spent casings from the hallway and elevator. Then she released the Stop button and hit the button for the parking garage.
As the elevator hurtled down again, she cursed herself and wiped the floor buttons clean of her fingerprints. Not only had precious time been wasted, she had been forced to kill two innocent people. Worse by far, one of the victims was a woman. In all her years as an assassin, Skyler had prided herself in the fact that she had never produced collateral damage. She had terminated only those specified in her contract, and had never found herself in a position where she had to kill a bystander. Though she had wounded men standing close to her targets—invariably bodyguards or members of a personal protection detail struck by exploding fragments—none of these men, she had later learned, had died from their wounds.
But now the circle had been broken and she hated herself for what she’d done. Only cowardly terrorists killed woman or children; only zealots, amateurs, and street thugs murdered non-specific targets. Still, she couldn’t allow what had happened to affect her judgment. She had fulfille
d her assignment, and her sole task now was to escape.
Her rental car was two blocks away, which put her four blocks beyond the current Secret Service checkpoints. Once the Service gained control over the situation, they would undoubtedly expand the radius of the perimeter. She had already calculated that it would take her slightly under five minutes from the time she fired the fatal shot to reach her car. Checking her watch again, she realized that she only had two minutes left to meet her goal, which meant she was a minute behind schedule.
Fortunately, it was a Sunday and the Sixteenth Street Mall was overflowing with people. The feds and cops couldn’t stop every person on the street until they had set up a perimeter. With all the confusion, it would be a full fifteen minutes before that could be achieved, since no one would be able to pinpoint the firing position.
The elevator came to a halt; the doors opened. She pushed the stroller into the underground parking structure and headed for the steel door leading to the exit ramp, paying no attention to, but very much aware of, the disabled security cameras above her. Radiant shafts of sunlight slanted through the exit door’s panel window.
She picked up her pace.
If she made it to her car in the next two minutes, she would be miles away before anyone had a clue what had happened. She didn’t need to run. All she had to do was walk at a steady clip, pretending to be a mother pushing her baby in a stroller. Then she would drive to Colorado Springs, board United Flight 457 direct for Los Angeles, and relax in her first-class throne with a much-needed glass of Cabernet.
That was the plan.
But Skyler knew that sometimes even the best laid plans go awry.
CHAPTER 6
POSTING HIS TEAM in a line from Bannock Street to the east side of the Annex Building, Special Agent Kenneth Patton took position next to a hundred-year-old oak tree and scanned the area for someone who didn’t belong. Someone slipping quietly away from the scene. Someone more deliberate and controlled than those around him, yet possessing the chilly air of menace of a professional killer.
Then he thought of John Wilkes Booth, Oswald, Sirhan Sirhan, Hinkley. They didn’t look like cold-blooded killers. So if an assassin wasn’t trying to sneak away, how could you tell if he—?
His eyes darted down the block to his team members. Did they see anything? All five agents had drawn their standard-issue FBI firearm—a Glock 17 nine-millimeter semiautomatic—and kept them cocked and unlocked, with the noses pointed into the ground, as they too scanned the area. But they didn’t appear to see anyone suspicious either.
Beyond, he could see the frenzied crowd pushing through the barricades guarded by the riot police and Secret Service. It reminded him of a 1950’s B-horror flick, the way the pandemonium spread inexorably in all directions.
He scanned the rooftop of the City and County Building and the Annex. The Service countersnipers and spotters were gesturing to one another uncertainly and barking into their radios.
Damn, they don’t know where the hell the shot came from any more than I do!
He was jarred from his thoughts by the sound of screeching tires. Turning, he saw a pair of Service vans tear down the street, knocking over orange cones and blocking a knot of hysterical people from making a hasty retreat. Further up the street, two canine-squad cops struggled to keep a pack of bomb-sniffing German shepherds under control.
Come on, people, get it together goddamnit! I need an isolation on the shot! Or at least a possible!
He continued to scan the area, but he felt useless, standing on the corner, waiting for somebody suspicious to materialize. It seemed unthinkable that, right here in the plaza, there was a veritable army of law enforcement people, yet no one seemed to have a clue where the shot had come from or what to do.
Precious seconds were ticking away, lost forever.
With no one in his immediate vicinity, he raised his binoculars and looked toward Bannock Street. President-elect Kieger was being transferred from the stretcher to the waiting ambulance. Even from a distance, Patton could see his face was as white as a burial shroud. He shook his head at the sheer craziness of it all. For him, the loss was deeply personal. He believed in William Kieger and what he stood for and had been looking forward to January 20 when the forty-fifth president of the United States was supposed to be sworn into office.
His radio squawked again. “Bureau One, this is Command!”
“Read you, Command. Where do you want my team?”
“Proceed to the high-rises north of the secured area, set up a perimeter at each building, and await further instructions. Service teams will be moving into the downtown area simultaneously.”
“I copy. What’s our objective?”
“To block all escape routes out of the Sixteenth Street Mall.”
“You’ve got a rough iso on the shot, then?”
“Not yet. We’re vectoring in now.”
“Do we have a green light for take down?”
“Affirmative. If threatened shoot to kill!”
“Copy that! We’re on our way!”
He quickly assembled his team and reissued the instructions, making sure each agent was clear on the assignment and wouldn’t set out alone, hot-dogging.
Then they bolted across Colfax to an orchestra of shrieking sirens.
Reaching the sidewalk on Cleveland Street, Patton glanced back at an ambulance, a pair of Service vans, and three police cruisers careening wildly around the corner, like a roller coaster yawing out of control. Seconds later, a hundred feet further down the block, he looked back again. The vehicles had disappeared, the swirling red of their flashing lights but a nightmarish memory, the drone of the sirens receding into the background like a dirge.
His mind reeled with a pair of questions that he knew, if history was any indication, might never be answered.
Who the fuck did this? And why?
CHAPTER 7
AT THE CORNER of Cleveland Street and Sixteenth Street Mall, they flashed their FBI creds to the two cops at the checkpoint. Shoppers were as thick as grasshoppers in the trendy outdoor mall, the vast majority unaware of what had just happened in the plaza three blocks away. Patton halted the team at the barricade and issued instructions in a tone of controlled urgency.
“Heiser, you take the Petroleum Building. Stolz, you got the Adam’s Mark.” He pointed to the brown hotel with the thin vertical windows. “Rassenfoss, take the Trade Center. Seal the exits until the Service gets there. No one gets in or out. No one!”
“Got it!” Heiser said, and four of the agents were off and running.
“What about me?” asked Special Agent Tom Weiss, nicknamed “Wedge,” a big solid kid who had played D-I ice hockey as a right winger at Denver University. He was the handiest with a Glock, but also happened to be the greenest of them all in terms of actual field experience.
“You’re coming with me, Wedge,” Patton said. “We’re going to seal that big mother.”
He pointed to the shiny, chrome-blue Union Plaza Building two blocks away. Stretching to the clouds, it dwarfed the surrounding buildings. It seemed a good candidate, but he knew the shooter would have to be one hell of a marksman to pull off a shot from that far away and high up.
Quickly crossing the street, they ran past the United Bank Building, darted through a short walking tunnel, and emerged into bright sunlight spilling onto a paved courtyard. Patton posted Wedge at the front entrance of the building, facing the mall, and ran around to the rear. He pulled out his Glock and checked the doors. They were all locked.
Turning around, he scanned the area. There were fewer people in the downtown streets now that he was off the mall: a father in chinos and a polo shirt walking with his son along the sidewalk; two women with close-cropped hair and nose rings, holding hands as they crossed the street; a homeless man pushing a shopping cart; a group of elderly tourists coming out of the Brown Palace Hotel; and...and a blond woman pushing a stroller up the parking ramp to the Union Plaza Building.
Hi
s own words came back to him like an announcement over a PA system. No one gets in or out.
NO ONE!
He sprinted down the sidewalk toward the woman with the stroller, passing several picnic tables of fabricated rock on his left and the concrete ramp on his right. The woman was now on the sidewalk, heading north perpendicular to Patton.
He ran toward her carrying his gun.
Before he had a chance to identify himself, she brought the stroller to an abrupt halt and threw up her arms.
“You can take my money, but please don’t hurt my baby!” she pleaded, her terrified voice carrying an unmistakable New England accent. She pulled the leather bag from her shoulder and held it up in surrender as she edged protectively in front of the stroller.
“Here, take it—just don’t harm my baby!” she repeated.
Patton was taken aback, but quickly realized that she thought he was a mugger, despite his navy blue cap with “FBI” emblazoned in bright gold lettering. His eyes turned down, guiltily, to the pistol in his hand. “I’m sorry—I didn’t mean to scare you.”
“You mean you’re not going to rob me?” she asked incredulously.
He was winded and deeply disturbed by what had just happened to Kieger. Still, he managed a polite half-smile as he slid his piece into his belt clip. “No, ma’am—I’m with the FBI. Can you tell me what you were doing down there?” He pointed down the exit ramp.
“The wheel of my stroller got caught in that crack, and I had to turn it to push it out. The stroller almost got away from me.” She pointed to the gaping crack in the concrete a few feet behind her. “What’s this all about?”
Patton looked down at the huge crack and wondered if he was being paranoid. Come on, you really think this woman has anything to do with this? Looking up, he appraised her more closely, taking in the honey-blonde hair, soft-blue eyes, and full-lipped mouth. He could hear the baby making sucking sounds beneath the hood of the stroller. The woman had obviously given birth only a short time ago, for she was still flabby around the waist beneath her rumpled pink dress. But even with the extra weight, she was uncommonly beautiful.
The Coalition: A Novel of Suspense Page 3