by David Perry
* * *
The senior senator from Virginia took the podium after the admiral. He droned on for more than five minutes. After being politely reminded, he ended his speech and introduced the secretary of the navy, who kept his remarks succinct. Next was the secretary of defense, who began,
It’s a real privilege, a high honor, to be able to say a word about this mighty ship and the man whose name will proudly carry it across the high seas into victory…
* * *
Fairing jerked at the sound of the shots that seemed to emanate from the walls. His accomplices carried silencers, so their shots were muffled. The loud reports had to have come from the weapons of their adversaries. The real Secret Service. Fairing swallowed and focused on his weapon. “Just a few more minutes,” he whispered. “Just give me a few more minutes.”
The “agent” posted inside stepped from the unit, crouched and weapon leveled, to check out the reports.
Fairing kept his eyes glued to the scope and the luminescent green image. Without looking up, he picked up the Mauser resting at his elbow and pointed at the now-quaking Cooper. “You move, you die!”
CHAPTER 97
The president of the United States pumped the secretary of defense’s hand and replaced him behind the podium emblazoned with the presidential seal.
Thank you all. Mr. Secretary, thank you very much. Linda and I are honored to be here, to honor our dad. Appreciate your coming. Mom, good to see you. We’ve come a long way from the early days in Tennessee. I know you’ll join me in saying to my father, President Hope, “Your ship is about to sail…”
* * *
The bogus agent, sweat coating his face, managed a quick swipe with his sleeve to dry his forehead. He lay on his belly, eyes and gun focused on the white stairwell door, marveling at his good fortune and the poor marksmanship of the man behind the door. Three shots, all fired at close range, had missed.
He didn’t know how many others had amassed on the other side of the door. He’d only seen two men. One was wounded. If they burst through the door, they’d be caught in a lethal crossfire between two crack shots. His buddy was prone on the carpet beyond the stairwell, as was the third man, who had just exited the condo. The hallway outside the stairwell door was a perfect killing zone.
A door opened behind the shooter. He hazarded a quick glance. A man and woman stood outside their open condo door, trying to locate the source of the noise.
“Get back inside and do not come out!” he yelled, turning back to the stairwell door. “There’s a man with a gun!”
The frightened pair exchanged bewildered looks. Another door opened. A woman’s head popped into view.
“Move! Everyone back inside! Now!”
The residents quickly returned to the safety of their condos. Door latches caught, and the sounds of dead bolts being engaged sounded like thunderclaps in the corridor.
* * *
Blood seeped from Broadhurst’s chest wound. The bullet had entered Broadhurst’s back and exited the front through a half-dollar sized hole. His pressed white shirt was quickly turning crimson.
He wheezed, bubbles of red-tinted saliva gurgled from his lips. Broadhurst tried to key his mike. Jason guessed he was trying to order the presidents to be taken to safety. Broadhurst checked the unit with his left hand. It trembled as if he had Parkinson’s disease, moving haltingly, a heartbeat too slow. His eyelids wavered as he teetered on the edge of consciousness. Radio must still be out, Jason thought.
Broadhurst motioned for Jason to lean closer. His mouth formed words, but no sound came forth.
“What?” asked Jason.
A pained whisper slipped from Broadhurst’s lips. “Communications…still down…Save…POTUS!”
Then the man’s eyes rolled back in his head.
Jason put a bloody hand to the agent’s neck. The pulse was barely palpable and coming in unsteady intervals.
Shit!
This man was going to die without serious—and immediate—medical intervention, Jason knew. His pharmacy training and practice had imbued him with basic medical skills, but traumas of this magnitude were not part of that training. Even soldiers like his brother had more skill in dealing with such wounds than he did.
Jason quickly weighed the options. If he stayed and attended to Broadhurst, there was a good chance that two presidents would die. If he left the agent, Broadhurst was doomed.
Jason compromised. He pulled off Broadhurst’s shoes and removed both his socks, balling them tightly. With a grimace, he rammed one sock as far as he could into the gaping exit wound. He removed his suit coat and, rolling Broadhurst back over, did the same to the entry wound. He prayed the pressure would stem the colossal bleeding. It wasn’t much, but it was the best he could do. It was the agent’s only chance. The man’s life was being measured in minutes.
Ignoring the guilt of leaving a dying man, Jason picked up Broadhurst’s weapon, jammed it into his waistband beside the one already there, and vaulted the steps to the door.
CHAPTER 98
With his back against the wall, Jason pulled the door open an inch.
A bullet whizzed past his head like an angry hornet. Jason shrank back, releasing the door.
Shit! Shit!
He had glimpsed the man lying on the carpet, his weapon trained on the exit. If he stepped out, Jason would be riddled with bullets. All they had to do now was wait him out while Fairing and Kader lined up their shots. Jason frantically scanned the landing, trying to think of a way to open the door without getting shredded.
He needed a diversion. Jason moved back to Broadhurst and picked up one of his shoes.
* * *
President Gary Hope concluded his remarks and introduced his father to the citizens of southeastern Virginia.
On this fine day, the children of Jacob R. Hope bless their father’s name. The United States Navy honors his name. May God watch over all the sailors stationed aboard her, all those who fly from her deck, and all those who pray for their safe return. I’m honored to bring to you the forty-second president, my father, Jacob R. Hope.
Jacob Hope, the octogenarian, walked haltingly across the dais.
Thank you, Mr. President, for that kind and wonderfully generous introduction. This is any aviator’s dream come true. I first want to congratulate every man and woman who has made this vessel into the mighty war ship you see today…
* * *
The shot bisected the narrow opening. The fraudulent agent could put a hole in a quarter from fifty yards. His marksmanship was unparalleled. But he didn’t know if he’d hit whoever had cracked the door. He flexed his fingers, his eyes never leaving the door. Ninety seconds had passed since he’d fired.
The door cracked again. The impostor held his fire for a brief moment, seeing nothing through the narrow slit. He pointed the weapon where he guessed a man’s waist would be. An eternity passed. The door opened wider. Then, from above, something began to fall. He lifted his eyes. An object fell over the top of the door. In that split-second distraction, a weapon moved around the door. He tore his eyes away from the falling object a fraction too late. A muzzle flashed from inside the stairwell.
The explosion ripped through the impostor’s brain, accompanied by a blinding whiteness before everything instantly went black. The black shoe bounced twice and came to rest on its polished side.
* * *
Jason pressed against the doorframe and pivoted, letting the door rest against his back as Broadhurst had done earlier. He peered down the hall that angled to his right. All he could see was decorative wallpaper. This section of the corridor was empty except for the “agent” he’d just killed. Blood splattered the walls, not from the man he’d just dispatched, but from other victims. He crept to the bend near the elevators, hazarding another glance. Two silenced shots thudded into the wall behind him. Two more men lay on their stomachs at the far end of the corridor, several feet from each other.
The pain in his flank, temporarily block
ed by his adrenaline, throbbed with each heartbeat. Moving the gun to his left hand, he sucked in four quick breaths and stuck the Sig around the angle, firing four rapid shots without looking.
He peeked again. All four shots had missed, but the two exposed men scrambled for cover, crawling to a condo doorway. Jason fired two more shots at the legs of the second man. The second shot pierced the man’s left leg below the knee. A howl echoed through the corridor as the bloodied limb disappeared through the open door.
A second later, return fire erupted from the condo. Jason hugged the wall, pressed the magazine release, and the near-empty clip fell into his hands. Two rounds left. He dropped the weapon and removed the second pistol from his back.
The elevator door opened with a loud, ominous chime.
Jason belly-crawled to within a few feet of the elevator, keeping the weapon trained on the door where the leg had disappeared. A head and pistol popped out of the open car. Jason recognized the agent. He was one of the men from Alpha One, the team they’d been waiting for. Jason held up a hand, hoping a bullet wouldn’t disintegrate it, and pointed down the hallway.
“They’re in that apartment! Follow me! Where’s your partner?”
“Dealing with what we thought was another threat. He stayed behind. It’s just us.”
Jason and his new ally crept to within two feet of the door.
“We need to get in there,” the agent whispered.
“How?”
“By kicking it in.”
CHAPTER 99
Jason faced the closed door, lying on his belly, the pistol trained on the grainy oak. He sucked in a deep breath through a desert-dry throat, waiting for the hell that lay beyond.
“On the count of three,” the agent whispered, standing by Jason’s left shoulder. “I’ll kick it in. Shoot anything that moves.”
The agent rose to full height with a foot on either side of Jason’s shoulders.
“Ready…one…two…”
* * *
Fairing, oblivious to the commotion around him, adjusted his scope. His concentration was absolute.
Cooper, on the other hand, was a total wreck. Vomit welled in the back of his throat as he watched the leg wound pump a small lake of blood over the carpet. He puffed his cheeks, suppressing the nausea. A streak of crimson trailed the wounded man to where he writhed on the floor. The second agent applied a makeshift tourniquet with a cloth.
Cooper shifted his gaze toward the door, unable to take in the sight any longer.
Escape was a memory now. They were trapped. The gunfire beyond the condo walls told him his only means of escape was the open balcony. It was an option he was weighing heavily.
The tinny voice of the elder President Hope came through the speakers. Cyclops was programmed and ready. All Cooper needed to do was press a button, and the infrared laser target would be invisibly projected through the circular hole in the window and paint a twelve-inch reticle on the white canvas a mile away.
“Now, Cooper!” Fairing commanded.
Cooper lowered a quaking finger to the enter button on the keyboard. An inch lay between Cooper’s index finger and worldwide catastrophe.
At that instant, the door burst open. Two men filled the doorway. The one standing had just kicked in the door. The other was on the floor, pointing a gun…
* * *
The elder President Hope talked about the days leading up to his enlistment in the navy. He was proud of each and every one of the kids who had served, he said. After America was savagely invaded at Pearl Harbor, a wave of young men and women had been anxious to serve, totally unified against all threats to freedom. He went on to explain that America had been an “innocent nation” of merchants, and had instantly become a major industrial producer of armaments.
CHAPTER 100
The Secret Service agent’s foot connected with the door, splintering the frame and continuing through. As he kicked, the business end of his weapon tilted toward the ceiling, leaving him totally exposed and unprotected.
Jason scanned the apartment instantly. Four men were huddled in the condo. To the right, the man with the leg wound sat bleeding against one wall. A buddy kneeling over him. Steven Cooper stood in the middle of the group with his hand poised over a keyboard wired to an electronic gizmo. The fourth man was farther away, near a window, sitting in a tall chair behind a wooden platform, manipulating a mammoth rifle with an equally massive scope. Jason immediately recognized Sam Fairing’s diminutive form.
The immediate threat came from the man kneeling over the wounded man. Jason ripped off five rounds as the man fired in the same instant. Two rounds tore into the Secret Service agent above Jason. He lurched backward, landed heavily on Jason’s right leg, and bounced, unconscious or dead. Jason heard a loud pop as pain ripped through his lower leg.
Jason’s shots riddled the kneeling man, two in the left arm causing the weapon to sail away, two more in the lower abdomen, and the final, fatal shot piercing the small depression at the base of the neck. A fountain of red spewed like a geyser from the jugular.
Jason retrained the gun on the wounded man, who had managed to grab a pistol. Jason pumped four rounds into his chest. The wounded man squeezed off only one. It missed.
Out of the corner of his eye, Jason saw Fairing disappear when the shooting began, retreating down a hallway to the left. Steven Cooper stood paralyzed a few feet to the right of the dead shooters. Jason turned the gun on the tall, lanky man. Before he could fire, Cooper dropped his weapon and raised his hands.
Jason crawled into the apartment and rose to his feet with difficulty. His knee was swelling and hurt like hell.
“On the floor, asshole,” Jason commanded Cooper, scanning for Fairing but seeing nothing.
“Don’t shoot!” Cooper pleaded. He dropped to his knees and lay facedown with his hands clasped behind his head. Jason picked up Cooper’s gun and surveyed the carnage.
Four bullet-riddled bodies. Pools of expanding blood, the smell of cordite. The sniper rifle aimed out the window. A handgun abandoned on the platform, next to a laptop connected to some sort of machine.
Anger rose in Jason like a tsunami. The events of the last weeks swarmed him like agitated, malevolent ghosts. He bent over Cooper with a trembling hand and placed the barrel of the gun against the back of his head.
“You scumbag!” he seethed.
CHAPTER 101
Consumed by monumental ire and focused on Cooper, Jason did not see Fairing until it was too late. Jason looked up at the last instant. Fairing’s clothing and skin filled Jason’s field of vision as the pharmacist-assassin struck him hard. The gun flew out of Jason’s hand, bouncing into a corner. The men landed in a heap with Fairing on top, struggling in a swirl of sweat and murderous desperation. Fairing drove a fist at his face. Jason dodged. The fist slammed the hard, carpeted floor. Jason countered with a quick but powerful elbow to the cheek.
Fairing, dazed by Jason’s blow, blinked rapidly as he recovered. Jason seized a fistful of hair, holding the assassin’s head in place as he connected with two rapid punches, snapping the nose. He pushed Fairing away. Blood poured from the assassin’s nostrils. Jason scrambled to his feet, ignoring the pain seizing his leg and body. He assumed a fighting stance and began bouncing rapidly. His hands were near his face, balled into fists.
Fairing was dripping crimson droplets on the white carpet before Jason. His head was lowered, his shoulders sagged. Jason thought it was over. Fairing was giving up. But panic seized him when Fairing wrapped his fingers around the pistol that had been knocked from Jason’s hands.
Jason was about to launch himself at Fairing, but the gun was already leveled. The round, black opening of the barrel stared into Jason’s soul. It was too late. His intestines seized. His lungs deflated in a long, slow breath…
CHAPTER 102
A smile expanded slowly across Fairing’s face as his finger curled around the trigger.
A shuffling noise came from Jason’s left. Fai
ring reacted, shifting his gaze.
“Gun!” Jason yelled as Peter’s limping form filled the door. He launched into a spinning round kick, connecting with Fairing’s hand and knocking the gun barrel aside. Fairing maintained his grip on the weapon. It discharged. Out of the corner of his eye, Jason saw Peter go down. Fairing drove a blow into Jason’s midsection and violently shoved him away.
Jason lunged again, when another loud boom rocked the room. The shot came from Peter’s position. Fairing’s body jerked as Jason grabbed hold of his shirt. A large rosette of blood expanded over Fairing’s upper thigh. Fairing, undaunted, pummeled Jason’s face. Jason blocked the punches and landed three of his own. Fairing’s small but powerful fingers wrapped around Jason’s throat, squeezing it closed. Jason, struggling for air, extended his right fore and middle fingers in a modified spearfinger attack. It looked like a kind of Boy Scout salute as Jason sank the tips into Fairing’s right eye. The soft, gelatinous eyeball yielded as he buried the digits to the first knuckle.
Fairing screamed, releasing his choke hold. He rolled onto his side in agony. Jason grabbed the weapon, which had fallen to the floor, and kicked Fairing once in the head for good measure. He rolled and gyrated, screaming. Jason watched him for a few seconds.
Satisfied Fairing was temporarily out of commission, Jason went to Peter. His brother clutched the tissue over his right clavicle as blood seeped through his fingers.
“Thanks for showing up,” Jason said.
Peter gave a pained nod.
“Where’d you get the gun?”