Drake turned away from the window and steeled his resolve. Not only were the police, the FBI and the Army out there, so were his closest friends, all part of the only family he had left. This nightmare would only end for everyone by cutting the head off the snake.
With no contrary orders, the team progressed further up the staircase. The SWAT team advanced on whisper-soft feet, the whole black-clad group looking like a team of Ninjas. Drake had heard the term ninja used by the FBI, referring to a ready-to-go SWAT team member, but it only reminded him of the real thing. Although kept to a minimum, the sound of their passing still echoed. The fifth and then sixth floor came, then another squawk of static signaled a halt.
“Sit rep. Check.”
All three team leaders radioed the all-clear. Command furnished them with a blast of information — nothing had changed ‘upstairs’, but they sounded confident that no news was good news.
Drake watched as the team leader raised his hand, then paused as a new sound reached their ears. It was a sound every single man on the stairs knew by heart and by experience.
An explosion ripped through the hotel.
CHAPTER TWENTY NINE
Drake dropped to the floor.
“Hold position! Hold position!”
“Ya don’t fuckin’ say!” The unnerved team leader shouted into his mic.
Drake heard the deep rumble die away. The explosion had come from the other side of the hotel, barely shaking the structure and doing little real damage. A frantic exchange was taking place over the comms.
“Team Echo, come back. Team Echo, come back.”
Two teams, including Drake’s, had returned the summons already, but the third had not responded. Their comms channel was still open though, its airwaves thick with the muffled sounds of pain and distress. Drake listened while staring up the staircase as the survivors finally managed to speak.
“Trap. Goddamn pressure pad or something triggered a shaped charge down the staircase from the landing above. We have wounded—”
Suddenly the comms system and its operators changed their dispositions from anxious to hysterical.
“Kovalenko! It’s Kovalenko. He’s calling the emergency number right now.”
“Jesus Christ! Get a fix on it!”
Drake settled back on his haunches, feeling helpless. He began to creep back down the staircase, each man following in the others’ footsteps as the team leader retreated from his highest point — three steps from the landing. Maybe Team Echo had been the first to make it to that level.
“We’re piggybacked onto the call! Listening in…”
Drake couldn’t hear what the Blood King said, but the sudden deathly silence on the line attested to its magnitude. Every man stopped moving, fingers to their ears, weapons lowered, listening. Every fist was clenched, every ounce of breath held. The tension soon became as thick as jungle heat.
“No…” an operator breathed.
“Alpha team here,” Drake’s team leader spoke gruffly. “What the hell is going on up there?”
“Kovalenko has Coburn… I mean, I mean the President. They’re pulling him… across the room. No—”
Drake gritted his teeth. The Blood King stood not five floors above him, yet stayed firmly beyond his reach. Hot blood and a thirst for vengeance surged through his body, making him want to run up every stair and burst in through the bastard’s door, all guns blazing, but one simple booby-trap had stopped any chance of that happening. Men were dead, and now Kovalenko was revealing the next part of his master plan. It was all staged, Drake knew. Every part of Kovalenko’s plan would have been thought through to the finest and bloodiest detail.
“Oh no … the President is now positioned before the window. The commandos are around him. Kovalenko just put the phone down, said something like ‘you want to test me? Here’s what I do.’ And… and… my God!”
“What is it?” most of the team cried. “What’s happening?”
“That madman just threw President Coburn out of an eleventh story window.”
CHAPTER THIRTY
The Blood King evaluated the mood of his men. The focus was still high, the expectancy soaring. They had made it this far, but the toughest part of the plan was about to unfold. He looked to Gabriel behind the bar, pleased to see the African’s ever-present malicious optimism. If luck and success could be garnered through sheer will and belief, then the African would see them through a hundredfold.
Kovalenko made another call, this time to an FBI number. When the operative answered he asked to be put through to the leader of the on-site Hostage Rescue Team. Within minutes the call was live.
“You had to test me, you American assholes, didn’t you?” he said. “I warned you, did I not? Will you now try to test me again?”
“Our teams have been ordered to stand down,” came the expected reply. “What is it you want?”
Kovalenko paused for a second. Why aren’t they asking about Coburn? “Did you recover the body?”
“We know it wasn’t the President. In fact, it was an English book critic, in town for the East Coast Book Fair. Congratulations, you murdered an innocent civilian.”
“Ah,” Kovalenko waved it away. “You see, in my war there are no innocents. You people,” he spat. “You live in a world where everything is taken for granted. You shop at your food markets and whine at an empty shelf. You complain about stale bread. You have,” he paused to think, “Reality TV? You assholes need to learn that you know nothing about reality. Nothing.”
“Hey, I hate that shit as much as the next guy. What is it you want, Kovalenko?”
“You failed to stop me so now I will leave. You must have a kind of infra-red or tracker wired to President’s heart? You have something, that I do know, otherwise you would have asked about his welfare. Now, a chopper is approaching Washington airspace. My chopper, dah? Let it pass through. Let it land on hotel roof or President dies. You hear me? I read President Coburn earned his wings in battle. We will see if they help him fly out of the fucking window, dah?”
“We can’t just let a chopper through. The chain of command goes all the way to—”
“Let it through,” Kovalenko hissed. “Or Coburn dies right now. On this open channel.”
“If you kill the President you lose all bargaining power.”
Kovalenko signaled Gabriel. The African moved faster than a puma, slinking around the wet bar and hauling Coburn up by the neck. The President yelled in surprise and pain, unnerved by the sudden violence.
“Do you want death of President on your head?” Kovalenko whispered into the phone.
“Just… just wait. Hang on.” The fearful voice cut off.
Kovalenko smiled. “Happy to.”
CHAPTER THIRTY ONE
Drake hotfooted it back to the Hotel Lewison Park and Conference Room 1B just as Kovalenko’s latest demands were being discussed. The buck stopped with the VP, but all the Joint Chiefs and their aides, several Chiefs of Staff, the FBI, and others were involved in a hot debate.
“Let him go,” said the White House Chief of Staff. “We can track it and the President with ease. Where can they go?”
“With all due respect,” the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs muttered. “This is a military operation. You can’t—”