What the hell were they up to? There wasn’t room for the Toyota to parallel park there. But that was obviously not what the driver had in mind. Instead, whomever it was planned to back in between the two vans bringing the Toyota’s trunk right to the curb. That would leave the front of the Toyota protruding illegally into the street. But that obviously didn’t bother the driver. Mike zoomed in with the camera: It was that woman again, the one with the scar.
He jabbed the intercom to the kitchen. “Someone trying to park right in front. Looks like scar face!” He grabbed his Beretta and raced for the stairs. Seizing their own revolvers, Steve and Sarah were already out the front door.
Outside, Jean continued to back the car carefully between the two trucks. It was a tight fit, but she could make it. There was the screeching sound of metal on metal. Took some paint off the Toyota, she thought grimly, but no one’s worried about resale value. She pulled out again, readjusted the angle slightly, and started backing in once more. Right, that’ll be perfect. She was so intent on her efforts that she didn’t see the people racing out of the house towards her.
Steve was in front of the group yelling, “Get that goddamned car out of here!”
“Fuck you,” she screamed back through the open window. “I’ll park anywhere I want.”
Steve was in the street now. He continued approaching her on the driver’s side. “You don’t have a parking permit,” he hollered again, “Get out!”
This guy was not going to ruin her plan, she thought. Only one way to deal with the asshole. She grabbed the Sig Sauer from the seat beside her, and brandished it at him. “Come one step closer,” she said, “And you’re dead meat.”
Steve froze, staring back at her. That red scar. He suddenly remembered where he had seen her: at the back of the church when Brian Hunt was buried. She continued pointing her gun at him as she backed towards the curb. In a flash, Steve had his Glock out and leveled at her.
“Up yours,” she said and pulled the trigger, just as the car abruptly jerked backwards.
Steve fired at the same instant; then toppled to the ground. He was sitting on the street, staring at the car. The driver raised her pistol again. Steve waited for the impact. He heard a shot from behind him. The driver slumped against the wheel, but her foot was apparently still on the accelerator. The Toyota jerked backwards again until it banged to an abrupt halt against the curb.
Gripping his bleeding right shoulder with his left hand, Steve turned towards Sarah. “Thanks. I thought that was it,” he said.
Jean was bent over the wheel. It was funny she thought, she’d been hit twice, once in the shoulder, the second time in the chest. She knew it was the chest because she could see the blood pumping out. But she hadn’t felt that second shot. If she could just move her hand enough to push the timer. Then she would have two minutes herself. Out the door and up the street and she’d be away.
Concentrating her efforts, she watched her hand move toward the gray timer button, as if it were someone else’s hand. Slowly, slowly, and then, yes, she pushed it. Now open the door. But she couldn’t move. All she wanted was for her arm to reach out and her hand to open the door, but nothing obeyed. It’s the weirdest sensation, she thought.
Aiming his own revolver at the open car window, Mike raced by Steve and Sarah and then peered down at the driver crumpled in the front seat. It looked like her chest had exploded. It was drenched in blood. Her eyes were open. No time to check if she was dead. She clutched a small gray metal box in her hand. “Everyone out of here,” Mike screamed. He turned and raced back to put his arm under Steve and, aided by Sarah, helped him stumble back to the house and into the elevator.
They had just entered the bunker, and the elevator door was still open, when there was a deafening explosion and a huge rush of air. A giant hand seized Steve and hurled him across the room, crashing against the far wall. The pain in his shoulder was excruciating. Everything went black.
When he came to, his shoulder hurt like hell. But that was all. He didn’t know how long he was unconscious, probably just a few minutes. The walls had held. The ceiling was still intact. Mike called out from the other side of the room. Sarah and Edith answered. Everyone seemed to be okay. But there was no way to get out. After a few minutes, there were sirens and searchlights probing the darkness. Then another long wait as rescuers tried to figure out how to get in. Steve was finally carried in a stretcher, past scurrying police and emergency workers, and into an ambulance. The TV cameras were already there.
In the ambulance, a doctor put a preliminary dressing on the wound in Steve’s shoulder. Amazingly, except for the bullet wound and a couple of bruised ribs, he was fine. Sarah had also survived with a few scratches. As had Mike and Edith.
The plainclothes police captain who questioned Steve at the Royal Brompton Hospital marveled that they had all come through with relatively minor injuries. “I don’t know how much explosive there was in that car,” he said. “Brought down your entire house, all five bloody stories. Buildings across the square were damaged. Three people killed, ten others seriously injured. We’re still digging them out. But it looks like your basement was built to withstand World War III.”
“What about the person driving the Toyota with the explosives?” asked Steve.
“Nothing much to say,” said the captain. “Possibly a female. Really not enough left to tell for sure. Our lab people are trying to scrape up whatever DNA they can find.” The captain paused and examined Steve closely, “Not in some way involved with the Middle East, are you?”
“Why do you ask?”
“An hour before the explosion, two Internet sites related to ISIS posted a statement claiming credit for the blast,” said the captain. “They said it was directed against the ‘American Capitalist Jake Pearlstein and the international Jewish conspiracy.’”
“I’ll give you a different lead,” said Steve.
At 2:30 p.m. in London, the doctor at the Royal Brompton Hospital agreed to discharge Steve after X-raying his shoulder. “Damn lucky nothing vital was hit,” he said.” Just don’t overdo things, and get the dressing changed in a couple of days.”
Sarah and Mike, who had been waiting, decided to go off and have a beer. Steve went to the Sloane Street Hotel and checked in. Once again, he tried reaching General Borovik in Moscow. This time, however, the general’s assistant answered the phone. Steve explained who he was and left a Skype and mobile number, with little hope of actually getting a call back.
He turned on his TV. CNN was broadcasting from the U.S. Congress, where the House was just beginning to debate impeachment proceedings. White House Correspondent Ira Rosen was reporting to anchorman Wolf Blitzer. “Wolf, we’ve just heard that President Stokes is refusing to defend himself before congress. He says the charges are all lies and fake news. He says he wants to take his case directly to the people. So far, however, the president has been blocked from direct access to any media, including Facebook and Twitter. The word we have from the Pentagon is that restriction is going to continue at least until impeachment has been voted by the Senate, probably by this evening.”
“Thanks, Ira,” said Blitzer, “This is probably the most perilous moment in U.S. political history – certainly since the Civil War. In the end, everything is going to depend on whoever is elected to take Stokes’s place. That is, assuming it is possible to organize new elections. According to latest polls, the number of Americans supporting President Stokes has plummeted to only twenty-one percent. But that still represents tens of millions of people, and a lot of them are dead set against this congressional action. Don’t forget, there are also more than three hundred million guns in this country. There have already been violent protests in a number of American cities, and unrest is growing.