Roarke flew through the halls, hitting his speed dial to Katie when his phone rang. He stopped.
“Katie!” He could barely make her out over the rumble of sound. “Katie!”
“Scott! I can’t hear you,” she said. “I’m on my way. Are you coming?”
“Katie!” It was useless. Too much noise.
As soon as Roarke was out the door he spotted a Capitol Policeman’s motorcycle.
“Keys! Where are the keys?”
The officer stood by the cycle. “No way.” He was waiting for orders to lead a motorcade across town.
“Keys! I need your bike.”
“I can’t.”
“Yes, you can.” Roarke flashed his badge. “And you can get me backup! Send them to the Washington Monument, west side.
“Now. Give me the fucking keys!”
The Capitol police officer hesitated.
“Now!”
He took them out but still held them. Roarke shot his hand up from under the policeman’s arm: a karate move from his training years ago. The keys flew up. Roarke snatched them midair and saddled the motorcycle. “Get that backup to the Washington Monument!” He turned the key, gunned the engine, and lurched forward.
The shortest distance was across the White House lawn, but he couldn’t jump the gates. So Roarke peeled out of the driveway, making a right onto Pennsylvania Avenue and another quick right at 15th St. NW.
Marchers at the corner of 15th and Constitution blocked his way. He stopped, bolted forward, slowed, stopped, then jumped the curb. The White House was directly north of the monument, but he had to come up from the west where there were fewer people and a better line of sight.
What’s she wearing today? What the hell is Katie wearing? He tried to recall.
Roarke stood up on the bike to see over the crowd as he raced down Constitution. Just before 17th street, he made a sharp left onto the Mall, avoiding a marcher, but catching the corner of a table full of commemorative t-shirts. The goods went flying and the vendor screamed a stream of obscenities, which Roarke ignored. He was bearing down fast on the base of the 550-foot-high, Egyptian-style obelisk: the largest masonry structure in the world.
With a slight hand signal, Nolt ordered his men down. Now they were ahead of schedule and the schedule ruled. He cupped his hand over the display of his PDA. Once again, the GPS-relayed pulse confirmed the objective. Nolt would take his next cue in thirty seconds.
She was twenty-five feet away. He decided to walk right up behind her, pop the woman twice with his Heckler & Koch Compact USP 45, let her collapse into his arms, and lay her on the ground. He could accomplish this quickly and invisibly, then be on his way.
The woman looked about nervously and turned to him. She froze as if she recognized him. But how? Her eyes darted about as if asking for help.
That man? She’d seen the look before. Roarke taught her to pay attention to everything. Now the lesson was paying off. He looks like…
He sped up. Twenty feet. She was staring at him. He had his gun under his loose shirt. Fifteen feet. People were walking past, getting closer to the nearest screen. Another few feet and he’d bring his gun up. The speech was the only sound filling the air except for a yell and the roar of a motor behind him and to the side.
“Cooper!”
He distinctly heard the name, but he didn’t turn around. He was ten feet away. The woman hadn’t moved. He should shoot now. He slid his 45 out.
“Cooper!”
He kept going. His gun came up.
“Cooper, stop!”
He wasn’t going to get closer, as planned. But it didn’t matter. Too much noise, too much activity, too much attention elsewhere.
“Katie, down!”
That registered.
The woman instantly dropped and he adjusted his aim.
The detonation of an unsilenced gun rose above the speech and the cheering. What? That was the first of three confused thoughts. The second was that the woman was not looking at him, but beyond — to someone else. And the third, was that he was feeling cold and disoriented. What? he asked himself again. He heard the name Cooper from someone behind him, but he couldn’t turn to it. He looked at his gun. That simple, direct act was answered by another bullet to his side, from a different direction.
He dropped to his knees with the most perplexed expression. Then he fell backwards, his pupils reflecting the monument honoring the first president of the United States.
Chapter 75
The shock was overwhelming. A sonic boom. Then another. A pair of Super Hornets overflew, barely above tree-top level.
Komari’s men instinctively threw themselves on the ground and covered their ears and opened their mouths. It was completely reflexive and exactly what Nolt counted on. But the distraction was not yet complete. A second, then a third wave of Navy F/A-18s buzzed the camp, keeping the terrorists pinned. As each crossed above, they flared out and released AGM 65 Maverick missiles, further terrifying the untrained troops. The missiles shot through the air to the offshore target, but the very proximity of the jets — only meters above them — kept the rebels down. The noise, the photoflash bombs, chaff, and flares blinded and deafened the terrorists. The spectacle numbed them.
“Go, go, go!” radioed Nolt. Shaughnessy and Nolt were the first through the tent flap. They moved wide to the left and right. Showalter and Pintar were footsteps behind, and split ten feet apart. Roberts and Polonsky backed them up and were prepared to enter if any of the first team went down. Chaskes and Lopez fired at any of the huddled terrorists who dared raise their heads.
Komari had killed the lights on the first assault: a quick and smart decision. But the SEALs, with their night-vision goggles, could see perfectly.
Nolt’s PDA told him exactly where the president was. Two-o’clock, twenty-two feet ahead.
Lopez, looking through his own night-vision goggles, dispatched two guards standing inside the tent.
Now, Nolt’s way was clear. The president was ahead, and apparently bound back-to-back with another captive. Even through his infrared sight, he could tell that the president was injured…and in danger. A man stood over President Taylor with a machete raised high. Someone to the side was yelling an order. The blade started sweeping down. Nolt fired his laser-aiming handgun. The guerilla took three hits between the eyes. The blade fell to the side, barely missing the president, but catching the man behind him in the leg.
Another guerilla stood close to the first man. The one who gave the order! He wore a beret and held a gun with one hand and a riding crop or whip in another. His eyes burned with hatred, but his reaction time wasn’t as great as his fury. His pistol came up.
Nolt didn’t have the angle to take him out. Another rebel was coming toward him, blocking his shot. He fired. The man dropped to his knees. The SEAL angled sideways. The man with the beret was laughing. He had his shot.
“Lieutenant, down!” It was Shaughnessy’s voice from the opposite end of the tent. Nolt dove as a shot rang out. It hit the rebel and continued through his shoulder to where Nolt had stood. The terrorist spun around thinking the shot came from Nolt. Not finding him, he re-acquired his target — the president. He took aim. But Shaughenessy’s final shot went through his left eye socket. All that had been Commander Umar Komari ceased to be.
Roberts and Polonsky finished off the rest of the terrorists in the tent. Chaskes and Pintar found two targets of their own outside. They were dead in the time that it took Komari to hit the floor.