As Orphan X’s forward observer, she had to get to the intersection to establish visual on Cadillac One and call the shot. If she couldn’t, all their meticulously laid groundwork would be wasted.
The motorcycle cop closed in, a chirp of his brakes shifting his weight forward on the bike. As he drew alongside her, she flipped the phone into his front wheel.
It hit the spokes with a buzz-saw whine, disintegrating into a thousand glittering pieces. The hitch was enough to rip the cop up over the handlebars, an airborne somersault that landed him in a five-foot skid up the sidewalk, his bulletproof vest giving off a fingernails-on-chalkboard screech.
Her contribution to the accident went unnoticed, leaving her free to whip between fleeing onlookers and bolt around the turn in time to catch sight of Cadillac One speeding away. Edging out to the brink of the curb, she thrust her hand into the courier bag, gripped the speed gun, and aimed its nose out through the mesh opening at the trunk of the quickly receding limo.
Red numbers glowed up at her: 53 MPH.
That put the target vehicle smack in the middle of the highest range Orphan X had calculated on the speed chart.
Which meant the visual for the green-light call would be when the limo passed the second old-fashioned streetlamp on the east side of the street.
All she had to do was wait.
She activated her earpiece. “They’re in the chute. Wait for my signal.”
X answered, “Copy that.”
Three SUVs careened around the corner, causing her to jerk back from the curb so they wouldn’t take off her kneecaps. They accelerated to catch up to Cadillac One and assume a rear guard.
Unfortunately, they also cut off her vantage of the target.
She had no choice now but to step out into the cleared center of the street, putting her in the wide, suspicious open.
Cloaked in official emergency-response-team garb, Service creds dangling in full view from lanyards, Orphan A and the Collins brood had been able to move freely, strolling in front of the sawhorses, their FN P90s at low ready. Overzealous agents had checked their credentials twice, but the documents were — if fake — authentic government-issue.
Irate over Ricky’s death, Wade was running on a high simmer, breathing so hard his nostrils quivered. Holt didn’t know if he’d kicked something extra into his bloodstream — a shot of epinephrine, a hit of PCP, the blood of a Spanish bull.
Holt had positioned his team in the dense network of streets north of Pennsylvania Avenue because that was the corridor he would have chosen were he plotting the assassination. They’d started in a wolf pack, then spread out gradually, Holt going solo but splitting the remaining Collinses into teams of two. He directed them over the radio, maintaining close contact.
When he’d heard the explosions, he was in position near the Grand Army of the Republic Memorial, a triangular granite shaft with bronze reliefs depicting Union soldiers holding stately poses. Ideally located at the intersection of 7th, Indiana, and Pennsylvania, the circular plaza gave him clear sight lines through a good swath of Penn Quarter.
His first reaction was to not react. He’d hopped up onto a bus bench, widening his focus, reading the river. Looking two blocks north, he’d caught the convoy as it blasted along E Street. Moments later two more charges detonated up Indiana Avenue.
Now he understood.
X was guiding Bennett into a kill zone.
Holt looked overhead now, using the helicopter to chart the location of the lead limo beneath it. It was vectoring south hard toward Pennsylvania Avenue.
At last he moved, sprinting a half block south and spilling onto the wide thoroughfare a block from where Cadillac One would intercept it. He looked wildly up the street, searching for something, anything, that could pass for a sniper’s wind indicator.
There it was.
A plastic grocery bag stuck artfully on a telephone line over the dead center of the street by the Newseum, high enough to catch the sight line of a roof shooter. The bag fluttered in a low breeze.
Already he was sprinting for the nearest building, activating the radio. “He’s set up for a shot somewhere near Sixth and Pennsylvania. Get here now.”
Slinging his submachine gun, he plowed into the Federal Trade Commission Building, flashing his badge at the security guard—“Emergency! Emergency!”—and smashing through the door into the stairwell. Pounding up three at a time, he headed for the roof, shouting, “Do you copy?”
At last Wade’s voice came back. “I got eyes on a woman standing in the middle of the intersection at E and Sixth. I think she’s spotting for him.” The connection crackled and then came clear once more. “Me and my boy gonna take the bitch now.”
50
A Sleek Instrument of Destruction
Candy had to straddle the center line of 6th Street to hold the presidential limo in view, and even then it was a challenge with the SUVs weaving side to side behind it. She ran south down the middle of the street, courier bag smacking against her lower back.
Cadillac One crossed D Street, hurtling away from her.
There were still enough panicked pedestrians dashing across the road to cover Candy for the moment, but the area was dotted with agents, so it was only a matter of time before—
She sensed him from the corner of her eye, a hulking figure wrapped in an ERT combat-utility uniform, stepping out from between two parked police motorcycles.
His energy drew her focus immediately, something off about him — not just size but a ferality behind the eyes. He was sweating heavily, a trickle running down the side of his throat leaving a bluish stain.
No — not a stain.
A makeup-covered tattoo.
That happened to be a swastika.
His shadow stepped out from behind him, and she realized it wasn’t his shadow but a slightly less enormous version of him.
Wade Collins and one of his cousins. Bob or Jimmy. Either way it wasn’t going to go well for him.
In her ear came X’s voice. “Standing by.”
She looked ahead at the vanishing rear of the presidential limo and then back over at the men confronting her.
A still moment, as fragile as a spiderweb, all of them connected by silk threads and trembles in the air.
And then Wade charged, his cousin at his heels. Stray tourists were still darting between them, so Wade dropped his FN P90, letting it dangle from the sling, and opted for the SIG in his hip holster.
Instead of running away, she ran at him.
She had to intercept him before his arm got to horizontal.
She barely did.
Seizing his rising wrist with her left hand, she planted a foot on his thigh and literally ran up his body, seating her other boot in his gut before flipping backward and locking up his arm between both of her legs. Her weight ripped him forward off his feet, and they pitched together to the asphalt. Even as they fell, she reached to his side with her free hand, grabbing the swaying submachine gun, and squeezed off a burst under his armpit.
Impact with the street was brutal, Wade’s weight crushing her into her courier bag.
But she held the arm bar, keeping his limb clamped between her legs, the elbow flexed outward, a breaking hold.
Behind them Bob or Jimmy held his feet a moment, staring down at them. Then crimson spots bloomed through his ERT uniform like shirt buttons, a neat line up his torso.