As Burke and Roddy aimed their rifles toward the truck, a pistol shot rang out, striking the pavement beside Burke's right foot. The wind had picked up a notch, blowing the tear gas northward, but leaving enough to sting their eyes. Blinking rapidly as he looked toward the top of the truck, where the shot had come from, Burke saw a figure in a gas mask just above the tailgate, about to climb inside.
"It's Romashchuk!" Roddy yelled as he fired a short burst. Several metallic clangs sounded as rounds ricochetted off the truck. Nikolai Romashchuk had dropped out of sight inside the vehicle's hopper.
Hearing the gunfire, Pepe and his companions drew their pistols and started shooting. Though they were hardly in shape to see who was firing, they aimed in the direction of the sound. One lucky shot, from the Peruvians' standpoint, caught Roddy on the left arm. He shouted a bitter curse as Burke squeezed the trigger of the automatic rifle.
Unaccustomed to the weapon, he fired too many rounds with the first burst. It was more than enough to down the terrorist called Pepe. Swinging the barrel around, he managed shorter bursts this time, taking out both of the other guerillas, who were crouching and firing, ineffectively, in his general direction.
Ignoring his wound, Roddy slung the M16 over his shoulder and ran toward the rear of the truck. He climbed quickly using the handholds. Just as he stuck his head above the side, a loud thump sounded over the roar of the chopper. A brief flash appeared at the muzzle of one of the mortar barrels.
Roddy stared in horror. Major Romashchuk had fired one of the shells! He froze for an instant, then reacted with sudden, blind fury. The tear gas had dissipated, clearly showing the Major beside the mortar. Roddy swung the assault rifle off his shoulder. The Major spotted him at almost the same time and reached for the pistol at his waist. But drawing on the training he had received back in his special operations days, when he had practiced with every type of weapon in the inventory, Roddy squeezed the trigger before Romashchuk had time to aim. The M16 on automatic fire cut him down with a terrible clattering racket as bullets danced across the truck body.
Roddy stared at the bloody remains for a moment, then threw the rifle in at the lifeless heap.
As Burke rose from checking the downed Peruvians, he saw Roddy slowly climbing down from the truck. The boom of the cannon blasts at the Capitol still echoed through the muggy night air. "These three are dead," Burke said. Then he saw the look on Roddy's face. "What happened?"
"I was too late." He shook his head, tears in his eyes. "The bastard fired one of the shells."
With the boom of the cannon fire and the full fury of the music, only those in the immediate vicinity of the impact heard the mortar shell detonate. The downwash of the Pave Low's rotor blades had rocked the dump truck and the Shining Path terrorists had bumped against the mortar tube while scrambling out. As a result, the weapon's aim had been altered. The round landed on the north edge of the Capitol grounds. The wind, which had picked up in intensity over the past half an hour, caught the nerve gas and quickly swept it away from the crowd, but not quickly enough for those in the immediate vicinity.
The thunderous applause following the Tchaikovsky work was just beginning to fade when the first victims began to fall at the edge of the throng. They suffered from blurred vision and nausea and a tightness in the chest, then died quickly, gasping for breath, their limbs twitching. Some people nearby rushed to their aid, while others pulled back in horror. Many of those who attempted to help wound up victims themselves.
The orchestra launched into its traditional finale, Stars and Stripes Forever, which was normally accented by the brilliant bursts of fireworks from the area of the Washington Monument. But when the crowd looked to the sky, they saw only drops of rain, which began slowly, then quickly increased in tempo. This brought a major rush toward the nearby streets. Except for those on the northern fringe, the vast audience was unaware of what had happened.
The shot that hit Roddy Rodman's arm went through cleanly with no damage to the bone. As soon as Burke had made a temporary bandage with a large handkerchief, Roddy took the radio and called Major Schuler. The Pave Low had begun to attract a small crowd of people who had stopped their cars to see what was going on.
"We got them all, Dutch, but they fired one of the shells," Roddy advised in a saddened voice.
"Oh, God… no!"
"I'm afraid so. I picked up a chunk of lead in my arm, too. But no real damage there."
"Sure you're okay, Colonel?" Schuler replied.
"Roger. You guys had better get out of here before all hell breaks loose. You're already attracting an audience. Burke and I will stay and try to explain this to the cops. Then we'll head over toward the Capitol and see what's happening." And hope we can find our families alive, he thought.
"I'm sure I'll catch unshirted hell when this gets out," said Schuler. "But that's life. Call me when you get settled down."
The rotor blades began to spin faster as the turboshaft engines revved up and the helicopter lifted off the pavement, dipped its nose and began to rise.
As Burke and Roddy watched, they heard a sudden rustling sound behind them. They turned to find eight camouflage-suited soldiers moving in with automatic weapons. The group wore no insignia of any kind. Their steel helmets were painted a dull black. Their faces were smudged with black greasepaint.
"Lay your weapon on the street," ordered the one closest in a cold, businesslike voice. "Don't move and you won't get hurt." He turned toward the others. "Echo, keep your gun on them. Bravo, you drive the truck. The rest of you get moving."
The others slung their weapons, Uzis, Burke noted, behind them and quickly and quietly went to work. Operating in pairs, they gathered the bodies of the Peruvians and tossed them into the dump truck with Romashchuk. The one called Bravo climbed into the cab and started the engine. Another shook a powdery substance from a can onto the bloody spots where the guerrillas had fallen. At a signal from the leader, two men hopped into the truck cab with the driver and the others quickly climbed into the gray van, which had suddenly appeared with lights on, engine running.
As Burke and Roddy watched in stunned silence, the van pulled out in front, pausing to move aside the barrier at Sixth Street. It was followed closely by the yellow dump truck as raindrops began to pepper down in the street. In less than five minutes from the time they first appeared, they were gone. And so was all evidence of the terrorist team and the operation it had only partially carried out.
Roddy Rodman was first to break the silence. "What the hell was that?"
"A cleanup crew," Burke said.
"Where'd they come from?"
"Damned if I know. Probably weren't CIA, but I'll bet that's where they learned their trade."
Burke and Roddy scurried to the side of the street as cars began to drive down the block again. "Look at this," Burke said, squatting down near where one of the terrorists had fallen. "They sprayed something on the bloody spots."
"It's greenish."
"Yeah, like somebody's radiator leaked antifreeze."
Roddy felt numb. It was as though somebody had just peeled off a layer of his life, erasing all evidence of the past week. "The two people who could testify that I didn't kill Elena Castillo Quintero are now dead. The Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff has put out the word that I'm nutty as a fruitcake and dangerous. And the FBI is still hunting me down."
Burke shook his head. "We're damned sure not going to accomplish anything here. Let's see if we can find out what happened to that shell Romashcuk fired."