It took an hour for the white and blue Huey to reach Charlottesville. They swooped over the campus but avoided Gilmer Hall where the situation was unfolding. Buses were parked outside the perimeter to evacuate students. It was incredible how dense the campus was. There were dozens of buildings, narrow streets, and vast wooded areas. They had to land in a park several blocks away.
Ned handled getting themselves accredited so they could walk into the police perimeter. It was chaos. There was a homogeneous blend of campus police, local police, and state troopers. Within moments they were directed to the man who was in charge. Wearing civilian clothes, he was standing behind a Virginia State Police command bus.
“You’re Captain Darrow?”
“That’s right,” the man replied, visibly annoyed by the visitors.
Spicer handed him a business card.
“We’re from The Anchises Foundation. We’re funding some damn important research going on in there and we’d like to know what the hell’s going on.”
The Anchises Foundation was a genuine Sigma Division front which made their operations smoother.
Darrow was the dubious at first but he obviously figured that anyone who could go this far into the perimeter had to be important. He handed the older visitor his binoculars. Spicer peeked through them.
“Second floor, on the left,” the grizzled, balding cop said.
Spicer found the window where Harland Fry was. The man was pacing, talking to himself. Totally hysterical.
“Associate professor Harland Fry, 32 years old. He’s been working there for the last five years. So far we’ve made out 21 sticks of dynamite strapped to his chest. Says he’s thinking about blowing up the whole Psych department.”
Spicer lowered the binoculars and turned to the cop. “Has he made any demands so far?”
“Nothing but incoherent babble.”
A young trooper in uniform approached them. “Sir, he’s opened the window again.”
Darrow stole his binoculars back and looked at what was going on. Even from his spot and with a naked eye, Spicer could see the suspect had his head out of the window.
Scott Stadium offered the best vantage point for the sniper team. The Chemistry building was closer but the angle was wrong. This said, the sniper had seen much worse in Afghanistan, having spent most of his career as part of Marine Force Recon going up against the Taliban. He’d had much more difficult target and way longer ranges.
However, that was the first time his target had 20 pounds of dynamite strapped to his chest in the town where his wife and daughter lived.
He had the subject in the crosshairs of his Leupold VX-R scope and he worked on controlling his breathing. Unlike in the military, he didn’t have the benefit of a spotter to guide him.
“I got a clear shot at the suspect,” he said into his microphone.
All he needed was a green light.
Chapter 6
Captain Darrow promptly lifted the radio to his lips. “High ground, you have a red light. I repeat, red light.”
Spicer frowned at that statement. Maybe it was a personal bias from his past employment but he would have given the kill order.
Fry pulled out his head from the window even more to shout. “They won’t get me! I won’t be part of it, you hear me?”
Darrow raised a bullhorn to his mouth.
“We understand, Harland. Why don’t you come down so we can talk about this? Or let my guys bring you a phone, all right? I just want to talk.”
“It’s all gonna be over!” Fry screamed. “Don’t you see? The government is after us! It’s coming! Their day is coming. The shepherd will annihilate us all!”
As he ducked back inside the building, Spicer leaned toward the captain so that he didn’t have to speak so loudly.
“You had a shot, why didn’t you take it?”
“Because on the other side of this building we have a bunch of student housing and we haven’t finished evacuating yet. And this building on the right is the Chemistry Building. If this guy goes boom I wouldn’t wanna be in the area.”
His look of disdain made it plain that he didn’t like having to explain himself to a civilian. He walked away to confer with an officer in SWAT gear. Meanwhile, Ned came closer to Spicer and handed him his phone.
He said, “Higher power on the line.”
Spicer took it and walked a few steps away from the commotion.
“Spicer.”
Dr. Michaels was standing behind his desk, his knuckles digging in the hard glass surface and yet feeling no pain. Houseman was standing in the doorway, coming for some news. The TV was muted but both men were watching the coverage. The phone was in speaker mode.
“They say on TV that they’re about to raid the guy,” Michaels said. “Is that accurate?”
“They’re waiting for the bomb squad first,” Spicer replied.
Houseman nodded, lost in thought. He came closer.
“Do you think there’s any doubt that they won’t capture him alive?”
There was silence on the other end of the line as Spicer processed the comment.
“The question is, do you want him alive?”
Dr. Michaels didn’t miss a beat. “No.”
“Maybe it would serve us to talk to him first. I think this may be the guy who wrote the article in the paper.”
Houseman shook his head. “He’s threatened the integrity of his research. Should he walk out of this building by himself, I would hold you personally responsible.”
The line went dead and Spicer killed the phone. “Un-fucking-real.”
He handed the phone back to Ned.
“Bomb squad’s here.”
They both turned and saw a SWAT team in green tactical gear running with two Bomb Unit technicians. They were in full ballistic armor and looked like aliens. They went the long way around and entered Gilmer Hall.
The SWAT team was leading the way, carbines aimed forward as if a threat was lurking around every corner. They reached the stairway, took a moment to make sure this wasn’t an ambush, and then scurried up the stairs. Time was of the essence.
Once on the second floor, the SWAT leader made a fist and everyone stood fast. They inspected their surroundings but the hallway was empty.
The leader gave the go ahead and they advanced again, single file and pointing their M4 weapons everywhere, until they reached the closed door of a lab.
“Team one in position,” the leader said into his throat mic.
By now, Spicer and his assistant had followed the ranking cop into the bus. Past various officers, there was a row of monitors which displayed images coming from many cameras which had been installed to give an overview of the entire situation.
More important right now were two monitors which themselves were split into four squares. They showed live images coming from minicams which were mounted on the tactical operators. It wasn’t the best resolution but it gave an accurate portrait of the events unfolding.
Darrow was calm. He brought his radio to his mouth.
“High ground, you have a green light. I repeat, green light.”
In spite of his regular serenity, the sniper was now feeling the adrenaline pumping through his veins. He thumbed the safety off and worked on controlling his breathing. The secret to precision shooting was breath control, you had to time your breathing between trigger pulls.
He scanned the window through his scope but the guy wasn’t in sight anymore.
“Negative. I lost the visual,” he said.