So that was it.
Walk back to their units, join the pullback, make way for the buses, hope that the colonel and all the heads on suits had made the right call, and if they hadn’t, go in afterward and supervise the forensics and the janitorial.
“Tell you what,” said Jefferson. “Let’s go real slow. Now obviously we’re not going in underground, but some of you guys have door-breaching rounds for your shotguns, right?”
There were a few yeses from the assembled crew of helmeted guys with MP5s, ARs, and Rem 870s.
“Okay, I’ll play for time. Meanwhile, I want you guys to chamber your breaching rounds. If it goes down, we’re only fifty yards from that set of doors”-he gestured to an entryway boasting the name NORTHEAST, where one township’s SWAT people were withdrawing-“and we can get to the doors, breach them fast, and get into the fight maybe not in five seconds but maybe in one minute.”
“Mike, I have a better idea.”
“Yeah?”
The man explained. Then he said, “And it’s not quite a revolution. More of a coup d’etat.”
“No,” said Mike, smiling, “it’s a coup de SWAT.”
McElroy had found him another target. Still on the second floor, Ray was rotating another corridor to the left, moving down the outer ring toward Hudson, when he heard the sound of the shots.
He recoiled, thought someone had seen him, was shooting at him, and rolled backward, slipping the rifle off his back, knowing he was behind the curve and would take one in the head soon. But the shots were ragged, not a volley, more spontaneous, and he realized that they were echoing down the hallways from the wide-open amusement park where the hostages were being held. Then he heard this other thing, this animal thing, he wasn’t sure what it was, some kind of crowd noise, a hubbub, a roar, a vibration. It communicated… joy. Well, excitement, maybe relief. It was, of course, the sound of a thousand people letting out their breaths involuntarily, as if they’d just gotten the good news. It was somehow the opposite of mass dread; it was mass undread.
Ray waited for it to die down. He was puzzled but alert. He settled back into his scuttling position, ready to proceed, waiting for some kind of cue to suggest a path, a course, a possibility and, seeing none, decided to continue on plan.
He moved ahead, slowly, his eyes scanning for motion. Nothing. It was quiet. Ray rounded the corner under the window into a bright, still-lit retail space called DSW Shoe Warehouse and peered down Hudson to the atrium space. This angle afforded him a close-up view of the log flume ride, and the smell of chlorine, from the heavily disinfected waterway, reached his nostrils, recalling the pool on the Subic Bay Naval Base of his childhood and the many summer days he’d spent there. He wondered absently what had happened to the installation since the Navy closed it down. Then he got his war brain back, excoriated himself for taking a little mental vacation in the middle of a combat zone, and started to scoot ahead, hoping he’d reach the railing before whatever gunman was lounging there had gotten bored with his cigarette break and taken off.
But then-the vibration of his phone.
Always at the wrong time! Jesus Christ, don’t call me, goddammit, Molly.
But it wasn’t Molly.
“Sergeant, this is McElroy. We just got the news. We’re to stand down. They reached some kind of agreement, we’re going to pull back, the hostages will be released as soon as the plane takes off-”
“What the hell are you talking about?”
“A deal, a deal. We’re sending some supposedly ‘political’ Somali prisoners back, they’ll let the hostages go.”
Fuck, Ray thought. It went against everything he believed in. If you don’t stand up to them, you embolden them. You teach them that we’ll quit and it only makes them hungrier and crazier and the killing goes on and on. You fought wars to win or you didn’t fight them at all.
“Do you hear me, Sergeant? Please acknowledge.”
“Fuck,” said Ray.
“It means you too. They’re very worried at Incident Command that some kind of accident or some guy not getting the word could queer the whole deal. So you have to cease operating. You’d best pull into a store, take the rest of the day off, and we’ll let this play out. Then we’ll come and get you.”
“Ray,” came a new voice, “Memphis here, listening in. Obobo thinks he’s got it done, you have to do what Five is telling you. Let it cool.”
“Suppose these guys don’t play fair,” said Ray. “I’ve had five tours fighting these guys and I know they can look you in the eye and give you total sincerity from the bottom of their hearts and be lying like a son of a bitch, and to them, lying to an infidel isn’t a lie, it’s a gesture of love for Allah.”
“We have our order,” said McElroy.
“Ray, yours not to reason why, et cetera, et cetera. It doesn’t sit right with me either, but-”
“Are they choppering you guys out?” Ray asked McElroy.
“Nobody’s said anything yet.”
“You have any demolition there?”
“Of course not.”
“Okay, listen to me. You have to have a contingency. That’s all I’m saying.”
“Listen to him, Five,” said Nick.
“You have to be able to blow a hole in that window.”
“That’s fine to say but-”
“You have to be able to blow a hole in that window. You squad with the other snipers, you figure out something, just in case, to get through that fucking window fast and start taking people down. You may have just seconds to engage. Solve it yourself, solve it now.”
“You’re basically asking me to disobey orders.”
“Sniper Five,” said Memphis, in Washington Crisis, “you do what Cruz tells you, and if it comes to flak, you give them my name and I will swing for it, got that?”
“Got it, yes sir,” said McElroy.
“And you don’t know anything about this, Webley, if you’re listening.”
“I never heard a thing, sir,” said Webley, who had been listening. “Now McElroy, get busy, you have work to do.”
Ray put the phone away and tried to search out a retail outlet near the balcony where he could get into action if something happened, but he sensed a presence. Turning, his eyes met those of a jihadi gunman not three feet away. The man stared at him quizzically, and in the split second of stillness, Ray saw him trying to solve certain problems. Why, he had to be wondering, is this fellow here, in our uniform? Why is he not Somali? Who was he talking to?
And then he and Ray leaped at each other.
Dead Santa, atop his throne, gazed with sightless eyes upon the mortal anguish his passing signified. A woman on the other side of the crowd had also died, of a heart attack. There was a man near the Tilt-a-Whirl who was very, very close to death; he needed blood badly. One of the babies had started to cry and would not shut up. Everywhere, people were giving up or surrendering to bitterness and despair, trying to sneak last phone calls to tell relatives how much they loved them. Worst of all, the odors of colonic release filled the air. Generally it felt like the end of the world in the mass of hostages packed on the byways of the amusement park, dwarfed by the skeletal struts of various thrill rides, mocked by flappity-flapping banners and signs for refreshments and insane Christmas muzak from unstoppable speakers. “Silent night, holy night, all is calm, all is bright,” yadda yadda.
But Mom had seen worlds end before and gotten through, so she was not upset. She held Sally close to her. She did not want Sally looking around, with her bright face and bright eyes. She knew the child’s charisma was like a beacon and that it attracted attention, the wrong kind.
In her native language she prayed to Buddha for deliverance, but she also prayed for death to come to the filth that had engineered this thing. Everywhere she looked, she saw bleakness and turmoil. She continued to steal a handful of dirt into her bag every few minutes or so, as yet unnoticed, uncaught. It was just about time for another load.