It was a festive atmosphere, and the evening had all the makings of a really good party. The parachute demonstration would be the last event that was special operations oriented, and then the focus would be on nothing more than having fun.
As agreed, Dana was keeping an eye on Kathleen. Texas was doing much the same for her team. She had considered attending the party, but that would have turned the whole thing into a social event, and she was supposed to be working.
So she stood behind the parapet on the flat roof of the right-hand accommodation block and watched the festivities below. From that location, five stories up, she had the high ground and could actually keep quite a close eye on her charges through binoculars. At full power she was visually near enough to lip-read.
Another reason she had not gone to the party was Don Shanley. It had been a perfect night, and that was the way she wanted to remember it. If they met again face-to-face it could get complicated, and she knew she would get hurt. Shanley was attracted to her, she knew, but he was a certain kind of man. He might stray if she worked hard, but his loyalties lay elsewhere and he would not change them. That she knew, and it hurt because there was something about him that had connected. Too bad. The good ones were so often married.
She checked out her surroundings afresh. The courtyard below was pool and party. To her left was the main hotel block. Directly across from her was the other accommodation wing, similar to where she was standing but two blocks lower. The fourth side of the rectangle was open. There was an access road and a car park. The free-fall parachutists, she had been told, would float in the open end and land around the pool. It should be quite spectacular.
She considered the exhibition security. At the end of the day, all weapons on display were locked up by the individual exhibitors and then kept either on the exhibition hall floor or in the exhibitors' own rooms. The corollary of that was that the organizers' security was relaxed somewhat. If the weapons were locked up there was no need for so many guards, so went the argument. And having full strength at night was expensive.
The Bastogne Inn was one location where they really should be safe. But Texas was a professional. She stayed and she watched, because you never really knew. In the final analysis, it was all a giant craps game.
Then she saw Shanley and her heart leaped.
You tried to stay in control and then your body betrayed you.
"Hugo," said Kilmara patiently. "Relax and enjoy yourself. If Kathleen has gone to the coast to spend the day sight-seeing, which is my understanding, there is no way she will be back before late this evening. She may even stay there overnight. There is a lot of driving involved. So take it easy. She is a grown woman, Dana is keeping an eye on her, and Kathleen is pregnant, which does things to your hormones and moods. She wants some space. It's normal."
Fitzduane looked at his friend. He wanted to believe him with every fiber of his being. Yet his instincts told him something was wrong, and, unfortunately, his instincts rarely let him down.
He struggled for the middle ground. The music was infectious and people were having fun. He did not want to cast around doom and gloom.
"I'd be happier if she had telephoned," he said quietly. "She almost always phones."
Kilmara looked at him sharply. Privately, he was as concerned as Fitzduane, but he could not see what they could do right now that would be of any practical advantage.
"Hugo," he said firmly. "You had a row. Kathleen wants to keep her distance for a few hours. Accept it and stop behaving like an old woman."
Fitzduane smiled. Shane was right. He was overreacting. It was time to change the subject.
He gestured at the line dancers. "You know, I've never danced or made love wearing a hat and cowboy boots."
"You don't know what you're missing," said Shanley. "Where's Maury?"
Kilmara laughed. "Maury can make it one to one with difficulty. He can't handle large gatherings. He's in his trailer working."
"And Texas is on the roof," said Fitzduane conversationally. "The beautiful blonde with the binoculars on the skyline. She's our guardian angel."
Shanley looked up and straight into Texas's eyes. "I know," he said quietly.
Sheriff Jacklin went through the FBI report once again.
Hugo Fitzduane was indeed known to the bureau, only no criminal record was involved. The Irishman was on the side of the good guys and he was connected. There were a series of reference numbers that could be called. Most were inside the Beltway. One was Langley. The Hill was well represented. And the man was a colonel in some counterterrorist outfit. This thing had all kinds of nasty ramifications.
"Holy shit!" he said to himself. "I was mindful to arrest you for murder."
Mike Erdman, a sheriff's department investigator, poked his head through the door. "Sheriff," he said. "We've got the warrant to search Fitzduane's room."
The sheriff looked up. "Wait awhile. I've a hunch this thing is a mite more complicated," he said.
He thought. There was a conjunction of elements here that had ramifications way outside his normal daily concerns. This was not about drunken airborne troopers smashing up a bar or some cuckolded husband back from a foreign tour blowing the brains out of his wife or lover.
This smacked of another battlefield. Murder, a kidnapping, a helicopter, counterterrorism. The mysterious Hugo Fitzduane. A special-operations exhibition.
Connections in Washington. Too many connections in Washington. The feds – all kinds of feds. This could become downright horrible. Feds were like a social disease – intrusive and hard to shake.
He looked up at Mike Erdman. "Mike," he said. "Phone the MPs at Bragg and tell them."
"What?" said Erdman.
"Something is going down," said the sheriff.
"What?" said Erdman. "You know, Sheriff, underneath their fatigues they are cops up there. They ask questions like that. Who? What? Why? Motive? Means? Opportunity?"
Sheriff Jacklin took a flier, which was something he never did. But something screamed inside him.
"Tell them we have reason to believe there are terrorists in the area and that something big is going down."
Erdman gaped at him.
"Mike," said the sheriff. "You're a fine detective. But sometimes you're an asshole." He smiled. "Nothing personal. Now, MOVE!"
Erdman went back to his desk.
He was lifting the phone when they heard the explosion and felt the tremor.
"Bragg?" he said out loud.
Sheriff Jacklin stood in the doorway. "No," he said. "Much closer."
They did not have long to wait. The first call came in within thirty seconds.
"Sheriff?"
Jacklin raised his head. He felt unbelievably tired.
"Sheriff, they've bombed the Oak ParkShopping Center. Dozens dead. Hundreds injured. Lots of military families hit, by the looks of it."
The thought that Jacklin had considered yet suppressed in the past came through. You don't have to hit Bragg to hit Bragg. All you have to do is kill lots of soldiers and their families is to strike at the nearby shopping centers. No MPs and minimal security. Child's play for a dedicated terrorist. Child's play for any psycho.
He had thought about it and even raised it at a local-state-federal security meeting. He had been brushed aside. He had done nothing. It was hard to go up against the system. You questioned it at your peril.
There was not a serious terrorist threat in the United States of America. That was the conventional wisdom.