"Get up." The voice was hard, almost bored. The Nike foot kicked her. "You are not hurt. Both of you, get up now." The speaker kicked her again for emphasis.
Selena got to her feet and leaned down to help Margaret stand.
"You are going to regret this," the ambassador said. "You, and all your cowardly comrades." She looked at the blood soaked body of Sergeant Crowder lying on the floor. Selena watched her get herself under control.
The terrorist leader was a small man with eyes that looked dead. Like the others, he wore a black headband, black trousers and a white shirt.
"I don't think so," he said. His English was good. "Unless you want to join your sergeant over there, you'll do as I say, Madame Ambassador." He turned his attention to Selena.
"Who are you?" he said. "You are not one of the people in our photographs."
Nick's voice sounded in her earpiece. "Tell him you're a journalist, visiting for a story. He'll like that."
"I'm a journalist," Selena said. "I work for the Times. I'm doing a feature piece on Manila and the American presence here in the Philippines."
"Ah, a journalist. Surely Allah has smiled upon me. You will tell our story to the world."
"Allah?" Selena said. "You are Muslim?"
Like a snake, the man's hand whipped through the air and slapped Selena across the face. The blow rocked her. Her cheek began to burn. At least he hadn't hit the side with the earpiece.
"You do not say the name of God," the man said. "In your infidel mouth it is an abomination. Look at you. Your hair uncovered, your legs and arms exposed for all to see. You are whores, both of you. But useful whores."
Selena wanted to rub her face where he'd hit her but wasn't about to give him the satisfaction of seeing how much it bothered her. She also wanted to kick him in the balls. Who is he? she thought. Get him to tell you so Nick can find out. She looked him in the eye and said, "If you want me to write about you, I need to know your name."
"Why not? You may call me Omar." Omar gestured to one of his men. "Take them into the big room with the others," he said.
The man pushed them toward the ballroom. He wasn't gentle about it. Selena heard Nick's voice in her right ear.
"Good work, Selena. I'll get Harker on it." He paused. "I'm right here, I'll get you out of there."
She almost answered and caught herself in time.
The ballroom faced out the back of the embassy onto the Chancery through a wall of tall windows. Many of the windows were broken, blown in by the attack. Glass and bits of stone and wood littered the room. Two Marines lay dead on the polished ballroom floor. The rest of the embassy staff clustered together against one of the walls, under a large painting of Admiral Dewey's flagship at anchor in Manila Bay. The Americans sat together. The Filipino staff formed their own group. Omar herded Selena and the ambassador over to the others.
Cathwaite's secretary got up and hugged the ambassador. "Margaret! Thank God you're all right."
"I'm fine, Helen. Is anyone else hurt except for our poor Marines?"
"Just cuts and scratches from the glass. Nothing serious. Carmichael doesn't look good. I'm worried about him."
Matthew Carmichael was the Commerce Department attaché. He was sitting to the side of the group, holding his hand against his chest and taking labored breaths. Sitting next to him was a blond haired man who appeared subdued. Selena figured him for the CIA spook. Carmichael's secretary sat huddled on the other side of her boss. The Filipinos looked frightened. They stared at the floor, avoiding eye contact with anyone. It wasn't the kind of group she would have picked to go up against a dozen terrorists.
Omar jabbed Helen in the ribs with the barrel of his AK-47. "You, slut, shut up. All of you, sit. Now, or I kill you."
Selena sat down next to Margaret.
For now, she was on her own.
CHAPTER 16
"How many inside the building?" Harker asked. She and Stephanie were in Elizabeth's office in Virginia, talking to Nick over the satellite link.
"Uncertain. Selena said six. There could be more. The terrorists took out the Marine guards. They're led by a man named Omar."
"That helps," Elizabeth said. "It's a common name but they're probably Abu Sayyaf. We'll look in the database." She paused. "Don't do anything stupid, Nick."
"If it's only six we can take them. But we have to get into the building. They're going to have people watching the entrances. Can you get plans of the embassy? Blueprints?"
"I can do that. Give me a minute." Stephanie's voice came over the link. In Virginia, she entered a string of commands on her keyboard. "I'm looking for them now," she said.
The Project computers were Crays. A search for the embassy building plans was child's play for their enormous power. The drawings were up on Stephanie's monitor within a minute.
"I'm looking at the plans," she told Nick. "The whole complex is built on an artificial extension into the bay. They sank six hundred concrete pillars into the bay floor and filled it in."
"How does that help?" Nick said. Stephanie heard impatience in his voice.
"There's an underground drainage system combined with a service tunnel for utilities serviced by a pumping station on the surface. The tunnel is big enough for a man to walk in. The pumps are gone but the groundskeepers use the old pump house for a storage facility. If you can get into the tunnel and up into the building it would put you on the grounds next to the Chancery."
"You see a way into the tunnel?"
"There's a building over it now and no way to tell until you get there. The access might be sealed off. There are three buildings on the next street over, to the right of the embassy grounds. The one in the middle is the one you want. I'm sending a satellite shot now."
Nick looked at his phone. A satellite picture of the embassy complex appeared. He saw the buildings Steph was talking about.
"Okay, I've got it."
Nick looked across the boulevard toward the embassy. The speakers were riling up the crowd. The riot police fingered their batons. Some of them held guns that fired rubber bullets. Nick could see half a dozen teargas guns being held at port arms. Things were about to get ugly.
"Hold on," Nick said into his phone. "Looks like more cops are showing up."
A Kia SUV with police markings and four men dressed in police uniforms pulled up. An officer got out and signaled his men into the street. They were armed with AK carbines.
Something bothered Nick about the scene. Then he realized what it was.
"This isn't right," he said to Ronnie. "The Filipinos don't carry AKs."
The officer walked to the guardhouse. A Marine corporal came to the door and opened it. The officer raised his carbine and shot him. His men opened fire on the line of police stretched in front of the embassy gates. The crowd erupted in panic as people scrambled to get out of the way.
"Holy shit," Nick said.
"Nick, what's happening?" Elizabeth's voice crackled in his ear.
"Terrorists, dressed like cops. They shot the Marine guard and they're firing on the riot police and the crowd. They're taking over the guardhouse."
"Nick, we gotta take cover," Lamont said.
There was a parking lot full of cars and a restaurant behind them. They ran behind one of the parked cars and watched what was happening across the street. A window in the front of the restaurant shattered, hit by a bullet. Another stray round whined through the air with a peculiar singing sound.
Nick was still on the link with Harker. "Everything's turning bad," he said. "The crowd's running. People are going down. The cops are getting slaughtered."
In a few minutes it was over. The demonstrators had fled, leaving trails of blood behind. Bodies lay in the street. Backpacks, pieces of clothing, shoes lay scattered on the ground. Banners and signs littered the pavement. The riot police lay where they'd fallen. It was a massacre.