Problem: he had no idea how to fly.
Solution: include that in the requirements he delivered during hostage negotiations.
Problem: he didn’t want to hurt anyone.
Solution: get the hostage over on his side.
Even though his hostage clearly had the mien of a military man, he wasn’t dressed for it. His skin was tanned, and he wore jeans and a white, unbranded polo shirt, with a pair of sunglasses hooked over the collar of his shirt. He looked far more the image of a “wealthy playboy” than anything even remotely military.
“Do you work here?” Ben asked.
“No.”
“Then what the hell are you doing here? They don’t let tourists tie up senior officials.”
“I came to talk to a friend of mine.”
“Yeah, who’s she? Some bird you’re dating?”
Another dry half-smile. “No. Her name’s Margaret, and she’s the Secretary of Defense.”
Ben cursed. “Just what the hell have I gotten myself into? Couldn’t you have been just some random businessman’s son, here to bribe officials and play golf?”
“I don’t play golf that often,” the man admitted. “I’d just like to get back to my vacation, to be honest. I really don’t care what you’ve done or not done. If it were up to me, I’d just let you go about your business and bid you good day.”
“I’d just as soon go about my business, too,” Ben said. “Unfortunately, that’s not how this is going to work for either of us.”
“Okay.”
“Where are we, relative to the helicopter pads?” he asked.
The hostage raised an eyebrow.
“Look,” Ben said. “I’ve never been here before, and I need to get out. You’ve been here before. I have no doubt about it. I’m a desperate man. Desperate men take desperate risks…like answering that damn phone and making demands for a helicopter and a pilot.”
“I have a question for you.”
Great, here it comes. The inevitable heroic speech. It was going to come straight out of some action movie — he had no doubt.
“Save it,” Ben said. “I’m not interested in heroics. The fact is, if I don’t escape, you’re going to die.”
The hostage ignored him and said, “Are you planning on bombing anything or anyone?”
“What? No! Of course not!” Ben was surprised and disgusted by the question. “I’m not a terrorist. Just desperate. Haven’t you heard a word I’ve said? I’m threatening you to keep you from trying to screw me over. If I could toss the Glock and walk out of here and just go back to my life, I’d do it in a heartbeat.”
Reilly’s jaw clenched for a second. Then he grinned. “Okay.”
“Okay, what?”
“I’ll get you out of the building.”
Not I’ll help you, or I’ll cooperate, don’t shoot, but he was going to get Ben out of the building. All right then.
Ben started to say something sarcastic, but his throat had tightened up. He actually felt like believing the guy.
“Thank you,” he said in a half-croak. “My name’s Ben Gellie. If we survive this and I get to clear my name, I’ll buy you a drink.”
“I’d like that,” the hostage replied.
“Me too,” Ben said. “What’s your name, anyway?”
“Sam Reilly.”
“What were you doing here?”
“To be honest, I was just about to go on a much overdue vacation.”
Chapter Three
The Secretary of Defense was fuming at being expelled from her own office by a terrorist. Immediately, she started barking orders and taking command of the siege. Tom Bower stood to the side and let her rant.
The Secretary cursed and then, turning to the several soldiers who were already taking up defensive positions around her office, said, “Can someone please tell me how we let someone walk into the Pentagon with a Glock for God’s sake?”
A large man with a shaved head in a dark suit answered. “I can, ma’am.”
The Secretary leveled her eyes at him. “And you are?”
“Ryan Devereaux, FBI.”
“What do you know, Devereaux?” she asked.
“His name is Ben Gellie,” Devereaux said. “He was brought in for questioning about an hour ago regarding a case spanning more than forty years.”
She raised her eyebrows. “He was being interrogated on a case that happened when he was just a child?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Should I know about this case?” she asked.
“No, ma’am. It should have been a series of routine questions, but he freaked out and escaped.”
Her eyes narrowed. “Do you want to tell me how he ended up with a loaded handgun in my office?”
Despite his size, Devereaux shrank into the background, becoming diminutive, as though he didn’t want to be seen. His confident voice softened, and he raised the palms of his hands in a gesture of apology. “I’m afraid that’s my service issued weapon, ma’am.”
Her face was unreadable. It was carved out of necessity. She wasn’t making any further decisions on the cause of the incident. Instead, she’d filed those away to be dealt with later and was now focused on the task at hand.
Scott Williams, the director of the Pentagon Force Protection Agency, charged with maintaining the security and defense of the Pentagon, greeted her with a team of twelve heavily armed officers. “What have we got, ma’am?”
She turned to greet the director, “A single male looks like he’s in his early thirties, armed with a service-issued Glock 19 handgun, has taken one of the maritime and underwater incident consultants, Sam Reilly, hostage inside my office.”
“Any casualties?” Williams replied.
“No.”
“Good. At least we know we have them secured. Your office, as you are aware, is heavily fortified. We can’t get in, but at least we know they can’t get out.”
“Right,” she replied. “So, what’s your plan?”
“We’ve already got a team working to gain a visual of the room. Once we know what’s going on inside, we’ll set up for a breach.”
Tom said, “You’re going to break through the door?”
The director shook his head emphatically. “No way. That’s just what he’ll be expecting. Besides, a door like that might take us a week to break through. No, we’ll go through the wall directly from her aide’s room next door.”
“All right,” the Secretary said. “Just be certain when you breach that no one takes out Sam Reilly. He’s one of my best consultants, and I have no desire to replace him.”
“Understood, ma’am.”
Chapter Four
The Pentagon is the world's largest office building, with about 6,500,000 square feet, which houses roughly 23,000 military and civilian employees, and another 3,000 non-Defense support personnel. It has five sides, five floors above ground, two basement levels, and five ring corridors per floor with a total of 17.5 miles of corridors. It includes a five-acre central plaza, which is shaped like a pentagon and informally known as "ground zero," a nickname originating during the Cold War on the presumption that it would be targeted by the Soviet Union at the outbreak of nuclear war.
Sam Reilly quickly opened the first three drawers of the Secretary of Defense’s large mahogany desk. He removed several items, searching for it, while dumping multiple pages to the side. He made a small grin as he imagined the Secretary’s response when she discovered he’d been rifling through her drawers.
Maybe it was better he was being held at gunpoint.
“What are you looking for?” Ben asked, still holding the Glock toward him. “You’d better not be grabbing a weapon.”