“They were shot out, not blown out,” Mathis added needlessly.
It was the first comment from the head of the FBI’s Behavioral Analysis Bureau. The psychiatrist was a college friend of the Speaker of the House, an archrival of Brenneman’s. Mathis’s reliance on “cloud profiling”-identifying potential terrorists based on geographical and socioeconomic data rather than on actual affiliations-had taxed his allotment of FBI resources without providing any tangible results. While dismissing him would be easy, getting a replacement through the House would be impossible.
“Who is in charge of this footage?” Andrews asked.
“An outfit called Steel Guard Solutions provides building and event security to the center,” Ferrara said. “A couple of rental cops reported a CIA presence in the Pratt Street lobby. These two fit the report.”
“When was that?” Harper asked, squinting at the image. He was ignoring the backward motion, concentrating on the faces.
“About fifteen minutes ago-”
“It can’t be,” Harper said suddenly.
“What, Jon?” the president asked.
Harper froze the image, clicked on the drop-down menu, kicked the size up to 150 percent, and hit the auto-enhance button. Most of the smoke seemed to vanish as the contrast in the figures was pumped up.
He glanced at the time stamp. “Frame 5:28:02,” he said. “Go fifty percent up and enhance.”
Everyone did as he’d instructed. Dumbstruck, Harper sat hunched in front of the screen, just staring. There was no mistaking the identities of the two people on-screen. The man with the coal-black shock of hair, the tall blond woman with him. Harper knew them as well as anybody in the entire world.
“Good get, Jon,” Andrews said.
“Thanks.”
Neither Ferrara nor Mathis had any idea what they were talking about, but neither man would have admitted his ignorance. Fortunately, Secretary of State Dryfoos asked the question for them.
“Who are we looking at?”
“Incredibly,” Harper said, “that’s former Company man Ryan Kealey with CIA psychotherapist Allison Dearborn.”
Harper clicked back to the backward feed. There were gun flashes from the couple’s position.
“Yeah,” Andrews said, sitting back. “That’s definitely Ryan Kealey.”
CHAPTER 7
BALTIMORE, MARYLAND
Crouched beside Allison Dearborn in the walkway, Kealey read her nephew’s latest update off her phone:
Split into 2 grps. Conf. rms 224–256. Am in 224. 3 guards in rm w/us. Dn’t know h/many in hall.
“Maybe we should phone for help,” Allison suggested.
“I’d love to, but we don’t know who’s in on this or where the cavalry is,” he said. “I’m sure there are also jurisdictional turf wars that have to be settled before any boots hit the ground.”
Gunfire echoed through the main exhibition hall, a single burst of unusual duration. The sounds prickled the fine hairs at the back of Kealey’s neck; Allison breathed through clenched teeth. There had been no return volleys. They were listening to a bloodbath being carried out.
“Why are they doing this?” she asked. “They have to know the police are coming.”
“They may be counting on that,” Kealey said.
“Murder-suicide?”
“Worse.” He rose, bending low, the 9-millimeter held straight in front of him. “A dozen or more blue funerals buy a lot of airtime. Exposure advances terror.”
Allison seemed to want to say something. She couldn’t find the words, but the horror was there, in her eyes. Kealey didn’t bother to remind her that an hour ago she had said craziness kept her in business. What she meant, of course, was the benign kinds of disorders that comprised the bulk of her practice and affected only the individuaclass="underline" PTSD, depression, schizophrenia. The rational evil they were facing here was a very different kind of animal. It did not believe it was sick.
“Let’s go,” he said, starting forward at a brisk walk.
“What’s your plan?” she asked.
“We need to take out the guards,” he said.
“That isn’t a plan.”
“It’s all I’ve got right now,” he said without apology.
They remained crouched, out of sight, moving forward until they were about 50 feet from the convention center’s main exhibition hall, just outside the entrance to the mezzanine level.
“We could use a layout of this place,” Kealey said. “See if you can pull one off its Web site.”
She nodded and tapped the screen with her thumbs. Waiting, watching for anyone who might emerge-an escaped hostage was his main concern-Ryan heard screams below him and then the rattle of an automatic weapon. It was the third peal of gunfire since he’d taken out the two masked gunmen.
Any one of them could have involved Colin.
“Okay,” Allison said now. Her voice was cracked, her hand trembling as she passed him the phone. Kealey took a moment to hold her hand as he took the phone. She hadn’t lived through Bosnia and other hotbeds of genocide. If he couldn’t block out the violence, how could she be expected to handle it?
Kealey studied the display. There were separate diagrams for each level of the building, all viewable as PDF files and nearly as detailed as architectural blueprints. A glance at the third floor immediately showed where to find the food area and the block of conference rooms. Better yet, it gave the individual locations and door numbers.
“The room where they brought Colin is on the southeast side of the building,” he said and touched a finger to the display. “Right across from that church we passed. What was the name of it?”
“Old Otterbein,” Allison said.
For her own sake, he needed to keep her involved in this. He held the floor plan out to her now, pointing at the long block of conference rooms on the floor above them.
“Looks like there’s a public space, then a hall running off it to the conference rooms,” he said. “It’s going to be guarded. The hostages, too, as Colin said.”
“How do we get by them?”
“There are elevators running up there, but we have no way of knowing if they’re working. That leaves the escalators and stairs about midway down the length of the mezzanine.”
He pointed them out, and she nodded.
“We’re going to need a distraction,” Kealey said. “Something to draw their attention from us.”
“I can-”
“Inside,” Kealey said. “We need to draw the guards in. ”
She looked up at him. “No,” she said as she realized what he was saying. “I won’t ask my nephew to risk his life.”
“It’s already at risk. The hostages are going to be killed if nothing’s done.”
“Maybe not. They haven’t, yet-”
“It’s a tactic,” Kealey said. “I’ve been timing the shots. They’re killing people every three minutes. If I’m keeping track, the police are, too. The killers are trying to rush the rescue effort, give the police less time to get organized.”
“Ryan, who… what kind of creature thinks like that?” She realized what she had said a moment later. “I’m sorry, Ryan. I didn’t mean that you-”
“Not important,” he said. “Twitter updates. Can any account holder read them?”
“Unless I block somebody, they’re public.”
“Is there a quick way to track updates on a particular subject?”
Allison nodded. “There are hashtags-number signs before a word that categorize the tweet.”
“So if you tag the words ‘Baltimore Convention Center,’ then somebody looking for updates about it would see them?”
She nodded again.
Kealey paused thoughtfully. “I want you to send Colin a post. Tag it the way you described.”
“But if someone hears-”
“I want them to,” Kealey said. “Trust me, Allison.”
They heard another spurt of gunfire down below. It dramatically underscored the need for haste.
“Okay,” she said. “What’s the message?”
After reviewing it in his mind-and aware of the trigger he was about to pull-he gave it to her.
Colin Dearborn was sitting against a wall, in a corner, surrounded by sobbing, dust-covered, terrified fellow hostages. The air was thick, and the mood was even heavier.