“I know you do.” Michael closed his eyes. In his mind, he could see the expression in the man’s face. “Live or die, we’ll likely not speak again, my brother.”
“But what about the Army?”
“They’re introducing the president now,” Michael said, and he hung up the phone. He watched on television as the User-in-Chief walked in from the wings, passing in front of the tableau of American flags to downstage center, where he stopped and waved with both hands to the crowd, either in a gesture of jubilation or surrender.
The sound of the roaring crowd made it all the way across the road and into the window through which he would soon change the world.
The Marine Band-The President’s Own-finished “Hail to the Chief,” and then struck up the “Star-Spangled Banner.”
Look at him, Michael thought. Not just a User, but a narcissistic one at that, preening for the cameras.
He could take him now. He could see nothing through his scope, but by sighting on the pattern of logos that he had so carefully designed, he knew precisely how to hit any point beyond his view.
How poetic would that be for history to record a president being blown in half in the middle of the national anthem?
It was a brilliant idea. An image even more horrifying than the Zapruder film, forever linking two of the great symbols of American greed in a single snippet of images and sound.
It wasn’t the plan, of course, but as the architect, he got to change the plans at will. They were his to change, after all.
Michael Copley sat down in his chair, settled the buttstock of the rifle into his shoulder, and prepared to make history.
Gail remembered as the door slammed behind her that she’d left her key on the dresser. As if that mattered.
Ten seventy-five North Loudoun Drive was the second building they’d photographed last night, and Suite 1013 housed a consulting firm called Compliance Services Inc., which specialized in safety and environmental regulations. Somehow, according to Venice, that all equaled the most likely place for a sniper to perch. Something about small businesses among large, and the limited availability of southern exposures.
The details didn’t matter because Venice didn’t get this spun up over anything unless she was very, very sure that she was right. And the clock was ticking very, very fast. With her Glock on her hip and two spare mags in her coat pocket, Gail bypassed the elevators in the hotel and tore down the steps to the emergency exit. Her whole body still ached from the activities in West Virginia, her muscles still taut and bruised, but she forced them to work anyway.
Tomorrow, she was going to look for a Caribbean vacation package.
At ground level now, she crashed through the exit into the cold sunshine. The hotel fronted to the east, and the light blinded her. She hadn’t had time to consult a map, so she processed her memory from last night, which told her that the North Loudoun Drive address was just a couple of blocks north. She turned to the left, and there it was, rising above all its neighbors.
She started running. Uphill, of course.
By the time Michael had made his decision to shoot, the moment had passed. The national anthem ended, and the president took his seat in the middle of the stage, behind the lectern, but in front of the wall of flags.
Michael knew the target spot for that location, too; but with the potential for true drama lost, it no longer made sense to vary from the plan. He could shoot and kill the president, but Brother Franklin would be caught off guard. Even a slight delay of a few seconds would ruin the effectiveness of a cross fire. After the first five seconds-and the fastest Michael had ever been able to fire the Barrett and reliably hit his target was one round per second, give or take-the Secret Service will have caught on, and people will have started to panic, meaning that the last five rounds of his ten-round magazine would be less deadly. The more concentrated the crowd, the more effective every shot fired.
On the television, a military chaplain droned out an invocation.
With Michael and Brother Franklin firing simultaneously, those first five seconds would put ten rounds on target while the crowd on the stage was still its thickest. To shoot early would squander that. It wasn’t worth it.
Michael could wait. The chaplain sat, and another man stepped to the microphone. Blah, blah, blah. Then, “Ladies and gentlemen, the president of the United States.”
Again, he could hear the roar of the crowd through the window. The User-in-chief stepped to the lectern and pressed down on the air with his hands as a gesture for silence that everyone knew he didn’t want. “Thank you,” he said. “Thank you. Please be seated.”
Those words didn’t count in the countdown. He and Brother Franklin had discussed this, anticipated it. Only when he got to the text of his speech-when he started lying in earnest-would they begin the count.
“Ladies and gentlemen, we are gathered at this hallowed place this morning…”
That was it. Michael pressed the START button on his digital timer.
Three minutes.
CHAPTER THIRTY – NINE
Gail was still a long block away when she heard the cheer erupt from the grounds of the Iwo Jima Memorial. Not polite applause, mind you, but a roar, the kind you’d expect from a football game. The kind that will travel across four lanes of a busy highway. The kind that would come when the president of the United States is introduced to a crowd of eight hundred.
The cold air had dried her nose and throat to the point of rawness. Her legs felt leaden on the long uphill slog, and she realized that she’d slowed. Not now, she thought. She could stroll on the beach after she arrived in the Caribbean. Now, she had to run.
Concentrate on the task, not the distance, she told herself, rekindling the mantra that got her through the endurance tests at the FBI Academy a thousand years ago. Sometimes, it helps to keep your eye on the goal when you’re running a long distance, but that only worked for her on level ground. On a hill, she found it was better to watch her feet.
And when the sidewalk changed from gray concrete to red brick, she knew she was there.
She headed for the front door, pausing to control her breathing. Then she opened the door and strolled into the lobby. Approaching the security desk, she used her coyest smile in an effort to sneak past, but it didn’t work.
“Excuse me,” said the woman behind the desk. “Can I help you?”
“I’m going to ten-thirteen,” Gail said. “Compliance Services.”
“Not without signing in first, you ain’t.”
The door to the outer office of Beacon Accounting was locked, and the door looked to be of stout stuff. Jonathan pressed the doorbell.
“Really?” Boxers mocked. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen you use a doorbell.”
Jonathan smiled. He’d known some freakishly calm warriors in his time, but Boxers set the standard.
“Who are you, anyway?” Farmer asked.
After no one had answered the door in five seconds, Boxers elbowed his boss out of the way. “Stand back,” he said. He took a step back and prepared to kick in the door.
“Wait!” Plano yelled. “I have a key.”
Boxers fired a savage kick to the door that cracked the frame, but the door stayed in place. The second kick did the trick. The door exploded inward and rebounded off the parallel wall.
“I have a key, too,” Jonathan said. Leading with their drawn pistols, he and Boxers squirted into the room, side by side, the Big Guy covering high and right, Digger covering low and left.
Farmer and Plano stayed in the hall. “Ah, shit,” Farmer moaned. “Do you have a warrant for this?”
They were in the anteroom of a larger office outfitted in a colonial decor, with wingback guest chairs and a faux-mahogany receptionist’s desk. An ugly splash of blood marred the papered wall behind the desk.
“Hey, Scorpion?” Boxers whispered. He nodded to the space on the floor behind the desk, where the body of a woman in her fifties lay in a heap, surrounded by a lake of blood.