Kondo could scarcely believe what he’d just heard. She knew his name. But that was impossible. A dozen thoughts raced through his head at the speed of light, building into a nearly uncontrollable rage. “Fucking Americans,” he muttered tightly.
Kajiyama and the two commandos were looking at him. In the distance now they could hear the incoming helicopter, and over that they could hear sirens. A long ways off. But there were a lot of them. Too many.
“Kill them,” Kondo ordered. “Now.”
One of the commandos pulled out a coiled-wire grenade, yanked the pin and tossed it up the stairs.
Kondo saw the man’s stupid mistake the instant the grenade left his hand. The fool had not waited long enough after pulling the pin.
He heard it thump on the carpeted hall upstairs, and a second later it clattered back down the stairs. Someone, the young woman who he thought was so brave, had the presence of mind to kick it back.
“Down,” he shouted, and they all managed to fall back against the wall and bury their heads in their arms, as the grenade went off with a tremendous roar. Plaster and glass and splinters and chunks of flaming wood rained down all around them.
It seemed to take forever before Kondo could recover, and when he got up someone sprayed the stairwell with two controlled bursts from an M16.
They had failed again. The thought was so bitter that Kondo wanted to lash out in rage at anything or anybody.
Kajiyama and the one man had pulled back. The second commando was dead. At the doorway they hesitated, but Kondo waved them out, then raced after them, firing the last of his ammunition over his shoulder toward the head of the stairs.
McGarvey’s cell phone chirped in his pocket. Lindsay shot him an angry look. It was the last straw.
“Sorry, Mr. President,” he said. “It’s my emergency number.” McGarvey answered it on the second chirp. “Yes.”
“Everybody’s dead out here except for me, Elizabeth and Todd,” Kathleen said in a rush, her voice cracking.
McGarvey’s heart leapt into his throat. “Katy, are you all right?”
“We beat the bastards. They left in a helicopter. And the State Patrol is finally here. But everyone else is dead.”
“What about Paul?”
“He’s dead! Can’t you understand?” Kathleen shouted hysterically.
McGarvey was on his feet. He put a hand over the mouthpiece. “They attacked Cropley,” he told Murphy. “I need a chopper down there now.” He took his hand away. “Are you sure they’re gone, Katy? Don’t move unless you’re absolutely sure.”
“They’re gone, Kirk,” she shouted. “But it’s not over. They got away. Some of them got away. But they’ll come back. And keep coming!” She cried out in anguish, the sound of her voice cutting into McGarvey like a razor sharp knife. “Kirk, my God, I need you. Now! I need you!”
PART TWO
WHITE HOUSE
EIGHTEEN
Eight minutes after Murphy put in the call, McGarvey scrambled aboard a Bell Super Cobra Marine ground attack helicopter which touched down on the White House lawn. A half-dozen fully armed marines had come along in addition to the crew. Even as McGarvey buckled in and donned his helmet, the chopper lifted off and headed northwest, the tremendous acceleration of the twin Pratt & Whitney turboshaft engines shoving him against his restraining straps. The marines were all young and grim-faced. They didn’t know exactly what they were heading for, except that there’d been a lot of casualties and there was no telling if any of the bad guys were still out there waiting for them to show up.
“Mr. McGarvey, this is Captain Don Casey,” the pilot radioed back. “Our ETA to the target is seven minutes. Can you tell me what we’re heading into, sir?”
“Probably just a mop-up operation along the perimeter.” McGarvey spoke into his headset. “The Bureau and the state have people on the ground, but this is a determined group, so keep your eyes open.”
“Yes, sir, we got that on the way over.”
McGarvey was having trouble keeping on track. Starting with the attack in Georgetown, the situation had developed faster than he could keep up with. The bastards had a definite timetable, and there was no doubt that whoever was behind it was afraid that he’d screw them up. They wanted to get to him, to stop him from doing his job however they could. It didn’t matter who got in their way or how many innocent people they had to kill. The worst part of it was that someone in Washington besides Tony Croft was feeding them information. It was as if half the city had been bought and paid for, though probably most of them had no idea what effect they were having, and that people were dying because of them.
“Captain, I need to make a couple of calls to the Agency. Can I do that from here?”
“Affirmative, sir.”
McGarvey gave him the first number, and seconds later he was connected with Adkins in the DO’s Operations Center.
“I’m on my way out to Cropley. Do we have people en route?”
“There are two teams just ahead of you,” Adkins said. “I wanted them in motion before I talked to you. I figured they were more important. But the place has been secured, and your wife and daughter are okay.”
“What the hell happened, Dick?”
“Looks like they came in from the air. Fred Rudolph is on the way out there too. His people on the ground found several parachutes or hang gliders. Probably dropped them from a plane somewhere upwind.”
“Who’s left on the ground?”
“Todd Van Buren, but he’s already being medevaced to Bethesda. He was shot up pretty badly, Mac.”
“Paul Isaacson?”
“Dead, along with all the others,” Adkins said. “I’m still getting a lot of contradictory shit, but it looks like he fought a delaying action inside the house while Todd, along with your wife and daughter, held them off from the upstairs corridor until the cops showed up.”
“What happened to the terrorists?”
“Four down, but a helicopter picked up the rest of them. We’re looking for it now. It was a professional job, Mac. The bastards knew what they were doing.”
“Can we keep a lid on this?”
“Not a chance in hell. The media is already screaming bloody murder for answers.” Adkins hesitated a moment. “The good news is that no one is making the connection between this attack and the bombing in Georgetown or the incident on the Canal Bridge, but I don’t know how long that’s going to last.”
McGarvey closed his eyes for a minute. The attack was meant for him, of course, which meant whoever was directing it was desperate. “I’ll be on the ground in a few minutes. Keep me posted. In the meantime send someone out to Dulles. I want Joseph Lee’s jet staked out. They might try to get out of the country that way.”
“Will do.”
McGarvey’s second call was to Otto Rencke, and it went through as they crossed the Potomac just east of CIA headquarters.
“Oh, boy, Mac, I’m already on it,” an excited Rencke blurted. “I’m in every Washington area LE system including the Bureau’s.”
“Have they found the helicopter?”
“Not yet, but it won’t be long. There’s not that many civilian choppers out there, and the Bureau has already accounted for more than half of them.”
“It would have been chartered through Far East or some dummy organization they set up.”
“I’m on it,” Rencke said. “Liz and Mrs. M. are okay.”