“Fourth.”
Damn. “No. Higher floor.” He looked to Boxers, who held up seven fingers. “Seventh floor or higher.” There was no rationale to this, but much lower than that, and Copley would have a hard time sighting his shot.
More clacking from the other end of the phone.
Another look at his watch showed nine-fifty-five.
“I’ve got one,” Venice said. “Fourteenth floor, south side. Beacon Accounting. Suite fourteen-twenty.” Typing. “Oh, my God,” she gasped. “Dig, I gotta go.” The line went dead.
Jonathan didn’t care. He had a target to shoot for. “Suite fourteen-twenty,” he said. He looked up at the endless stairwell. “Elevator.”
He pulled open the stairwell door, and there was the guard from the lobby, Mr. Farmer. He stood with his hand resting casually on the butt of the. 357 Magnum revolver in his holster. He’d brought a friend-a big fellow named Mr. Plano.
“Look, pal,” Farmer said. “I don’t know what you’re doing here, but this is a secure building. You’re going-”
Jonathan didn’t have time for this. “Get out of my way,” he said. He moved to the elevator and pushed the UP button.
“Stop where you are,” Mr. Plano said. “Do not get on that elevator.” When his hand got to his revolver, he curled his fingers around the grip.
“Be really careful, son,” Boxers growled. “You’re about two seconds away from a point of no return.”
Fear more or less canceled out bravado in Plano’s face.
The elevator dinged.
“You can shoot us,” Jonathan said, “or you can come along on a great adventure.”
“What the hell are you talking about?” Farmer asked.
“Yeah,” Boxers said. “What are you talking about?”
The doors opened.
Jonathan and Boxers stepped in. “It’s your call,” he said. When the doors started to close, he placed his hand out to stop them. “Last chance,” he said.
It’s amazing what stupid things people will do when their curiosity is piqued. Mr. Farmer and Mr. Plano stepped onto the elevator with them. “You’ve got some explaining-”
“Hush,” Jonathan said. “Please. We’re here to stop a murder, okay? In fifty words or less, tell me everything you know about Beacon Accounting in suite fourteen-twenty.”
Farmer retreated to a corner. “A murder? Who the hell are you?”
“Less relevant than my need for information,” Jonathan said. They were passing the eighth floor. “Beacon Accounting.”
Farmer searched for words. “I don’t… what do you need… who’s going to be murdered?”
Jonathan looked to Boxers, who said, “Oh, you’re gonna love this.”
Jonathan steeled himself with a breath. “The president of the United States.”
Gail had the television in her room tuned to C-SPAN, and she felt terrible for letting Jonathan down. While she prayed he could get there in time, she didn’t know how it would be possible. They didn’t even know where they were going. That meant either knocking blindly on doors, or simply breaking in Her cell phone rang, and she recognized the number at a glance. “Hi, Venice.”
Venice’s voice was nearly a scream. “Oh, thank God. Are you still at the hotel?”
Something happened to Digger, she thought. “What’s-”
“Are you still at the hotel!”
She recoiled, not just from the tone, but from the volume. “Yes. You don’t have to-”
“Get to ten-seventy-five North Loudoun Drive,” Venice said. “Suite ten-thirteen. Right now. Hurry.”
“Why?”
“Because I think there’s a second shooter.”
When the elevator door opened on the fourteenth floor, Boxers and Jonathan stepped out, but the security guards stayed behind.
So much for valor, Jonathan thought, as the doors closed. He drew his Colt, and Boxers shadowed him. A sign on the wall confirmed his internal compass, and showed Suites 1413 to 1420 to be down to the left. They started that way.
The elevator dinged behind them, and Farmer and Plano both stepped out. “Really?” Farmer said. “The president of the United States?”
Even without an answer, they followed, walking fast to keep up. “Beacon Accounting has been here for as long as I’ve been here,” Plano said quickly.
It took Jonathan a second to realize that he was answering the question from the elevator.
“They’ve only got about seven or eight employees, but they sublet one corner of their office to another guy. A one-man show with some kind of a church or something.”
“God’s Army,” Farmer said.
Bingo.
“Let me guess,” Boxers said as they arrived at the door. “He occupies the space on the far southern end.”
“Incredible view,” Plano said. He drew a. 44 magnum horse pistol from his holster. “How does this work?”
“It starts by you putting that thing away,” Boxers said. “And it finishes with you staying out of my way.”
The television showed various military officers and political dignitaries being introduced. They were important enough for pictures, but clearly not important enough for sound. Or, maybe the reporter was too in love with his own voice to cede the airwaves to anyone else.
Michael Copley was surprised at how calm he felt. It was a moment about which he’d thought for so long, and for which he’d trained for so long, that now that it had arrived, it all felt nearly anticlimactic. He wished he could say the same for Brother Franklin. The man had never been as calm under pressure as Michael, but he’d trained every bit as hard.
Now, as they spoke on the phone, Michael could hear the stress in his voice. “You need to relax, Brother Franklin,” he said.
“Yeah, relax. I’ll be calm as a cucumber right before I blow away the leader of the free world.”
“You’re making history, Brother. And you’re ridding the free world of a leader who has destroyed far more than he’s saved. It’s been that way for forty presidencies. We can change everything.”
For fifteen seconds, he heard only silence. “Brother Franklin?”
“I’m here.”
“You need only stick to the plan. The program states that the president will begin speaking at ten-ten, and that his remarks will run around fifteen minutes.”
“I know,” Brother Franklin said. Nervousness aside, he clearly was tiring of reviewing the plan over and over again. “We wait precisely three minutes from the first word of his speech, and then we open up. Ten rounds, cross-shaped pattern. I already have my weapon sighted. I know what is expected of me.”
“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?
