was only thirty feet across. From this range, he could cut them down and escape before anyone could react.
He radioed Cates to bring the car around. Within seconds, Cates came to a stop in front of him in the generic Chevy they had stolen for this operation. Locke and Kenner were directly across from Olsen. He dove into the car and came back out with the silenced MP-5 cradled in his arm. Normally, he would never attempt an assassination in the open like this with so many witnesses, but he was unrecognizable in a wig and fake mustache. By the time the police got a serious investigation under way, it wouldn’t matter. Olsen would be safely back at the Orcas Island compound, and the Seattle police would be a distant memory.
Locke and Kenner were facing away from him. He raised the MP-5 to his shoulder and aimed. He couldn’t have asked for an easier shot, but just as he had pulled the trigger, Locke and Kenner dove to the ground, disappearing behind a parked car. He unloaded the rest of the clip into the car, hoping the bullets would go right through it and into his targets.
Olsen realized his mistake and swore at himself. Locke had seen him in the window’s reflection. In his eagerness to end the mission quickly, Olsen had stupidly lost his most important advantage: surprise. But now he was committed. He slapped a new magazine into the submachine gun. He could still finish this right here.
“Let’s go,” Olsen said to Cates. “Leave the car. We’ll grab a new one when we need it.” They had been careful to use gloves.
Cates, a bulky fireplug of a man in a skullcap and sunglasses, jumped out of the car with the other MP-5. A bus screeched to a stop in front of them, blocking their view. They ran behind it and sprinted across the street, hoping to catch their targets still on the ground.
When they had a view of the opposite side again, Olsen saw Locke and Kenner throw open the door to the clothing store they were in front of and run inside, past screaming customers who were flat on the ground covering their heads, some on cell phones calling 911. Olsen jumped through the window he’d just shot out and brushed aside the mannequin that remained standing. He took another shot, but the bullets chewed up a few clothing racks and missed. The few people still standing in the store dove to the floor at the sight of the weapon. The targets went through a door at the opposite end of the store into the interior of the Westlake Center mall, and Olsen and Cates took off in pursuit.
Locke and Kenner went around the corner just before Olsen could shoot, and then he saw them take an escalator two steps at a time. The angle was bad, so he followed instead of firing.
The targets led Olsen and Cates up two sets of escalators, brushing past customers who were oblivious to the silenced gunshots that caused the mayhem outside the mall’s interior. Squeals of fright erupted when people saw the submachine guns waving around.
Olsen and Cates were halfway up the second escalator when the targets turned left and ran past a line of people. Olsen saw where they were headed. The monorail station was inside the mall on the third floor just off the food court, and Locke and Kenner had jumped the ticket line. The train was about to depart.
“Do you see them?” he asked Cates.
“I think they got on the monorail!”
“Get on that train!” Olsen yelled as he backtracked down the escalator. “I’ll wait out here in case they get off. Take them out if you can. I’ll meet you at the other station.”
He stopped to make sure Cates got on and scanned the crowd. Then the train’s doors closed, and it quietly rolled out of the station. As it passed, he glimpsed Locke’s face in the window.
Olsen raced down the escalators. The monorail had only one other stop, right next to the Space Needle at the Seattle Center entertainment complex. He ran outside to find the Chevy hemmed in by traffic. A police car had already arrived at the scene. The officer was looking in the other direction, his pistol drawn, trying to find out what was going on. Without waiting for him to turn, Olsen shot the officer in the back. He jumped into the squad car and hit the siren.
The monorail glided on its overhead track two blocks ahead of him, but if he hurried, Olsen could make it to the other station before the train arrived. He made a U-turn over the sidewalk and wove around the traffic in the wrong direction down Fifth Avenue. Within seconds, he’d already closed the gap with monorail. At this rate, he’d be standing in the station by the time Locke and Kenner got there. If Cates failed to kill them, Olsen would be there to finish the job.
Locke planned to give himself a good butt-kicking if he lived through this. He’d been careless to let his guard down, but he never expected his attackers to be so bold, shooting at him and Dilara in broad daylight with crowds of onlookers. Now that he was on his home turf, he had gotten complacent. He had a Washington state permit for a concealed handgun. He should have gone to his house first and retrieved his Glock pistol. A lot of good the permit did him now, unarmed against two professionals carrying automatic weapons.
There was only one reason he and Dilara were still alive. When he and Dilara had been outside, an unusual movement across the street had caught his eye, reflected in the store’s huge glass window: a man raising the distinctive outline of a submachine gun. His instincts took over, and the shots missed them by inches. After the bullets started flying, the only way to run was into Westlake Center, but the monorail loading passengers overhead had given him an idea.
Locke’s impulse had been to get onto the train just as it was leaving and convince the operator to stop before the two-minute trip was over so that the police could arrive and drive off their attackers. Suspended 20 feet above the street, there would have been no way for their pursuers to reach them. When Locke saw one of them dive into the back of the four-car train right before the doors closed, he knew he’d have to change his tactics.
Their sole option was to stay alive for the next 120 seconds and hope the police would be waiting at the other end. The question was how to fend off this guy for those two minutes. He and Dilara were in the lead car, with the driver only 20 feet away. Even on an October Monday, the sunny day meant that the train was filled with tourists, many of whom were loaded down with shopping bags and souvenirs. Kitschy Space Needle models and gimcracks from Pike Place Market were everywhere, but nothing that looked like it would be an effective weapon. Locke would have to take on this guy hand-to-hand.
He and Dilara crouched down behind the maintenance access panel that jutted three feet across the linkage between the first and second cars. He was just as scared as he was in any combat situation he faced in Iraq, but he tamped it down like he always did and focused on what to do next. He heard screams from the back, but no gunfire. The passengers must have seen the gun, but his pursuer was a professional. He wouldn’t waste bullets on someone unless they got in his way. Locke took a peek through a gap in the access panel and didn’t like what he saw.
The gunman, now in the third car, was methodically walking through the train, checking each passenger. The tourists provided some cover, but Locke was afraid of getting innocent bystanders caught in the crossfire. He had to do something before this turned into a bloodbath.
“Dilara, crawl toward the front,” Locke said. “Take my cell phone. Call the police and tell them that there is an armed criminal on board the monorail. Look at me and wait for my signal. When I give the thumbs up, stand. Make sure the gunman sees you.” He knew it was risky, putting Dilara in harm’s way if the attacker was able to take the shot, but it was their only chance.
Her face reflected his own feelings, a mixture of fear and that sense of
“I’m your distraction,” she said.
“Right. We don’t have much time. Go.”
Dilara slithered forward. Locke watched the gunman approach. The man was calm, as if he had hunted down people before and wouldn’t have any trouble with Locke and Dilara. In ten more seconds, the gunman was on the other side of the access panel. Locke gave Dilara the thumbs up.
Dilara stood and pounded on the train’s front window. The gunman, who had been inspecting a passenger, looked up and saw Dilara. He raised his weapon and took a bead on her. The diversion worked perfectly, the gunman totally focused on Dilara. Locke rose up in the gunman’s periphery and lashed out with his leg just as the gunman fired.
The shots went up and wide, shattering the train’s left side window. Screams cleaved the air. Locke followed the blow with an elbow to the head. For a moment, the man was dazed, and Locke reached for the gun, wrestling it from his grip.
Before he could use it, the gunman recovered and grabbed Locke by the throat. They fell to the floor, with the gunman on top of Locke. His hands gripped Locke’s neck like a vise, cutting off the blood flow to his brain. Locke
