the side of the good guys and he was connected. There were a series of reference numbers that could be called. Most were inside the Beltway. One was Langley. The Hill was well represented. And the man was a colonel in some counterterrorist outfit. This thing had all kinds of nasty ramifications.
'Holy shit!' he said to himself. 'I was mindful to arrest you for murder.'
Mike Erdman, a sheriff's department investigator, poked his head through the door. 'Sheriff,' he said. 'We've got the warrant to search Fitzduane's room.'
The sheriff looked up. 'Wait awhile. I've a hunch this thing is a mite more complicated,' he said.
He thought. There was a conjunction of elements here that had ramifications way outside his normal daily concerns. This was not about drunken airborne troopers smashing up a bar or some cuckolded husband back from a foreign tour blowing the brains out of his wife or lover.
This smacked of another battlefield. Murder, a kidnapping, a helicopter, counterterrorism. The mysterious Hugo Fitzduane. A special-operations exhibition.
Connections in Washington. Too many connections in Washington. The feds – all kinds of feds. This could become downright horrible. Feds were like a social disease – intrusive and hard to shake.
He looked up at Mike Erdman. 'Mike,' he said. 'Phone the MPs at Bragg and tell them.'
'What?' said Erdman.
'Something is going down,' said the sheriff.
'What?' said Erdman. 'You know, Sheriff, underneath their fatigues they are cops up there. They ask questions like that. Who? What? Why? Motive? Means? Opportunity?'
Sheriff Jacklin took a flier, which was something he never did. But something screamed inside him.
'Tell them we have reason to believe there are terrorists in the area and that something big is going down.'
Erdman gaped at him.
'Mike,' said the sheriff. 'You're a fine detective. But sometimes you're an asshole.' He smiled. 'Nothing personal. Now, MOVE!'
Erdman went back to his desk.
He was lifting the phone when they heard the explosion and felt the tremor.
'Bragg?' he said out loud.
Sheriff Jacklin stood in the doorway. 'No,' he said. 'Much closer.'
They did not have long to wait. The first call came in within thirty seconds.
'Sheriff?'
Jacklin raised his head. He felt unbelievably tired.
'Sheriff, they've bombed the Oak ParkShopping Center. Dozens dead. Hundreds injured. Lots of military families hit, by the looks of it.'
The thought that Jacklin had considered yet suppressed in the past came through. You don't have to hit Bragg to hit Bragg. All you have to do is kill lots of soldiers and their families is to strike at the nearby shopping centers. No MPs and minimal security. Child's play for a dedicated terrorist. Child's play for any psycho.
He had thought about it and even raised it at a local-state-federal security meeting. He had been brushed aside. He had done nothing. It was hard to go up against the system. You questioned it at your peril.
There was not a serious terrorist threat in the United States of America. That was the conventional wisdom.
It was accurate in a bizarre way. It was not a threat anymore. It was happening.
Fitzduane put his hand inside his light cotton jacket and adjusted his holster. It was idiotic having to cart around a lump of metal at a social occasion, but he had been caught short on the Hill and did not feel like making the same mistake twice.
He could hear the buzz of a light aircraft. So could others. A ripple ran through the crowd. The aircraft drew nearer and then began to circle. A wind indicator was dropped and fluttered to the surface. There was little wind that evening. It would not be a factor in the drop.
The aircraft climbed until it was about 3,000 feet. All eyes were fixed on it, waiting for the first free-fall parachutist to emerge. They could see a small black dot and then a stream of pink smoke. The jumper had a smoke canister clipped to his boot.
Accelerating at 32 feet per second, the jumper fell through the air until he reached a terminal velocity of 120 miles an hour. At that point, wind resistance offset the tendency to accelerate. Seemingly liquid air fostered the illusion that it was providing a cushion and that you were really flying as surely as a swimmer was supported by the sea.
It was an illusion that had killed on more than a few occasions when a sky diver left pulling the D ring until too late.
The jumper hurtled toward the upturned faces below.
Suddenly there was a flash of color as the rectangular ram air parachute was pulled open by the miniature drag line ‘chute. At the same time, a second smoke canister on the jumper's other boot ignited.
He now presented quite a spectacle. His parachute, helmet, and jumpsuit were scarlet and he streamed pink and yellow smoke. As he came nearer, Fitzduane could see that the jumpsuit had been modified to look like a pantomime devil. The helmet had little horns and there was even a tail at the back.
Ram air parachutes were highly maneuverable, Fitzduane knew. Toggles on the left and right of the jumper allowed air to be spilled and the direction of the glide to be controlled. In some ways, ram-air parachutes were more like flying wings than the traditional umbrella-shaped model.
In this case the jumper was not doing anything too exotic. Now that his ‘chute was open he was merely spiraling around in large circles, trailing smoke. The plan, Fitzduane could now see, was to make the final approach over the parking lot at the back of the hotel and glide in between the two accommodation wings to land by the pool. Maybe even in the pool, if he really wanted to please the crowd, who, after over an hour's steady drinking, were in a boisterous mood.
Four more figures had emerged from the aircraft, but the focus was on the first sky diver as he commenced the last spiral ready to make his approach.
Kilmara was watching through military field glasses that gave him 10x magnification. Fitzduane was using a motor drive-equipped Nikon with a zoom lens. Boots would have loved this, he reflected. Still, since the Rangers trained on his island, his son was no stranger to spectacles such as this.
Up on the roof, Texas was doing what her security training had taught her. She was keeping her eyes moving. She glanced occasionally at the sky divers, but her main concern was the bigger picture.
The line dancers had stopped for the moment and were gazing skyward like everyone else, but the sound of music had not diminished. It had increased. The pool loudspeakers, turned up full volume, were now blasting out 'The Ride of the Valkyries.' It fit the mood of the exhibitors, many of whom were Vietnam veterans, since they associated it with the helicopter assault in Apocalypse Now, but it was so loud it was hard to hear yourself think.
It was too damn noisy for good security.
The first sky diver, still spewing smoke, was circling for the final approach. Everyone was looking toward the direction he was coming from.
Texas panned around to look in the opposite direction. More surprises! A helicopter flying low was heading straight for the center block of the hotel. Black masked figures wearing SWAT assault gear were standing on the skids to the left and right, ready to jump down.
It was a dramatic sight, and the audience below was going to love it. Just when they were looking in one direction, this mock helicopter assault would take them in the rear. She could see it now. Simulated explosions. Black-clad figures running into assault positions. The chatter of blanks from automatic weapons. Thrills for the crowd.
All of this had once thrilled her too, when she was doing it. Now she increasingly felt she would like to do something more constructive. Like make something. A baby seemed like a good place to start. She had fought against being stereotyped as a woman, but recently her hormones seemed to be telling her something.
