Even if someone suspected that something was wrong, by the time Boom!
That was no knock. That sounded like a battering ram. Then it was followed by a huge bang that shook the entire office suite. Someone was invading.
No, no, no…
He lifted his cheek from the buttstock to look behind him at the locked door that separated him from his attackers, and then returned to his rifle.
Just take the shot! his mind screamed. He’d made snap shots before. He’d proved it just yesterday by blast- butchering a cow. He tucked his cheek to the buttstock again.
The clock read fifty-five seconds.
Behind him, he heard voices, and then someone yelled, “Holy shit! She’s dead.”
Forty-eight seconds.
Too many distractions. Even this little bit of time was plenty of time for him to resolve the threat and still finish the job.
Rising from the rifle, he spun away from the table and snatched up the Remington 1100 semiauto twelve-gauge from where it rested against the wall and brought it to his shoulder. Dropping to one knee, he took aim at the center of the door and fired.
The inner office door erupted as the double-ought buckshot punched a fist-size hole. Jonathan felt the breeze cut by ballistic path as a plug of nine. 32-caliber pellets passed way too close at twelve hundred feet per second. He threw himself to the ground and yelled, “Down!” at the same instant that Boxers yelled, “Gun!” and likewise kissed the floor. From the corner of his eye, he saw a crimson spray as Plano pirouetted and fell, dead before the pellets exited his body.
A second shot followed a half second later, and then a third. The shattering bits of office all around him formed a cloud in the air.
Inexplicably, Farmer just stood there, stunned and staring.
“Farmer! Get down!”
A fourth shot caught the guard full-on in the belly, and then he was gone, too.
Jonathan rolled left, across the floor toward another office, but the shooter had anticipated the move and fired a fifth shot that pummeled the wooden filing cabinet over his head.
Jonathan looked to Boxers to check his status, and found the Big Guy trapped in the corner closest to the shooter’s door, curled into a ball and trying unsuccessfully to look small.
Up and down the fourteenth floor, people had started to dial into the violence, and that’s when the panicked screams started.
As Brother Franklin Demerest watched the digital clock tick down past thirty seconds, his heart hammered as if to break free of his rib cage. His palms were slick with sweat, and despite the open window and the frigid breeze, the room felt stifling-a hundred degrees and the air too thick to breathe.
This was fear, and it was the emotion that he dreaded most. His shot was eighty-three yards shorter than Brother Michael’s, but in some ways required more precision. The bullets he fired would hit from the president’s right side, catching the podium in a cross fire. Once his rounds passed through their initial target-which they would easily do-it looked from the pictures on the television as if they would threaten only the chaplain, and then whoever happened to be in the wings of the makeshift stage.
It was Brother Michael’s bullets that would do the real damage, which was why he had chosen that perch for himself. From the position on Coolidge Avenue, whatever bullets passed through or missed their mark would drill on into the crowd. Every shot Brother Michael fired, then, would cause destruction. Franklin, by contrast, had to shift his aim a full thirty degrees to the right after his first five shots onto the stage to empty the remaining five shots into the crowd.
Thirteen seconds.
Despite the sandbags that wedged the giant Barrett rifle into place, the reticle of his scope quivered and the sight picture danced from his pounding heart and trembling hands. His breathing chugged too fast. He inhaled deeply in a loud, throaty gasp and held it, the way he used to hold the pot smoke back when he was in college, and then he let it go. That should settle him down.
Seven seconds.
He reacquired his spot, though it still danced. He took another deep breath, let half of it go, and then held the rest as he settled his finger on the trigger and counted down in his head.
Four… three… two…
The pace of the shotgun blasts told Jonathan that the shooter had a semiautomatic-there were too many rounds for an over-and-under, and the cycle rate was faster than even the most skilled guys could shuck a shucker.
When the gun went silent after five rounds, Jonathan suspected that he was reloading, but there was no way to tell. One thing he was sure of was that cowering on the floor accomplished nothing.
He looked to Boxers and got an enthusiastic thumbs-up as the Big Guy rose to his haunches. Sometimes a warrior’s greatest weakness was hesitation. He’d taught that at the Operator Training Course, and it was the mantra that guided Boxers’ life.
Jonathan nodded his assent and rose to a crouch. Boxers kicked the door.
With the threat in the outer office neutralized-or at least distracted-Michael returned to his chair and his rifle. The clock no longer mattered. His time for martyrdom had arrived, and chances were good that he would die before the clock ticked to zero. That meant that he needed to abandon the plan to achieve the goal.
The Barrett settled into his shoulder like a familiar lover.
He acquired his spot, and his finger found the trigger.
Before the door had exploded all the way open, Jonathan saw in a glance what was happening. From posture alone, he knew that Michael Copley was an instant away from letting fly with his cannon.
Jonathan’s Colt bucked three times in his hand. He didn’t aim so much as he pointed and shot; but the. 45 read his thoughts. The three bullets stitched a straight line down Michael Copley’s spine, from the base of his skull to the space between his shoulder blades.
As the leader of the Army of God died, he pitched forward onto his face like a drunk who had finally reached his limit.
With the echo of the shots still ringing, and gun smoke hanging in the air, Jonathan and Boxers squirted into the room and did a quick sweep for any other bad guys. “Clear,” they said in unison.
“Nice shootin’, boss,” Boxers said with a grin. “Looks like we barely made it.”
“Oh, shit,” Jonathan said, pointing at the television. “I think we’re too late.”
The live television picture showed utter mayhem unfolding on the stage at the Marine War Memorial. The president appeared to be on the floor, and Secret Service agents swarmed the scene, weapons drawn. Agents and uniformed officers brandishing automatic weapons formed a tight perimeter around the spot where the podium used to be, and then a scrum of agents hurried the president off the stage on the far side.
“What the hell happened?” Boxers asked, agape. “I didn’t hear him get a single round off.”
“He must have had help,” Jonathan said. Whatever triumph he’d felt ten seconds ago had all drained away. “Damn.”
As the motorcade raced away, led and followed by the counterassault team, one with its roof hatch open and Dillon gun turret deployed, the sound of the sirens was piercing, even at this distance.
Gail made no pretense of stealth as she stormed down the hall toward Suite 1013. She vaguely noticed the Compliances Services logo on a brushed aluminum plate on the wall next to the frosted glass-paneled door. She pulled once, and when she found it was locked, she drew her. 40-caliber Glock and fired a single shot at a spot on the floor on the far side of the glass. The panel became opaque for an instant, and then instantly transformed into a cascade of a million glass beads that tumbled in a neat pile.
A fraction of a second after she’d pulled her trigger, the entire floor shook from the massive explosion that had to be the. 50-caliber Barrett. A second shot followed as she was ducking under the panic hardware on the door and scooting into the office space. The interior of the space was tiny, consisting of an abandoned ten-by-twelve-foot reception area and a single closed office door beyond it.
When she heard a third report from the Barrett, she took aim at the middle of the closed door and fired five shots through the wood panel, punching a near perfect horizontal line of bullet holes from left to right. Then she
