'Where's Stan?'
'He called in sick, so they got me moppin' in his place.'
Krueger heard the sounds of a janitor and he relaxed. He heard the guards go back to an earlier conversation as the janitor went about his work.
The black man with arms the size of tree trunks was squeezed into his jumpsuit almost like Krueger was, only his discomfort was due to being muscle-bound. The man was looking at Krueger as if he were a bug that had just crawled out of his kitchen cabinet. Krueger immediately looked away.
Outside the cell, as the conversation continued between the two guards at the desk, Krueger heard two loud popping noises as if someone had hit a hollow cardboard tube. Then he heard running and then another hollow pop and then a clattering noise. As he looked around, he saw the thin white prisoner, who had a limited view of the area in front of the cell, lean back and then saw his eyes go wide. Krueger now became concerned.
A shadow fell inside the cell as a man stepped up to the bars. The three prisoners looked around wildly as they saw that the man was armed with what looked like a handgun with a long tube attached to the end. He was dressed in a janitor's jumpsuit and even had an ID tag with his picture on it. He looked from face to face and then raised the silenced weapon and fired twice into the small white prisoner.
'Hey, what the--'
The large black prisoner had tried to stand as he spoke but the chain held his cuffed hands and body close to the bench he was sitting on. He was then caught in midquestion by two bullets fired directly into his forehead. His head jerked backward. Then, just for certainty, another round went into his temple. Despite the silencer, the noise was loud enough that it echoed into the hallway and into the rest of the holding area.
William Krueger leaned as far away as his restraints would allow. He could only hope that the loud reports would bring someone running. However, that hope was fleeting because he knew exactly why that man was there. He also knew that the man would not fail at what he'd been sent there to do. He had expertly shot the three guards and then his cellmates. The silencer had worn out its insulation and had become very loud, which meant that the assassin had never intended to get away with his murders. Krueger's eyes were wide as the dark-haired man looked straight at him.
'I was told you would understand the price of failure, Mr. Krueger.'
The fat man started shaking uncontrollably. 'But ... but ... you'll die too,' was all he said.
'That was a forgone conclusion long before today. What is better than to send a dead man to kill another?'
There were sounds of many footsteps running down the hallway and shouts of more guards. The assassin did not bother to look away from the cell. He simply raised the handgun and fired four times into the head and face of William Krueger. The Coalition had just made a public statement of their intention to come out of the shadows and protect what was theirs.
The assassin reached through the bars and tossed the smoking weapon into the cell, were it hit the body of William Krueger and then clattered to the floor. Without hesitation, the man turned and left the holding area and made his way to the back door.
Outside the courthouse, the blond woman watched from her expensive car as the federal building was hurriedly evacuated. Once outside, workers and visitors alike were held in an area just to the left of the white- painted fortresslike courthouse for questioning. As she watched, she saw guards and United States marshals swarm the interior of the building.
The woman started her Mercedes and slowly left the large parking area. She did not smile or gloat on how good she was at arranging things like the assassination. She did exactly what she was paid for--to fix problems.
She slowly turned her car out onto the street and made her way to the Southern State Parkway for her trip into New York City, where she had another job to do before she moved to her next location in Boston. This next venture was also to be a public statement by a power that was far beyond American law enforcement to thwart. It was against an entity that was as secret as the Coalition she worked for--the Event Group.
Two Mayflower moving vans backed into the large loading dock just a half hour after a nondescript truck removed the scrolls and maps--and the three-man security element of Jack, Carl, and Will--to JFK airport. The back of the Event Group-owned Freemont Building was deserted, with the exception of a guard in his shack overlooking the dock area.
A driver stepped from the first moving truck and hopped up to the dock. He was carrying a clipboard and was wearing the livery colors of Mayflower Transit. He looked around and waited.
The guard-shack door opened and a man stepped out wearing a standard security uniform. He placed a cap on his head and stepped toward the man who was looking at him with a smile.
'We don't accept deliveries at this address, son,' the man said as he eyed the two trucks.
'Actually, my boss called and said that we had a pickup at this building.' He made a show of looking at his clipboard. 'Yeah, says right here, the Freemont. There isn't another building with that name on this street, is there?'
'No, but you may want to check back with your--'
A seven-inch knife in between his ribs cut the guard's words off as effectively as if he had shut off a radio. The man who had come up behind the guard was the driver of the second truck. The first man laid his clipboard down and then reached out and raised the sliding door of the first large moving van. As he did so, thirty-five men exited quickly. All were dressed in black Nomex and all had black hoods on their heads. It was exactly the same uniform that Jack and his men had worn for their raid the night before in Katonah.
A three-man team ran to the guard shack and another group to the large sliding doors of the loading dock. The first group smashed the communications-and-monitoring console in the guard shack and the second group placed quarter-pound timed charges against the base of each of the two loading doors that led into the warehouse. Each thirty-five-man team from the two trucks lined up on either side of the two doors just as two loud pops sounded, freeing the doors from their interior lock slots. As one man from each team slid the doors up, the rest ran into the dark interior.
Lance Corporal Jimmy Sanchez had been part of the Event Group for four years and loved the detached duty. He was moving up fast and the work under Colonel Jack Collins was challenging, to say the least. Being a veteran of the Event in the desert and the expedition down the Amazon the preceding year, he had come to be a trusted member of the security team that Collins had forged since he'd begun work for the Group. He'd even heard from Will Mendenhall that he was to advance in pay-grade to sergeant in the fall.
As Sanchez started to move, the ceiling lights flickered just as the sound of automatic gunfire erupted somewhere below them. He immediately ran to the wall-mounted phone and picked it up. There was no dial tone. He then reached into his pocket for his Group cell phone and punched only one number. It would alert all Event Group personnel that an emergency had arisen, which meant that the security team should come running to their aid. It also sent an automated message via satellite to Nevada, where the emergency alert would be relayed to Group Center.
Sanchez tossed the phone to the nearest wide-eyed technician.
'Dial 911 and tell them we have a break-in and shots have been fired!'
Sanchez withdrew his holstered 9-millimeter automatic and ran to the door. The corporal was on the second floor of the thirty-story Freemont Building, placing him only three levels above the loading dock. As he rounded the corner heading to the large staircase, he heard the volume of gunfire increase. He heard the distinctive reports of his own team's XM-8 automatic assault rifles, which meant that they had responded quickly to whatever was happening. As he gained the balcony overlooking the first floor, he stopped suddenly. Below, just as his men came into the main foyer to meet the attackers, they ran into at least fifty men. They quickly overwhelmed his first-floor team. They were everywhere. Sanchez cursed and ran back the way he had come. He had to get the technicians and professors out of harm's way.
'Corporal, the phones aren't getting a signal. At first we could, and then they all suddenly stopped sending. We couldn't get the police,' the field tech said as Sanchez ran by him.
'They are jamming the cell signals with independent microwaves! Get upstairs with the rest of security; this is a kill raid!'
As Sanchez was trying to rally what was left of the Group's security element, the attackers started making
