The Camel Club

no one back there. The twenty-seven-car motorcade had been reduced to one. He concentrated on the road ahead. Mercy Hospital was only ten minutes from here. Alex planned to make it in five. He prayed the president could hang on.

CHAPTER

53

THE BLACK CHOPPER SOARED over the Pennsylvania landscape. Tom Hemingway gave precise landing coordinates to the pilot even as he watched what was happening at the dedication on his satellite TV. Even though everything was going just as he had planned it, Hemingway still felt an immense pressure in his chest as the events unfolded in real time. Even with all the thought he had given this, all the planning, all the thousands of times he had visualized these very same events happening in his mind, the reality was far more powerful, far more overwhelming. He finally turned off the TV. He simply couldn’t watch any more.

Djamila raced through the streets of downtown Brennan, turned left and then hung an immediate right. She then eased into the narrow alley as the kids chortled and laughed in the backseat. She eyed them quickly, then stopped and hit her brakes. She’d almost missed it.

The overhead doors flew up and the man motioned her in. Djamila swung the van into the garage and the doors were pulled back down.

A half-block up the street from Mercy Hospital a tractor-trailer pulled out from an alleyway, tried to make a turn heading west, and the engine mysteriously died. The driver got out and opened the hood. The truck was effectively blocking the street in both directions.

A few blocks away on the same street in the other direction, the Beast made the turn onto the road on two wheels, and then Alex floored it. He could’ve used at least one damn police cruiser to clear his way, but apparently, there weren’t any left. However, Alex presumed roadblocks were being set up on all streets leading in and out of Brennan as no doubt an entire army of law enforcement descended on the area.

The Beast flashed by a street corner behind which rose the antique Brennan water tower emblazoned with the Stars and Stripes. At this section of the street a work zone had been set up only a half hour before by a pair of men dressed in the brown uniforms worn by town workers. The orange cones and tape effectively cordoned off the sidewalks and directed pedestrians to a detour down another side street. No one knew what work was to be performed, but the few people left in town followed the directive. As soon as the Beast cleared the area, two explosive charges set into the water tower’s front supporting legs detonated. The tower buckled and then fell directly across the street and burst open, disgorging about twelve thousand gallons of filthy water that still remained in it. Now this end of the street was as effectively walled off as the other.

Ten seconds later, up and down the avenue, smoke started pouring out of businesses, causing people to flee and fire alarms to be pulled. This was the result of the smoke bombs hidden in these establishments earlier by the Arab chemist and engineer. The few souls who had chosen not to attend the dedication were soon out in the streets wandering around in a panic.

Alex skidded the Beast to a stop directly in front of Mercy Hospital. The rear passenger doors flew open, and the two agents burst out carrying the president. They had barely reached the first step leading to the hospital when they were both hit and went down. The president collapsed to the sidewalk and lay there next to the Beast.

“Son of a bitch!” Alex screamed into his mike as he scrambled out of the car on the passenger side. “Snipers at the hospital! Snipers at the hospital! We’ve been set up. Repeat, we have been set up! Agents down! Agents down. Ravensclaw—” He paused. “Ravensclaw’s . . . ,” he began again, but didn’t finish because he didn’t know what the hell to say about Ravensclaw.

He was frantically trying to spot the muzzle flashes. Alex knew he had to get Brennan inside the hospital. His gaze surveyed the street level and then darted upward. That’s when he saw it: six flights up, apartment building directly across the street. No optics signature, but twin muzzle flashes, a deuce of snipers.

Alex pulled his gun even as he felt slugs slam into the tires of the Beast. As soon as the holes were formed, however, the punctures closed up again as the self-healing tires did their thing. Rounds hit the limo front, back and on the side. One hit the glass but did not damage it. The Beast could survive a lot more than they were throwing at it. But the president of the United States was lying on the sidewalk, apparently dying. Protect the man, the symbol, the office. And Alex Ford was the only agent still standing who could uphold that mantra of the Secret Service. Yet as soon as Alex started up the hospital steps with the president, they’d be an easy target for the snipers who’d taken the high ground. Yet Brennan was breathing, his heart was still beating. That’s all Alex cared about right now. Not on my watch, sir. Not on my watch.

He gripped the man under the shoulders, braced himself and then pulled. The president was now fully protected behind the steel and polycarbonate wall of the Beast.

“You’re gonna be okay, sir,” he said as calmly as he could.

“I’m . . . dying . . . ,” the president managed to mutter back between moans.

Even with the Beast shielding them, Alex instinctively put his body between Brennan and the snipers. Millimeter by millimeter he edged his head over the rear of the Beast. He ducked back down when a shot sailed his way. He immediately sent back a few rounds with his SIG, but he wasn’t going to waste ammo; it’d take a miracle shot to even nick one of the bastards at this distance and trajectory.

When he glanced toward the hospital, he saw a security guard and shouted, “Get down! Get down! Snipers across the street.”

The man immediately ducked back inside. Then two seconds later he burst out firing at the upper floors of the apartment building, hurtled down the steps and rolled to a landing next to Alex as gunfire hit all around them.

“Damn!” Alex said. “You got some kind of death wish?”

“Is this the president?” Adnan al-Rimi asked breathlessly, nodding at the prostrate Brennan.

“Yeah. And we need to get him in there fast,” Alex said, pointing with his gun at the hospital. “Because the next closest hospital’s in Pittsburgh and he needs help now.”

“Are you the only security?” Adnan asked in an incredulous tone.

Alex nodded grimly. “Looks that way.”

“We saw on TV what happened.”

Alex glanced at the man. “You the only security here?” Adnan nodded. “What kind of gun you have?”

“Piece-of-shit .38.”

“Great.” The president moaned loudly and Alex quickly said, “What’s your name?”

Adnan answered, “Farid Shah.”

“Okay, Farid, I’m hereby deputizing you.”

Alex opened the rear door of the Beast, pressed a button on the panel on the back of the passenger chair, and it came down. Behind it was a cache of weapons, including a shotgun, an MP-5 machine gun and a sniper rifle. Alex pulled out the MP-5 and grabbed an extra mag for it. He turned back to his newly deputized colleague.

“Farid, you look like a pretty strong guy.”

“I am very strong.”

“Good. You think you can lift the president and carry him up those steps and into the hospital?”

Adnan nodded. “Easily.”

“Okay, when I count to three, you’re gonna do just that. I’m gonna put this gun here on two-shot bursts. That’ll give you maybe ten seconds to get up those steps. And, Farid?”

“Yes?”

“You gotta do one thing for me, man.”

“What?”

“I’m going to be between you and the president and the snipers. To get to you, they gotta kill me first.” Alex paused and swallowed hard. “But if I go down, and I probably will, they’re gonna have to go through you to get him. That means you gotta carry him in front of you so that at all times there is a body between the president and the snipers, you got that?” Adnan said nothing. “You