got it!” Alex snapped.
“Yes!”
“Good luck.” Alex waited for him to pick the president up. Then he turned and said, “Okay, one . . . two . . .
Alex jumped up and opened fire, sweeping the two windows where he’d seen the muzzle flashes with his MP-5.
He wanted desperately to glance back and see the rental cop’s progress, but that wasn’t an option. Finally, his mag empty, he pulled his pistol and emptied that too. As shots rained at him, he dropped back down, reloaded and turned. He expected to see that the pair was safely in the hospital. But they weren’t. In fact, the rental cop seemed to be taking his time getting up the steps, as though he were in no need of . . .
“Shit!” Alex screamed. He lined up the man’s broad back in his gun sight.
“Hold it!”
The man instantly turned, and Brennan was now between him and Alex. Adnan backed slowly toward the hospital as Alex tried desperately to find an opening for a kill shot that had absolutely no chance of hitting the president. Unfortunately, there was no such opening, and the pair disappeared into the hospital.
Alex screamed into his wrist mic. “They’ve got the president. Repeat, they have abducted Ravensclaw at the hospital. We need to shut the whole damn town down.”
Alex was just about to sprint up the steps, fully expecting to be gunned down, when good luck finally landed on his side. Police reinforcements appeared on the scene. Alex waited another minute as the lawmen engaged the snipers and then raced up the steps to Mercy Hospital. With gunshots splattering all around him he launched himself through the glass doors, shattering them in the process.
A split second later he heard a bomb go off inside the hospital.
CHAPTER
54
REUBEN LIFTED KATE AND Adelphia over the fence and then joined the other Camel Club members there. As terrified people ran screaming past them, they took a moment to catch their breaths and collect their wits.
“My God,” a very pale Kate said, looking around frantically for Alex Ford.
“It is horrible,” Adelphia moaned. “It is like Poland and Soviets.”
Stone was surveying the dedication grounds where the bodies of the fallen lay. The grass was red with the blood of the gunmen. The federal countersnipers had control of the situation and were now securing the area, moving from body to body, ensuring that the Arab terrorists were actually dead. However, even from the perimeter Stone could see that there was no life left in the lumps of flesh on the ground.
Every one of Captain Jack’s men lay dead; many of the fedayeen were burned beyond recognition.
They could all hear sirens in the distance. A few minutes later a fire engine appeared on the scene followed by several others. They quickly attacked the blazing cars with their hoses, and black smoke billowed into the air.
Stone continued to watch as the wreckage of the police cruiser was cleared so that the presidential motorcade, at least what was left of it, could start streaming out. Mrs. Brennan and the chief of staff were swept into the second Beast and whisked away. The bruised and battered governor of Pennsylvania had been recovered and driven off in a van.
Stone felt a big hand on his shoulder and turned to find Reuben staring at him.
“We should probably get the hell out of here,” he said. “Damn cops might start shooting stragglers and ask questions later.”
Stone looked puzzled. “Reuben, you grabbed one of the gunmen’s weapons. Did you notice anything unusual about it?”
Reuben thought for a moment. “Well, I didn’t want to hold on to it too long, or else my head would’ve probably been exploding too. But now that you mention it, it did feel kind of funny. Lighter than I would’ve thought.” He looked at Stone. “Why’d you ask that?”
Stone didn’t answer. He looked again at all the dead Arabs.
Seconds after Adnan had entered the hospital, he placed Brennan, who was still moaning continuously, on a gurney that he’d left just inside the front door. The gunfight outside had driven everyone inside the hospital away from the front entrance. Adnan saw a group of nurses, doctors and aides staring fearfully at him from farther down the hallway.
“What’s going on?” one of the doctors shouted as he edged forward.
Adnan didn’t respond to this query, but he did nod at the man who’d just appeared next to him. It was the hospital’s newest staff physician who’d earlier expressed concern about the need for security guards at Mercy Hospital.
“A wounded man,” the doctor called out. “I’ll take care of him.”
“Stay away from the front doors,” Adnan warned. “People are shooting.”
The doctor pulled a syringe from his pocket, uncapped it and injected the president in his arm; Brennan slipped into unconsciousness. Then the doctor placed a sheet over the president and strapped him to the gurney and pushed it down the side hallway. He got on the elevator there and took it down one floor to the basement. Adnan waited until this had happened and then turned back to the group of hospital personnel.
“Hey!” another doctor yelled at Adnan. “Who was that man on the gurney?” They now all started moving toward him.
Adnan reached inside his jacket, pulled out a gas mask, put it on and started walking toward the oncoming group. Then he pulled from his pocket what looked to be a grenade and held it up.
“Look out,” one of the nurses screamed as the group turned and ran in the other direction.
“Call the police,” another doctor yelled as she scrambled away.
An instant later Adnan reached the fourth tile across from the center of the nurse’s station and threw the cylinder against the wall. It exploded, and the hall was immediately filled with thick smoke that was driven in all directions by the hospital’s air circulation system. A split second before the smoke bomb went off, Adnan heard glass shattering, but he couldn’t see the source. He couldn’t know this was Alex Ford throwing himself through the glass doors, but the Arab knew he had to hurry. He turned back toward the front of the hospital and counted off his steps, navigating in the dark solely through memory from his constant practice. As he neared the front entrance, Adnan felt something bump his leg, but he kept going.
An instant later the timed explosive device he’d placed in the hospital’s electrical room went off. All power to the hospital was now gone; everything went dark.
Adnan made his turn, walked down the passageway, stopped at the exit door, opened it and went through. He grabbed a long metal bar that he’d earlier hidden behind a steam pipe and wedged it through the closed door’s push bar. Then he began to run.
As soon as the bomb went off and smoke filled the halls, Alex dropped to the floor and slithered forward on his belly. It was like being far underwater, and the fumes were making him gag. Then he bumped into something, and that something was flesh and bone. He made a grab for it, but then it was gone. He swiveled around and started heading the other way, following the sounds of the footsteps. They were measured, steady. How the hell could anyone be walking so calmly through this crap? And then it suddenly dawned on him: because that person had a mask. And the steady tread? The person was leading himself through the smoke by counting steps. Alex had practiced that very same tactic in the dark at the Secret Service’s Beltsville training facility.
Alex crawled forward as fast as he could. The footsteps suddenly grew fainter and he redoubled his efforts, whipping his body back and forth like a serpent closing in on its prey. Thankfully, the footfalls picked up again. He hit another hallway, turned and belly-crawled down it. He heard a door open and then close. He slithered faster, pushing himself to the right and feeling for the wall. When his hand hit metal, he reached up and grabbed the
