With his hands in the pockets of his jeans, Kyle turned toward the lights of the city downriver. The upper part of the monument could be seen, with small red lights at the top blinking to warn pilots of its presence, as if the big floodlights that bathed the obelisk at night did not provide enough of a clue. To his right were the elegant lines of the Kennedy Center, and closer was the stack of concrete-and-glass pancakes of the Watergate Complex. He went halfway up the grassy bank, found a dry spot of grass, lay down, and fell asleep just after seeing the faraway sparkle of a falling star.
He heard an oar sluggishly moving against the Potomac water and instantly knew it was not some sculler out for a midnight row. The smell told him so: dried tears, dead flowers, fresh blood. Swanson let out a groan. The Boatman had arrived. He knew the ragged figure emerging from the fog was nothing but a dream, a character that had a habit of showing up in his mind when there was a crisis. Invariably, death followed in his wake.
A slender thread of crooked laughter made Kyle look up. Charon was still in his boat, the long oar over the stern bumping ever so lightly against the boardwalk.
Swanson looked across the river to the Virginia shoreline, which was being eaten by a churning wall of fire.
The silent laughter rose again, and the Boatman pushed back the hood of his rotten cloak. A bald bone skull seemed to grin, and the black holes of the eyes had seen an eternity of life and death.
Kyle waited a minute before speaking again.
The skull turned upward and looked toward the sky, and the skeletal arms were raised wide.
The laugh turned into a shriek from the gaping mouth, and the Virginia inferno climbed higher, licking the bottom of the night clouds. Kyle’s nostrils seemed clogged by the thick scent of charred, dead bodies. There was a flash of light, and the Boatman vanished with a final hiss:
Swanson snapped awake, with all senses alert, although he kept his eyes closed and his body immobile. He picked up the sound of cars going across the Key Bridge, but there was something else, a slight movement in the stillness, weight being gently pushed against the heavy grass on the slope where he lay, and he heard a man breathing, moving closer. With one approaching cautiously, there was probably another nearby. He heard the creak of a board from the dock, so the backup was down there, about fifteen feet away beside the water, to cover his partner.
As soon as Kyle opened his eyes, the nearest man made his rush, holding a thin, extended steel baton high above his head and ready to slam it down. He leaned in to make the strike, which made him slightly off balance on the gentle slope. Swanson dug his left foot into the soft dirt and pushed over into a roll hard to his right toward the attacker, and the baton swished harmlessly through the air. It smacked the ground at the same time Kyle rammed his shoulders into the man’s ankles.
The unknown assailant fell forward and hit the ground facedown with a loud grunt, stunned. Kyle finished the roll and smoothly came to his feet, drawing the .45 Colt from the shoulder holster beneath his jacket. The downed man wore a gray sweatshirt and straight-leg jeans, was probably about six feet tall, and had enjoyed too much fried chicken and pizza. Kyle stomped hard on the spinal column at the base of the skull with his left foot and felt and heard the C-2 neck vertebra give way with a loud snap as it forcibly parted from the C-3 under great force, in a classic hangman’s break.
He swiveled to face the second threat and saw the man charging from the dock, a dark figure moving fast but from lower ground. He was shorter and even wider than the other one and had Asian features. The blade of a knife flashed in the subdued lights below the bridge. Kyle raised his pistol and fired point-blank into the face, and the man jerked to a halt as the back of his head blew off in a spray of blood and bone. The body fell backward and landed on the grass with a wet sound. The double-tap of gunshots echoed wildly beneath the arch of the bridge.
Kyle held his Colt in both hands and methodically quartered the area around him. The choice of a baton and a knife instead of guns meant the two men were not expecting to be unsuccessful in the attack, and therefore they were likely professionals. It was unlikely that they had brought along even more support. Two tough pros would normally have been more than enough. When Swanson was certain no one else was there, he holstered his pistol and made a quick search of the pockets of the dead men. Neither had a wallet, nor any identification. Pros, for sure. Swanson for a moment considered dialing 911 on his cell but decided it would be better to just move on out of there. Let someone else report the sound of gunfire.
He walked up the hill and back into Georgetown. This whole thing was out of control. It was time for Trident to go black on it, and for Kyle and Beth Ledford to vanish. He was tired of people knowing where the fuck he was at.
11
THEY WERE ON INTERSTATE 95 only a few hours after the attack. Glowing strands of headlights marked the commuters flowing into the Washington corridor. Within an hour, the traffic would thicken in the southbound lanes to bind the cars trapped on it into a slow-moving parking lot. Swanson and Ledford were going the other way, as Kyle glided a big Land Rover north, heading for a small airport just outside of Providence, Rhode Island, that served private passenger planes. He would have preferred something less conspicuous than the big SUV but was thinking defensively, and the specially equipped vehicle was rigged with bulletproof glass, heavy-duty bumpers, tires that would resist gunfire, and interior weapons storage areas. It also had the advantage of sheer weight in case somebody tried to ram it, and its enhanced four-wheel drive would take it almost anywhere. The Land Rover had been part of the FBI fleet until earlier that morning, when Special Agent Dave Hunt checked it out in his own name, then handed the keys to Kyle with the warning that it was lousy on gas mileage. The wipers clicked methodically against the windshield as they drove through a light rain.
“Why don’t we just use a military flight out of Andrews?” she asked, leaning back in the big comfortable seat. “The general could clear it, right?”
“There is a hole somewhere in the comm net, Beth, and we don’t know where. We cannot trust normal operating procedures,” Swanson said. “What happened yesterday at Quantico, and then last night with me, could only have been planned with advance intelligence. Too many people had access to what we were doing. So from
