On the second level of the bus, the Tanner secunty guards answered the rifle fire with a few pistol shots. When the guards were lucky they managed to hit somewhere in the trees, where Dred's men were systematically destroying the bus. Shooting it to bits.
The heads of dead passengers sat still in several of the open windows. The broken engine had begun to spew thick black smoke. A few of the bus passengers climbed out far-side windows, tried to run, and were shot down. A small blond boy in red shorts lay dead in the grass to one side of the bus. An older man lay beside a big, black front tire. A twelve-year-old girl ran like the horses on her father's farin-a beautiful little girl from Surrey, England-and she was a survivor.
For ten minutes there were shouts and stomachfi-eezing screams from the forty-odd people trapped in the bus. Then there was no sound except for the lazy popping of M-16 rifles.
Colonel Dred and his marksman, Robert, walked to the bus in smoky, devastating silence. As they got up close, parrots and jacamars began to scream in the trees again. The tiny marksman took out a dull black Liberator pistol. The two disappeared into the bus, and more gunshots were fired. A man screamed inside the bus. Another muffled gunshot sounded inside.
When they came out again, Dred waved to the four boys standing up on the Goat Highwav. Each of the four had a long, scary fright wig. Each held a shiny field machete with a red neckerchief tied around the hilt.
At the same time, the other rebel soldiers were getting up out of the brush; dropping down from the trees. The guerrillas began to light up ganja sticks, regular cigarettes, cheap cigars. Only a few of them came forward to examine the bus.
It was Dred himself who saw the beige-and-green shadow moving through the thick backwoods behind the red bus. He recognized the face of Damian Rose, a pink smudge among the trees and bright green bushes. A shiny white smile.
'Aaagghh, Rose. Jeezus, mahn! ' The young guerrilla screamed as he realized what was going to happen. He tried to turn away.
The first rifle shot pierced the -back of his head; it came out where the black man's nose and mouth had been. The wound was very hot, and for a split second Dred's eyes and nose seemed to be on fire. The ground rushed up at his face, and then it all disappeared on him. He was falling down a pitch-black hole that echoed his screams-R. o... s... e...
By 6.-OO P.m. that night, the president o f the United States knew about it.
Five members of the Cabinet Committee to Com- bat Terrorism-the chief of staff; the assistant to the presidentfor national security affairs; the press secretaryfor the president; the secretary of defense; and the director of the CIA-sat with him in the Oval Office of the White House.
The director of the CIA briefed the chief executive on selectedfacts about Lathrop Wells, Nevada; the Forlenzas; Isadore Goldman; Damian and Carrie Rose; San Dominica. His primary recommendation at the moment was that the contract operators Dam- ian and Carrie Rose be eliminated immediately. Searched out and destroyed.
'You're shitting me, ' the president of the United states said after he'd heard the entire story. He looked around his Oval Office. At the chief of staff. At his press secretary. At his assistantfor national security. 'Somebody tell me this man is shilling me. That's an order.'
From 6.30 in the evening on, the world's 7'V and radio stations interrupted their regular programm ing to announce that the lefust San Dominican rebel, Colonel Dassie Dred, had been killer during an attack on a tourist bus some twenty-five miles east of the capital city of Coastown. At 8:00 P.m. Carrie arrived in Washington, D.C. Now the tricky stuff began.
PART 11 i
The Perfect Escape
May 8, 1979, Tuesday
. Bay of Pigs
CHAPTER NINETEEN
Damian and I had violent arguments about ' the Escape. My point of view: get out of the Caribbean immediately.
Damian's: finish the operation as it should be finished. Take care of Campbell and Harold Hill right. Stop them from coming after us.... That was how Macdonald became important. Also how Damian got the idea for what happened in Washington.
The Rose Diary
May 8, 1979; Fairfax Station, Virginia
Tuesday Morning. The Eighth Day of the Season.
The morning after the massacre at Elizabeth's Fancy, Mark Hill took a fast shower, combed his thick blond hair, then put on a freshly washed Wash ington Redskins sweatshirt and neat bell-bottom jeans.
The handsome teenager looked in the mirror over his bureau and gave himself an 'okay' sign and a broad, comical wink.
Downstairs, he could hear his mother busily making breakfast. Fried-bacon smells were drifung upstairs. Bacon, and also fresh coffee, which Mark hated with a sincere passion.
The fourteen-year-old quickly brushed his teeth and used the family Water Pik. Then he took the front stairs in three broad jumps. He strode casually into the kitchen, unconsciously imitating a pro foothall quarterback named Bill Kilmer.
Bright sunshine streamed through the open back door and the saffron-curtained window over the sink. A man and a woman in white terrorist masks stood in front of the sink, on either side of his mother. Each of the two held a long-barreled black revolver.
'You just listen to what these people say.' Car- ole Hill spoke in a calm voice that made the boy wonder how
