Amira nodded, impressed.
The elevator announced their arrival with an audible ding, and the doors slid open.
“You made it. That’s all that matters.” She smiled at him. “And that’s some solid police work. You two would’ve made a good pair of detectives.”
John laughed. “Police? Too many rules. Too many so-called rights for the bad guys.” He paused, suddenly serious. “Besides, your dad was the best cop I knew, and I could never live up to that.”
Amira smiled as the familiar sensation that her father’s spirit was with her, a presence she’d felt several times since his death. “None of us can, but we can still try. Let’s go.”
They stepped out into the roaring noise of people talking, dishes clanging, footsteps, and other background noises that formed one constant stream of sound. Logan, John, and Amira held their pistols – suppressors removed in the elevator – low and wore FBI badges on chains around their necks. Logan had his Kimber Tactical II Pro.45-caliber pistol; John carried his M1911 .45-cal pistol he’d used since his days in the Marine Corps; Amira held her SIGSAUER P229 9mm pistol, a favorite since her days in Africa; and Chris Hauty held the Glock they’d retrieved from Nafisa. As Logan had said, “The more firepower, the better.” While he wasn’t technically law enforcement, a man trained to use a gun was still a force multiplier.
Chapter 20
Just as Samuel predicted, which means Nafisa is either dead or under arrest. Either way, Omar knew it was now up to him to delay Amira and the three men that accompanied her down the glass elevator. No matter what happened, he would not leave her alive.
Amira and her companions exited the elevator and turned right, moving through the crowd towards the Riverview Ballroom.
“Open fire when I do,” Omar said quietly to the private contractor Trevor Emerson had assigned to him.
A disgruntled former Army staff sergeant who’d watched too many of his friends die in Afghanistan, Tony Bernelli’s cynicism was complete and unhindered. He’d learned the hard way that the US government didn’t care about its service members or its citizens. It was why the five-foot-eleven former Special Forces Green Beret now served only himself and his family. The job was the job, and Trevor Emerson paid well.
“Understood,” Tony replied, the weight of his concealed, holstered Glock 17 9mm pistol on his right hip reassuring as he fell in step next to Omar.
The two men followed Amira, deftly weaving in and out of the crowd, closing the distance to their unsuspecting prey. Both parties had passed the stand-alone stores in the middle that resembled village storefronts, and Omar was running out of room. His targets would be near the exit within seconds. He stopped and withdrew the Glock 9mm pistol he’d concealed under his sport coat. He sensed Tony do the same. Vengeance is mine, he thought, his mind blocking out the thrum of the crowd and the movement of the people around him.
His focus was completely on Amira and the three men with her. It was also why he failed to hear the scream of a father with his two children and wife ten feet to his left at a table in the open-air section of the main restaurant. Had Omar known the man was a Marine Corps major on leave with his family, he might have reconsidered the point at which he’d stopped. But it was too late, and the man screamed, “GUN!!!” as Omar and Tony raised their weapons.
A second of time hung in the air, as if a gap had been created between the past and the future, the moment when families enjoyed their early dinners, to the moment unfettered chaos broke out and panic raged across the Gaylord National atrium. In that space, confusion reigned as bystanders processed what the warning meant in the age of domestic terrorism. But Amira, Logan, and John weren’t civilian bystanders, and the heartbeat that transformed the Gaylord was enough to trigger their reactions, even as Omar and Tony pulled the triggers on their Glocks.
Sensing the threat behind them, Amira and John dove left under the suspended belt held up by stanchions that marked the edge of the restaurant seating area. Logan dove right, twisting in his dive towards the fountain and the enormous Christmas tree within, his Kimber eager to locate the threat.
Without the years of endless and repetitive training, Chris Hauty was the only one who didn’t react, which was why he was the one struck in the back by several bullets. He fell forwards to the hard, smooth, stone floor, his consciousness fading as his blood drained from multiple holes. Snapshots of his family, his wife, their children, and young grandchildren appeared in his mind. A devout Catholic, he believed he’d see them again, and he closed his eyes one last time, content in the knowledge as death embraced him.
“Motherfuckers,” John said, scrambling under a table as the guests scattered around them. He felt a pang of sorrow at the security chief’s murder, but he suppressed it, knowing the time to grieve and honor the dead would come later.
More shots rang out, and they struck tables and chairs that were overturned by the diners’ rush to safety.
Amira was sickened at the willful negligence and callous disregard of their attackers, but then she saw Omar, and she knew the truth once again – he doesn’t care about anyone but himself.
“Logan! Get to the ballroom and stop the attack! We’ll cover you! Move!” Amira shouted across the walkway, praying he’d heard her through the chaos as he hunkered down behind the trunk of a large tree.
Both Amira and John knelt behind a table, looked at each other, nodded and stood up in a crouch, their weapons aimed at Omar and a second shooter twenty feet away.
Too many people behind them.
