You couldn’t distinguish the legitmate vehicles from the remote-controlled version. Perhaps this Suburban rolling across the grass really had been ordered into the crowd. It was going to check out a threatening individual. Or perhaps it had been ordered into the crowd to disarm a madman and shield the president? It was impossible to be certain.
At that exact moment, the sun came out from behind a snow-filled cloud. Brilliant beams lit up the Capitol building. In that instant Franklin knew for sure.
He’d seen the sun hit the black Suburban’s mirrored windshield. He was the only man alive in Washington who had seen these windows close up. This one didn’t look right.
The crowd had parted now, leaving a clear path for the vehicle now picking up speed and headed right toward him.
“Officer,” Dixon said to the mounted policeman, “You’ve got to stop that vehicle. Now!”
“Me? I’ve go no authority to—”
“It’s packed with explosives. It’s headed for the Inaugural stand. They mean to kill the president and the whole damn government.”
“Who the hell are you?” the mounted cop shouted at him. He was in high panic, half-listening, half-talking into his radio, trying to make sense of this craziness. He was looking to find somebody with the authority to tell him what to do in this bizarre situation.
Franklin grabbed the horse’s reins and managed to hold on to the man’s gaze an extra second. “I’m nobody. A Texas county sheriff. But I’m telling you the truth, officer. You’ve got to stop that thing right now!”
“How the hell am I supposed to do that?”
“I guess I’d better do it,” Franklin said.
In a second, he’d reached up and grabbed the man’s arm and hauled him down out of the saddle. The surprised cop was on the ground, going for his weapon but suddenly Holly was on top of him, knees on his chest, flashing her State Department I.D. right in his face. Franklin heaved himself up into the saddle, reining in the frightened horse and turning him around.
“Giddyup,” Franklin said, clicking his tongue and touching his boots to the horse’s flanks.
There was open ground between him and the Suburban. Franklin galloped straight toward the oncoming truck. He swerved out of its way at the last moment, then reined the horse sharply left and circled back. The horse was fast enough, and the sheriff caught up with the truck in a hurry. He matched the vehicle’s speed and got the horse right alongside the right hand side of damn thing.
“One shot at this,” he told his horse.
He swung his right leg up and over and jumped.
It was an English saddle, which made getting off a lot easier. He’d timed it pretty good, got one boot down on the running board, and grabbed the handrail on the roof. He could see the mirror inside the glass and knew at least he’d not made a complete fool of himself. He hauled himself up onto the roof and rolled flat onto his stomach. He grabbed one of the satellite dishes and pulled himself forward.
On the truck he’d seen in the garage, he’d noticed the middle light on the light bar was black instead of red like it was supposed to be. That had to be the camera lens.
He grabbed the light bar with his left hand and held on tight. The truck was veering right to left, trying to throw him off maybe. He whipped off his short brim with his right hand and inched forward a little more so that he could do what he had to do. There were agents running alongside him now, guns drawn, all shouting at him and threatening to shoot him, he guessed.
But he had an idea and figured, at this point, it was worth trying.
He held on with his left hand, grabbed his cowboy hat in his right and reached all the way forward. He was just close enough to cover the lens. He stretched all the way forward and slapped his hat in place over the camera.
The damn truck kept going a second, then slowed way down. It made a wobbly left-hand turn, plowing up grass, then a right. Finally it just rolled to a dead stop. Franklin stayed put, keeping the lens covered with his Stetson, blinding whoever it was who wanted to kill his president.
He saw the familiar face of Agent Hecht standing there on the ground with all the other agents, every of them looking up at him and shaking their heads, all with a big smiles on their faces.
“That’s Sheriff Franklin W. Dixon of Prairie, Texas,” Hecht said to his men. “He’s the one who first found these damn things.”
“Howdy,” Franklin said to them.
“BLOW IT!” Top screamed at the top of his lungs. The Washington controllers staring at their suddenly black screens just looked at him. “Blow that fucking truck up now!”
“There’s no provision for that, sir. We are no longer able to perform that function. All of the modified Chevrolet trucks have been keyed to the main timing device.”
“What?” Top screamed, his face turning bright red. “Who authorized that?”
“Dr. Khan, sir.”
“Why? Why did he do that?” Top was breathing hard, trying to control his raging emotions.
“He said he wanted to eliminate any possibility of human error, sir.”
“Khan did that?”
“Yes, sir.”
Top drew his sidearm and pointed it at the nearest controller. “Put it back. Go to manual override.”
“I’m sorry. I cannot do that, sir.”
He blew the man’s head off.
“Next?” he said, looking around wildly.
84
THE BLACK JUNGLE
M erde! Merde! Merde!”
Froggy felt no need to translate: Shit was shit in any language. His squad had been flanked. Somehow, the bastards had gotten behind them. He couldn’t see them yet, but they were coming. He could hear those fucking mini-tank engines revving as they approached, crashing through the underbrush. And the war cries of Xucuru Indians.
Indians? He thought Stiletto’s firepower had killed most of them upriver. They were determined bastards, he’d grant them that much. They were either on Top’s payroll or simply offended at the idea of uninvited guests in their pristine jungle. He hand-signaled Bassman and Boomer to spread out and get turned around; they needed to get the heavy M-60 machine guns into position for an attack from their rear.
“Hold your fire until my signal,” Froggy said into his lipmike when the squad was set.
It had all started when an arrow, five-feet long and, no doubt poison-tipped, had thunked into a tree a foot above Froggy’s head. He’d just looked down at his map. Now, he had seconds to reposition and fight a rear-guard action. And he needed to warn Stokely who was up in a treehouse a hundred feet above his head.
“Stoke, this is Frogman.”
“Parlez, Froggy.”
“You have the hostage?”
“I’ve got him. He’s alive, barely. Not mobile. I’m going to try and bring him down. We need to evac him to Stiletto pronto.”
“Negative! Negative! We’ve got tangos down here, approaching from the rear. Tanks and Indians.”
“Tanks and Indians?” Stoke said.
“You heard me, goddamn it!”
He let that go, thinking he’d misunderstood, and said, “Hawke’s ten minutes out, Froggy. Brock should be even closer. We need to get a perimeter around this tree and hold it until they get here. I’m coming down
