be towed. He was there so it wouldn’t be.
When the driver came through the automatic doors, the big man tipped his cap and walked away.
Clout, Muloni thought. A barrage of synonyms followed involuntarily. Influence, sway, wealth, control.
Power.
The democrat in her recoiled slightly at the thought of one man getting special treatment. But the child of a lower-middle-class home enjoyed being around it. The higher she’d risen in the CIA, the more she’d been exposed to privilege and the more she liked it. Like the reason she was here. It wasn’t just to give her a bit of control in a disordered world. It was to be part of something important, something special.
Muloni stepped into the car, filled with a feeling that was closer to resolve than to optimism.
But today that was enough.
CHAPTER 5
BALTIMORE, MARYLAND
Jostling through knots of confused, terrified pedestrians about a quarter mile west of the garage, Kealey and Allison saw the church a short distance ahead, its white-domed bell tower rising above Conway.
“That’s it,” Allison said, panting a little. “Sharp Street’s on the other side.”
They raced by an outdoor parking lot toward the churchyard, Kealey gripping her hand. Then he stopped abruptly a step or two past the lot’s chain-link fence. In front of him was a curbless lane running off to the right.
“What’s this road?” he asked.
“That’s the back of the original center,” Allison told him. “Events aren’t held there anymore, so I’m guessing the road’s used for deliveries.”
Kealey looked up the strip of pavement for another ten seconds or so. He noticed a car pulled parallel to the building at the end-a small black sedan. There was another vehicle in front of it, possibly another sedan. With the church partially obstructing his view, Kealey could barely see the rear bumpers or tell if either car was occupied.
“Ryan, what’s wrong?”
He didn’t answer. He wasn’t sure wrong was the word. He could not even explain what it was about those cars that had snagged his interest, other than that he couldn’t think of a reason for them to be there. They certainly weren’t delivery vehicles, and they seemed a little too sharp, too clean to belong to staffers or folks who had come over to look for work on their day off. Anyway, why would just two cars have parked here?
“It’s nothing,” he said, nodding up the block. “Come on-we’d better hustle.”
They went on past the front churchyard, then jogged around the corner past the west gate. The smoke was thicker here, the noxious odor easily penetrating their improvised face masks. The moment they turned the corner, Kealey saw the roadway curve slightly to the left, to the mouth of what looked like a narrow ramp behind the original convention center. The second-story walkway between the old building and its extension was no more than 15 yards ahead, along with the doors Allison had told him about.
He quickened his pace, his hand firmly around Allison’s. Ten yards to go now. There were flashing red, yellow, and blue lights ahead on Pratt Street, commands from loudspeakers-indecipherable here, but probably shouting instructions to survivors. The police and firefighters themselves would be using their radios.
If not for being focused on his goal, Kealey might have instantly seen the cars shoot toward him from his right. As it was, his reaction was quick enough to avoid getting run over. He sprang out of the way as the first one barreled down the ramp in the back of the center, pulling Allison along so forcefully that she almost tripped.
He steadied her against him. As the vehicles had come shooting onto Sharp Street, he’d noted that they were compact sedans similar to the cars he’d seen behind the building from Conroy. He’d also glimpsed the first vehicle’s driver through his windshield and registered his clenched, fixated expression.
“Ryan?”
Kealey was quiet. That obsessive look on the driver’s face. He’d seen similar ones before, and they had never signified anything good.
“Ryan?”
He shot her a glance. “I should have checked those sons of bitches out,” he said.
“Who?”
He jerked his head back the way they’d come. “Those sedans. What the hell were they doing behind the building?”
She stared at him, frightened and confused.
“The cars, the driver, the lack of any stickers on the windows or license plates-they smelled of Feds,” he said. “So why were they leaving? ”
Allison’s phone pinged.
“It’s Colin,” she said. “The dust is starting to settle. He says he’s near the men’s room just outside the food area.”
Kealey stood there a heartbeat longer, his eyes disgusted and angry. Then, mindful of the nearby police sirens, he reached under his jacket for his Sig, thumbed its decock lever, and held the weapon down at the low ready.
“What is it?” Allison asked.
She took a step back, probably unaware that she had done so, Kealey thought. It was anxiety, her nerve gone, her mind unable to make sense of anything.
“I don’t know,” he admitted. “But whatever it is, I want to be ready.”
Grabbing hold of her hand again, he started toward the ramp.
The entrances faced each other beneath the walkway. The letters above the automatic sliding doors to the left read OTTERBEIN LOBBY. Those above the opposite doors said SHARP STREET LOBBY-EXECUTIVE OFFICES.
Kealey turned to his right. The extension on his left was where the blasts had occurred, where Colin and Julie might be trapped, if they hadn’t already escaped or been evaced. But he had to resist the temptation to head inside. The cars gunning out of the back ramp as if all hell was at their tails had convinced him there might be more trouble on the way-and that he might still have a chance to head it off.
Allison was pointing to the left. “Ryan, wait! We have to go-”
“That way, I know,” he said. “But we need to get there through the back door. I’m not sure this is finished.”
She did not protest any further but came along with a rag-doll limpness. Kealey knew the feeling. She had shut down, her mind and body overwhelmed.
Entering, he heard the earsplitting racket of the convention center’s internal fire alarms. He spotted a pair of uniformed guards inside the entrance, about six feet apart, their backs toward him. The rent-a-cops were no surprise: he’d assumed that there were security guards on premises, and that it would be standard operating procedure for them to remain at their posts until the police arrived to seal the exit. The real question for Kealey was how to get past them.
“Come on!” he said, walking forward cautiously, unclasping his hand from Allison’s to reach into his pocket for his card holder.
One of the guards noticed him, shouted to the other, and they both turned, their eyes on his weapon as they drew their own sidearms from hip holsters.
“ Halt! ” one of them shouted from behind his Glock 9-millimeter semiautomatic. “Don’t take another step!”
“CIA!” Kealey said, stopping and flashing his outdated credential. “We need to get through.”
“We were told no one gets in-”
“We have people at the Harper event,” Kealey said. “We need to get to them.”
