Kealey hadn’t expected his pronouncement to change ingress protocol. Nor this: “I’m Ryan Kealey. We sent the messages that brought you here.”
A man picked up Kealey’s gun. His face was invisible behind the black, skintight balaclava, which covered his face from the bridge of his nose down, and the goggles, which concealed the rest. He kept his weapon trained on Kealey.
With a reverse chop of his upraised forearm, one team leader signaled the other that this room was clear. He chopped forward to indicate to his unit to assume a file formation beside the door. The team leader who was staying behind had been talking into his throat mike. Finished, he walked over to Kealey. He did not remove his amber goggles or raise his balaclava.
“Who are you?” he demanded.
“Ryan Kealey-”
“Who are you with? ”
“She’s Company. I’m former,” Kealey said. He had forgotten, for a moment, the priorities in securing a hot zone. It didn’t matter what indigenous occupants were called, but where their loyalties lay. “We were here to attend the nursing dinner,” he said. “Look, there may be more gunmen in the room across the hall. These guys and some of the dead men on the steps are Eastern European. I don’t know why they’re here or who they work for. I do know they’ve threatened to kill all the hostages-”
As he spoke, he heard the familiar sizzle of flash-bang grenades. Not only was the M84 designed to blind and deafen the enemy, but it also sent the equivalent of an electric shock through the eyes and into the brain, scrambling all thought, while simultaneously hammering each side of the skull with what felt like a mallet. The fluid of the ear was so severely compromised by the explosion, it was almost impossible to remain upright. The result was that if any of the hostiles in the vicinity of the blast had been holding a gun to a hostage’s head, they would have been debilitated before they could fire. It would also have floored most of the hostages, keeping them below incoming gunfire. The two blasts were followed by the equally familiar pops of the M4 carbines the assault team had been carrying.
Six shots. There was no other gunfire. The ordeal was over.
“Please let us go there,” Allison said. “Our friend Julie Harper-”
“I’m sorry, ma’am. You have to remain here,” said the team leader.
“Or what?” she demanded.
Kealey answered before the team leader could. “Or they’ll cuff and book you.” He regarded the HRT officer. “The exhibition hall,” Kealey said. “I’m sure the SWAT team has reached it by now.”
“I can’t provide you with any information-”
“I’m not asking for any. I’m telling you,” Kealey said. “You’d be on your way down there if they hadn’t.”
The man shifted uncomfortably but said nothing.
“The president will want to know about the woman who was running the show there, Mrs. Julie Harper. Would you please get us clearance to check ASAP? It’ll make our lives a helluva lot easier-mine now and yours later.”
The tac studied Kealey for a long moment, then said into his throat mike, “Command, this is Griffith. I need a check on a Ryan Kealey. K, kilo…?”
Kealey spelled it for him, and the team leader spelled it back, adding the appropriate radio jargon for clarity.
Kealey didn’t blame the man for checking. But it reminded him why he had always been a solo operator and believed that looking into a person’s eyes told you everything you needed to know, and more than any file could possibly tell you.
Before turning to organize triage, the young man identified himself to Kealey as Special Agent London Griffith. Kealey didn’t ask about the name. Maybe over a beer one day he would. Right now he didn’t care. Griffith had finally removed his goggles, and he left Kealey and Allison standing where they were while medics arrived to check on the former hostages. Colin went with them.
He gave his aunt a hug and Kealey a handshake before going to the cots that were being brought into the corridor. The dead men had been covered with black vinyl sheets, but they could not be moved until a postmortem team arrived to photograph the scene and-for purely tactical reasons-analyze the effectiveness of the steeple takedown and the flash-bang assault. It was felt that providing care for the hostages would be better accomplished where there were no dead bodies and where the air didn’t smell of oily silica gel.
Kealey and Allison stood there in silence, holding hands. It was only an hour before that they were acting like tourists, chatting about fish, and looking forward to a relaxed evening and a little social triumph for their friend.
Now they didn’t know whether or not she was even alive.
Griffith returned after a few minutes. He was an African American, about thirty, with soft brown eyes and a scar across his right cheek. He wore a strange, uncomfortable look that Kealey recognized.
“Mr. Kealey, sir, you and Ms. Dearborn are cleared for escort to the exhibition hall,” he told them.
“Any word on casualties?” Kealey asked.
“They were described as considerable, sir,” Griffith said. “If you’ll follow Agent O’Neill, she will take you to the exhibition hall. After that, she will escort you outside the convention center.”
A young woman had walked up behind them. At Griffith’s command, she headed for the door. Kealey and Allison followed, still holding hands. Obviously, the matter had been booted up several levels-possibly to Jon Harper himself. They were to be permitted access and then gotten the hell out. Not for their safety, Kealey knew, but because he’d single-handedly done the job the FBI was supposed to have been handling. He was both a hero and an embarrassment. Kealey saw that in Griffith’s expression.
They crammed hastily into the stairwell, Kealey and Allison entering behind O’Neill, other tacs in her detachment falling in at the rear as the group made their way to the next floor, moving as one, a multi-headed organism, their footfalls striking a rapid, unechoing beat on the concrete steps.
The air had cleared somewhat, leaving a thin layer of white powder on the floor. It wasn’t ash; it was matter that had been pulverized by the blast. The heat inside the convention center had caused it to rise, forming the tester Kealey and Allison had passed through earlier. But now that power was being restored and the air- conditioning was back in various sectors, now that gravity was overcoming the thermal lift, the particles were dropping.
There were probably fragments of human beings in the powder.
On the upper landing, O’Neill halted briefly by the metal fire door. Kealey heard Allison snatch in a breath and tried not to betray his own apprehension, but he could feel it tighten his chest from the inside like an expanding metal ring. O’Neill shouldered open the door, Kealey following her through, into what he guessed was the pre- function room.
Kealey felt his stomach slide as he realized the damage up here was as bad as anything he’d glimpsed elsewhere. He heard Allison groan behind him. It was too late to tell her to turn away. Every sickening piece of the tableau was seared instantly into memory. The odor of charred plastic, rubber, and flesh would never be forgotten.
They stood side by side, looking at the blasted walls; the collapsed, dripping ceiling panels; the light fixtures dangling from scorched and blackened clumps of electrical wire; the broken glasses and bottles and pieces of tables, chairs, and other smashed and overturned furnishings that had been scattered around the cocktail area and ballroom. The microphone had melted on its stand and looked like ice cream that had pooled and been refrozen.
Kealey saw people lying on the slick, wet, debris-strewn floor, many of them dead, some with their bodies burned in spots to stiff, charred bone. From just inside the entrance it appeared the survivors outnumbered the fatalities, but whatever measure of comfort that gave Kealey was tempered by the sight of all the wounded: they were everywhere, bleeding, moaning, ripped apart. Many had probably been deafened, permanently, by the blast.
Crouched over them, their clothes torn and soiled, dozens of men and women were tending to the injured. FBI tacs were circulating throughout the room, after having made their entries through the windows and stairs. They were trying to assist as best they could. O’Neill’s detachment joined them.
Kealey felt Allison clutch his arm.
