am.”
“No—”
“I’m faster than you,” Barbara murmured. “I beat you two years in a row.”
“I’m two steps closer,” Harleigh pointed out.
Barbara shook her head slowly. Her eyes were angry and her mind was made up. Harleigh didn’t know what to do. She didn’t want to race Barbara for the door. They’d only trip each other up.
The girls looked over as the leader caught Laura midway up the stairs. He lifted her off the floor and threw her backward, down the stairs. Laura bounced and rolled and came to a stop at the bottom. She was moving her arms and head slowly, painfully. The leader hurried down to her.
Barbara took a few slow, shallow breaths. She put her hands on the edge of the wooden table. She waited until she was sure that no one was looking her way. Then she pushed off from the table, rose, and ran.
Her legs were hindered by the tight gown she was wearing. Harleigh heard a rip along the side, but Barbara kept running. Her arms churned, she kept her eyes on the doorknob, and she ignored whichever of the terrorists or delegates or whoever was shouting at her to stop.
Harleigh watched as she reached the door.
Barbara stopped to pull it open. She heard the latch click, the door came open, and then she heard a whip- loud crack. It stayed inside her ears, filling them, like the first blast of music when her Walkman was turned too high.
The next thing Harleigh knew, Barbara was no longer standing. She was still holding the doorknob, but she was on her knees. Her hand slipped from the knob, and her arm flopped to her side.
Barbara’s body remained upright, but only for a moment. Then she fell to the side.
She was no longer angry.
TWENTY-SIX
Secretary-General Chatterjee stopped when she heard the muffled gunshot. It was followed by shrill cries, and then a few moments later there was a second gunshot, closer to the corridor than the first. Almost immediately after that, the door of the Security Council chamber opened. Ambassador Contini was thrown out, and the door was quickly shut.
Colonel Mott ran over to the body at once, his footsteps breaking the utter stillness of the corridor. He was followed by the emergency medical crew. The delegate’s well-dressed body was lying on its side, Contini’s dark face toward them. His expression was relaxed, his eyes shut, his lips slightly parted. The man didn’t look dead, not the way Ambassador Johanson had. Then the blood started to pool beneath his soft cheek.
Mott squatted beside the body. He looked behind the head. There was a single wound, just like before.
As the medical team placed the body on a stretcher, Chatterjee walked toward the doors of the Security Council chamber. She looked away from the body as she passed. Mott rose and intercepted her.
“Ma’am, there’s nothing you can gain by going in there now,” he said. “At least wait until we have the video.”
“Wait!” Chatterjee said. “I’ve already waited too long!”
Just then, one of the security force personnel came from the Economic and Social Council chamber. Lieutenant David Mailman was assigned to a makeshift, two-person reconnaissance team. He and his partner had pulled a fifteen-year-old Remote Infinity Eavesdropping Device out of storage. Designed to work over a telephone line, they rigged it to pick up voices through the headphones of the translating units at each seat in the Security Council chamber. Since the range was only twenty-five feet, they had to work from the adjoining room. They were situated in the small corridor that led to the second-floor media center and was common to both the Trusteeship Council and Security Council chambers.
“Sir,” Lieutenant Mailman said to the colonel, “we think someone just tried to get out of the Security Council. We saw the doorknob twist and heard that latch jiggle right before the first shot.”
“Was it a warning shot?” Mott asked.
“We don’t believe so,” Mailman replied. “Whoever was back there moaned after the report.” The lieutenant looked down. “It — it didn’t sound like a man, sir. It was a very soft voice.”
“One of the children,” Chatterjee said with horror.
“We don’t know that,” Mott said. “Is there anything else, lieutenant?”
“No, sir,” Mailman said.
The officer left. The colonel balled his fists, then looked at his watch. He was waiting for word about the video surveillance. Secure phones had been requested from the U.S. State Department Diplomatic Security forces; until they arrived, all communications had to be done person-to-person. Chatterjee had never seen a man look so helpless.
The secretary-general was still facing the door. Ambassador Contini’s death hadn’t hit her like the first one did, and that disturbed her. Or maybe her reaction had been blunted by the news Lieutenant Mailman brought.
Chatterjee started toward the door.
Mott gently grabbed her arm. “Please don’t do this. Not yet.”
The secretary-general stopped.
“I know that there’s nothing I can do from the outside,” she said. “If it becomes necessary to take action, you won’t need me here. But inside, I may be able to make a difference.”
The colonel looked at the secretary-general for a long moment, then released her arm.
“You see?” she said with a soft smile. “Diplomacy. I didn’t have to pull my arm away.”
Mott seemed unconvinced as he watched her go.
TWENTY-SEVEN
Paul Hood and Mike Rodgers sat in the backseat of the sedan while Mohalley sat up front with his driver. Manhattan seemed like a very different place as Hood returned to it.
The Secretariat Building stood out more than it had when he and his family first arrived — was it only a day before? The building was lit by spotlights that had been placed on the rooftops of adjoining skyscrapers. But the offices themselves were dark, making the structure seem cadaverous. The UN no longer reminded him of the proud and hale “bat symbol.” It wasn’t the living chest of the city but seemed like a thing already dead.
When they left the airport shortly after eleven P.M., Deputy Chief Mohalley called his office to find out if there were any new developments. His assistant informed him that as far as they knew, nothing had happened since the first execution. Meanwhile, Hood had brought Rodgers up to date. Characteristically, Rodgers listened and said nothing. The general didn’t like to reveal what he was thinking in public. To Rodgers, being with people who weren’t part of his trusted circle was “in public.”
Both men were silent as they crossed through the tunnel back into Manhattan. When they were through, Mohalley turned to them for the first time.
“Where will I be dropping you off, Mr. Hood, General Rodgers?” Mohalley asked.
“We’ll get out where you do,” Hood said.
“I’m getting off at the State Department.”
“That’ll be fine,” Hood said. He said nothing more. He still intended to go to the CIA shell at the United Nations Plaza, though he didn’t want Mohalley to know that.
