by Tom Clancy
“Why there?”
“Those damned nerds win the college championship every other year. I went to Minnesota, and they cleaned our clock twice in a row. Send me his name and I’ll see he gets some stuff. His dad, too, if that’s okay, Mr. President.”
“I’ll do that,” the President promised. Six feet away, Agent Raman heard the exchange and nodded.
O’DAY ARRIVED JUST as the kids were trooping back in the side door for bathroom call. This, he knew, was a major undertaking. He pulled his diesel pickup in just after four. He watched the Secret Service agents switch positions. Russell appeared at the front door, his regular post for when the children were inside.
“We got us a match for tomorrow?”
Russell shook his head. “Too quick. Two weeks from tomorrow, two in the afternoon. It’ll give you a chance to practice. ”
“And you won’t?” O’Day asked, passing inside. He watched Megan enter the girls’ bathroom without seeing her daddy in the room. Well, then. He squatted down outside the door to surprise her when she came out.
MOVIE STAR, TOO, was at his surveillance position in the school parking lot to the northeast. The trees were starting to fill in, he realized. He could see, but his view was somewhat obstructed. Things appeared normal even so, and from this point on, it was in Allah’s hands, he told himself, surprised that he used the term for a decidedly ungodly act. As he watched, Car 1 turned right just north of the day-care center. It would proceed down the street, reverse directions, and head back.
Car 2 was a white Lincoln Town Car, the twin of one belonging to a family with a child here. That family comprised two physicians, though none of the terrorists knew that. Immediately behind it was a red Chrysler whose twin belonged to the again-pregnant wife of an accountant. As Movie Star watched, both pulled into parking spaces opposite each other, as close to the highway as the parking lot allowed.
PRICE WOULD BE here soon. Russell took note of the cars’ arrival, thinking over his arguments for the Detail chief. The afternoon sun reflected off the windshields, preventing him from seeing anything more inside than the outline of the drivers. Both cars were early, but it was a Friday ...
... the tag numbers ... ?
... his eyes narrowed slightly as he shook his head, asking himself why he hadn’t—
SOMEONE ELSE HAD. Jeffers lifted his binoculars, scanning the arriving cars as part of his surveillance duties. He didn’t even know he had a photographic memory. Remembering things was as natural to him as breathing. He thought everyone could do it.
“Wait, wait, something’s wrong here. They’re not—” He lifted the radio mike. “Russell, those are not our cars!” It was almost in time.
IN ONE SMOOTH motion, two drivers opened their car doors and swung their legs out, lifting their weapons off the front seats as they did so. In the back of both cars, two pairs of men came up, also armed.
RUSSELL’S RIGHT HAND moved back and down, reaching for his automatic while his left lifted the collar-mounted radio microphone: “Gun!”
Inside the building, Inspector O’Day heard something but wasn’t sure what, and he was facing the wrong way to see how Agent Marcella Hilton turned away from a child who was asking her a question and shoved her hand into her gun purse.
It was the simplest of code words. An instant later, he heard the same word repeated over his earpiece as Norm Jeffers shouted it from the command post. The black agent’s hand pushed another button, activating a radio link to Washington. “SANDSTORM SANDSTORM SANDSTORM!”
LIKE MOST CAREER cops, Special Agent Don Russell had never fired his side arm in anger, but years of training made his every action as automatic as gravity. The first thing he’d seen was the elevated front sight of an AK-47-class automatic rifle. With that, as though a switch had been thrown, he changed from a watchful cop into a guidance system for a firearm. His SigSauer was out now. His left hand was racing to meet his right on the grip of the weapon, as the rest of his body dropped to one knee to lower his profile and give him better control. The man with the rifle would get the first shot off, but it would miss high, Russell’s mind reported. Three such rounds did, passing over his head into the door frame as the area exploded with staccato noise. While that was happening, his tritium-coated front sight matched up with the face behind the weapon. Russell depressed the trigger, and from fifteen yards, he fired a round straight into the shooter’s left eye.
INSIDE, O’DAY’S OWN instincts were just lighting off when Megan emerged from the bathroom, struggling with the suspender clips on her Oshkosh coveralls. Just then, the agent the kids knew as Miss Anne bolted out of the back room, her pistol in both hands and pointed up.
“Jesus,” the FBI inspector had time to say, when Miss Anne bounded right through him like an NFL fullback, knocking him down at his daughter’s feet and banging his head against the wall in the process.
ACROSS THE STREET, two agents ran out the front door of the residence, both holding Uzi submachine guns while Jeffers worked the communications inside. He’d already gotten the emergency code word to headquarters. Next he activated the direct drop lines to Barracks J of the Maryland State Police on Rowe Boulevard in Annapolis. There was noise and confusion, but the agents were expertly drilled. Jeffers’s function was to make sure that the word got out, then to back up the other two members of his team, already crossing the lawn of the house—
—they never had a chance. From fifty yards away, the shooters from Car 1 dropped both of them with aimed fire. Jeffers watched them go down while he got the word to the state police. He didn’t have time for shock. As soon as his information was acknowledged, he lifted his M-16 rifle, flipped off the safety, and moved for the door.
RUSSELL SHIFTED FIRE. Another shooter made the mistake of standing to get a better shot. He never made it. Two quick rounds exploded his head like a melon, saw the agent, who was not thinking, not feeling, not doing anything but servicing targets as quickly as he could identify them. The enemy rounds were still going over his head. Then he heard a scream. His mind reported that it was Marcella Hilton, and he felt something heavy fall on his back and knock him to the ground. Dear God, it had to be Marcella. Her body—something—was on his legs, and as he rolled to get clear of the obstruction, four men came into view, advancing toward him, now with a clear line of sight to where he was. He fired one round that scored, drilling one of them right through the heart. The man’s eyes went wide with the shock of the impact, until a second round took him in the face. It was like he’d always dreamed it would be. The gun was doing all the work. His peripheral vision showed movement to his left—the support group—but no, it was a car, driving across the playground right at them—not the Suburban, something else. He scarcely could tell as his pistol centered on another shooter, but that man went down, shot three times by Anne Pemberton in the doorway behind him. The remaining two—only two, he had a chance—then Annie got one in the chest, then fell forward, and Russell knew he was alone, all alone now, only him between SANDBOX and these motherfuckers.
Don Russell rolled to his right to avoid fire on the ground to his left, shooting as his body turned, getting off two rounds that went wild. Then his Sig locked open on an empty magazine. He had another ready, and instantly he ejected the empty and slapped in a full one, but that took time and he felt a round enter his lower back, the impact like a kick that shook his body, as his right thumb dropped the slide lever and another bullet struck him in the left shoulder, ripping all the way down his torso to exit out his right leg. One more round, but he couldn’t get the gun high enough, something wasn’t working right, and he hit somebody straight through the kneecap an instant before a series of shots lowered his face to the ground.
O’DAY WAS JUST trying to get up when two men came through the door, both armed with AKs. He looked around the room, now full of stunned, silent kids. The silence seemed to hang for a long moment, then turn to the shrill screams of toddlers. One of the men had blood all over his leg, and was gritting h
is teeth in pain and rage.
OUTSIDE, THE THREE men from Car 1 surveyed the carnage. Four men were dead, they saw, as they jumped out of the car, but they’d done for the covering group and—
—the first one out the right-rear door fell facedown. The other two turned around to see a black man in a white shirt with a gray rifle.
“Eat shit and die.” His memory would fail him on this occasion. Norman Jeffers would never remember saying that as he shifted to the next target and squeezed off a three-round burst into his head. The third man of the team which had killed his two friends dropped behind the front of his car, but the car was stuck in the middle of the playground with open air to the left and right. “Come on, stick it up and say hi, Charlie,” the agent breathed—
and sure enough he did, swinging his weapon around to shoot back at the remaining bodyguard, but not fast enough. His eyes as open and unblinking as an owl’s, Jeffers watched the blood cloud fly back as the target disappeared.
“Norm!” It was Paula Michaels, the afternoon surveillance agent from the 7-Eleven across the street, her pistol out and in both hands.
Jeffers dropped to one knee behind the car whose occupants he’d just killed. She joined him, and with the sudden negation of activity, both agents started breathing heavily, their hearts racing, their heads pounding.
“Get a count?” she asked.
“At least one made it inside—”
“Two, I saw two, one hit in the leg. Oh, Jesus, Don, Anne, Marcella—”
“Save it. We got kids in there, Paula. Fuck!”
SO, MOVIE STAR thought, it wasn’t going to work out after all. Damn it, he swore silently. He’d told them there were three people in the house to the north. Why hadn’t they waited to kill the third? They could have had the child away from here by now! Well. He shook his head clear. He’d never fully expected the mission to succeed. He’d warned Badrayn of that—and picked his people accordingly. Now all he had to do was watch to make sure—what? Would they kill the child? That was something they’d discussed. But they might not fulfill their duty before they died.
PRICE HAD BEEN five miles out when the emergency call had come over her radio. In less than two seconds, she’d had the pedal to the floor, and the car accelerating through traffic, the flashing light in place, and siren screaming. Turning north onto Ritchie Highway, she could see cars blocking the road. Immediately, she maneuvered left onto the median, the car side-slipping as it clawed its way across the inward-sloping surface. She arrived a few seconds ahead of the first olive-and-black Maryland State Police radio car.
“Price, is that you?”
“Say who?” she replied.
“Norm Jeffers. I think we have two subjects inside. We have five agents down. Michaels is with me now. I’m sending her around the back.”
“There in a second.”
“Watch your ass, Andrea,” Jeffers warned.
O’DAY SHOOK HIS head. His ears were still ringing and his head sore from the hit on the wall. His daughter was next to him, shielded by his body from the two—terrorists—who were now sweeping their weapons left and right around the room while the children screamed. Mrs. Daggett moved slowly, standing between them and “her” kids, instinctively holding her hands in the open. Around them, all the kids were cowering. There were cries for Mommy—none for Daddy, oddly enough, O’Day realized. And a lot of wet pants.
“MR. PRESIDENT?” RAMAN said, pressing his earpiece in tight. What the hell was this?
AT ST. MARY’S, the call of “SANDSTORM” over the radio links had hit the SHADOW/SHORTSTOP details with a thunderbolt. Agents standing outside the classrooms of the Ryan kids slammed in, weapons drawn, to drag their protectees out to the corridor. Questions were asked, but none answered, as the Detail fell into the pre-set plan for such an event. Both kids entered the same Chevy Suburban, which drove not out to the road but off to a service building across the athletic field. One way in, one way out of this place, and an ambush team might be right out there, disguised as Christ knew what. In Washington, a Marine helicopter spooled up to fly to the school and extract the Ryan children. The second Suburban took position on the field, one hundred fifty yards from where the kids were. The class that had been doing gym outside was chased off, and agents stood behind their kevlar-armored vehicle, heavy weapons out, looking for targets.
“DOC!”
Cathy Ryan looked up from her desk. Roy had never called her that before. He’d never had his pistol out in her presence, either, knowing that she was not fond of firearms. Her reaction was probably instinctive. Cathy’s face went as white as her lab coat.
“Is it Jack or—”
“It’s Katie. That’s all I know, Doc. Please come with me right now.”
“No! Not again, not again!” Altman wrapped his arm around SURGEON to guide her out into the corridor. Four more agents were there, weapons out and faces grim. Hospital security people kept out of the way, though uniformed Baltimore City Police made up an outer perimeter, all of them trying to remember to look outward toward a possible threat, not inward toward a mother whose child was in peril.
RYAN STRETCHED OUT his arm, placed his hand against the wall of his office, looked down, and bit his lip for a second before speaking: “Tell me what you know, Jeff.”
“Two subjects are in the building. Don Russell is dead, so are four other agents, sir, but we have it contained, okay? Let us do the work,” Agent Raman said, touching the extended arm to steady the President.
“Why my kids, Jeff? I’m the one—here. If people get mad, it’s supposed to be at me. Why do people like this go after children, tell me that ...”
“It’s a hateful act, Mr. President, hateful to God and man,” Raman said, as three more agents came into the Oval Office. What was he doing now? the assassin asked himself. What in hell was he doing? Why had he said that?
THEY WERE TALKING in a language he didn’t understand. O’Day stayed down, sitting on the floor with his little girl, holding her in his lap with both arms and trying to look as harmless as she did. Dear God, all the years he’d trained for things like this—but never to be inside, never to be in the crime scene while the crime happened. Outside, you knew what to do. He knew exactly what was happening. If any Service people were left—probably some, yes, there had to be. Somebody had fired three or four bursts with an M-16—O’Day knew the distinctive chatter of that weapon. No more bad guys had entered. His mind added those facts up. Okay, there were good guys outside. First they’d establish a perimeter to make sure nobody got in or out. Next they’d call in—who? The Service probably had its own SWAT team, but also close by would be the FBI Hostage Rescue Team, with its own choppers to get them here. Almost on cue, he heard a helicopter overhead.
“THIS IS TROOPER three, we’re orbiting the area now,” a voice said over the radio. “Who’s in charge down there?”
“This is Special Agent Price, United States Secret Service. How long you with us, Trooper?” she asked over a state police radio.
“We have gas for ninety minutes, and then another chopper will relieve us. Looking down now, Agent Price,” the pilot reported. “I have one individual to the west, looks like a female behind a dead tree, looking into the scene. She one of yours?”
“Michaels, Price,” Andrea said over her personal radio system. “Wave to the chopper.”
“Just waved at us,” Trooper Three reported at once.
“Okay, that’s one of mine, covering the back.”
“All right. We have no movement around the building, and no other people within a hundred yards. We will continue to orbit and observe until you say otherwise.”
“Thank you. Out.”
THE MARINE VH-60 landed on the athletic field. Sally and Little Jack were fairly thrown aboard, and Colonel Goodman lifted off at once, heading east toward the water, which, the Coast Guard had told him moments before, was free of unknown craft. He rocketed the Black Hawk to altitude, going north over the water. To his left he could
see the shape of a French-made police helicopter orbiting a few miles north of Annapolis. It didn’t require much insight to explain it, and behind calm eyes he wished for a couple of squads of recon Marines to deliver to the site. He’d once heard that criminals who hurt children faced a rough go in prison, but that wasn’t half of what Marines would do if they got the chance. His reverie ended there. He didn’t even look back to see how the other two kids were doing. He had an aircraft to fly. That was his function. He had to trust others to do theirs.
THEY WERE LOOKING out the windows now. They were being careful about it. While the wounded one stood leaning against the wall—looked like a kneecap, O’Day saw; good—the other one allowed his eye to peer around the edge. It wasn’t too hard to guess what he saw. Sirens announced the arrival of police cars. Okay, they probably had the perimeter forming now. Mrs. Daggett and her three women helpers had the kids in a single bunch on the corner, while the two subjects traded words. Good, that was smart. They weren’t doing all that well, O’Day thought. One of them was always sweeping the room with eyes and muzzle, but they hadn’t
Just then one of them reached into his shirt pocket and pulled out a photo. He said something else in whatever tongue they spoke. Then he closed the shades. Damn. That would prevent scoped rifles from seeing inside. They were smart enough to know that people might just shoot. Few of the kids here were tall enough to look out and—
