Radford, following without much interest, comes around the corner after Harry—and suddenly, without warning, is jumped: expertly attacked from behind by the masked Don and Gootch. One pinions his arms while the other’s hands grip Radford’s throat front and back with expert pressure, clamping off the flow of the carotid arteries. That’s when Harry grabs him around the knees to keep him from kicking.
Radford, taken by surprise, tries to struggle but it’s no good: the rifle drops away and the carotid hold renders him unconscious. He slips to the ground …
Harry sits back and, in relief, peels the phony beard and stage make-up off. Now we see him clean-shaven.
Don produces a syringe, which he fills from a phial while Gootch rolls up the unconscious Radford’s sleeve …
A Middle …
The office building is a high-rise with a multi-story parking garage connecting to one side of it. Inside a fourth-story office, vacant of all furniture, Conrad and Wojack stand at the window looking down at the street below. Both wear surgical gloves. Wojack looks like a bright Ivy League college senior dressed for a job interview. He has a suction cup against a lower corner of the window; he’s working around it with a glass-cutter. Finally he pops the glass disc loose and sets it aside on the windowsill, leaving a neat, open hole in the window. We notice he leaves the glass cutter and the suction cup on the sill. He picks up that familiar 308 rifle and screws a ’scope sight onto it. Conrad doesn’t smoke here—he’s too professional for that. He wears a headset-and-mouthpiece cell phone. He listens to his headset and talks back to it: “Affirmative.” He turns to Wojack: “It’s on. It’s a ‘go.’”
Conrad looks at his watch. Wojack aims his rifle down through the hole in the glass at the street below. Conrad steps forward beside him to look down out the window. Wojack says, very dryly, “Do I get fifty points for a little old blind lady in the crosswalk?”
Down there through crosshairs he’s peering at the steps of the government building across the street. On the fringes of the ’scope’s image he can see a gathering of cops, officials and reporters with their TV cameras and microphones, all waiting for the limo to arrive …
Now Conrad and turns to look past Wojack into the darker recesses of the unfurnished office. He sees Gootch and Harry bracketing the unconscious Radford. Harry is pasting his phony beard back in place.
Conrad says to Harry, “Time to give him the upper. Wake the son of a bitch up.” Then, to Gootch, “Lock the elevator and go start the van.”
Obeying, Gootch exits.
Conrad watches Harry take a disposable syringe from its package and begins to fill it from a phial.
At the window Wojack, sighting down through the hole, tightens his aim.
In the ’scope sight he can see the windshield of the limousine—the one with the foreign flags—as it pulls up, escorted by cops on motorcycles. Reporters crowd against a cordon of cops; a wedge of security people surrounds the man emerging from the limo—that same vaguely foreign VIP from the plane. Wojack’s practiced grip zeroes in the crosshairs on the center of his torso and there is the sudden sound of the shot: the image jerks upward in recoil and then settles down again as the VIP falls dead on the steps.
By the time the VIP has fallen dead to the steps, Wojack has already wheeled back away from the window and is jacking a fresh cartridge into the chamber of the rifle.
Conrad and Harry drag Radford across the room, stooping to remain below sill-line, dragging the groggy man directly beneath the window.
In the street there’s a crowd around the body; people are pointing up this way. Cops rush across the street toward the building.
Quickly and efficiently, Wojack and Conrad prop Radford against the wall and place the smoking rifle in his hands. Harry takes a quick look out the window.
Conrad murmurs, “Let’s go …”
The three run to the door.
Radford stirs—a twitch …
In the fourth floor corridor, an elevator stands open. Gootch waits there, holding the door. Conrad, Wojack and Harry run into it. Conrad turns a key. The doors close …
Down on the ground level several cops swarm across the lobby and up the emergency stairs. Two or three stand guard in the lobby, watching the elevators. The indicator of one elevator shows that it’s descending from the 4th floor … 3rd … 2nd …
In the vacant office Radford struggles to wake up.
Cops thunder up the echoing stairs, guns up.
In the lobby, cops watch while the indicator of that descending elevator passes the ground floor. A cop punches the button in angry frustration. The indicator stops at “B.” The cops look at each other; suddenly two of them bolt for the stairs and go running down the stairs out of sight …
In the vacant office Radford lurches to his feet, dazed.
In the garage Conrad’s van roars past a doorway, heading out the exit. Its license plates, smeared with mud, are unreadable. A split second after it disappears up the ramp, the two cops come running out of the stairwell in the office building next door. They see nothing.
In the vacant office the fat cop Slade busts the door in and drops to a two-handed crouched shooting position. He sees:
—no Radford.
Nothing.
Slade has just enough time to be amazed before Radford jumps him from behind the door, slamming the buttstock of the 308 rifle against the back of Slade’s head. Slade goes down. Radford drops the rifle, scoops up Slade’s revolver and nightstick, and bolts out of the office …
Out in the corridor, he lurches groggily and stumbles out of sight around a nearby corner just before two cops come racing out of the stairwell. As they run forward, elevator doors open, decanting several more cops into the corridor. All of ’em squeeze into the vacant office, because it’s the one whose door stands open—the cops go in fast, guns up, and the first ones trip over the stunned Slade, who lies clutching his injured head.
Even more cops enter; they part to make way for a veteran sergeant, Dickinson. He takes in the scene with a quick look around. Then he makes a face; it expresses volumes.
Below, in the lobby, there’s a willy-nilly darting of cops. A uniformed bald cop, having lost his hat somewhere, burrows into a crowd of officials and reporters and cops. Among them is Dickinson. There’s a babbling racket of simultaneous conversations. The bald cop approaches Dickinson. “Who’s catching?”
“All the way to the top. Commander Clay.”
“Oh shit.” The bald guy immediately straightens his uniform and examines his brass and shoe polish.
Up in the unfurnished office the scene is very busy. A technician threads his way through the throng, struggling to reach Commander Denise Clay, forties, a black woman in immaculate uniform. She is homicide chief of detectives. She’s talking to an officer: “… Probably still in the building. I want double security on every exit—doors, windows, roof, basement, every rathole. Go.”
Now she turns to face a handsome business-suit gent—Colonel Vickers. He’s near 50—very youthfully so. A uniformed cop is talking on a walkie-talkie.
The officer behind Commander Clay talks into a cellular phone: “… Got the outside exits covered. She wants to start a sweep in the basement, work your way up—”
Vickers grabs the officer. “What’s going down?”
“Who the hell are you?”
Clay and Dickinson approach on collision course just as Vickers swings violently around in anger. They nearly butt heads. Vickers is roaring now: “What the fucking hell’s going on? You let him get loose?”
Dickinson snaps, “Who’re you?”
And Clay says to the officer with the cell phone, “Officer, show this gentleman out.”
Vickers shows his ID. “No ma’am. Not me. Colonel Vickers …”
Clay gives it a glance. She does a take and examines the ID. “White House?”
The officer with the phone is on it again. “I said he’s loose in the building! Bottle him in …”
Down
there, outside the building, squad cars and motorcycles squeal into sight, bringing massive reinforcements … Cops push a growing corps of press and TV back across the street, farther from the building …
In a law firm’s low-partitioned bullpen typists at computer terminals watch as cops, with guns up, search methodically. Corners, closets, under desks.
The lobby now is utterly still. Armed police stand guard at the entrances in silent tableau … The elevators … Paramedics carry Slade out on a stretcher …
And in the multi-story garage a sudden deafening noise precedes the appearance of white-helmeted cops on motorcycles who come roaring up the ramps.
And up in the unfurnished office Clay is barking at the uniformed officer with the cell phone: “Shut down every elevator …”
The officer begins to relay the instructions into his phone …
In the elevator shaft Radford clings to a narrow perch high up inside the shaft. He’s got a firm grip with one hand; in the other he holds Slade’s service revolver. Several elevators are at various levels; two or three are moving. Then suddenly, jarring the cables, all the elevators stop. Radford reacts to the sound of men’s footsteps in a nearby corridor. He can hear voices but can’t make out the words.
On the double doors nearest him is stenciled the legend “7th floor.” Abruptly the point of a crowbar appears, sliding through between the doors. It begins to pry the doors apart …
Radford reacts. Reaches out, nearly loses his balance, gets a grip on one of the thick cables, swings out into space …
The revolver falls from his grasp, tumbles down into darkness; after a significant and scary length of time he hears the sound when it hits bottom.
The crowbar has slipped, allowing the doors to close again, but now it’s prying them open again …
Radford clings to the swaying cable …
No choice. He allows himself to begin sliding down the cable. He goes faster and faster, dwindling downward …
The crowbar has pried the doors open enough for a cop to stick his face through; several hands hold the doors apart for him. He looks up, around, down.
All the cables are swaying.
And after a moment the cop speaks. “Nothing. Let’s go.”
In the dark at the bottom of the elevator shaft, Radford picks himself up slowly. His hands are bleeding. He lurches to one side, finds his balance uncertainly, begins groggily to feel his way around the concrete walls, searching for a way out …
In the unfurnished office frantic activity continues: Clay, Vickers, Technician. Vickers now holds a CB radio; he’s trying to listen to it while he badgers Clay: “What’ve you got on the assassin?”
The technician talks to Clay, overlapping: “Remington 40-XC National Match. Caliber 308.”
Vickers scowls. “That’s a target rifle.”
The technician says, “Yeah. We’re trying to raise the serial number. Acid.”
Vickers says into his radio, “You can assure the director we’ve got the lid screwed tight.” He cups the mouthpiece and glares daggers at Clay. “The United Nations Secretary General wants to know what the fuck’s going on here.”
Clay hasn’t got time for him. She’s tagging Dickinson: “How many men on the roof? Where’s that chopper?”
In a basement corridor a cop prowls with a nightstick past a large metal ventilation grille in the wall—a return-duct for the air-conditioning system, through which Radford, hands bleeding, filthy and grease-stained, peers out while he tries to dry the blood from his palms on his shirt. He sees the cop open a door on the opposite side of the hall and looks in: glimpse of a utility-furnace room. The cop shuts the door and comes toward Radford’s grille and turns; he posts himself on guard, his back to the wall, half blocking the grille.
Radford looks up … the inside of the duct is constricting, claustrophobic.
He’s sweating.
The cop beyond the grille doesn’t budge.
Dickinson and the bald cop walk into the unfurnished office with a uniformed Army medical corps major—Dr. Huong Trong. Dickinson walks the doctor up to Clay. “Commander—this is Major Trong … Doctor Trong.”
Clay is glad to see Trong. “Okay!” She takes the doctor by the arm and steers him toward the cut-glass hole in the window. “C. W. Radford. One of yours, I think.”
“Used to be,” Dr. Trong concedes. “Belongs to the V.A. now … You believe he’s the assassin?
“Smoking gun—literally, Doc—his fingerprints all over it—and the injured cop gave us a positive make on his Army photograph. Doesn’t leave much reasonable doubt.”
Dr. Trong says, “Did anybody actually see him do it? Because if they didn’t, you might want to keep an open mind.”
Vickers scowls at Dr. Trong. “What’re you, Major? Japanese?”
“Korean.”
“Yeah.”
The cop stands with his back to the grille. Two SWAT officers jog quickly past, toting riot shotguns; they nod to the cop; he nods back. They jog out of sight … Abruptly the grille comes slamming out from the wall, knocking the cop off his feet, and behind it Radford explodes from the duct, elbow-chops the cop and drags the insensate man (including nightstick) through a doorway into the utility-furnace room … When the door closes behind them the corridor is empty and silent …
Dickinson is bitching to Clay. “Reinforcements getting jammed up in the afternoon rush hour.”
Clay says, “I called a shift for traffic control …”
Vickers is menacing now. “Commander Clay—if you let the scumbag get away—”
Clay tells him, “If you’re upset about something, maybe you should call the police.”
“Ho, very funny. Do you have any idea the international repercussions—?”
“You people can play global politics,” Clay snaps. “I don’t care if the stiff was left or right, east or west … Colonel Vickers, I know what the situation is, here. You are not helping.”
A uniformed cop with two nightsticks climbs the stairs from landing to landing. At each floor an armed cop is posted. The cop with the two sticks waves a careless hello to a cop on duty, and turns to climb the next flight.
It’s Radford, in cop’s uniform.
On a higher landing there’s a fire emergency station with a coiled high-pressure hose. Beyond it is another uniform standing guard. When Radford climbs into sight the cop starts to smile and greet him, then scowls—recognition. Something not quite right in the way Radford wears the uniform.
“Hey—!”
The cop draws his gun … And on other landings the other cops hear his cry … And—
Radford kicks the revolver from the cop’s hand, takes the nightstick away from the cop, then—all this with lightning speed—busts the fire-hose loose, opens the valve and just as cops start shooting, he uses the high-pressure blast from the hose to drive ’em back above and below.
Bullets ricochet … He hears a cop cry as he tumbles downstairs … The cascading flood obscures his view …
On an upper floor of the garage near the top of its spiral ramp, half a dozen police motorcycles are parked on their kickstands. A helmeted motorcycle cop stands guard over the bikes, and watches everything at once. He can hear a lot of activity—distant voices; sirens in the city; running feet …
Now a uniform approaches from some distance away. He carries two nightsticks. The helmeted motorcycle cop sees him coming, but is not alarmed until Radford walks up and abruptly slams him upside the helmet with the two heavy nightsticks. The blow knocks the cop to his knees. In a flash, Radford is bestride a motorcycle.
He kicks the stand out of the way … switches on the ignition … jumps on the starter … doesn’t start …
Alerted by something somewhere, several cops come pouring into sight, chasing him …
And on the ground the helmeted motorcycle cop clears his head and reaches for his sidearm …
One last kick … Radford finally gets the motorcycle started and roars away … The motor
cycle cop snatches up his walkie-talkie and barks into it …
Skittering down the hairpin turns of the spiral garage ramp, Radford can see the point several floors below where two squad cars slither into place across the foot of the ramp, blocking it—a fly couldn’t get through there, let alone a man on a bike …
To one side he sees double doors open and two cops on foot appear. They stop, amazed, with guns lifting to aim at Radford on the speeding bike … Nothing to lose now. He aims the screaming motorcycle straight at the open double door—and goes through it like a bullet, scattering the two cops … All the cops react—astonishment …
In a building hallway Radford on the motorcycle comes roaring through the hall. Several gaping civilians flatten themselves back against the side wall as the juggernaut roars by …
The motorcycle thunders through the law office bullpen, smashing glass doors, and roars down the aisle between rows of desks. Typists leap for safety.
Another hallway—and at its far end a solid closed door, and an armed cop lifting his revolver in both hands, as …
Radford on the speeding bike sees the obstacle and slithers to one side, crashing the bike through double glass doors that disintegrate to let him into—
A designer furniture showroom—and the man on the motorcycle wildly plows through the place, knocking over lamps and statuary, making a shambles of the place—
—Then he’s descending one of the building stairwells—zooming downstairs, bumpety-bump …
Vickers bulls his way out of the unfurnished office in time to see a man on a motorcycle heading straight toward him. This is very fast. Vickers gets off two wild shots but then his nerve fails and he stumbles back into the doorway as the motorcycle roars past. Vickers pushes forward out of the doorway to take aim at the dwindling fugitive, ignoring several cops and civilians who are in the line of fire, but now Clay comes out in time to knock Vickers’ shooting arm up. The bullet goes into the ceiling.
Clay is furious. “How many bystanders you want to kill?”
Vickers glares murderously at her …
In the multi-story garage the street floor is all quiet now. Two cops by the toll booths. The don’t notice when a side door softly opens. They can’t see into those shadows, and aren’t looking for it, but then—
Hit and The Marksman Page 20
