Threat warning

by John Gilstrap

  The common arrangement of the acoustic shells formed a semicircle around the speaker or performer. According to the specifications list, they could be designed as tall as twenty-five feet, or they could be as short as a standard office cubicle wall. Jonathan wondered what they’d use for a presidential speech. He imagined that taller was better.

  In fact, he was certain that taller was better. He remembered from his early days in the Unit, back when their mission and capabilities hadn’t quite settled out and they did a lot of executive protection for dignitaries in war zones overseas, that anything you could use to block vision from potential bad guys was a good thing. Protectees are routinely transferred from one place to another-say, from the front door of a building to a waiting limousine-under cover of tarpaulins of some sort.

  He clicked deeper into the information on the taller models of acoustic shells. The Model 9000 Symphonic Reflector seemed to show the most versatility. It was modular in design and could be built in four-foot segments. Plus, it had an angled reflector at the top that would provide “the greatest degree of sound reflection available anywhere.” If Jonathan were selecting the reflectors as a shield for his own protectee, that’s the one he would use, and he’d max it out in height to block out any target that a sniper might try to scope.

  They had access to Barrett rifles. Would aim even matter?

  Aim always mattered. If you’re going to risk everything on a shot at the most powerful human on the planet, you want to make sure it works. Or you name yourself Squeaky and become a punch line among your fellow terrorists for decades to come.

  What about explosives? If Copley designed the panels with explosives embedded, an initiation in this configuration would create one hell of a blast wave. Explosions and sound were both mere variations in pressure, after all, so a configuration designed to focus sound would likewise focus a detonation. But how would that work?

  “Okay,” Jonathan said aloud, trying to pull up his EOD training from back in the day, “how much explosive would it take?”

  There were a lot of variables, the most important of which was distance to target. The inverse square law of physics said that for every tripling of distance from the surface of the explosive-say from three feet to nine-the energy of the blast is reduced by a factor of nine. Assuming the president wasn’t going to be sitting on the panels-in fact, assuming that the panels were going to be a good fifteen or twenty feet behind him, maybe more-Copley would need pounds of explosives to get the desired effect.

  “How the hell would you do that?” Especially in a product whose primary selling feature is its light weight? Plus, he assumed that the Secret Service x-rayed and dog-sniffed every bit of equipment and organic matter that came that close to the president. Surely an explosive would be detected.

  Or, maybe not. Jonathan wasn’t an expert in state-of-the-art explosive compounds, so maybe if there was some non-nitrate formulation, the dogs wouldn’t find it. Besides, the explosive would have been planted ages ago. Maybe once a purchase is made and the objects get into the warehouse, nobody pays much attention to them anymore.

  He decided to assume that to be the case. So, how do you set it off?

  Jonathan ruled out a standard detonator or fuse, simply because there’d be no opportunity to place it.

  Again, he thought of the Barrett. He’d never believed in coincidences, and he wasn’t about to start believing in them now. The Barrett was too specialized a weapon-and one that had not been deployed in any of their previous terror raids-not to have some momentous importance.

  “I suppose he could shoot Marine One out of the sky,” he mumbled, referring to the president’s helicopter. Certainly the Barrett had enough wallop to pull it off. When he navigated back to POTUS’s schedule, though, he saw that he was scheduled to arrive by limousine, and it was back to square one. Everyone in the Community knew that the presidential limousine-not so affectionately referred to as The Beast-was armored to the point where even the Raufoss would be impotent.

  Which again left him with the explosives, and with it the whole weight ratio thing. Contrary to what many people think, most popular explosives are not easy to detonate. You can shoot at a block of C4 or PETN all day, and chances were pretty good that it would never explode. They need the hard hit of a primary explosive to really get going. Primary explosives, on the other hand-the azides, picrates, and others-are so sensitive to impact, friction, and heat that they’re impractical for use in large quantities, and suicidal for use in the explosive-laden panels that Jonathan had conjured in his mind.

  So what Venice appeared in the doorway. “Yes, the Secret Service uses Appalachian Acoustic panels. Their most commonly used model is-”

  “The Model 9000 Acoustic Reflector,” Jonathan interrupted, stealing her thunder.

  She looked stunned. “How did you know?”

  “I’ve been looking at their website,” Jonathan explained. “It’s the one that made the most sense. Now I have to figure out how he’s going to use them to kill the president.”

  “What makes you think it has to be this event?” she asked. “Or, even that it has to be this week or this month?”

  “You know how I feel about coincidences,” he said. “Plus, they’ve got momentum going. This is the moment in time when they can do the most damage.”

  “And you think this guy planted explosives in the panels?” Venice pressed. Clearly, she wasn’t buying.

  Jonathan walked her through his analysis.

  “Okay, if he’s got such a special gun, why not just shoot through the panels?” Venice asked.

  “Because the gun only has a ten-round magazine, and it doesn’t go fully automatic. Even if he had a general idea, you’ve got to hit-” He stopped in midsentence. Could it really be that simple?

  His hand shot to the mouse quickly enough to startle Venice.

  “What?” she said.

  He ignored her and navigated to the part of the Appalachian Acoustics’ website that bragged about the attractiveness of the back of the Model 9000 Symphonic Reflector. Perfect for outdoor venues where cosmetics matter, said the site.

  “Ho-ly shit,” Jonathan breathed. He looked to Venice. “Box is at my place. Wake him up. Gail, too. Time to go back to work.”

  CHAPTER THIRTY – SIX

  Jonathan laid out his theory. “You don’t have to see the target to hit it,” he finished. “The optimization instructions are very specific. ‘For optimum quality when dealing with a single speaker, the podium and lectern should be situated fifteen to seventeen feet from the upstage panel, and equidistant from the center panels of the side walls.’”

  “That sounded like math to me,” Boxers growled. His bearlike qualities magnified significantly when he was awakened from hibernation.

  “What it means,” Gail said, her eyes wide, “is that the target is a fixed point in space. With a little trigonometry, by figuring your height relative to the target, and the angle of the side walls, you can be at any other fixed point and kill the target by shooting a point on the panel.”

  Boxers got it. “That’s freaking brilliant,” he said. “Son of a bitch has been planning for this forever.”

  Jonathan said, “The best terrorists are the most patient terrorists. What makes it particularly brilliant is that Secret Service protocol considers a protectee covered when he’s out of view. He’s got all the time in the world to settle into his sniper’s nest and avoid the Secret Service sweeps.”

  “Doesn’t even have to do that,” Venice said. “From what you say, he’ll probably be in an area where they wouldn’t even be looking for a sniper.”

  “And that means no countersnipers,” Gail said.

  “I’m impressed,” Boxers said. “This asshole’s crazy as a freaking loon, but this is a great plan.”

  “You’re not going to tell the Secret Service, are you?” Gail phrased the question as an accusation.

  “Let’s play that scenario out,” Jonathan said, rising to the bait. “What exact
ly would you tell them that’s not going to make you sound like one of the hundreds of crazies who call them every day?”

  “There has to be a way,” she said, though her face testified to the opposite. If they told the Secret Service that there was an imminent assassination plot, the agents would want to know details, and they couldn’t talk about the details without confessing to all the nastiness in West Virginia. Not only would that get them all thrown in jail for the rest of their lives, it would also sully whatever case was ultimately built in court against the bad guys.

  Plus, there was always the possibility that they were flat-out wrong-if not about the plot, then about the day.

  “Suppose we just convince them to move the podium forward or backward a few feet,” Venice said. “If he’s shooting blind, wouldn’t that make a difference?”

  “That depends on the configuration of the stage and the lectern,” Jonathan said. He tapped the keyboard and brought up a satellite photo of the Iwo Jima Memorial, the most prominent feature of which was the statue patterned after the famed Joe Rosenthal photo of six marines raising the American flag atop Mount Suribachi in February of 1945. The park was laid out as a rectangle that covered about an acre of land. The long sides of the rectangle ran north and south, with the statue situated on the eastern edge, facing west.

  “Okay, Box,” Jonathan said, “and Special Agent Bonneville. Pretend you’re a sniper. Where do you want to be?”

  “Zoom out a little,” Boxers said.

  Jonathan could tell that Venice was getting twitchy not being in command of the computer, so he intentionally clicked the wrong button, and the picture went away completely.

  “Get out of my way,” Venice said, elbowing him out of his chair. He stood, and she took charge. When the satellite image returned, she zoomed out to about a thousand feet.

  “Hmm,” Gail said. “There are a lot of options.”

  “Not really,” Jonathan argued. He walked to the screen so he could point as he spoke. “We can write off any shots coming from the east,” he said. “That’s the Potomac River. He’d have to shoot from the roof of the Kennedy Center or Lincoln Memorial, and even then he wouldn’t have enough elevation. Down south here, it’s nothing but gravesites in Arlington. No elevation at all.”

  “But look north and west,” Gail persisted. “Tall buildings everywhere.”

  “Look there on North Meade Street,” Boxers said, pointing to the left-hand, or western, margin of the park. “You’ve got fancy townhouses right there. What is that, a hundred-yard shot? A ten-year-old who’s never fired a gun could make that.”

  “Depends on how tall the trees are,” Gail said, pointing to what appeared to be a copse of hardwoods along North Meade Street.

  “Think it through, folks,” Jonathan said. “We’re looking for the back of the stage, not the front. The president is going to want the statue as his backdrop.”

  “Well, ain’t nobody shooting through the statue,” Boxers said.

  “And I disagree that he needs the statue as the backdrop,” Venice said. “This is the Marine Corps’ birthday and it’s just after Veteran’s Day. The statue itself needs to be the star. With all the heat the president takes for putting himself before the military, he’d be nuts to block the view with a stage.”

  She had a point, Jonathan thought. Symbols mattered, after all, and the incumbent was having a hard time with his media image.

  “Is there anything on how many people are expected to attend?” Gail asked.

  “I imagine it’ll be huge,” Jonathan said. “Certainly a lot of military. I’m guessing a lot of politicians, too. Security there on the ground will be really tight.”

  Gail stood and walked to the screen. “Look here,” she said. “For that many people, wouldn’t it be best to situate the president on either the north end or the south end, to allow more people to see him straight-on?”

  “North end,” Venice said. “He won’t want the backdrop of Arlington Cemetery, either.”

  Jonathan liked that. “I think you’re right,” he said.

  Boxers raised a finger in inquiry. “You know we’re just wild guessing here, right? What we think doesn’t matter. It’s what we know that matters, and we don’t know anything.”

  “You’re right,” Jonathan said. “So, fire up the Batmobile and let’s take a ride to Arlington.”

  It wasn’t easy finding a parking place in the Rosslyn area of Arlington under normal circumstances. Finding a spot for the Batmobile-the name Boxers had assigned to Jonathan’s customized Hummer-was particularly daunting. They finally found a spot on a side street, seven blocks away from the Iwo Jima Memorial, and walked the rest of the way. They dressed as regular tourists walking in the cold. It was nearly four when they arrived, and what little warmth the sun had brought was quickly draining away.

  At least their coats made it easier to conceal their weapons.

  They approached the memorial from North Meade Street, and on first sight, Jonathan dismissed the townhouses across from the park as likely sniper locations. Indeed, the trees were too tall.

  As they got closer to the park, Jonathan heard sounds of construction, and when he stepped up onto the grass, he immediately saw why. “Looks like you were right, Gail,” he said. Crews were already constructing the stage on the north end of the park, and laying out hundreds of folding chairs on the lawn.

  “No acoustic panels,” Gail observed.

  “Specs say they’re lightweight and easy to work with,” Boxers said. “Maybe they go up last.”

  “Plus, there’s a lot yet to be done. What did Venice say? The program starts at ten?”

  “Right.”

  Jonathan ran calculations in his head. “Okay, the sun will have been up for about three and a half hours, which means it’ll be pretty high.”

  “Piss-poor lighting on the monument,” Boxers said.

  “But perfect lighting for the crowd,” Jonathan added. “Let’s get a little closer to the stage.”

  They walked down what tomorrow would be the center aisle through the audience. The entire park was surrounded by trees, but most were hardwoods and fairly dormant now. He was disappointed by the complexity of the skyline on the distant north end, where sixties-vintage high-rises grew like so many bushes in a forest.

  “Wow,” Gail said, thinking his very thought. “That’s a lot of potential sniper nests.”

  Of all the buildings, two stood higher than the others, and therefore impressed Jonathan as the most likely candidates. He pulled his phone from his pocket and snapped pictures of each. One of them, due north of the park, and directly in line with where the podium would be, was significantly taller than the other, and it gleamed silver in the afternoon sun. The second building, north-northwest of the park, appeared to be fairly new and constructed of red brick.

  “I know what you’re thinking, Dig,” Boxers said. “But the ones you’re looking at are both office buildings.”

  “So was the Texas School Book Depository,” Gail said.

  “And look how much good that did for Oswald. I’m just wondering how he’s going to get in and out in the middle of the day without being seen.”

  “Remember how much these guys don’t like to surrender,” Jonathan reminded them. “Maybe getting away isn’t part of the long-range plan.”

  “It’s always part of the plan,” Boxers said. “Even for people who claim it’s not.”

  “Tell that to suicide bombers,” Gail quipped.

  “Yeah, but they’re crazy.”

  Jonathan laughed. “Do you remember last night? I could swear I saw you there.”

  A police officer in the telltale white-on-black of the Uniformed Division of the Secret Service approached from the direction of the statue. “Can I help you folks?” he said.

  “What’s going on here?” Gail said. “What are they building?”

  “The president’s speaking here tomorrow,” the cop said. His name tag identified him as Greenwood. “I need to ask you to
move on. We’ll be buttoning it up soon.”

  “Buttoning it up?” Boxers asked, playing dumb tourist.

  Greenwood reacted the way people often did the first time they spoke with Boxers, with a silent Holy shit, you’re big. But he covered well. “That means we’ll be securing the scene.”

  “But you said he’s speaking tomorrow,” Jonathan said, throwing his own hat into the thespian ring. “Why shut it down now?”

  “In part so I don’t have to answer questions like this.” Greenwood said it with a smile to take the edge off, but there was no doubting his seriousness. Clearly, this was a guy who dealt with a lot of nosy tourists, and he knew how to walk the rope between friendly and official. “There’s a lot more to be done. We gotta bring in mags and dogs. Screening of guests begins two hours before the speech. All of that is a lot easier to do when it’s just the people who are supposed to be here.”

  “So, if we’re in line by, say, seven, can we get in to hear him speak?”

  The cop gave a tolerant chuckle. “Um, no. Invitation only, I’m afraid.”

  “Is that wise?” Jonathan asked. “I mean the whole thing? I know I probably shouldn’t talk about this sort of thing-especially to a Secret Service agent-but with all the killings, should the president be staying inside?”

  “First of all I’m not an agent-”

  Jonathan knew that, but thought a little naivete could play to his benefit.

  “-and that’s a call that the president makes. I just make sure that no one hurts him.”

  “Well, God bless you for that,” Gail gushed.

  Greenwood blushed.

  “Can I get my picture taken with you?” Gail asked.

  Now he was embarrassed. “Me? What for?”

  “You’re the very first Secret Service man I’ve ever talked to. We go back to Iowa in three days, and I want a remembrance.”

  Suddenly self-conscious, Greenwood glanced over his shoulders, then said, “Sure.”