Threat warning

by John Gilstrap

  “Do you have any candidate offices?” Jonathan asked Venice on a second phone call. “It’s inefficient as hell to go look at every southern-facing office.”

  “I’m working on it, Digger.”

  “It’s nine-forty.”

  “I know that.”

  “The president speaks at ten.”

  “I’m hanging up.” Then she did exactly that.

  Once the all-clear was given, Jonathan and Boxers joined the crowd of returning workers who flowed through the doors like a human river. A phalanx of security guards had formed a gauntlet in the main lobby, and they made a show of checking identification cards. One of them, a short stocky guy who looked like he might be a moonlighting bouncer, zeroed in on Boxers and beckoned him over.

  The Big Guy ignored him, but then the security guy pursued him and grabbed his shirtsleeve, adding himself to a very short list of people who had ever done that without spending the next six weeks eating through a straw.

  “I need to see your ID,” the guard said.

  “I left it in my office,” Boxers replied.

  The guard turned to Jonathan.

  “Ditto.”

  “Neither of you look familiar to me,” the guard said. His name tag identified him as Mr. Farmer.

  “So much for saying hello every morning,” Jonathan bluffed. “I’m Dan Banks and this is Marlon Ford. We both work for the Handelsman Group on the third floor.” Anticipating this moment, Venice had searched the rolls for the names of real tenants and employees. They had to roll the dice on the guard not knowing either.

  “I need you to step aside while I check,” Mr. Farmer said.

  Boxers gave that smile that never led to good things and Jonathan intervened. “Tell you what,” Jonathan said. “I’ve got a conference call that I’m already late for-thanks to your malfunctioning building-and we’re not staying anywhere. You go ahead and make your calls, and if it turns out we’re bogus, you come on up and get us.”

  “I’d actually look forward to that,” Boxers menaced.

  Without waiting for an answer, they rejoined the crowd and headed for the elevators. Jonathan checked his watch. Nine-forty-three.

  When it was finally their turn, Jonathan stepped onto the elevator and pressed the button for the third floor. With no place else to go, and on the off chance that the guard was watching on cameras, he decided that there’d be no harm in paying a visit to the Handelsman Group.

  CHAPTER THIRTY – EIGHT

  Unlike those of so many other high-rises, the architects of 1101 Coolidge Avenue had been thoughtful enough to include windows that could be opened for fresh air. They weren’t big-God forbid that anyone might fall out-but they were a nod to those who needed to breathe unfiltered air from time to time. It probably never occurred to any of them that their thoughtful design feature would make a sniper’s life so easy.

  The folks at C-SPAN likewise probably never gave much thought to how live coverage of presidential goings-on eliminated the need for a spotter. Who needs conspirators when you have live television?

  Michael Copley heard the motorcade before he saw it, and that fact alone told him that the wind was blowing from east to west. This would be important data very soon. He looked at the clock. Nine-forty-seven, and C-SPAN was still prattling about other things.

  The office he’d rented two years before-actually, he’d sublet it from Beacon Accounting for a ridiculous amount of money-sat on the fourteenth floor, and was designed on a curve, with one window providing breathtaking views of the Washington Monument, the Tidal Basin, and the Lincoln and Jefferson Memorials to the east, and a nearly unobstructed view of the Iwo Jima Memorial to the south.

  Michael felt bad about what he had to do to the Beacon staff this morning. They were nice people, but they were Users. If they weren’t doomed from the day they were born, they were certainly doomed from the day that Michael Copley was born.

  He stayed well back from the windows as he watched the motorcycles lead the procession from Constitution Avenue across the Teddy Roosevelt Bridge. There must have been a dozen of them, looking from up here like so many red-flashing mosquitoes. Then came the D.C. Police cars, and behind them a couple of shiny black sedans with red and blue flashers behind the grille. Behind the sedans were the two presidential limousines-one of them a decoy, there specifically to frustrate people who might steal Michael’s thunder. Behind the limousines, the flood of vehicles continued with all manner of vans and sedans, plus the ubiquitous black Suburbans, all hiding counterassault teams who soon would reassess everything. More vans followed the counterassault vehicles, and then a D.C. ambulance and more motorcycles and police cars brought up the rear.

  The lead elements of the motorcade had already made it to the Virginia side of the bridge before the last of the trailing motorcycles had left the D.C. side. Michael didn’t count exactly, but he estimated forty vehicles in all. Such wastefulness.

  He didn’t realize until the motorcade turned left onto Arlington Boulevard that it had traveled all the way across the river on the wrong side of the road in order to gain straight-on access to the Iwo Jima Memorial grounds. He found his face getting hot. How was it possibly right-who would think it was okay-to shut down a main highway and inconvenience so many people just so that one man could give a speech that no one wanted to hear because everyone had heard it before?

  His Barrett cannon sat poised on his desk, four feet inside the window, already pre-sighted for the spot he needed to hit. As the president’s motorcade disappeared around the back side of the park, Michael settled himself into the hard-backed chair that would one day would be part of the museum dedicated to the day that the world changed. The muzzle bipod was extended, and sandbags were in place under the foregrip and the stock. When the time came, he’d need only to correct for wind and send his bullets downrange.

  Settling in behind his scope, and taking care to keep his finger out of the trigger guard, he pantomimed the cross-shaped pattern he would fire. The first would nail the sweet spot, and the next nine-five on the vertical axis and four on the horizontal-would be placed within inches of each other. A kill shot was guaranteed.

  Then, in the pandemonium that followed, he would run out of his office, just like everyone else, shouting, “What was that? Oh, my God, what was that noise?” By the time the truth was known, he’d already be out of the building and on his way to safety. If anyone confronted him, well, he had Mr.. 45-Caliber Sig Sauer on his hip to do his talking for him. On the television, C-SPAN switched to their reporter on the scene for the ceremonies. It wouldn’t be long now.

  Once on the third floor, Jonathan abandoned the plan to drop in on the Handelsman Group, and instead detoured to the stairwell. He pulled out his cell phone again.

  “We’re down to ten minutes, Ven.”

  “You think I don’t know this? Nobody in the entire building has any known ties or connections to any of the parameters we set up. For heaven’s sake, most of the businesses in there are defense contractors. They’re huge, and they all have clearances. Even if Copley were among them, I don’t know how he wouldn’t be seen.”

  Venice’s statement stirred something in Jonathan’s mind. Something about the businesses mostly being large. “Okay,” he said. “Let’s correct for the large businesses. What are the small ones?”

  “Define small.”

  “Dammit, Ven, they’re your statistics. Surprise me.”

  “Well, Digger, there are a total of seventy-two tenants in the building.”

  “The smallest, then.”

  “Hold one.”

  He heard tapping in the background.

  Boxers said, “Hey, Dig? We don’t need every small business. We only need the ones that face south.”

  Jonathan’s eyes got big. “Ven, did you hear that?”

  “I did,” she said, “and I’m disappointed that I didn’t think of it myself.” More tapping. “I’m cross-referencing tax records with the tenant list,” she explained. “It’s sor
t of complicated.”

  “Talk less and type more, then.”

  “Maybe it’s not even this building,” she said. Her frustration flowed through the phone like electricity.

  “Focus, Ven.”

  “Okay, here’s one. Kendall and Associates. They’re an investment firm with five employees, and they’re on the south side of the building.”

  Jonathan’s heart rate increased. “What floor?”

  “Fourth.”

  Damn. “No. Higher floor.” He looked to Boxers, who held up seven fingers. “Seventh floor or higher.” There was no rationale to this, but much lower than that, and Copley would have a hard time sighting his shot.

  More clacking from the other end of the phone.

  Another look at his watch showed nine-fifty-five.

  “I’ve got one,” Venice said. “Fourteenth floor, south side. Beacon Accounting. Suite fourteen-twenty.” Typing. “Oh, my God,” she gasped. “Dig, I gotta go.” The line went dead.

  Jonathan didn’t care. He had a target to shoot for. “Suite fourteen-twenty,” he said. He looked up at the endless stairwell. “Elevator.”

  He pulled open the stairwell door, and there was the guard from the lobby, Mr. Farmer. He stood with his hand resting casually on the butt of the. 357 Magnum revolver in his holster. He’d brought a friend-a big fellow named Mr. Plano.

  “Look, pal,” Farmer said. “I don’t know what you’re doing here, but this is a secure building. You’re going-”

  Jonathan didn’t have time for this. “Get out of my way,” he said. He moved to the elevator and pushed the UP button.

  “Stop where you are,” Mr. Plano said. “Do not get on that elevator.” When his hand got to his revolver, he curled his fingers around the grip.

  “Be really careful, son,” Boxers growled. “You’re about two seconds away from a point of no return.”

  Fear more or less canceled out bravado in Plano’s face.

  The elevator dinged.

  “You can shoot us,” Jonathan said, “or you can come along on a great adventure.”

  “What the hell are you talking about?” Farmer asked.

  “Yeah,” Boxers said. “What are you talking about?”

  The doors opened.

  Jonathan and Boxers stepped in. “It’s your call,” he said. When the doors started to close, he placed his hand out to stop them. “Last chance,” he said.

  It’s amazing what stupid things people will do when their curiosity is piqued. Mr. Farmer and Mr. Plano stepped onto the elevator with them. “You’ve got some explaining-”

  “Hush,” Jonathan said. “Please. We’re here to stop a murder, okay? In fifty words or less, tell me everything you know about Beacon Accounting in suite fourteen-twenty.”

  Farmer retreated to a corner. “A murder? Who the hell are you?”

  “Less relevant than my need for information,” Jonathan said. They were passing the eighth floor. “Beacon Accounting.”

  Farmer searched for words. “I don’t… what do you need… who’s going to be murdered?”

  Jonathan looked to Boxers, who said, “Oh, you’re gonna love this.”

  Jonathan steeled himself with a breath. “The president of the United States.”

  Gail had the television in her room tuned to C-SPAN, and she felt terrible for letting Jonathan down. While she prayed he could get there in time, she didn’t know how it would be possible. They didn’t even know where they were going. That meant either knocking blindly on doors, or simply breaking in Her cell phone rang, and she recognized the number at a glance. “Hi, Venice.”

  Venice’s voice was nearly a scream. “Oh, thank God. Are you still at the hotel?”

  Something happened to Digger, she thought. “What’s-”

  “Are you still at the hotel!”

  She recoiled, not just from the tone, but from the volume. “Yes. You don’t have to-”

  “Get to ten-seventy-five North Loudoun Drive,” Venice said. “Suite ten-thirteen. Right now. Hurry.”

  “Why?”

  “Because I think there’s a second shooter.”

  When the elevator door opened on the fourteenth floor, Boxers and Jonathan stepped out, but the security guards stayed behind.

  So much for valor, Jonathan thought, as the doors closed. He drew his Colt, and Boxers shadowed him. A sign on the wall confirmed his internal compass, and showed Suites 1413 to 1420 to be down to the left. They started that way.

  The elevator dinged behind them, and Farmer and Plano both stepped out. “Really?” Farmer said. “The president of the United States?”

  Even without an answer, they followed, walking fast to keep up. “Beacon Accounting has been here for as long as I’ve been here,” Plano said quickly.

  It took Jonathan a second to realize that he was answering the question from the elevator.

  “They’ve only got about seven or eight employees, but they sublet one corner of their office to another guy. A one-man show with some kind of a church or something.”

  “God’s Army,” Farmer said.

  Bingo.

  “Let me guess,” Boxers said as they arrived at the door. “He occupies the space on the far southern end.”

  “Incredible view,” Plano said. He drew a. 44 magnum horse pistol from his holster. “How does this work?”

  “It starts by you putting that thing away,” Boxers said. “And it finishes with you staying out of my way.”

  The television showed various military officers and political dignitaries being introduced. They were important enough for pictures, but clearly not important enough for sound. Or, maybe the reporter was too in love with his own voice to cede the airwaves to anyone else.

  Michael Copley was surprised at how calm he felt. It was a moment about which he’d thought for so long, and for which he’d trained for so long, that now that it had arrived, it all felt nearly anticlimactic. He wished he could say the same for Brother Franklin. The man had never been as calm under pressure as Michael, but he’d trained every bit as hard.

  Now, as they spoke on the phone, Michael could hear the stress in his voice. “You need to relax, Brother Franklin,” he said.

  “Yeah, relax. I’ll be calm as a cucumber right before I blow away the leader of the free world.”

  “You’re making history, Brother. And you’re ridding the free world of a leader who has destroyed far more than he’s saved. It’s been that way for forty presidencies. We can change everything.”

  For fifteen seconds, he heard only silence. “Brother Franklin?”

  “I’m here.”

  “You need only stick to the plan. The program states that the president will begin speaking at ten-ten, and that his remarks will run around fifteen minutes.”

  “I know,” Brother Franklin said. Nervousness aside, he clearly was tiring of reviewing the plan over and over again. “We wait precisely three minutes from the first word of his speech, and then we open up. Ten rounds, cross-shaped pattern. I already have my weapon sighted. I know what is expected of me.”

  “I know you do.” Michael closed his eyes. In his mind, he could see the expression in the man’s face. “Live or die, we’ll likely not speak again, my brother.”

  “But what about the Army?”

  “They’re introducing the president now,” Michael said, and he hung up the phone. He watched on television as the User-in-Chief walked in from the wings, passing in front of the tableau of American flags to downstage center, where he stopped and waved with both hands to the crowd, either in a gesture of jubilation or surrender.

  The sound of the roaring crowd made it all the way across the road and into the window through which he would soon change the world.

  The Marine Band-The President’s Own-finished “Hail to the Chief,” and then struck up the “Star-Spangled Banner.”

  Look at him, Michael thought. Not just a User, but a narcissistic one at that, preening for the cameras.

  He could take him now. He could
see nothing through his scope, but by sighting on the pattern of logos that he had so carefully designed, he knew precisely how to hit any point beyond his view.

  How poetic would that be for history to record a president being blown in half in the middle of the national anthem?

  It was a brilliant idea. An image even more horrifying than the Zapruder film, forever linking two of the great symbols of American greed in a single snippet of images and sound.

  It wasn’t the plan, of course, but as the architect, he got to change the plans at will. They were his to change, after all.

  Michael Copley sat down in his chair, settled the buttstock of the rifle into his shoulder, and prepared to make history.

  Gail remembered as the door slammed behind her that she’d left her key on the dresser. As if that mattered.

  Ten seventy-five North Loudoun Drive was the second building they’d photographed last night, and Suite 1013 housed a consulting firm called Compliance Services Inc., which specialized in safety and environmental regulations. Somehow, according to Venice, that all equaled the most likely place for a sniper to perch. Something about small businesses among large, and the limited availability of southern exposures.

  The details didn’t matter because Venice didn’t get this spun up over anything unless she was very, very sure that she was right. And the clock was ticking very, very fast. With her Glock on her hip and two spare mags in her coat pocket, Gail bypassed the elevators in the hotel and tore down the steps to the emergency exit. Her whole body still ached from the activities in West Virginia, her muscles still taut and bruised, but she forced them to work anyway.

  Tomorrow, she was going to look for a Caribbean vacation package.

  At ground level now, she crashed through the exit into the cold sunshine. The hotel fronted to the east, and the light blinded her. She hadn’t had time to consult a map, so she processed her memory from last night, which told her that the North Loudoun Drive address was just a couple of blocks north. She turned to the left, and there it was, rising above all its neighbors.