After an eternity the chairman’s voice came over the speaker. Jake picked up his mike.
“Captain Grafton, sir. The terrorists found us. They just hit the armory about six or seven minutes ago. We think about eighteen or twenty of them. We haven’t got a good count yet, but we think we’ve got about fifty U.S. dead and a hundred wounded.”
Silence. What was there to say? When the words came it was a question: “Who’s the senior army officer over there still on his feet?”
“Colonel Jonat, I think, sir. He’s checking the wounded in the parking lot. General Greer and the two brigadiers that were here are dead.”
“I’ll be over there by helicopter as soon as I can. Right now the Vice-President wants to see me over at the White House. Tell the colonel to hold the fort.”
“Yes, sir.”
Jake went outside to find Colonel Jonat and get some air. The emergency generators continued to hum and the lights made grotesque shadows.
After a brief conversation with the colonel, who was organizing the transport of the wounded to the hospital, Jake bummed a cigarette. He was standing beside the door savoring the bitter taste of it when Rita came out. “I didn’t know you smoked, sir.”
Jake Grafton took another drag.
The distance was six hundred yards if it was an inch. Little quartering crosswind. Maybe ten knots. Let’s see—the bullet would be in the air for about a second. How much would the wind cause it to drift? He tried to remember the wind tables. Ten knots was about seventeen feet per second. Forty-five degrees off—call it twelve feet in a second. The bullet would drift twelve feet every second it was in the air, if he was right about the velocity of the wind and the direction, and if the wind was steady throughout the flight of the bullet, which it wouldn’t be.
And the trajectory drop—about nine or ten feet at six hundred yards.
An impossible shot.
Only a damned fool would try a shot like that.
Henry Charon steadied the rifle on the concrete rail and stared through the scope at the armory. The average guy was six feet tall, so twice that distance would be twelve feet.
The people looked tiny in the scope, even with the nine-power magnification.
The assassin twisted the parallax adjustment ring on the scope to the infinity setting, then backed off a thirty-second of an inch. He settled the rifle again and braced it against his shoulder and studied the scene before the door of the armory.
He had come here because he knew that General Land would come to the armory eventually. Yet with all that shooting over there a while ago—the chairman of the Joint Chiefs should be coming shortly. All Charon had to do was wait. And make this shot.
Wait a sec—that guy standing there smoking near the door? Isn’t that the officer from last night? Isn’t that the man who was standing on the street outside the house under the streetlight?
It’s him, all right. Same grungy coat and khaki trousers, same build, same shaped head.
That man hadn’t fired the shot that had hit Charon, of course, but he had sprayed a clip full of .223 slugs within inches of his head. He had certainly tried. Wonder if he would try again, given the opportunity?
The thought amused Charon.
He backed away from the scope a moment, rubbed his eyes, then settled in with the rifle hard up against his shoulder. He thumbed off the safety and, just for grins, steadied the scope crosshairs about twelve feet to the right and twelve feet above Jake Grafton’s chest. That was the spot.
He filled his lungs, exhaled, and concentrated on holding the rifle absolutely motionless while he took the slack out of the trigger.
Releasing the pressure on the trigger, Charon breathed several times as he thought about last night, about the feel of being chased.
But now—now was after. He was looking back.
What was he, Henry Charon, going to do with ten million dollars if by some miracle he got away? Sit on a beach somewhere and sip fruit drinks? Perhaps Europe. He tried to picture himself strolling the Left Bank or touring castles on the Rhine. Who was he kidding? He had never expected to get out of this alive. Thirty or forty years of boring anticlimax would be the same as prison.
He exhaled and steadied the crosshairs and ever so gently caressed the trigger with firm, steady pressure. Like all superb riflemen he concentrated on his sight picture without anticipating the moment of letoff. So he was agreeably surprised when the rifle fired.
Something stung Jake Grafton’s upper left arm and he jerked. He looked. A hole. There was a hole in his coat! What …
He heard the report, a sharp crack.
“Take cover!” he screamed. “Take cover!” He pushed Rita down and fell on the pavement beside her. “Fire coming in!”
Where? He looked around. Against the skyline he could just see the hulking shape of RFK Stadium. Jake scrambled to his feet and began to run. A flash from the stadium high on the structure. Something buzzed by his ear.
Luckily he had hung onto his rifle. It held a full magazine.
As he ran through the gate and turned right for the stadium Jake shrugged off his coat and let it fall. Out of the circle of light and into the darkness, running hard, his heart coming up to speed too quickly and his breath not quickly enough, running …
A goddamn sniper! Some nut or dope addict? Or a diversion to pull the troops out of the armory?
Someone was following him, running along behind. He didn’t look back.
The stadium was surrounded by a huge chain-link fence topped by barbed wire. Everything in this goddamn city had a fence around it! He made for an arch in the structure that he thought should be a gate. The fence would have a gate outside that. It did.
It was padlocked. He shot the lock. Then jerked it. No. This time he put the muzzle right up against one of the links in the chain and pulled the trigger. Sparks flew and slivers of metal sprayed him, but the chain fell away.
He tugged at the gate. Rita pounded up. She was carrying a rifle. She helped him pull the gate open.
“Get men to surround this stadium outside the fence. Tell them to shoot anybody coming out unless it’s me.”
“You think he’s still in there?”
“I dunno. Keep moving. Don’t be a stationary target.” He went through the gate and ran for the arch.
Ramps led away to the right and left. Jake turned left and trotted upward.
On the second level he stopped to catch his breath and listen. The place was dark as a tomb.
Madness. This was madness.
Rita met a squad of soldiers running toward the stadium with their weapons at high port. “Surround it. Stay outside the fence. Captain Grafton’s in there. Anybody else comes out, shoot them.”
“No warning shots?”
“No. Shoot first. And take cover. This guy is a sniper. Try to get behind something in the darkness and lay very still.” She pointed to the sergeant. “Go back to the armory and ask the colonel for a couple dozen more men. Spread them around.”
“What are you going to do?”
“I’m going in there too.” And with that she slipped through the gate in the fence and ran for the ramp.
Jake walked now, slowly and carefully with the rifle held in both hands and his finger on the safety. His eyes had adjusted all they were going to. He had had trouble the last few years with his night vision, but giving up smoking had helped a lot. His night vision was almost normal now. And he had just smoked a cigarette!
The place was so quiet. Black slabs of concrete, long corridors, huge doors that led out to the seats.
On the third level he turned and went out to the seats, where he could survey the interior of the stadium. There was a faint glow from the clouds, just enough to see the form of the place but not enough to see anyone on the other side of the playing field, if there were anyone there to see.
He hunkered down partially shielded behind a row of seats and scanned carefully, examining the geometric pattern of seats and aisles. After a minute he sh
ifted position and began scanning in the other direction.
Nothing.
He was going to have to come up with a system. Something scientific. A plan.
Okay. He would go up to the top-level concourse and work his way completely around the stadium, occasionally taking the time to survey the seats. Then he would come down a level and repeat the procedure, and so on.
If the guy is in here …
But he probably isn’t. Why would he stay?
Jake got up, staying low, and moved along the row. He would go out a different place than where he came in. No use being stupid about this.
He heard the bullet smack the seat near him and the booming echo of the report immediately thereafter. He fell flat and crawled, the rifle clunking against the seats.
Well, one thing’s clear at least. He’s still here.
Colonel Orrin Jonat sent a dozen more troopers to the stadium. With that dozen gone and the casualties and people to transport the wounded to the hospital and stack the dead, he was down to less than fifty men to guard almost four hundred and run the war.
First he took the time to arrange four teams of two men each around the armory. Not enough men, it was true, but all he could spare. It had also occurred to him that the sniper from the stadium might be a diversion. Still he had to balance that possibility against the other requirements. He was going to have to bring in a couple of companies from the streets. He didn’t have enough men to get new radios in service and keep track of units on the streets.
Were these terrorists the last of them? he asked himself. If only he knew the answer to that!
The army lieutenant leading the squad across the vast, empty parking lots toward the stadium heard the shot from inside. When he got to the gate the sergeant there quickly briefed him.
“Maybe we should go in, sir?” the sergeant suggested.
“The navy people told us to stay out, right?”
“Yes, sir.”
“So we got two good guys and at least one bad guy in there in the dark. If we send more people in, we’ll end up shooting the wrong folks. It’s inevitable. We just did that over at the armory. Not again. Deploy the men around the stadium. Anybody tries to sneak out, drill ’em dead.”
Henry Charon was thoroughly enjoying himself. Standing at the mouth of one of the tunnels that led out from the concourse, he looked through the scope on the rifle. He could just make out the man on the other side of the stadium scuttling up the stairs toward the tunnel exit. This is a damn good scope, he told himself. It gathers the ambient light, allowing you to see better at night with the scope than you can with the naked eye.
Charon moved the crosshairs slightly to one side of the moving man and squeezed the trigger. The rifle set back against his shoulder with a nice firm kick as the roar filled the stadium.
He worked the bolt, then trotted back into the tunnel. He turned left at the concourse and jogged along.
He felt good. His side was hurting but not terribly so and he had adequate range of motion. He was fit. He could trot ten miles without breaking a sweat.
Henry Charon wondered if the other man was having as much fun as he was.
“Colonel, there’s a bunch of people coming down the street.”
Orrin Jonat looked at the soldier disbelievingly. “What?”
“A bunch of people. Not armed apparently. They’re just walking this way.”
“How many is a bunch?”
“Hundreds. We can’t tell.”
Colonel Jonat followed the soldier outside. He walked to the gate and looked down the street. Good lord, the street was filled with people.
He stepped back through the gate and got his people in. Then he had it closed. It was just a chain-link fence about six feet high. He asked the sergeant to install the padlock.
“I don’t know where the lock is, sir.”
“Go find it,” Colonel Jonat said. “Or get one of those locks we’ve been using for the prisoners. Hurry.”
He stood there waiting. The head of the column turned and a dozen people came toward the gate shoulder to shoulder.
“Open up.”
The crowd was mostly black. Some white people, but predominantly black men and women. They ranged from young to fairly elderly. Some of the people were supporting others. There was even a man in a wheelchair. The man facing Colonel Jonat was about forty. He spoke. “Open up.”
“This is a military installation. I’m the officer in charge, Colonel Jonat. I’m ordering you people to disperse. You may not come in.”
“We’re not armed, Colonel, as you can see. There are about a thousand people here and nobody is even carrying a pocketknife. Now open this gate.”
“It’s not locked, Tom,” the man beside him said, pointing.
Where in hell is that sergeant?
“Open the gate or we’ll open it. I’ll not ask you again.”
“What do you want here? Talk to me.”
The spokesman stood aside. “Open the gate,” he said to the people beside him. They laid willing hands on the gate and pushed.
Jonat jumped back out of the way. He backed up ten feet or so and soldiers with their rifles ready surrounded him. “Halt, goddammit, or we’ll open fire!”
The crowd came through the gate and stopped two feet in front of the colonel. He could see more and more people gathering in the street. A thousand? He believed it.
“We want your prisoners.”
“You aren’t going to get them. Now get the hell off government property or—”
“Or what? You would shoot unarmed civilians who are just standing here? What are you, some kind of Nazi?”
Jonat tried to reason with the man. He raised his voice so that more people could hear. “Listen, folks. I don’t know why you came, but I can’t release these prisoners. They’ve shot at soldiers, killed some, looted, burned, sold drugs—you name it. I know Washington has been through hell the last few days, but these people will have to answer for what they’ve done. They will get a fair hearing and federal judges will treat them fairly. Please, go on home and let’s get this city back to normal. Your sons and husbands will be treated fairly. I promise!”
“We want these people now.”
“Out! Get out. Or I’ll order these men to shoot you where you stand.”
The crowd moved as one. They came forward, crowding, pressing. One woman walked up so close to the soldier beside Jonat that the muzzle of his M-16 was against her breast.
“Go ahead, Colonel,” she said. “Tell him to shoot. He can’t miss. I’ll hold still.”
She was a black woman, about thirty or so, with a strong, proud face. Orrin Jonat stared at her, but she was staring at the soldier who held the rifle. He was black too. He stared back, his jaw slack, his hand on the trigger of his weapon. “Could you do it?” she asked softly. “Could you murder me? Could you spend the rest of your life seeing my face and knowing that you killed me when I offer you no harm?”
The soldier picked the muzzle up, pointing the rifle safely at the sky, and took a step backward.
“Move back, Colonel. Move back.” The spokesman also spoke softly, but with a hard edge to his voice.
Involuntarily the colonel retreated a step. As he did so the whole crowd moved silently forward. “Order your men to stand back, Colonel. You don’t want to be the Reinhard Heydrich of Washington. Order them back.”
“We know who these people are. We’ll find them and arrest them again. They will answer for their acts. As you will.”
“As God is my judge, I know you speak the truth, Colonel. Now stand back.”
To his credit, Orrin Jonat knew when he was beaten. He spoke loudly: “Hold your fire, men. No shooting. Now back up.”
The spokesman led the way through the door. He paused inside and looked at the bodies arranged in rows on the floor as people swarmed in behind him. Then he looked at the prisoners shackled to the wall. He motioned to his companions and they started forward.
Toad Tarkington
was making a list of the dead from the information on their dogtags when the civilians came through the door, and now he positioned himself between the obvious leader and the prisoners. “Stop right there,” he shouted. “Not another fucking step, buddy.”
“Get out of the way.” The man spoke calmly but with an air of authority.
The crowd surged past the man who faced Toad. Men, women, old people, they just kept coming.
Toad reached inside his coat and drew a pistol. He pointed it at the man in front of him and cocked the hammer.
“I can’t shoot everybody, Jack, but I can sure as hell shoot you. Now stop these people or I blow your head clean off.”
Out of the corner of his eye he saw something coming. He pulled the trigger just as the lights went out.
Jake Grafton stood in the third-level concourse listening. He was in total darkness, a spot so black he couldn’t even see his hands. He closed his eyes and concentrated on what he could hear.
Some background noise from over toward the armory, but in here, nothing. Quiet as King Tut’s tomb.
He opened his eyes and felt his way along the wall. Ahead he could see the glow where a ramp along the exterior wall came up. He paused. He would be an excellent target when he entered that faint glow. If there were anyone around.
He took a deep breath to steady himself, then moved forward.
Up a level. He would climb up a level.
Five minutes had passed since that second shot had spanged into the seat beside him as he scurried up the stairs for the safety of the tunnel. Too long. He should have moved more than the hundred yards he had come.
He should have set up an ambush. As long as this guy doesn’t know where I am, Jake told himself, I’ve got the advantage.
But there was the ramp. Should he go for it or stay here?
His mouth was dry. He licked his lips and wiped the sweat from his forehead. Okay. To do it or not? The entrance to the ramp was only fifteen yards or so away.
He went for it as fast as he could. He rounded the corner and halted with his back against the wall, breathing hard. Then he heard it. A faint laugh.
05.Under Siege v5 Page 53
