by Tom Clancy
Edging back against the handrail, out of the shooter’s direct line of fire, Ricci triggered his gun again, aiming for the legs, and when he saw the legs give out, finished the militiaman with a sustained burst to the chest.
Silence. A pale gray haze of smoke.
Ricci looked around at Rosander.
The visor of his helmet was splashed red. Dripping red where he’d been hit. Ricci could not see his face through it.
He glanced at the others behind him, shook his head. They couldn’t linger here in the enclosed stairwell. They had to keep moving. The exchange of gunfire had been brief and probably wouldn’t have been heard too far beyond the concrete walls of the fire stairs. But it might have drawn the attention of someone nearby.
Keeping his eye on the mission, Ricci ordered his unit to resume its hurried advance.
As they passed over the bodies lying across the stairs, Grillo snatched the search mirror from where it had dropped.
They would need it later on.
The strike team pushed through the door to the second-floor hallway, each of its members familiar with the floor plan, knowing the exact location of Obeng’s office at the rear of the building.
The thing none of them knew was what sort of obstacles to expect along the way.
The corridor was empty as far as they could see. Closed office doors on either side. Then, perhaps ten yards up, an elbow bend. They would need to turn it, head down another short, straight length of hallway, round another corner. And then they’d be there.
Easily said.
They ran forward, guns at hip level, eyes sweeping the sides of the hall.
Ricci saw a door open a little. Third ahead on the right. He signaled a halt, pointed to it. His men fanned out, sticking close to the walls for cover.
Watching.
Waiting with their guns angled toward the door.
The crack widened, widened, and then a muzzle poked through.
The wait extended. An eternity of seconds. More of the weapon appeared. A semiautomatic pistol. Its barrel slipped tentatively outward into the hall.
That kind of firearm, that kind of cautiousness, Ricci was betting they were dealing with a cop here.
He looked into the eye peering out at him through the crack.
“Toss it!” he said.
The hand ceased to move but held onto the pistol.
Ricci kept looking into that eye. The man behind the door could see how his team was equipped, the serious ordnance they were carrying. Maybe he’d have the brainpower to realize he was outclassed.
“We’re not interested in you. Or any other officers with you,” Ricci said. “Lose that gun, come out with your hands up, you’ll be fine.”
There was another hanging pause.
Ricci couldn’t afford to delay any longer with this small fry.
“Last chance,” he said. “Give it up.”
The opening between the door and its frame widened.
Ricci lifted his weapon, prepared to fire.
The pistol dropped from the man’s hand onto the corridor floor. Then he stepped out of the office, arms raised above his head.
A uniform, sure enough.
Ricci moved forward, kicked the relinquished gun aside, then grabbed the cop by his shoulder and pushed him face against the wall for a frisk.
He patted him down hurriedly, found a revolver in an ankle holster, and handed it back to one of his men, a young recruit named Newton. The cop wasn’t packing anything else.
Ricci hauled his captive away from the wall and stayed behind him, his gun pressed into the base of his spine, his free arm locked around his throat. Using him for cover in case anyone in the office decided to do something stupid.
At his nod, Grillo and Simmons moved to either side of the half-open door, flanking it, their weapons steady in their hands.
Ricci slammed it the rest of the way open with his booted foot.
The office was nearly bare. A couple of chairs, a metal desk with a push-button telephone on it, a trash can beside the desk.
Two more uniforms were inside, both with their hands high in the air.
Ricci glanced at Newton.
“Dump whatever weapons they’ve got in there,” he said, indicating the trash can with a jerk of his chin. “The phone, too. Then pull the can out into the hallway.”
Newton did as he was ordered.
Ricci thought a moment, then shifted his eyes back to the now-empty phone socket on the wall. He still had the first cop in a choke hold.
“You already ring your boss to tell him we’re here?” he said into his ear.
The cop didn’t respond.
“I can hit the redial button, see who answers, find out what I need to know myself,” Ricci said. “Be better for everybody if you save me the time.”
The cop still didn’t answer.
Ricci pushed the snout of his gun deeper into his back.
“I mean it,” he said.
The cop hesitated another second, then finally nodded his head.
Thirty seconds later, Ricci and Newton had backed into the corridor, leaving the disarmed cops in the office.
“Stay put for half an hour, then you’re free to leave,” he said from the doorway. “You get the urge to do something different, you might want to keep in mind we don’t mean your boss any harm. And that no outsider’s worth getting killed over.”
He pushed the door shut, turned to his men.
“Obeng and his guest of honor know about us,” he said. “But we’re between them and the elevators and stairs, the only routes out of the building unless they want to start jumping out windows, and it’s a long drop down the hill from Obeng’s office. So they either go through us or they’re stuck where they are.”
He looked from one man to the other. Their eyes were upon him.
“Cornered animals fight hard,” he said. “Capice?”
Nods all around.
Ricci inhaled.
“Okay,” he said. “Let’s move.”
They continued up the hall toward Obeng’s roost.
At the final bend in the corridor, Grillo held out the search mirror’s curved pole, glanced into it for barely a second, pulled it back, and turned to the others behind him.
“Four of Obeng’s goons, headed straight toward us with AKs,” he whispered to Ricci. “Not a dozen feet away in the middle of the corridor.”
“Take them out,” Ricci said. “I want it done yesterday.”
The strike team launched around the corner in a controlled rush, firing short, accurate bursts with their guns.
Two of the militiamen dropped before they could return fire, their weapons flying out of their hands like hurled batons. The remaining pair split up, one breaking to the left, the other to the right.
Ricci heard the whiffle of subsonic ammo from a baby VVRS, saw the man on the left fall to the floor, arms and legs wishboned.
One to go.
The militiaman who’d run to the opposite side of the corridor was bent low against a closed door, practically flattened against it, seeking a modicum of cover in the shallow recess as he poured wild volleys into the hallway.
Ricci hugged the wall, aimed, fired his weapon, unable to get a clean shot at his target. His sabot rounds whanged against the door frame, missing the gunnie, but causing him to duck back and momentarily lay off the trigger.
Ricci knelt against the wall. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Grillo and the others take advantage of the distraction and dash up the hall toward Obeng’s office.
He held his weapon absolutely still. Let the gunnie lean out of that space one inch. Just a single goddamned inch...
Up ahead, Simmons was sweeping the entrance to Obeng’s office with the ionic vapor detector, checking for explosives that might be rigged to a tripwire or similar gimmick. Good. The rest were in their entry-preparation positions. Grillo and the newbie Harpswell on one side of the door. On the opposite side, another green recruit named Nichols held the ramm
er, while the more experienced hands, Barnes and Newton, stood behind him.
Suddenly, movement from where the militiaman was huddled. His back still pressed to the door, he lifted his hands. The tip of his AK tilting outward. His knees unfolding slightly.
Ricci inhaled through gritted teeth.
This was going to be it.
As the gunnie scuttled into the hall, his weapon spitting bullets, Ricci caught him with a single shot to the center of the chest. He went down hard, his green fatigue shirt turning brilliant red.
Ricci pushed from the wall, racing around the fallen bodies in the corridor to join his team. He could see Simmons complete his scan, move himself out of the doorway—
His eyes widened. Nichols had suddenly moved toward the door with the rammer, was swinging it back for momentum, about to drive it against the jamb, unaware of Barnes reaching out to stop him.
“Hold it!” Ricci shouted. “Fucking hold it!”
He could see Nichols try to check himself, but the warning registered an instant too late. His entire upper body was already into the forward swing.
The rammer hit the door and it flew inward with a crash, and that was when the attack dogs came lunging out. Pit bulls, five of them, silent and vicious, their voice boxes surgically removed. Called hush puppies by the SWAT personnel Ricci had known in his police years, too often encountered in crack-house raids, they were usually maddened from drugs, torture, and starvation, reduced to a core of frenzied, bestial aggression by their keepers.
Their muscles humped and rippling under their pelts, jaws snapping, lips peeled away from their carnivorous white fangs, they sprang into the corridor and were on his men in a heartbeat—
“Stop!” A voice from Obeng’s office. “Sit!”
The pit bulls stopped in their tracks and got onto their haunches, immediately heeding the firm command.
“That’s it, that’s it, nice doggies,” the voice said. This time coming from just inside the doorway.
A hand reached from the entrance, rows of shiny gold and silver bracelets clattering around the wrist. Then an arm in a colorful, hand-beaded shirtsleeve.
The man who stepped into the corridor a moment later had performed his role to the hilt, even dressing the part of a warlord.
He bent over the dog nearest the door, scratched behind its ear, then reached into his trouser pocket for some biscuits and began passing them out to the obedient animals.
They crunched them happily, tails wagging, crumbs flying from their jowls.
“Hate to be the one to say this,” he told Ricci, looking up at him. “But—”
The Sword op who’d been the Wildcat for the week-long training exercise strode from the office to finish the sentence for him.
“But your guys just got their balls chewed off,” he said. “And probably some other chunks of their anatomy, too.”
Expelling a long breath, Ricci turned from the office door in disgust. Down the hall, the militiaman he’d nailed with his practice round rose from the floor and pulled his dye-soaked shirt away from his chest.
“Shit’s sticky,” he muttered. “And cold.”
Ricci glared over at Nichols.
In that kid’s case, getting his balls chewed off was exactly what he could look forward to.
No playacting.
TEN
VARIOUS LOCALES
NOVEMBER 6, 2000
AWAKEN THE SLEEPER
FEE: 50 MILLION
INSTRUCTIONS TO FOLLOW WITHIN ONE WEEK
IN SUBURBAN ILLINOIS, A MAN NAMED LANCE JEFFERSON Freeman, formerly known as Ronald Mumphy ...
An identity he’d shed once he emerged from federal prison upon getting his investment fraud conviction overturned on a so-called legal technicality, the appellate judge reluctantly citing an error in the submission of prosecutorial discovery filings...
In his home office in the affluent town of Hanscom, Illinois, the reborn and redubbed Lance Jefferson Freeman, or simply L. J. as his devoted Internet radio show listeners affectionately called the founder and crown minister of the White Freedom Church, was having thoughts that were in many respects identical to those of Arif al-Ashar in East Sudan, which was quite extraordinary, given the vast gulf of miles, culture, ideology, and personal background separating them. Even more remarkable in terms of their congruence, L. J.’s thoughts had also framed themselves as a familiar saying, albeit one that took its context and meaning from a classically (though by no means uniquely) American experience.
“A kid in a candy store,” he muttered to himself. “That’s what I am, yes, mister ...”
Meaning, in other words, that L. J., too, was coming to understand he would have to prioritize between the many ethnic groups he wished to see deleted from existence, like the terse three-line solicitation about to be electronically wiped from his computer screen.
L. J. lifted a pencil off his desk and started nibbling at its eraser with his large, white, perfectly even front teeth. Then he checked himself, recalling that his dentist had warned him the nervous habit could damage the cosmetic bonding he’d recently gotten done. When you were in the public arena, a media personality of sorts, a smile was your calling card. So scratch the pencil. You did not need to constantly chew on something when you were trying to plan things out.
L. J. lowered the pencil from his mouth but instead of putting it aside found himself tapping it against the top of his desk. Well, no harm in that, he supposed. Whenever he got chugging along on full horsepower, he’d work up a potent head of steam and had to find a way of blowing a little of it off somehow.
L. J. tapped. Where was he? Oh yes, the Jews. The Jews. They would be high on his list. Probably foremost. It was through books given to him by a cellmate during his prison stint (the most influential had been titled The Wisdom and Prophesies of Adolf Hitler, The Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion, and Satan’s Seedline: The Evil Race) that L. J. had learned the truth behind the Zionist Occupied Government, or ZOG, that had secretly wrested control of America from its God-chosen founders through its institutions of high finance, absorbing it into their multinational New Imperium and using fiat money...
In other words, the legal tender minted by the Federal Reserve Bank, from penny coins to printed notes of every denomination ...
Fiat money to replace gold and/or silver weights and measures as an honest system of exchange, thereby allowing usurious Jewish moneylenders to manipulate interest rates and leech away the assets of the Anglo Saxon, Teutonic, and kindred white races, who, in their natural superiority, were the only blessed and rightful inheritors of the kingdom of God—the United States, in other words—just as they had craftily fleeced the people of Germany before the heroic martyrs of the National Socialist Party had stood up in brave resistance.
L. J.’s pencil-tapping quickened. The Jews, absolutely, it had to be them. Pulling together fifty million to rid the land of their domination wouldn’t be difficult, considering the resources of his more well-off supporters, a core group of patriots and true believers who’d pledged to open their wallets for the cause. In fact, right now he was projecting a surplus of funds, enough to simultaneously purge another corrupting racial element from society. The tough thing was deciding which one.
Well, truth be known, maybe not. L. J. supposed it got back to his readings about the preservation of racial rights when he was behind cell bars, a whole lot of material written by some high-gigahertz thinkers and supported by the work of people like the world’s leading phrenologist, an eighty-two-year-old pioneer who’d run an institute of his own in Austria since before World War II. Anyway, L. J.’s early research had made it clear that the black race presented the second greatest threat to the children of Adam, these being people of ruddy complexion, in other words whites, according to a biblical code that yet another of L. J.’s favorite authors had unraveled.
The blacks were number two because they, along with other non-Caucasian minorities, had entered into a Satanic conspiracy with ZOG
to commit genocide...
A word that meant the destruction of a group through race-mixing rather than mass extermination, as the Jewish-run reference book companies had tried to redefine it by perpetuating the myth of the Holocaust, of which there was no evidence except a bunch of lies and doctored photographs produced by the Secret Disinformation Bureau of Eisenhower’s treacherous Allied Expeditionary Force, but that was another can of worms right there.
The blacks. Threat number two. Because their goal was to commit genocide upon the children of Adam by intermarrying and procreating with them in violation of divine will.
“Meaning they have to go,” L. J. concluded aloud. “Go straightaway into the bottomless pit, yes, mister.”
He tapped away at the desk with his pencil. A plan of action, that was what he’d come up with here, and he was feeling pretty good about it. The Jews and blacks first. And then, well, he would have to evaluate his progress. See where his finances stood, and measure the rest of the social contaminants against each other to determine which presented the greatest immediate dangers. Right off the bat, he figured the Asians were prime candidates; you never knew what insidious machinations they were up to. And the Hispanics, of course, with their plot to annex the southwestern portion of the United States to Mexico...
And so it went for L. J. Freeman, crown minister of the White Freedom Church, in his Hanscom, Illinois, home office, his thoughts rotating around their fixed axis of hatred like the rings of some dark and hostile planet, twisting on and on and on into the outer extremities of the night.
The headquarters of the Black Exclusivist Movement was located on the first and second floors of an uptown Manhattan tenement that the group’s leader, the Reverend Nate Grover, had paid for in cash by adding a dozen calendar stops to the busy lecture circuit that netted him several million dollars in yearly honorariums, which he guessed maybe sounded like a lot when Whitey got to attacking him on the tube, always talking about his extravagant lifestyle, using that phrase to jab at his integrity every time his name got mentioned. Reverend Nate Grover, whose extravagant lifestyle includes a multi-million dollar home in East Hampton, Long Island, a collection of thirty antique cars, a large personal staff, and art and antiques estimated to be valued at this or that or the other amount and so on and so extravagantly
