Parker walked from the building with his hands up, moving slowly into the squally rain and punishing wind.
With the gray clouds tumbling overhead, he felt like he was walking into an all new apocalypse; to the southeast, the sky was filled with blade-sharp light, a yellow glow streaking portions of the sky an ethereal, sickly green that matched his churning gut, and to the north, the sky was even darker and more elemental.
The wind was coming from the southeast, though, heading his way.
As he continued walking toward the troops parked outside the State House, it occurred to Parker that if the weather event that was coming toward them developed fully, there was a chance that the Council, president, and his retinue would all get back into Marine One and hightail it out of there. Parker’s chance to at least eliminate some of them would be lost. It seemed that whatever forces were controlling the universe today were making nothing easy.
He was ten yards away from the nearest FEMA truck before anyone saw him. The troops on guard were all hunkered down as best they could, sheltering from the whipping rain that had been pulsing in curling curtains down the street.
A private came out from behind the truck, M16 at his shoulder.
“Sergeant?” he called behind him. A sergeant appeared, his face wet with rain, a SIG Sauer M17 P320 already drawn. Parker noted that the stocky sergeant wasn’t already on a personal comms unit telling his commanding officers what was happening. The Council may have prioritized getting the radio and TV transmissions back on for their propaganda act that day, but their forces were still suffering the after-effects of the EMP Event. There was still no electronic communication for the grunts on the ground.
They were operating on word of mouth. That gave Parker the edge.
Now fully exposed on the street, Parker could see the weather system approaching. In the distance, over the southern portion of the city, the base of the thunderheads was beginning to rotate, a wide wall of cloud slowly descending as he watched.
A tornado was forming, and it was coming this way.
Without all the usual weather satellite and meteorological information coming in, the Council couldn’t have predicted the formation of a storm cell like this. In fact, the very nature of their EMP attack on America was right now shooting them in the foot, Parker figured. They were as vulnerable as anyone to natural events like this.
Maybe the forces controlling the universe aren’t so fickle after all.
The rain was visibly slowing as the FEMA soldiers approached Parker, weapons hot, and with some eyes trained beyond him to the strange condition of the sky. Shafts of sunlight lanced across the saturated streets and over the FEMA men, making them squint as they splashed through puddles.
Parker kept his hands high as they reached him.
The sergeant patted him down. “And who the fuck are you?”
“I’m James Parker.”
“Don’t bullshit me, asshole. James Parker is up on the roof about to get toasted.”
Parker shook his head. “No, I’m James Parker; the guy they have on the roof is a lookali—”
“What are you, fucking Spartacus?”
“I thought they might like to kill the real one instead. I’m cooperative like that,” Parker commented easily, offering the sergeant in charge a flash of a grin that, he hoped, suggested he was just crazy and cocky enough to make such a move.
There was an eerie rumble echoing through the city now that the rain had stopped; it was a far-off winding sound, like a visceral grumble of impending doom. Parker could see that the whirling, rotating weather was dropping in a classic wall of thick black cloud as the speed increased. It would drop a funnel soon enough, and then it would start tearing through buildings like a hot wire through hard cheese.
He knew he didn’t have long now. As soon as someone in the State House made the connection with the weather event and its trajectory, there would be scant time for them to act, and get away.
“You know that’s a tornado forming out there, don’t you?” he asked.
The sergeant put his gun right in Parker’s face. “So, now you’re the fucking weather-girl? Why don’t you make up your mind what the fuck you are?”
A flash of light from above the portico of the State House told Parker that Grayland wasn’t letting the threat of a little tornado throw them off their exercise in Propagandist Public Relations. The TV lights were coming on for the cameras.
It was showtime.
Bombastic music blasted from speakers on the roof, making the sergeant turn his head, a look of confusion on his face. Parker knew they were going to get this over with as quickly as possible. Make their transmission to whoever could receive it, un-tell the “Parker” story, and crush hope from minds so low they’d been relying on a failed cop, failed husband, and failed father for inspiration.
“Yeah, I guess they’ve seen the approaching weather, and they’re going to go early,” Parker said. “So, do you want to disappoint them and not take me into the building? I’m sure you know what happens to guys who disappoint them, don’t you, Sergeant? Do you really want to run the risk of denying them their pleasure of killing me? What do you think that will do to your career prospects if you do? And, by career, I mean your life, obviously.”
His comment had the desired effect.
The sergeant kept the gun at Parker’s neck and pushed him past the truck, across the sidewalk and up to the Morton statue.
And then the world exploded.
Parker, the sergeant, and the private dived for cover as machine gun fire tore up the concrete behind them and then began crashing into the truck. The bullets tore into the underside of the six-wheeler, thudding into the transmission and tearing the fuel tank.
Had the Mandingos gone too early? Parker looked across the street, but the Mandingos weren’t exiting the building.
Who the fuck’s shooting at us?
Parker had just enough time to duck behind a statue before the truck exploded. The detonation sent a blast wave around both sides of the stone plinth like a rushing river pushing past a mid-stream island. The sergeant and the grunt weren’t as fortunate as Parker had been; their ACUs ignited and they rolled about on the ground screaming as the burning fuel took hold of their bodies.
Parker didn’t pause to watch; he huddled down further at the center back of what was left of the statue. More streams of M240 rounds crashed around him from at least three directions.
Waiting for a lull in the firing that never came, troops scattered, surprised by the incoming fire which seemed to be coming from their own ranks. Three F-350s from the line that had arrived with the reinforcing troops had turned their weaponry around, and their M240s were barking and spitting. Parker didn’t understand.
Why are the troops firing on their own ranks?
He didn’t have time to work it out.
When he saw an opportunity, he put his head down and ran up the steps to the State House.
Sara gave the signal to Sammi and the other Networkers disguised as FEMA troops. It was time to set things alight. Each of their three F-350 mounted M240s lit up simultaneously. Raking the trucks, the FEMA F-350s and the troops assembled around the State House. The FEMA troops didn’t stand a chance. Thirty of them were cut down where they stood and the two FEMA F-350s detonated in blossoming explosions, robbing the Council of their parade of military propaganda.
Sara and the Networkers had had no trouble joining the convoy as it had rumbled into Indianapolis, headed for the State House. The command and control structures of the FEMA forces were so out of whack that only one lieutenant had checked the passes and laminates Sara had liberated from the supply house in the woods. He had waved them into the line of vehicles without a second look. Their equipment and uniforms had been proof enough that they were on the same side, headed into the city for the big execution.
Sara had been amazed by their luck at the time, but as they’d moved into the city, she’d realized luck had nothing to do with it. For all the
Council’s efforts to control the United States and suppress resistance, the left hand didn’t know what the right hand was doing, and they were basically making this shit up as they went along.
It spoke of a cancerous brain at the top. Feverish and frenzied. All it wanted to do was dominate, but it had the emotions of a child. Sara knew that, if they were successful today, managing to rescue Parker and escape with light casualties, it would be a major victory and a real blow to the confidence of the Council. And if news of myth-like actions on the part of Parker had spread, Sara couldn’t wait to see how fast a real success like this would garner attention to their side, and give people something real to believe in.
The line of trucks burned, fuel tanks still blowing at regular intervals.
Not one shot had been returned.
Sara looked at her watch, and then at the worsening sky. She had three minutes before the next phase of the plan would come into play.
The wind was building, though, and with clear dread in her heart, she could see over the roofs that the wall cloud of the developing tornado was starting to form a funnel. It was reaching for the ground like an accusing finger. Once it touched down, there was no telling which direction it would head, but looking at the sky rushing overhead, it seemed to her that there was a good chance of it coming their way. She signaled to Sammi and the other Networkers—it was time to take the State House and rescue her dad.
The grunt in the doorway was too busy looking at the conflagration caused by the exploding trucks and the oncoming tornado to worry about the civilian rushing up the steps of the State House toward him.
And that’s what killed him.
Parker rammed into the FEMA soldier, knelt down on his chest before he had time to draw his weapon, and punched him in the throat. He reached down with one smooth movement, pulled the soldier’s SIG Sauer from his belt holster, and then put two bullets in his face.
Parker ran into the heart of the building, through the marble-floored and Doric-pillared entrance hall, dropping another soldier who was running away from the front doors in a panic.
Parker took his guns, too, plus magazines.
If the Mandingos had followed his instructions—which he could never have been certain they would, even without the extra excitement—they should have been sprinting across the concourse now, past the burning trucks that they hadn’t expected to be burning. He scanned the area around him, catching his breath. Statues and blushed marble. A wooden reception desk to his right, which might contain exactly what he needed.
A pile of visitor maps was in a caddy for greeters to hand to tour groups. The leaflets provided a color-coded floor plan, and explanation of the various areas within the State House—Governor’s Office, Senate, and historical points of interest. But what it told him specifically, what he needed, was where he might climb the stairs to get to the roof.
On cue, Parker heard a bang as the entrance doors crashed open. Gace and the others squeezed through.
Silverdollar was last. He came in, eyes darting about in a way that suggested he was more distracted than anything. His eyes burned brighter as they caught sight of Parker. He raised his MP5 and peppered an alcove that was filled with a statue entitled “Justice”—the statue fell apart as the bullets smashed into it. Silverdollar nodded at the wreckage.
“Sure ain’t none o’ that these days!” he called out.
“Come on!” Parker hollered, and with that he led the Mandingos into the body of the building, across the marble floor of the vaulted atrium.
FEMA guards were stationed on the balcony behind stone balustrades. Their position was good, they had great vision, and as soon as Parker and the others trotted into view, they opened up with M16s.
The Mandingos scattered, running back into the wide corridor. Parker and Gace thudded into the wall by the first staircase, out of the kill zone. One Mandingo was down. It was Slammer. He writhed on the floor, hit in the knee, shoulder, and arm. He fired off the whole magazine from his Beretta before one of the soldiers above zeroed in on his forehead with a double shot that burst his head open like a soft-boiled egg stabbed with a butter knife.
Gace reached into his backpack and pulled out two M67 fragmentation grenades. The truck Parker had driven from the prison had been stocked with weapons, grenades, and antipersonnel mines in lockboxes in the rear transport section, not to mention those all-important binoculars they’d taken advantage of earlier. His prepper thinking had never left him: he’d stocked up. And, of course, the Mandingos had very much enjoyed breaking open those boxes.
Gace handed one to Parker and they stood ready.
Parker mouthed the countdown, one, two… and they pulled the pins. He continued mouthing, three, four… they both stepped out and lobbed the grenades up toward the balcony, where the FEMA shooters were stationed. The grenades weren’t lobbed onto the balcony. They’d risen above it. If the grenades had gone over the balustrade, the soldiers might have kicked them back out into the atrium. But the M67 had a five-yard kill zone, and Parker knew that getting them above the balcony would do the trick.
Parker and Gace bounced back against the wall with their eyes closed and their hands over their ears.
The blasts shattered the glass ceiling of the atrium, blew in the balustrade, and flung the broken bodies of the soldiers back into the walls. By the time Parker and the Mandingos had made the first floor, all the glass from the atrium windows had crashed down, covering Slammer in beautiful blue shards and encasing the dead convict in a dazzling chrysalis.
The group pounded along the balcony to the next set of stairs. There were no FEMA troops to resist them now, and they made it up to the second and third levels without a hitch.
The map suggested a service section up ahead, closed to the public, behind two sets of mahogany doors. Parker tried the doors. They were locked. As he was deciding the best way to open them, Gace pushed him back, placed an unpinned M67 grenade against the base of the doors, and commanded everyone to “Get the fuck back!”
Everyone got the fuck back.
The doors blew open, splinters bursting through the smoke. A jagged-edged, igloo-shaped hole was blasted through the doors. Gace and Parker led the group into an enclosed space, with a set of metal stairs leading up to a zinc-sided service gantry tower slung below the roof.
Bingo.
The steps allowed only one person to go up at a time.
Parker put his foot on the first step and then felt Gace’s huge hand on his shoulder.
“Nah, man. Kleet is us. I go first.”
That judgment saved Parker’s life.
As Gace reached the top of the steps leading along the walkway to a hatch that was already shaking from the buffeting wind outside the building, his head was blown apart.
Blood, bone, and brain blasted outward in a puff.
Gace’s body pitched over the side of the metal stairway and crunched to the floor below. In Gace’s place stood Spencer, holding the M500 pump-action shotgun he’d discharged in Gace’s face.
There was a section of gantry tower heading away from the roof hatch that had been obscured by zinc plating acting as a banister. Spencer must have been behind it and stepped out as Gace topped the stairs. Behind him were five U.S. Marshals, and they were all pointing guns at the Mandingos.
Spencer’s gun was trained on Parker.
“Well, hello, boys,” he said, “how good of you to join us.”
Sara and Sammi led the Networkers up the stairs and into the State House. The funnel of the tornado had touched down two city blocks away and was tearing up trees, smashing glass, and upending cars. They literally had minutes to get into the State House, rescue Parker, and get the hell out before the tornado hit.
Hail began falling on the street outside as they made it into the building. It sounded like a thousand skeletons dancing on corrugated tin roofs.
Time was running out.
They ran past the reception area, not giving a second glance to the soldiers’ bodies. T
he trail of destruction took them into the destroyed atrium and on to the aftermath of the grenade blast that looked like a giant had taken a bite out of the balcony.
Sammi checked the body of the black man covered in glass from the shattered atrium. For a moment, Sara’s heart thumped. Was it her father? Sammi caught the look on her face and understood. She shook her head.
Relieved beyond measure, Sara pointed to the stairs.
“Onwards and upwards.”
They moved swiftly but carefully up the stairs, Networkers swinging their rifles and guns in all directions, constantly scoping for FEMA forces. They made it onto the first-floor balcony, past the dead soldiers and to the next set of stairs.
“This doesn’t make sense,” Sara said to Sammi as they power-walked toward the next set of stairs. “Who’s been setting off grenades against their own people?”
“No idea,” Sammi replied, “but it’s saved us the trouble. We’re in clean.”
Sara nodded, but it didn’t stop the niggling feeling at the back of her brain. Who else was fighting inside the State House?
The wind whipped across the State House roof. The hail from the leading edge of the tornado had passed, thankfully pea-sized and stingy rather than golf balls that might have proven fatal. The funnel of the monster was visible a block and a half away, eating its way ravenously toward them. Spencer stood with his shotgun at the nape of Parker’s neck as they watched the proceedings continuing on the execution platform.
Kleet was collapsed in the cage, his head down. There were two TV cameras. One pointing at the cage with Kleet and one pointing at the president. And aiming at them all were U.S. Marshals, shotguns raised. They were covering the cameramen, the director, the soundman, the technicians, and, most of all, they were covering the president.
The Star-Spangled Banner blared from the speakers in a travesty of democratic ceremony. Grayland was whispering in the ear of the director, who was watching a monitor.
911: The Complete Series Page 71
