Athena Force 7-12

by Carla Cassidy, Evelyn Vaughn, Harper Allen, Ruth Wind, Cindy Dees

  DiscoDuck had to be this Scott guy.

  But then the question arose of how in the world an active member of the CIA could get away with setting up Gabe Monihan to be killed. The Agency monitored its employees with nearly paranoid intensity. And that perennially beleaguered agency most certainly knew better than to let one of their own fool with American politics.

  It made no sense at all that someone in the CIA would try to assassinate the incoming President, especially since his policies were bound to be more friendly to the intelligence community than the last administration’s. This DiscoDuck had to be a rogue operator within the CIA.

  Not that it mattered right now. What mattered at this very moment was saving Gabe from whatever DiscoDuck had just orchestrated over the Internet.

  She went back to the Q-group chat room and scrolled through the discussion over the last few minutes while she’d been occupied tracking down DiscoDuck.

  He said a pickup game of soccer was going to be played up on the hill overlooking the lake. She translated in her head, Capitol Hill. Overlooking the Reflecting Pool.

  She read on. He said they were meeting at around six-thirty to warm up and would start playing for real around 7 p.m. Those times didn’t take a rocket scientist to decipher and figure out what he was talking about.

  This guy knew every last detail of when and where Gabe was going to be inaugurated tonight! How could that be? Gabe said the whole thing was a huge secret. So who’d leaked it? And how had DiscoDuck gotten his hands on the information? He had to be highly placed within the CIA, just like Oracle had forecast, to know what he did. And if that was true, it meant he was smart, powerful, and had frightening resources at his disposal.

  She shoved down the panic threatening to choke her. She had to figure out who this guy was! Who all knew about tonight?

  Gabe, obviously. His security detail. The Chief Justice of the Supreme Court who’d swear him in. Key members of Congress and various government agencies—enter Disco-Duck. The local police. The FBI. No doubt, members of the media had been notified so they could get cameras and crews into place to cover the inauguration. Technical support types at the networks who’d break into the evening programming with the live feed.

  Crud. The list of people in the know was too big to help her narrow down DiscoDuck’s identity at all.

  She looked at her watch. It was after six now. These turkeys were going to meet at 6:30 p.m. to warm up. As in getting into position to kill Gabe. Some warm-up.

  She shut down her computer and headed for her bedroom, or more to the point, for the safe in her bedroom that held her sidearm. Grimly, she donned a leather shoulder holster and threw her black leather duster on over it. She dialed the combination for the small safe in her closet and pulled out her rarely used pistol, a sturdy 9 mm Beretta she’d owned for years. It might not have the most firepower in the world, but its clip held fourteen rounds and a fifteenth in the firing chamber, and it never jammed. She grabbed both her spare clips of ammunition, threw them in her pocket and headed for the door.

  Time to go to an inauguration.

  7:00 P.M.

  The Capitol was brightly lit when she pulled up a block north of it—as close as the police barricades would let her go—and parked her car. The glowing Rotunda thrust up into the night sky, a proud symbol of America in the crystalline chill of the evening. Stars glittered above and her breath hung in the air in thick clouds. She glimpsed the shadow of a pair of military choppers circling overhead just before she heard their distinctive thwocking. She’d bet there were fighter jets higher up, out of earshot, providing cover for this particular piece of real estate, too.

  Ten-to-one at least one of the choppers up there was using high-resolution cameras to watch everyone and everything moving on the ground down here. From the height they were currently circling at, those cameras would be able to see ants scuttling along, if it weren’t too cold for such creatures tonight.

  Ducking her head and shoulders back inside her car, she doffed her shoulder holster and emptied her pockets of ammo clips. She tucked the pistol under the front seat, out of sight. No way was she getting that baby inside the Capitol building. She could see the ground security from here, armed policemen with roving attack dogs pacing the steps in front of the Capitol.

  The line waiting to get inside was blessedly short and she was only half-frozen when she stepped inside the majestic edifice. She checked her watch. Six-fifty. She had ten minutes to figure out what DiscoDuck and his cronies were up to and stop them.

  She scanned the setup. A small stage had been erected on the east side of the spacious Rotunda, and rows of chairs for about a hundred people laid out in front of it. A podium stood on the stage, no doubt bulletproof, and a pair of clear, glass teleprompter panels stood on narrow poles to each side of it. A number of people were already seated in the chairs, many of whom she recognized as prominent politicians.

  She scanned the exits. Every one of them was heavily covered with layers of armed guards either blocking it or carefully screening each person who entered. She looked up. The various balconies that ringed the Rotunda were also occupied by a mishmash of uniformed guards and plainclothes, men in suits. She recognized a couple of the men as Secret Service agents from the warehouse this afternoon.

  Where in the heck was DiscoDuck’s threat supposed to come from? She didn’t see any way anyone was getting in from the outside to kill Gabe. She noticed a movement from the direction of the Senate chambers. A group of silent men in conservative suits stepped into the Rotunda and fanned out. More Secret Service. She recognized several of the men in this contingent from the bunker.

  She had to give Owen Haas credit. He’d done a great job locking down this site and securing it against any potential threat. He’d anticipated everything she could think of and more.

  So how was it DiscoDuck thought he or his people could get access to Gabe?

  She ticked off all the usual sources of threats. Sniper. Bomber. Close-range shooter. Attack from above. Attack from a bystander. Haas and his team were positioned to stop every last one.

  She looked at her watch again—6:53 p.m. The crowd was being asked to take its seats. She hung back at the margin of the small crowd, still searching warily.

  She was overreacting. Haas had this thing under control. Everything was going to be perfectly fine. She should just sit down and enjoy watching Gabe become President. A Secret Service agent herded her, last in line, toward one of the rear seats. The guy’s eyes moved constantly, checking outward from the subtle cordon they’d formed around the stage.

  Reluctantly, she took her seat, at the end of the last row. A group of dignitaries filed out on stage and took their places. A burst of light exploded, and she started horribly, almost diving for the floor out of sheer reflex. The television cameras had just gone on. Sheesh, she was a mess.

  Several news anchors scattered around the room began to speak into microphones. In the otherwise silent space, their words swirled and echoed around her, disconnected from the people uttering them.

  “In just a few moments, President-elect Monihan will be sworn in as President of the United States…After a day of terror in our nation’s capital, the wheels of democracy will finally turn, and a new president will be sworn in…We’re standing by for the delayed inauguration of Gabriel Monihan, which will go ahead in spite of a day of death in Washington….”

  There was a rustle as everyone stood up, and she followed suit belatedly. Over the heads of the rows of dignitaries in front of her, she glimpsed Gabe and an elderly man in a long black robe stepping into the doorway behind the stage. Almost time. In a matter of minutes, Gabe would be President, and her theories would be proven—thankfully—to be unfounded. And then she and Gabe could each get on with their lives. She was going to miss him. In the short time she’d known him, he’d made a huge impression on her. In fact, she suspected he’d left a mark on her life that would never go away. This experience had shown her it was possible to curb
the rebel in her, to channel it in a positive and useful way to help her fellow man instead of fighting against the system all the time.

  Owen Haas, standing beside Gabe, put a finger to his ear. Undoubtedly getting a last all-clear report from his men before he let his charge step out into the lights, alone and unprotected.

  She glanced over her shoulder at the other agents in the loose ring of men converging around the stage. They, too, scanned the edges of the room. So well honed a team were they that they barely looked at one another as they moved as one through the echoing chamber.

  She frowned.

  The Secret Service agents weren’t looking at each other.

  Where better to mount an attack on Gabe than from within the very force meant to protect him?

  Dunst was a master of disguise. He was ex-CIA. He’d be familiar with the standard security procedures a group like the Secret Service would use. If he took out one of the Secret Service agents—one who looked like him—replaced the guy and stepped into the cordon, none of the other agents were likely to notice. They were too busy looking elsewhere for threats to look at themselves.

  She scanned the agents ranged around the floor of the Rotunda. He wouldn’t be here. These men were too closely spaced, and one of them would notice a substitution at a glance. She looked up at the agents roaming the balconies above. They were operating widely spaced from each other at their various perches.

  One of those guys would be a cinch to take out. As long as someone took his place and made the radio calls at the right times, nobody would notice a thing.

  She looked even higher. Somewhere up there, on the very top balcony around the Rotunda, she had no doubt a team of snipers was spaced out. If one of those guys were taken out and replaced by Dunst…

  She turned around fast and bumped into a Secret Service agent practically right behind her.

  “It’s time for the swearing in, ma’am.”

  “I have to go,” she gasped. “There’s a sniper in here. He’s going to try to kill Gabe.”

  The guy glanced up. “There are several snipers in here, ma’am. They’re here to protect President-elect Monihan. I can assure you, they won’t hurt anyone unless they need to.”

  He didn’t get it. He thought she was some random chick who’d spotted one of the government snipers and was panicking.

  “I have to go,” she insisted.

  The guy gave her a hard look. “If you leave now, you won’t be let back into the room.”

  “That’s okay. I’ve got to get out of here,” she insisted desperately. “Now.”

  The guy shrugged.

  She raced for the nearest exit. A phalanx of security guards stepped aside to let her out. As she slipped past the men, she looked back over her shoulder at the Secret Service man standing by the door.

  “Tell Owen Haas or Agent Tilman that Diana Lockworth says one of their snipers has been taken out and replaced by Richard Dunst. Gabe Monihan is in grave danger. They have to get him out of here!”

  And with that, she took off running.

  She headed for the nearest staircase, flashed her military ID at a startled Capitol police officer, and ran up the steps as fast as she could. They ended three stories up, on a floor of small offices devoted to Congressional staffers. Not high enough to get into the Rotunda yet. She turned left, back toward the center of the building and its giant dome. She darted down the dimly lit hallway, looking for another staircase.

  There. An unmarked door about where the wall of the dome should start. It was either the staircase she sought, or she was about to jump into a janitor’s closet. She shoved on the door, and it opened to reveal another staircase winding up into the dark, narrow and steep. She raced up it, panting in her panic and exertion.

  She burst out the first door she came to and lurched to a stop high above the floor of the Rotunda. Only a carved stone railing stood between her and a plunge to her death. A man to her left jolted. She looked at the guy’s face. Definitely not Dunst. She looked right at the other Secret Service agent now moving toward her. Not Dunst, either.

  She bolted back into the stairwell and continued her desperate flight upward. But now, footsteps pounded after her. Her feet flew over the cast-iron steps and she clattered up them two at a time, her knees pumping like pistons. God bless stair-climber machines and all the hours she’d spent on them in the last decade.

  Another landing as the stairs ended. She burst out onto a narrow ledge even higher up the side of the dome. The Secret Service agents on this level were a good third of the way around the dome from her, but coming at her fast. Her pursuers must have radioed ahead. She took off running toward the nearest agent. He reached for his left armpit. Gun! She held her hands out, well away from her sides to indicate she wasn’t armed. And got a good look at the guy. Not Dunst.

  He hesitated in the act of pulling out his pistol, and she turned around and reversed direction. The other agent on this level was closing fast on her. African-American guy. Clearly not Dunst. Except now she was trapped between the two men!

  A doorway appeared on her right. She darted through it.

  A narrow, curving hallway with a sloping ceiling. She sprinted along it, frantically looking for a way higher. There was one more balcony above her, more a maintenance catwalk than an actual balcony. That’s where the snipers would be, and where Dunst had to be.

  Lots of footsteps pounded behind her now, and men’s voices shouted, echoing in the oddly shaped space. Fighting off vertigo from the crazy slant of the walls in the near total darkness, she pushed forward. She must have run halfway around the giant dome when finally, a narrow staircase appeared on her left.

  She skidded to a stop and leaped for it, scrambling on all fours for the first few steps until she regained her balance and got her feet under her again. She raced upward, her shoulders brushing the walls. Her legs burned and her lungs screamed for oxygen. But Gabe was down below, vulnerable and possibly lined up in Dunst’s gun sights already.

  She burst out onto the catwalk. Its iron railing looked pitifully flimsy to protect against the tremendous fall to the floor far below. She raced to the left, her footsteps rattling on the iron grillwork that formed the floor of the catwalk.

  There! A man, lying prone, cradling a deadly looking rifle with a sight nearly as big as the barrel of the weapon. The barrel of the weapon poked through the iron railing and was trained on the crowd below. The sniper jerked, looking up at her in surprise as she barreled down on him. The nose was too narrow, the cheeks too high for Dunst. He sat up, wrestling to get the gun out from between the iron rails and turn it on her.

  She vaulted over the guy’s legs and kept on going. She raced around the perimeter of the dome, much smaller up here than down lower. And spotted the second sniper. She wasn’t close enough to see his face.

  As she ran toward him, he hunkered down over his rifle as if he was going to shoot. He glanced up at her once, his gaze pure malevolence directed at her. She saw his face from a range of about thirty feet. Richard Dunst.

  His face turned back to his weapon, and his eye went down to the telescopic sight.

  “Nooooo!” she screamed.

  She put on a burst of superhuman speed, her gaze riveted on his trigger finger.

  It squeezed in slow motion, depressing the trigger in its housing. She jumped for the rifle. But as she sailed toward it in midair, a blinding flash of light exploded from the end of the barrel. A blast of sound slammed into her a millisecond before she landed on the rifle. Too late!

  The hot metal barrel crashed into her ribs, driving the breath out of her like an iron fist. She gasped in pain as she twisted to face the man scrambling to his feet above her. Screams erupted below, floating up eerily into the rafters.

  The bastard had just shot Gabe and she hadn’t been in time to stop it. Tearing agony swept over her, along with rage. Red-ringed, rip-someone-apart rage that boiled over, totally out of control. She rode the wave and surged upward, tackling the bastard aroun
d the legs. He went down hard, snarling as he plowed a fist into her jaw.

  Oblivious to pain, oblivious to anything except her need to hurt this man, she reached for his neck, wrapping her fingers around his throat. He thrust his hands up between her forearms and gave a vicious outward chop, forcing her to release his throat or break both her elbows.

  He jabbed for her eyes, and she grabbed his fingers, twisting them brutally. He roared in pain and jerked his knee upward. Fortunately, she didn’t have family jewels in the same sensitive spot as a man, but the blow dislodged her from on top of him nonetheless. She rammed her elbow into his ribs as she rolled off of him, reveling in the grunt of pain that drew. But he countered with an openhanded thrust to the side of her head that made her see stars as pain exploded through her head.

  This guy was no amateur thug that a few well-placed blows could drop. He was a trained killer, and furthermore, he understood that he was fighting for his life here. She, on the other hand, had only revenge on her mind. Survival wasn’t of great importance to her at the moment as long as this asshole went down.

  She rolled to her knees and lunged forward, grabbing the guy’s ankles as he turned to flee. Oh, no. He wasn’t going anywhere. They were finishing this right here. Right now. He turned and kicked viciously, his toe connecting with her throat. She gagged, choking for air, and getting none. Her grasp loosened, and he yanked free of her arms. He scrabbled away from her, swearing. Quickly going light-headed, she grabbed the railing beside her and dragged herself to her feet. She looked up at Dunst.

  His lips drew back from his teeth in a grimace of fury. He reached inside his coat and came out with a pistol in hand. She stared at the bore of the weapon. Too far to reach it. And there was nowhere to dodge it. The sloping wall crowded her on the right, and to her left was a drop of many stories to a marble floor. He’d better hit her heart, because with her last breath, she was going to take the bastard with her when she went.