Into the Night

by Suzanne Brockmann

  “I was in the Pacific from March ’44 to the end of the war, sir.”

  “He also served as a Marine at Tarawa, back in November 1943,” Charlie added. “He never bothers to mention that. Or the fact that he was on the team assigned to scout and clear landing zones on mainland Japan. I thank God every day that the Japanese surrendered before that ever got off the ground.”

  Crowley was looking around at his staff members. “Why didn’t we know any of this? Sir, it’s an honor and a privilege to meet you.” He snapped to attention and saluted.

  Vince laughed as he returned Crowley’s salute. “That’s really not necessary, Admiral. It’s been a long time since I’ve been anything but Vince or Gramps. In fact, I’d prefer it if you called me that. Vince, I mean.”

  Crowley smiled as he shook Vince’s hand. “Call me Chip. I’d love to sit down and talk to you sometime. Can I have my secretary call you and set up a time we can meet for lunch?”

  “If you want war stories, Chip, it’s best to meet in the afternoon or the evening, after dinner. It’s not the kind of conversation that mixes well with food. For me, at least.”

  Crowley nodded. “Then we’ll have to get together twice—once to share a meal and talk about our grandchildren.”

  “I’d like that,” Vince said.

  “Excuse me. The President’s going to arrive soon. Since this is my party, I better get ready. I’ll look forward to our lunch.” Crowley went off to talk to several of the other officers.

  Vince looked at Charlie and laughed. “He thinks I’m some kind of hero.”

  She shook her head in disbelief. “The thing that I don’t understand, Vincent, is why you don’t.”

  “We were just scared kids, doing what had to be done,” he told her. “That’s the way I think of it. The real heroes are the boys who didn’t come home.”

  “My God,” Charlie said. “Is that actually what you believe?”

  But he didn’t answer because now the other admiral was coming over to meet him and shake his hand.

  Mary Lou cleaned the second french fry machine while Aaron the asshole flirted with Brandi, the new girl he was allegedly training to work the cash register.

  Kevin was leaning back against the counter, taking a load off. “Lunch rush is going to be nonexistent today. Everyone’s over watching the SEALs do their supermen thing.”

  “Either that or everyone’s going to decide they’re hungry and need a burger and descend on us all at once.” Aaron laughed. “We’ll be the ones needing Secret Service protection.”

  God, he was a fool. The congealed grease she was cleaning was ten times funnier than he was.

  “The area they’re in is fenced off from the rest of the base,” Kevin said. “They can’t get here from there.”

  “Some fence,” Aaron said. “You could go through that thing with a pair of wire cutters in a matter of seconds.”

  “Yeah, well, look where it is,” Kevin pointed out. “Inside a Navy base. Like there’s a lot of dangerous terrorists here on base, looking to crash through the fence and assassinate the President.”

  “Good point,” Aaron said. “Although some of the sailors I’ve seen around here are pretty terrifying.”

  Yuck, yuck, yuck. Like he was such a prize himself. What an asshole.

  “Did you say that President Bryant was going to be here?” Brandi asked.

  Get out much, new girl? Bryant’s impending visit had been a big story on the evening news for the past two weeks. Lord, did only foolish and stupid people work here? Mary Lou had to find a new job.

  Maybe she could help Ihbraham do yard work. She could bring along the travel playpen for Haley and work outside all day. She’d probably lose weight. But the cool thing was, if she didn’t, Ihbraham wouldn’t care.

  “Yeah, didn’t you see that security by the gate?” Kevin asked Brandi. “You think they would do that for just anyone?”

  Mary Lou could become one of those women who went barefoot and wore flowing cotton dresses without a bra. She would help Ihbraham grow flowers in the most beautiful gardens in town. And every day, in the afternoon, when Haley was napping beneath the shade of a tree, they would take a break and make love right there on those wealthy people’s patios.

  She wondered what Ihbraham looked like naked. Was his skin that same rich color all over? All over?

  “You know, this would be the perfect time and place to assassinate Bryant,” Aaron said, interrupting her thoughts. Salacious thoughts, she realized. Who ever would have guessed? “Imagine the uproar it would cause.”

  “Yeah, but how would you do it?” Kevin asked.

  “It would have to be a bomb,” Aaron said—as if he had even the slightest clue what he was talking about. Brandi was looking at him all wide-eyed, like she was actually impressed and thinking about fucking him. Yeah, that would be a smart move. Sleep with the manager of a fast-food restaurant, and who knows what it’ll do for your career. Maybe someday you’ll get to work the drive-through window.

  “There’s no way you could smuggle a gun past that security,” Aaron continued. “You couldn’t even get a water pistol onto this base today. They checked my car so thoroughly, I was tempted to ask them to vacuum it out while they were at it.”

  Har har har.

  “I guess it would be easier to smuggle a bomb in, but you’d have to do it in pieces,” Kevin speculated. “Assemble it once you were inside—and that’d be hard to do. The place is crawling with those dudes from the Secret Service.”

  “Yeah,” Aaron said. “That’s the way to go—smuggle it in way in advance and hide the various pieces around the parade grounds until you’re ready to use ’em.”

  Mary Lou dropped the fry basket with a clatter.

  “I’ve got a man in the crowd with some kind of radio in his ear,” Jenk said suddenly from his perch at the open door of Seahawk One. “I’ve been watching him for a while because he’s got a baby stroller but no baby. Seemed kind of weird, like, where’s his wife and kid? But he’s definitely alone.”

  Sam ordered the helo pilot to take them back around as he moved to Jenk’s position. “Where?”

  He could see the president’s limo pulling up to the dais, the Secret Service surrounding him in a V-pattern as he climbed out of the car and headed toward the back stairs.

  “He’s in the crowd that’s standing—he’s about ten people back, left side of the dais, farthest from where Bryant is right now. White shirt, dark complexion, beard. Stroller, no kid. I guess it’s possible that his wife and kid are sitting in the stands.”

  Sam had him. “Jesus, you have good eyes. I see the stroller, but I can’t even tell if this guy has ears, let alone a radio. Someone give me a pair of glasses.”

  “He was fussing with it a second ago, sir,” Jenk reported as WildCard tossed Sam a pair of binoculars. “’Course, it could be a hearing aid.”

  Through the glasses, the man in question leapt into sharp focus. Sure enough, he was wearing a wire that led from his right ear down into his collar.

  “We’ve got him now, too,” Nils reported from the other helo. “That’s definitely not a hearing aid. But maybe he’s listening to the game.”

  “What game?” Jenk—also known as Mr. ESPN—asked. “There’s nothing scheduled until this afternoon.”

  “If he were listening to a Walkman, why conceal the wire inside his shirt?” Sam watched the guy closely, wishing that all terrorists had the words Friend of Osama tattooed on their foreheads. “It’s possible he’s one of us. Commander—”

  “I’m on it,” Paoletti’s voice came through loud and clear. “There are plainclothes personnel in the crowd. If he’s one of us, he’s going to take off his hat—if he’s wearing one—and scratch the top of his head. The Secret Service is sending that message now to everyone out there.”

  Sam kept the binoculars trained on the man. Who didn’t so much as scratch his ass. “No movement from our man.”

  “I’ve got someone about twenty yards
away from him scratching away,” Jenk reported.

  “We need to get this guy checked out.”

  “President’s on the dais,” Muldoon’s voice reported. “Should we get him back to his car?”

  Something was going on.

  Joan moved closer to Muldoon, to try to hear what he was saying.

  Although it was hard to hear anything, because both helicopters were circling steadily now.

  The crowd was applauding President Bryant’s appearance, and the United States Navy Band had started to play “Hail to the Chief.” The Secret Service agents who had led Bryant to the stage were still forming a half circle around him, one of them gesturing for him to hold up. So he chatted with her grandparents, leaning close to hear them over the din and shouting back into their ears.

  That was nice for Gramps and Gramma, but something was definitely going on. She inched even closer to Muldoon.

  The Secret Service agent who was in charge of the President’s safety joined Paoletti, Muldoon, and the SEAL team’s enormous XO, Lieutenant Jacquette.

  “Get the weapons out of the racks,” she heard Paoletti order. “Duke, I want this guy in your sights.”

  Weapons…

  “You need to let us take care of this.” The man in the dark suit didn’t sound happy.

  “Your snipers haven’t located him yet,” Paoletti said.

  “We can’t pick him out from the sniper towers—the angle’s wrong—but we’re coming at him through the crowd. We’ll find him.”

  “And until then,” Paoletti said, “we’ll be ready to take him down from the helos.”

  “He’s probably no threat at all. Security here is tight, Commander. The only danger I see comes from putting live ammo into the hands of saltwater cowboys. I’d like to remind you that you have absolutely no authority here.”

  “You can give me that authority, Pete,” Paoletti said.

  “Dream on, Commander. This is my show. If there is trouble, we will take care of it.”

  Muldoon saw her standing there. “Get back,” he said in a low voice. “Get back to the edge of the stage, Joan, as far from Bryant as possible. If there’s trouble, you drop, do you hear me? Right to the ground. And you stay there.”

  She stared at him. My God, he seriously thought…

  If there was going to be trouble, it was going to be focused on this stage—on the President.

  Who was still talking to Vince and Charlie.

  “Careful,” Aaron chastised Mary Lou. “Those things cost money.”

  “Sorry.” Her heart was pounding. The guards had checked her car when she’d pulled onto the base this morning. And she’d sat there thinking, Thank God Sam didn’t leave an automatic weapon in the trunk today.

  But what if that gun had never been Sam’s? What if someone else had put it in her trunk? Someone who knew the lock was broken. Someone who knew that she worked here on base and regularly drove past the guards at the gate without ever being stopped and searched. Someone who wanted a weapon carried onto the base—to be used later.

  Like on a day when the U.S. President was scheduled to appear.

  What if Mary Lou hadn’t brought just that one gun onto the base? What if she’d been used to carry a full arsenal of weapons?

  How many times had she come out of work to find that her trunk had popped open? At least twice. She’d thought it was funny that it had done that all by itself, thought maybe it was the heat of the day that had made the metal expand or contract or whatever metal did when it got too hot.

  She looked at her watch. Lord Jesus, the President was due to come to the base any second—if he hadn’t already arrived.

  “I have to make a phone call,” Mary Lou told Aaron. She didn’t wait for him to give her permission, she just pushed her way out of the kitchen into the little hall by the bathrooms.

  Someone was using the pay phone there, so she went outside to the phone in the parking lot.

  Boy, it sure must’ve put a crimp in someone’s plans when she’d gotten her trunk lid replaced with a lock that worked. They couldn’t use her as a mule anymore—not without a…

  Key.

  Ihbraham had made a copy of the new key for her. In fact, he’d been willing—even eager—to do it.

  Dear Lord.

  She could see him in her mind’s eye, arguing with his brothers. All those Arabic faces and voices, dark with anger.

  He’d said his brothers had wanted him to join them. He’d said he’d promised them…something.

  Dear, dear Lord.

  Was it possible…?

  Her hand shaking, Mary Lou picked up the receiver and dialed 911.

  Muldoon scanned the crowd, looking for the man Jenk had spotted from the helicopter.

  “I’ve got him.” Duke Jefferson—the sniper in Sam Starrett’s helo—sounded calm and almost detached. “Ready on your command, sir.”

  “Steady, Duke,” Paoletti said. “We’re just watching him here. Just an insurance policy. Sam, I want to know if he so much as moves an inch.”

  “Aye, sir. He’s watching the dais, looking over toward Bryant, like he’s waiting for the show to start.”

  There were a lot of men wearing white T-shirts today, and from Muldoon’s viewpoint—because of the denseness of the crowd—he couldn’t see who had a stroller and who didn’t.

  If this were an attack by a suicide bomber, chances were the man was acting alone.

  But after 9/11, the entire world had learned to expect the unexpected.

  “Okay,” Sam said. “He’s putting on a hat. Baseball cap—white—backward. Jesus, is that some kind of signal?”

  And there he was.

  Muldoon saw him. White cap on backward.

  But there was someone else right down in front, over closer to the President, who was also just putting on a white baseball cap, backward.

  “Our head scratcher is almost on top of our guy,” Jenk reported from the helo. “And I see about four other suits closing in from all directions—and he does, too!”

  “Gun!” Sam shouted.

  “Duke, fire!” Paoletti shouted.

  “Gun!” Muldoon echoed in unison with Jazz Jacquette, and chaos erupted.

  Joan’s first thought was Where?

  “Get down!” someone was shouting. It was Muldoon, and he was shouting at her, a look of disbelief on his face that she should be over there, so close to where the President was being hustled away by the Secret Service.

  What had he thought? That she would just ditch her grandparents when he’d told her that there might be trouble?

  “Come on,” she shouted to both Vince and Charlie, pulling them toward the stairs, following the President. This was just a false alarm—it had to be a false alarm. That really wasn’t a gun that had been spotted—how could anyone get a gun in here?

  But then shots exploded, a ragged burst of—God!—machine-gun fire.

  Where was it coming from?

  “Gun!” Sam shouted, and time clicked into slow motion. Through the binoculars, he could see their man pull a room broom—a 9mm submachine gun—from the baby stroller. He came up firing even as Tom Paoletti shouted, “Duke, fire!”

  Duke Jefferson squeezed the trigger before the K of his name was out of Paoletti’s mouth.

  “Shooter down,” he announced in his sniper’s calm, and time clicked back to regular fast speed. It was over.

  “Agent down!” Sam shouted.

  But, Jesus, there were more shots being fired, the ripping sound audible even over the throb of the helos. Someone else down there was still shooting—and shooting into this crowd.

  “Second shooter in the stands!” Cosmo shouted from Seahawk Two. “He’s firing at us!”

  And that would be one fucking disaster, if these fuckers brought one of these Seahawks down into this crowd.

  “Take ’em out!” Paoletti’s voice crackled over the radio.

  “Third shooter out in front! White hat!” That was Muldoon’s voice. Jesus, he was unarmed.
Sam scrambled to see him.

  “Second shooter down,” Cosmo announced.

  “Duke!” Sam shouted. “Do you see Muldoon’s guy?”

  The chaos was incredible. From where he was, Husaam could barely see Ihbraham. But he caught a flash of blue as his three biker friends brought him down to the ground. And then, as the crowd scattered, he could see one of them—the larger one—kick Ihbraham savagely in the head, hard enough to break his skull.

  Husaam headed with the crush toward the gate.

  Mary Lou heard the first of the gunshots as the emergency operator finally came on the line.

  “Coronado security. This call is being recorded. What is the nature of your emergency?”

  “They’re trying to kill the President!”

  “May I have your name and location, ma’am?”

  “Terrorists are trying to kill the President over on the parade grounds!” she sobbed. There was more shooting, a tearing sound that echoed, contrasting hideously with the peaceful tranquility of this beautiful sunny day. Oh, Ihbraham, how could you have done this? “There are four of them. I think there are four of them—brothers—and their name is Rahman.”

  “What is your name, ma’am?”

  “Who the hell cares what my name is! You need to send help! Now!”

  Mary Lou hung up the phone and ran toward the parade grounds, praying that she was wrong.

  Vince saw the gun.

  It was a handgun, not one of those submachine guns he’d heard firing just seconds ago.

  Still, a gun was a gun whether it fired dozens of rounds per second or only a few. It could still kill you and the people you loved just as dead.

  The son of a bitch had it out and was pointing it where the President was being hustled off the stage and down the stairs. Where Joanie was trying to pull him and Charlie.

  Vince did the only thing he could do. He tackled them both, pulling them down to the metal floor of the stage.

  But before he got them down, he heard shots, felt one slap the back of his leg.

  “Crawl!” he shouted to Joan, praying he was the only one who was hit. “Grab Gramma’s arm and elbow crawl!”