Troubleshooters - Into The Night Part 57

"What game?" Jenka"also known as Mr. ESPNa":asked. "There's nothing scheduled until this afternoon."

"If he were listening to a Walkman, why conceal the wire inside his s.h.i.+rt?" Sam watched the guy closely, wis.h.i.+ng that all terrorists had the words Friend of Osama tattooed on their foreheads. "It's possible he's one of us. Commandera""

"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 hata"if he's wearing onea"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 a.s.s. "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 towersa"the angle's wronga"but we're coming at him through the crowd. We'll find him."

"And until then," Paoletti said, "we 'II 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 salt.w.a.ter 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 G.o.d, he seriously thought...

If there was going to be trouble, it was going to be focused on this stagea"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 G.o.d 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 basea"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 a.r.s.enal 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 seconda"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 anymorea"not without a...

Key.

Ihbraham had made a copy of the new key for her. In fact, he'd been willinga"even eagera"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 Jeffersona"the sniper in Sam Starrett's heloa"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-s.h.i.+rts today, and from Muldoon's viewpointa"because of the denseness of the crowda"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 capa" whitea"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 directionsa"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 alarma"it had to be a false alarm. That really wasn't a gun that had been spotteda"how could anyone get a gun in here?

But then shots exploded, a ragged burst ofa"G.o.d!a" 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 brooma"a 9mm submachine guna"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 shootinga"and shooting into this crowd.

"Second shooter in the stands!" Cosmo shouted from Sea-hawk Two. "He's firing at us!"

And that would be one f.u.c.king disaster, if these f.u.c.kers 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 Muldoonas 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 thema"the larger onea"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 thema"brothersa"and their name is Rahman."

"What is your name, ma'am?"

"Who the h.e.l.l 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 b.i.t.c.h 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. .h.i.t. "Grab Gramma's arm and elbow crawl!"

Muldoon saw the shooter open fire, saw Vince get hit protecting Charlie and Joan.

The crowd was scattering in a panic, making it close to impossible for any of the Secret Service agents to reach the third man. And the shooter was running, moving with the crowd, trying to get even closer to the dais.

"I still don't see him," Jenk, the team's sharpest pair of eyes, reported from the helo overhead. If the man had stood still, they'd have no problem picking him out.

Muldoon was going to have to do the only thing he could do given these circ.u.mstances.

He was going to have to take this motherf.u.c.ker out with his bare hands.