Blowout (36 page)

“Go after him!” Egan screamed.

“Yeah, right, chief,” Daley said. He glanced down at Turner, then back up at Egan. “I don't even want to know how you fucked up here, but Osborne is armed with Larry's weapon, in addition to whatever piece he was carrying. And presumably the newspaper broad is with him.”

“They're trying for the R and D building.”

Daley ducked back around the corner, then shouldered his carbine and fired off five shots on single fire before he turned back again. He was pissed off. “I'd say he's going to make it, which means we're going to have some serious company sooner than we expected.”

“We'll have to dig him out.”

“Get your guys up from the power plant; let them try. At least they'll cover our rear.”

“He's just one man, goddamnit.”

“A Medal of Honor winner.”

Egan started to raise his pistol, every muscle in his body screaming to put a round right in the middle of the cocksucker's forehead. Then see who the bastard gave orders to.

Daley just stood there, his M4 pointed in Egan's general direction, his trigger finger alongside the guard, the tip on the base of the magazine receiver.

But it wouldn't do. It was a tough old world, something that Daley just might find out for himself before the night was out. But not now.

Egan laughed, not sincere even in his own ears, and lowered the pistol. “You're right,” he said. “We've got a lot of work ahead of us.”

“I'll stick it out here for a little while to make sure he doesn't try to double back.”

Egan holstered his pistol. “The cavalry will be here before too long, I suspect.”

“Then you'd best get on their tactical frequency and make it clear what they need to do.”

“And the consequences,” Egan said.

“Yeah,” Daley. “Those, too.”

Egan started to turn away, but then on impulse looked back at the contractor. “Why did you take this job?”

“Money. Isn't it always the same?”

Egan nodded, and walked back around the corner to the front of the club, not at all sure why exactly he was here. “Post three, team lead,” he spoke into his lapel mike. “We're going to have company pretty quick, so soon as you hear the choppers get your ass back up here.”

“Copy that. What was the shooting?”

“Just someone getting a little out of line. Look sharp.”

“Copy.”

“Post one, team lead,” Egan radioed his people at the rear gate. “You guys copy the last?”

“We're clear down here.”

“Soon as you hear the choppers incoming, get your asses up here.”

“Roger,” the squad leader on the rear gate radioed.

It was quiet. The wind had died and the sky was perfectly clear except for the Milky Way, which out here was a broad band of illuminated fog clear from horizon to horizon. Made a man feel small sometimes, and he didn't think he could ever settle down out here, or understand a man like Osborne who could.

“Rodriquez, Egan, copy?”

“Yes.”

“Switch to two,” Egan said, and he reached inside his tunic and switched his comms unit to the alternate channel. Only he and Rodriguez had the spare channel, and it had been the Mexican's suggestion.

“I thought I heard gunfire.” Rodriguez was there. “Does the center hold?”

The Mexican, according to the stories he'd told on the way up, had lived a rough life in some barrio, yet he was well read. The first time he'd used the “center hold” expression Egan had no idea what the man was talking about. But when Rodriguez had explained that it was from a famous poem by a guy called Yeats—“things fall apart, the center cannot hold”
—
Egan had understood perfectly well what the poet had meant. And when Rodriguez told him that the poem was called “The Second Coming,” it had made even more sense.

“Oh, yeah,” Egan said. “The center holds, my man. But we have one small problem that you need to deal with. Send a couple of men up to the R and D Center. The sheriff and his girlfriend are holed up there, probably talking to Ellsworth by now.”

“Armed?”

“Yes. I'd like to include the woman in our package, but the sheriff is definitely expendable.”

“I'm on it,
comp,
” Rodriquez said, and signed off.

 

56

“THERE'S SOMETHING WRONG
with him,” Whitney told the nearest contractor who stood at the edge of the dance floor, his M4 pointed in their general direction. She slowly helped Cameron to his feet. Dried blood was caked on the side of his head and still more seeped from a scalp wound.

The contractor raised his carbine and the other two over by the bar looked over. All of them were nervous because of the shooting outside. It was the county sheriff and some broad who'd shown up unexpectedly.

“Get the fuck back down on the floor,” one of them ordered.

Whitney took a step forward, Cameron, his head lolling on her shoulder, stumbling and nearly collapsing.

“Slowly,” he mumbled into her ear. He could see the nearest contractor out of the corner of his eye. The timing was right, he just hoped that Nate and Ashley had made it, and he felt terrible that he had talked them into coming out here tonight, right in the middle of another mess.

“I said get the fuck back.” The contractor came over, his carbine pointed directly at Whitney.

“The lieutenant commander is a personal friend of mine,” Whitney said. “If he dies tonight because he gets no attention, you'll have to kill me, too, because I sure as hell won't cooperate with you.”

Cameron was convinced that Whitney was the one person here who Egan could not afford to lose if he were to have any chance of getting out alive. They needed her as a hostage, and the Ellsworth Rapid Response Team had been given specific orders from day one that she was even more important than the bacteria and the gadget. Those could be replaced. As the Initiative's principal scientist she was just as vital to the project as Oppenheimer had been to the creation of the atomic bomb in New Mexico. Without him the Manhattan District might have been pushed back for years. And without Whitney the Initiative would be set back for nearly as long.

Time, General Forester had explained to them all after the first incident, they simply didn't have, because of the increasing pressure by OPEC and the big oil fund and derivative managers.

“This run-up has to work,” he'd said. “We've just about bet the farm on it.”

But what Cameron wanted to do with Whitney's help—disarm the explosive charges at Donna Marie—was the toughest decision of his life. Chances were that some good people were going to get killed because of him if things went wrong. But, he kept reminding himself, a lot of good people would probably die tonight if he did nothing.

The other hostages sitting on the floor were looking up at them. Cameron caught the eye of Susan Watts and she was startled and started to speak, but the door banged open and Egan walked in on a blast of arctic cold air.

“What the hell in Christ is going on?” he shouted, coming across the room.

“If you let him die, you'll have to kill me, too,” Whitney said defiantly.

Egan came into Cameron's field of vision, and the man had a pistol in hand, a wild, crazy look in his eyes.

“I'll kill the both of you myself!” Egan screamed.

Cameron stiffened and was about to straighten up to put an end to what was likely to get them killed right now, but Whitney stuck out her chin.

“Well, go ahead, you stupid son of a bitch!” she shouted back. “And when Captain Nettles and his men show up who will you use as hostages? Each other?”

Cameron started to raise his head, but Whitney shifted her weight and took another half step toward Egan.

After a long moment, Egan lowered his pistol. “Well, what do you want?”

“There's a first aid kit in the women's room. I want to at least bandage his head to stop the bleeding. And I want to look at his eyes in some decent light so see if his pupils are the same size. He might have a concussion.”

“I didn't bring a medic.”

“No. I don't suppose you did. But if he is concussed I'll need to put bandages over his eyes and lay him down where we can keep him warm.”

Egan turned away for a second and shook his head. “Well, don't just stand there, somebody help her,” he said.

One of the contractors slung his M4 over his shoulder, muzzle down, and took one of Cameron's arms over his other shoulder and together he and Whitney headed to the corridor off the end of the bar and back to the restrooms.

Behind them Egan ordered one of his men to go out to the Hummer and power up the portable radio; he was going to talk to the Rapid Response Team and tell them what they were faced with and what they were going to do unless they wanted to be the cause of a bloodbath here.

“What was the shooting all about?” someone asked.

“The son of a bitch sheriff,” Egan said. “But he's going to cease being a pain in my ass in about ten minutes.”

The woman's room was at the far end of the dimly lit corridor, and in addition to the first aid kit—actually there was one in both bathrooms, one behind the bar, and another much larger kit in the kitchen—the electrical circuit breaker panel was there. A detail, Cameron hoped, that the contractors who'd been hired just after Christmas hadn't discovered. And thinking about them made him angry with himself just now. He'd known something wasn't right, and their being here definitely pointed to someone on Forester's staff, but he'd not raised any objections.

He'd been out of the field for too long, he thought bitterly. He'd lost his edge, and it was possible he would get them all killed tonight if Nettles didn't cooperate or made a mistake. He couldn't let that thought go.

Whitney opened the door and let the contractor go inside first, and then stepped away, exactly as she'd been told to do.

As soon as she was clear Cameron lurched into the contractor, as if his legs were giving way, tightening his grip around the man's shoulders. But then he straightened up, wrapped his left arm around the man's head, and twisted sharply. The contractor's neck popped with an audible sound, and Cameron lowered his convulsing body to the floor as Whitney came inside and softly closed the door.

The man was still alive, but slowly suffocating, his eyes bulging, his mouth open, and cheeks puffed out as he desperately gasped for air, and Whitney shrank back.

Cameron took the 9mm Beretta 92F from the man's hip holster, pocketed it, as well as two spare magazines of ammunition for the carbine and an extra one for the pistol, and then stripped the carbine from the contractor's shoulder.

He jumped up, yanked open the circuit breaker door, and showed Whitney the main switch that would cut off all electricity to the building once it was thrown.

“We're going to have about thirty seconds once the lights are out, so don't hesitate,” Cameron said.

She nodded nervously.

Three toilet stalls faced three sinks and on the back wall was a narrow casement window, the same as in the men's room. He'd been counting on it, otherwise what they'd started would have been nothing more than an exercise in folly.

Unlatching the locking mechanism he eased the window up, cold air instantly filling the bathroom. He looked back and Whitney nodded.

Nothing moved outside, the night dark and perfectly still. They could have been the only people on the planet.

Cameron shoved the carbine out the window and lowered it to the ground where he let it fall away from the building so as to make as little noise as possible. He pulled himself up and eased his way through the narrow opening, his hips barely clearing until he was mostly outside, and he clumsily dropped headfirst to the snow-covered ground.

Grabbing the carbine, he swept left and right, but still nothing moved, so he went back to the window. Whitney was still at the circuit breaker.

“What the fuck is going on in there!” Egan bellowed from the bar.

“Now,” Cameron whispered urgently.

Whitney threw the switch, plunging the entire building, including the outside lights, into darkness, and a second later she was at the window and Cameron helped her crawl through.

Someone shouted something from inside, and either Susan or the bartender screamed. Whitney hesitated. She wanted to go back, but Cameron grabbed her arm and they started in a dead run across the thirty yards of open ground to the R&D building.

Halfway there someone from behind opened fire, one round catching Cameron high in his back on the left side, and he stumbled and went down.

“Jim!” Whitney shouted, dropping down next to him.

Incoming rounds from at least two shooters kicked up dirt and snow all around them as Cameron rolled over, brought his M4 to bear, and emptied a thirty-round magazine into the back of the building.

“Go!” he shouted, as he ejected the spent magazine and jacked in a second.

“Not without you!” she cried.

“Goddamnit,” he said. He got to his feet as he fired another eight or ten rounds into the back of the building, keeping them about window level so there was little chance of hitting any of the hostages who were sitting on the floor.

He was sick to his stomach and light-headed, but their only chance was getting out of the open area between the buildings, which had become a killing ground.

He and Whitney, keeping low, zigzagged the rest of the way across the compound, when all of a sudden someone opened fire from somewhere just south of the R&D building.

 

57

PRESIDENT THOMPSON WAS
dead-tired and just a little discouraged. He and his wife, Ruth, had choppered up to Camp David earlier in the day, their son Donald and his fiancée, Crissy, joining them just before dinner. It was the first time they'd met the girl, and they were impressed. She seemed to have a level head and it had been obvious from the first minute that she adored their son.