A glass flask.
“Scotch?”
The man avoided his gaze. “How’d you know?”
“Smelled it on your breath.” Seamus shoved everything into his pockets. “Just stay here. It isn’t safe down there. When the coast is clear, the police will come and rescue you. Now, who can give me a boost?”
The man in the Bermuda shorts bent over, and Seamus stepped up onto his back. He pushed open the escape panel and, with arms conditioned by years of gymnastics and regular exercise, pulled himself through the opening.
He was inside the monument. He knew that, once upon a time, people had been able to walk down the steps, but the stairs had been closed due to concerns about safety and vandalism on the many commemorative plaques. These elevators had originally been constructed to haul materials to the top, then, after it was completed, converted to use for transporting visitors.
He was about to use them for something completely different.
He could see the other elevator shaft about ten feet away. The cage was below him at ground level, but the cables were right there waiting for him.
He should be able to jump the distance. He had jumped farther, though not in a long time, and in this instance, if he didn’t make it, he wouldn’t just lose a medal. He’d lose his life, after falling about two hundred feet and splatting down on the cage below.
Well, nothing ventured…
He felt confident, even if he wasn’t quite as light as he had been in younger years. He stepped toward the far edge of the elevator, then took a run at it. He flew through the open space between the elevators…
And overshot the mark and collided with the cables. His face burned against the main cable, which stung like hell. But he managed to get a grip on the cable and hold on to it.
He’d made it.
After that point, it was a simple matter of lowering himself to the elevator box below him. Simple until he arrived, anyway.
As quietly as possible, he opened the escape panel at the top. The doors were open.
He knew he would have no chance to survey the scene once he appeared in the opening. He had memorized the positions of the two men on the ground level just before the elevator doors closed. He hoped they hadn’t moved too much.
He gripped the edge of the escape hatch and took a deep breath.
Showtime. Five, four, three, two…
On one, Seamus flew through the opening, swinging outside the doors and several yards beyond. The terrorist on the far right had drifted, but not so far that Seamus couldn’t accommodate the difference with a quick course correction. The man brought his gun around, but Seamus was too fast for him. Seamus wrapped himself around the man’s legs and brought him down to the ground. He squatted on top of the man, pounding him in the face before he had a chance to resist. He pressed his gun down with one hand and grabbed the rattail comb in the other. In one swift, sure movement, he drove the long thin tail of the comb into the man’s temple.
The terrorist didn’t even have a chance to scream. He was dead in less than a second.
And a second after that, his friends reacted. Seamus grabbed the dead man’s gun and responded, which sent the others flying. It appeared the remaining man on the ground was not armed. That would make Seamus’s job simpler. He ran under the ledge so the man above couldn’t see him, then pulled the trigger.
Nothing happened.
Out of ammunition. Could he never catch a break?
The other man had a knife, a big ugly one, almost a machete. He was running toward Seamus, a desperate expression on his face, the knife raised above his head. And Seamus had…
Hair spray.
He would have to make it work for him.
He waited until his attacker was most of the way to him, because he knew that if he stepped out from under the ledge he was a dead man. When the man was ten feet away, Seamus brought up the hair spray, pushed down the button, and ignited the spray with the Bic lighter.
A stream of fire blazed through the air, smacking the other man in the face. He screamed and dropped the knife as his hands reflexively went to his face. All at once, his features became liquid. The flesh of his face began to blacken and burn.
Seamus gave him two swift kicks to the kneecaps, just to make sure he didn’t go anywhere, not that there was much chance. This poor loser’s only concern would be his pain.
That left the man upstairs.
While the hotshot with the automatic rifle was still trying to figure out what had happened below, Seamus leaped up and grabbed the edge of the balcony ledge, pulled himself up into a crouch, then pushed off the bottom edge into the air. He found himself above the balcony and just in front of the man with the gun.
While still in midair, Seamus kicked out, knocking the gun from the man’s hands. On his way down, he brought his elbow into the man’s nose.
The cartilage shattered instantly. Blood spewed out in all directions. That had to hurt.
But it didn’t stop him. On his hands and feet, he crawled toward his gun. In less than a second, Seamus calculated what was going to happen and the likely result. No matter how fast he was, the other man would reach the gun first. He’d mow Seamus down before he got halfway there.
Unless Seamus did something to stop him.
Seamus removed the glass flask from his pocket and pitched it with his best Nolan Ryan speed at the man on the floor. The alcohol drenched his lower body.
Seamus had maybe two seconds before the man reached the gun. In that time, he pulled out the Bic, ignited it, used the rubber band to pin down the click switch, keeping it ignited, and threw it at the man crawling across the floor.
An instant later, he was engulfed in flames.
He beat desperately at the fire, but there was nothing he could do. The inferno spread with alarming speed. Five seconds later, his entire body was immolated. The cries sizzled down to whimpers and soon after that were gone altogether, lost in a hideous sea of flame and flesh. His body fell to the floor, motionless.
At that point, Seamus stopped looking. He knew where this was going. He didn’t need to witness it.
He lowered himself off the balcony and dropped back down to the floor. The man he had used the hair spray on was still writhing on the ground.
But the first man he had attacked, the man with the hideous scar, was gone.
And he still had not found the silver suitcase.
He crouched down beside Hair Spray Man. The flames had burned out, but he was in shock, shaking and immobilized by pain.
Seamus didn’t care. He grabbed him by his hair—very hot—and jerked his head backward.
The terrorist’s eyes flew open. He made a gurgling noise. Seamus knew that in his condition, he could suffocate easily.
He whispered into the man’s ear, “I’ll give you one chance to answer. If you don’t, you’re dead. If you lie to me, you’ll die and I’ll make you hurt even worse than you do now.” He leaned in closer. “Where’s the suitcase?”
The man was trembling so badly he could barely speak. “G-g-gone.”
He pointed in the general direction where the man with the scar had been. Damn! “What were you planning to do here?”
“S-s-s—” For a moment Seamus doubted he would ever get it out, but he finally managed. “Send your president… a message.”
By blowing up the Washington Monument and irradiating everyone in the nation’s capital? Yeah, that would probably screw up the president’s plans in the Middle East. “Where is your friend going with the suitcase?”
“I don’t know. R-r-really.” Given the circumstances, Seamus didn’t doubt him. He couldn’t lie, not now, and his eyes showed just how desperate he was to comply, to be believed.
“What are you planning now? What are you going to do next?”
Seamus couldn’t be sure, but despite the man’s pain, despite his almost certain knowledge that death would soon be forthcoming—or perhaps because of it—the corners of his lips turned upward. He was smiling.
“You’re too late,” he said as his eyelids fluttered closed. “No matter what you do to me. Or anyone else. You’re too late.”
(TWO HOURS BEFORE)
Ben Kincaid stood rigid and still as his wife, Christina McCall, adjusted his tie, smoothed the lie of his shirt, and ran a lint brush over the shoulders of his navy blue suit coat.
“There,” she said, taking a step back to survey the view. “Now you look like someone who’s ready to advise the leader of the free world.”
“That’s a relief.”
“Remember to smile and say something nice about his wife. And don’t remind him about—” She stopped in midsentence. “Wait just a minute.” She hiked up the leg of his blue slacks. “Are you seriously wearing red socks?”
Ben’s eyes moved downward. “They’re my lucky socks.”
“No.”
“But I need all the luck—”
“No.” She pointed toward the clothes closet. “Change.” Ben obeyed without further protest. Of course, he always made a great show of being put out when Christina made these sartorial demands, but in truth, he didn’t mind a bit. Given that he had no sense of fashion and was partially color-blind, he needed all the help he could get and was capable of accepting it without feeling his manhood was threatened. For years his mother had picked out and paired up all his clothes. Now she had passed the torch to his wife. All this meant, he reminded himself as he changed into a pair of blue socks, was that he was a very fortunate man.
The irony was that, once upon a time, Christina had been known for her dubious fashion sense, for dressing more like a member of the Sex Pistols than a practicing attorney. All that had changed last year when Ben made his run for a Senate seat. In addition to the five thousand other consultants they’d consulted, they’d hired a fashion consultant to tell them how to dress for formal functions, casual events, and television appearances. For Christina, it was a road-to-Damascus experience. Now she had the reputation of being one of the sharpest dressers in Washington. Ben had been asked more than once if she had acquired a fashion degree at some point in her past. With her gorgeous red hair styled in a fetching shoulder-length coif, Ben found her absolutely stunning. Not that he was prejudiced or anything.
“That’s more like it,” she said when he reemerged. “And just for the record, you’re not wearing those Superman boxer shorts, are you?”
“I’m not planning to strip at the White House.”
“Yes, and nothing unplanned ever happens to you, does it?”
“Good point. No, I’m clean.”
“Thank you.” She smiled, and the smile made his spirits soar. Such a beautiful woman. Her face seemed to absolutely glow. Was it all his imagination? She even seemed taller these days. Although he supposed that could have something to do with the heels. “Anything else you need,
mon cher amour?”
“No. I’d better go. Traffic is terrible this time of day. And it still takes half an hour to get cleared to enter the White House.”
“Still?”
“Yup.” Ben had been working for almost two months now as a member of the president’s legal team. Robert Griswold was the official special counsel to the president, but he had a staff of four lawyers. After his Senate defeat Ben had been appointed to fill a temporary vacancy on that staff. Despite the loss—not exactly unusual for a Democrat in Oklahoma—Ben’s rankings in popularity polls remained high nationwide as a result of his work during his brief time in the Senate, particularly his work on the controversial Emergency Council bill, which garnered nationwide daily coverage. His oration on the floor of the Senate was widely credited with being the cause of the bill’s ultimate defeat, which endeared him to many, especially in the Democratic party. Still, he’d been flabbergasted when the newly elected president, Roland Kyler, invited him into the White House. “I want the president to have a chance to read my brief. So I’m out of here.”
“Did you have Jones proofread it?”
“I’m an adult, Christina.”
“And you’re the worst speller on earth. Spell-check is not enough for you. Email it to Jones now. He’ll have it proofed by the time you get to the White House.”
He raised his chin a bit. “If you insist. Parting is such sweet sorrow, but—”
“Wait.” She took both of Ben’s hands and snuggled close to him. “Can you believe that sometime today you’re going to see the POTUS?” Christina had always loved hip slang and catchphrases. She’d picked up on the Beltway acronyms in no time at all. “You work hard and try to help him. He’s a good man.”
“You just say that because he did you a favor.”
“No, I say it because it’s true.”
“You’re talking about his inspirational politics?”
“I’m talking about him, the human being. He’s good to his wife. That’s the surest sign of a good man.”
Ben arched an eyebrow. “Is it indeed?”
“Yes. I read that he’s given up smoking after twenty years because his wife didn’t want smoke to ruin the White House—or him. That can’t be easy, but he’s doing it for her. So you help him out, Ben. He doesn’t need any extra trouble.”
“I’ll probably get ten minutes with him. If I’m lucky.”
“Look at you!” She grinned and pulled him closer. “You’re talking about meeting with President Kyler all calm, cool, and collected. I remember when you couldn’t think about talking to a judge without your knees shaking so badly you could barely walk.”
Ben shrugged. “Times change. People grow up.”
“They do indeed.” She wrapped her arms around him. “And may I just say, Mr. Kincaid, that I like the way you’ve grown up, very much.” She pressed herself against him and squeezed.
“Oh, I almost forgot.” Ben grinned. “I have a surprise for you.”
“What a coincidence. I have a surprise for you also.”
“Well, you’ll never top mine.”
“Never say never.”
“No, that’s what you always do. You always top my story. But not this time.”
“Okay,” she said, “you go first.”
Ben beamed. “Robert says there’s a good chance that after this temporary appointment expires, I might be appointed to the president’s energy commission.”