He indicated the seating diagram on the computer, a row of squares, and pointed to the edge of the upper level. “And this one here, L13, was requested by none other than Senator Nickerson. From there, Natasha would have a clear view of the stage, as well as total privacy.”
“You go in using these.” He handed each of them a ticket printed on fancy card stock. “Those will get you into the box seats. And these”—he gave each of them a laminated security badge—“will get you in without attracting much attention and let you move around the off-limits areas.”
“Have you had any luck tapping into their security network?” asked Morgan.
“It’s about to come online. As soon as it does . . . There.” He brought up a map of the stadium on the screen, and a few dozen red dots appeared, moving jerkily like a squadron of fleas. “Each of those is a member of the event security team. There’s a small delay, but I can pinpoint each man’s location within a few feet.”
“You’re the man, Lowry!” said Conley.
“I am, aren’t I?” He turned back to his computer and flicked through windows faster than Morgan could keep up.
“Uh-oh,” said Lowry.
“That’s not a good sound. What is it?” asked Morgan, alarmed. Lowry leaned back to let them see the screen. On it was a photograph of Morgan. He looked slightly younger in it, but it was no more than five years old. “What the hell is this?”
“I guess someone knows you’re coming,” said Lowry. “This is on the network. Says here it’s supposed to be distributed to all security personnel. They’re going to be on the lookout for you, Cobra.”
“Shit.”
“Maybe you should sit this one out,” said Conley.
“There’s no way in hell I’m hanging back,” said Morgan. “But we go in separately. That way, if I get caught, you still have a fighting chance.”
“If you’re sure . . .” said Conley.
“Yeah, I’m sure. Let’s do this.”
“All right, fellas,” said Lowry. “It’s showtime. Earpieces
in
!” Morgan popped the little device snugly into his ear.
“Just like old times, eh, Dan?” said Conley, looking at him.
Morgan looked at Conley and grinned. “Ready?”
“Let’s go.”
Natasha was outside the stadium again, walking toward the same service entrance she had used when she walked in with Poole earlier that day. This time, she was wearing a business-casual outfit that concealed a skintight black catsuit underneath. A strap over her shoulder supported a heavy black bag, and around her neck hung the event staff ID she had swiped, now with a picture of her. She flashed it to the security guard at the gate, who waved her in stiffly but did not ask to check her bag or frisk her.
Once inside, she took a left and walked briskly down the long corridor that earlier had been so busy with scrambling staff but now was empty. A right turn up ahead led to the locker room and the senator, but
Natasha’s destination was straight ahead and up. She pressed on, approaching the turn, when she heard echoing footsteps. She looked back, unsure of where they were coming from, and ran bodily into a man who had just rounded the corner. She raised her eyes and saw that she was face-to-face with Dennis Poole.
“Vera?” he exclaimed, befuddled. “What—”
Before he could say any more, she wrapped her hands around his head and snapped his neck. He stopped talking midsentence and collapsed like a hunk of meat on the floor of a butcher shop. His lifeless eyes stared up at her, frozen in an expression of utter astonishment.
She looked around and found a narrow broom closet a few yards ahead. She drew an automatic lock pick from her pack and in seconds opened the closet door. It was cramped, but it would do. She dragged Poole’s limp carcass across the dirty concrete floor. Dragging corpses was always heavy and cumbersome, and for all her training, her frame was still not cut out for it. With a great deal of effort, she managed to heave the corpse inside and shut the door, locking it again. It was a hasty hiding place, but the closet should keep its secret long enough. As she turned away, a small part of her felt a twinge of remorse. Perhaps it was whatever aspect of Vera that still existed in her. But in any case, it was short-lived. Her attention was soon drawn to the applause that had erupted from the stadium. The event was about to begin, and she needed to get into position.
C
HAPTER
41
I
n a few minutes, the rally would start, and all the VIPs had apparently already been seated, judging from the absence of a line at the gate for the luxury boxes. Morgan knelt between two cars and waited for Conley to go in ahead of him. Two alert security guards were working the entrance, however, and Morgan decided there was no way he could make it past them with a gun. He unstrapped his ankle holster and tossed it under one of the nearby cars. Someone would be surprised to find it later that night, but by then it wouldn’t matter anymore.
He saw Conley disappear into the stadium. He counted to one hundred and then emerged from between the cars, walking toward the gate. He could only hope the guards wouldn’t recognize him, with his current disguise, from the old photograph. If they did, this mission was over for him, and it was all up to Conley.
Morgan walked confidently to the nearest guard and presented his ticket. The man scanned it, saying courteously, “Good evening, sir.” He motioned for Morgan to open his arms and spread his legs, then ran the metal detector baton along the outline of Morgan’s frame. “Enjoy yourself, sir,” the guard said, waving him in. Morgan walked past the guard into the stadium, then breathed a sigh of relief.
“Sir! Hold on!”
Shit
, he thought. Had they recognized him? Could he take on both guards at once? His mind raced to devise a strategy, and his eyes hunted his surroundings for possible ad hoc weapons. He turned around to face the guard.
“Yes?”
“Don’t want to forget this.” He had Morgan’s ticket in his hand. “They won’t let you in without it.”
Morgan thanked him and walked away, into the stadium. He went up a flight of stairs, and Conley was there waiting for him.
“No trouble?” Conley asked.
“All good,” he answered. They walked together up more stairs. There was another pair of security guards, dressed in sharp black suits. Morgan and Conley offered their tickets.
“That would be about halfway down and on your right,” said one of the guards, after examining the tickets.
The doors to the luxury boxes were on their right along an elegant wood-paneled hallway. The number of each box was emblazoned on the door. Together, they reached the one they had come for, number thirteen. Morgan caught Conley’s eye and held up three fingers. He counted down, and on his mark, he turned the knob, pushing the door open and rushing in, expecting violent resistance from T.
But, as they stood in the luxury box, with its lounge chairs and bar and wall-mounted high-definition TV, they didn’t see Natasha but rather just a man, handsome, silver-haired, looking at them indignantly.
“Nickerson!” Morgan gasped. He expected the senator to yell for help, but instead he composed himself and then looked at Morgan and Conley with controlled nonchalance.
“I can’t believe how shoddy the security in this place is,” Nickerson said.
Morgan twitched, ready to go for his jugular.
“I wouldn’t do that,” said Nickerson. “All I have to do is call out, and there will be a dozen security guards in here.”
“So why haven’t you already?” asked Conley.
“Ah, you must be Cougar,” he said, with mild amusement. “Alive and kicking, I see. I’ll have to let Natasha know that she failed even worse than she thinks.”
He cleared his throat. “The reason I haven’t called the guards is that I have no interest in seeing you captured by them. I must admit, I thought you would have skipped the country by now. But the truth is, I don’t want to attract any attention to myself, which having two men arrested or killed in my box would certainly accomplish. So let me tell you what’s going to happen. You’ll have thirty seconds to leave this stadium before I let security know you’re here. You’ve gotten this far, but I doubt you will be able to evade them if they know you’re inside and what you’re wearing.”
“Or maybe I’d rather snap your neck before I go,” said Morgan.
“No doubt you’d like to. But we all know why you’re here today, and it’s not for me.
She
is not here, obviously, and your time is running out. Try anything, and I’ll yell. Even if you do manage to kill me, you will risk capture. Get captured, and there’s no one left to stop her. So, what will it be?”
Morgan’s fury was close to flash point, but Conley put his hand on Morgan’s shoulder, which calmed him enough to control himself.
“One day, sooner or later,” said Morgan, “you’re going to pay for everything you’ve done.”
“I’m sure,” said Nickerson dismissively. “Now, off you go.”
Enraged, Morgan stormed out of the VIP box, with Conley behind him. They walked down the hallway they had come in through and past the two entrance guards, who merely regarded them blankly.
“I can’t believe we just left like that,” said Morgan.
“But he’s right, Cobra,” said Conley. “It’s a stalemate situation.”
“And meanwhile, we’re back at square one,” said Morgan.
“There are more than twenty thousand people in this stadium,” said Conley, “we have no idea where to even begin looking for T, and the speech is about to start. So the real pertinent question is, What now?”
Morgan visualized the stadium in his head, analyzing it for secluded vantage points. If he were in T’s position, where would he be? The answer was obvious.
“Lowry, Lowry, come in.”
“This is Lowry,” came his voice in Morgan’s ear.
“Lowry, the roof! Where does the perimeter intersect with the edge of the roof?”
Morgan heard clicking on Lowry’s end. After a few seconds, Lowry told him, “That would be . . . at the stadium lights right above you.”
It made sense. The light arrays would be a perfect cover from any eyes scanning the roofline, making anyone looking directly into them effectively blind. He mentally kicked himself for not thinking of it sooner. “Then that’s where she’ll be,” said Morgan. “Lowry, how do we get there?”
“Let me see . . .” Morgan heard typing on the other side. Then, “There’s a door down the hallway to your left that will take you to the maintenance area. Gain access to that, and I’ll direct you from there.”
They walked down the hallway. Finding the door, Morgan tested the knob to check if it was locked, when a voice from behind him bellowed, “Hey, what are you doing?”
It was one of the upstairs guards, in his black suit. Morgan noticed the bulge of a gun under his jacket.
“I’m sorry, sir, we were just looking for the bathroom.”
“Well, that’s not it,” he said brusquely. And then he stopped, as if he were listening to something in his earpiece. As he looked at Morgan and Conley, his eyes went wide, and his hand went for his gun. But he was too slow. Morgan elbowed him in the face and followed with a left hook to his temple. The man fell down, out cold.
He took the guard’s gun, a Colt semiautomatic, and checked it for ammo—a full clip. Morgan tucked it into his pants behind his back. Then he took the earpiece from the man’s ear and crushed it beneath his foot.
“Can you get that door open?” he said to Conley. Morgan kept lookout while Conley worked the lock with his tools. He opened it in under a minute and helped Morgan drag the unconscious man inside.
“Lowry, we’re in. Where now?”
“Up, baby, up.” He directed them through the twisting tunnels, past exposed pipes and raw concrete, until they opened a white door and saw, in the distance, the brightly illuminated dome of the Capitol and the Washington Monument towering behind it. They were on the flat top of the main section of the stadium, and on that rested the roof itself, white and undulating.
“On your left, you’ll find a ladder to the top,” said Lowry.
Morgan climbed first. When he reached the top, he looked around. There were four arrays of stadium lights, two on each side. “Lowry, which one is it?”
“How am I supposed to know? They’re all about the same distance from the podium.”
She could be at any one. Morgan looked in both directions. There wasn’t time to think about this. “I’ll go left,” he said, and he ran toward the nearest array, while Conley took the cue and ran right.
He scanned the scaffolding on the light arrays, each of which had four levels of narrow catwalks for maintenance. No sign of her on the nearest one. He sprinted toward the far lights. Below, in the stadium, the people were cheering. Senator McKay had just been announced.
Morgan approached the next group of stadium lights and saw a figure crouching on the second-tier catwalk, looking through the scope of a rifle whose muzzle extended out, in between the lights. T. He slowed his pace, stepped lightly, and didn’t say a word, careful so as not to alert her to his presence. Morgan climbed quietly onto the platform, the din below concealing whatever noise he made, his gun on her the entire time, and, once on his feet, he yelled over the applause, “Natasha! Step away from the rifle!”