The Eye of Shiva

CHAPTER 16

"How many inside the building?" Harker asked. She and Stephanie were in Elizabeth's office in Virginia, talking to Nick over the satellite link.

"Uncertain. Selena said six. There could be more. The terrorists took out the Marine guards. They're led by a man named Omar."

"That helps," Elizabeth said. "It's a common name but they're probably Abu Sayyaf. We'll look in the database." She paused. "Don't do anything stupid, Nick."

"If it's only six we can take them. But we have to get into the building. They're going to have people watching the entrances. Can you get plans of the embassy? Blueprints?"

"I can do that. Give me a minute." Stephanie's voice came over the link. In Virginia, she entered a string of commands on her keyboard. "I'm looking for them now," she said.

The Project computers were Crays. A search for the embassy building plans was child's play for their enormous power. The drawings were up on Stephanie's monitor within a minute.

"I'm looking at the plans," she told Nick. "The whole complex is built on an artificial extension into the bay. They sank six hundred concrete pillars into the bay floor and filled it in."

"How does that help?" Nick said. Stephanie heard impatience in his voice.

"There's an underground drainage system combined with a service tunnel for utilities serviced by a pumping station on the surface. The tunnel is big enough for a man to walk in. The pumps are gone but the groundskeepers use the old pump house for a storage facility. If you can get into the tunnel and up into the building it would put you on the grounds next to the Chancery."

"You see a way into the tunnel?"

"There's a building over it now and no way to tell until you get there. The access might be sealed off. There are three buildings on the next street over, to the right of the embassy grounds. The one in the middle is the one you want. I'm sending a satellite shot now."

Nick looked at his phone. A satellite picture of the embassy complex appeared. He saw the buildings Steph was talking about.

"Okay, I've got it."

Nick looked across the boulevard toward the embassy. The speakers were riling up the crowd. The riot police fingered their batons. Some of them held guns that fired rubber bullets. Nick could see half a dozen teargas guns being held at port arms. Things were about to get ugly.

"Hold on," Nick said into his phone. "Looks like more cops are showing up."

A Kia SUV with police markings and four men dressed in police uniforms pulled up. An officer got out and signaled his men into the street. They were armed with AK carbines.

Something bothered Nick about the scene. Then he realized what it was.

"This isn't right," he said to Ronnie. "The Filipinos don't carry AKs."

The officer walked to the guardhouse. A Marine corporal came to the door and opened it. The officer raised his carbine and shot him. His men opened fire on the line of police stretched in front of the embassy gates. The crowd erupted in panic as people scrambled to get out of the way.

"Holy shit," Nick said.

"Nick, what's happening?" Elizabeth's voice crackled in his ear.

"Terrorists, dressed like cops. They shot the Marine guard and they're firing on the riot police and the crowd. They're taking over the guardhouse."

"Nick, we gotta take cover," Lamont said.

There was a parking lot full of cars and a restaurant behind them. They ran behind one of the parked cars and watched what was happening across the street. A window in the front of the restaurant shattered, hit by a bullet. Another stray round whined through the air with a peculiar singing sound.

Nick was still on the link with Harker. "Everything's turning bad," he said. "The crowd's running. People are going down. The cops are getting slaughtered."

In a few minutes it was over. The demonstrators had fled, leaving trails of blood behind. Bodies lay in the street. Backpacks, pieces of clothing, shoes lay scattered on the ground. Banners and signs littered the pavement. The riot police lay where they'd fallen. It was a massacre.

A man walked among the bodies and fired an occasional kill shot. The embassy gates swung open. The terrorists took out black headbands and put them on. They got back in the Kia and drove into the compound. The man who had shot the Marine guards emerged from the gatehouse as the gates swung closed and followed them into the embassy.

Nick said, "They're not covering their faces. That's a bad sign. It means they don't care if they're identified. It could be a suicide mission."

Lamont said, "If they're the ones who blew up the Indian Embassy, they could be planning the same thing here. We need to get in there, get Selena."

"You think I don't know that?" Nick's voice was strained.

"Take it easy Nick, just sayin'."

"Yeah. All right, let's figure out how to get over to that building where the tunnel is."

Nick studied the urban terrain. Beyond the restaurant parking lot was a children's playground, then a building with another parking lot. If they could get through the playground and to the end of that lot without being seen, they'd be right across from where they needed to go.

"We'll move down to the end of the lot behind the cars, then through that playground," he said. "Keep going until we get to the end of the next lot. From there we can make it across the street. We time it right, they won't see us."

"They might not care," Ronnie said. "We're just three civilians trying to get away."

"Or they might want to add a few more to the score," Lamont said.

"Nick." It was Harker. "I'm going to call the president. Don't talk to me unless you need to. But keep the line open."

"Copy that," Nick said. He looked up and down the Boulevard. "Looks like all the bad guys are inside. Let's go."

They got up and sprinted to the end of the parking lot and into the playground. The playground was flat and green, full of mature trees. Big trees, big enough to stop bullets if somebody shot at them. But nobody did. They made it past the playground and into the next parking lot. There was good cover behind the cars. It would be a difficult shot from the embassy.

The lot bordered on a street called United Nations Avenue that formed a T with Roxas Boulevard. Across the boulevard, three long rectangular buildings stretched toward the bay. Their goal was the one in the middle.

They started across the boulevard.