The Wrong Man

96

Olsen checked his watch. It was twelve thirty-seven. About right. A little behind schedule, but he wasn’t going to panic. Traffic was worse than expected. They’d accounted for a slowdown, given that certain streets would be barricaded in light of the procession, but this was worse than he’d figured. Still, he had plenty of time before one. And even if it were a few minutes past one, he wouldn’t be too late. The memorial was expected to last until at least a quarter past the hour.

And hell, even if he missed the memorial completely, the federal building was still going to be there.

Don’t panic. Mr. Manning always said, don’t panic.

He checked his side mirror. Behind him, the other two members of his team, Briggs and Roscoe, were in a Chevy sedan. They were the getaway, and the backup if things got rougher than expected.

He nudged the You-Ride truck along as traffic inched forward. Up ahead at the cross street-Miller Street-he saw a police officer directing vehicles. It didn’t really make sense, though. They were still three blocks away from the federal building, and that was where traffic was detoured. Not at Miller Street…

“I don’t get this,” he said, hearing the nerves in his voice.

“It’s just traffic backed up,” said Briggs, in the car behind him.

“It’s fucked up, though,” said another voice, McPike. McPike was the driver of the second You-Ride, the one destined for the state building. Olsen checked his side mirror again. The second You-Ride truck was… call it ten cars back in traffic. It was going to turn right at Miller Street, cut over, and drive south to the state building a block away, while Olsen would plow directly south into the federal plaza.

“Keep cool,” said Olsen, trying to take his own advice. “Keep cool.”

Traffic inched forward. The cop at the intersection with Miller Street made each car wait, spoke to the driver, then released him or her to go forward. It was hard to tell why. Stupid government assholes, holding up traffic to justify their existence.

The car in front of Olsen was next up, pulling up to the intersection with Miller Street. The police officer walked up to the driver’s side door and spoke to the driver. He pointed to the left and then stepped away from the car. The car drove on through the intersection.

The traffic cop then motioned Olsen forward, wiggling his fingers. Olsen took a breath and eased the You-Ride forward. The cop walked up to Olsen’s window, avoiding eye contact. Olsen lowered the window.

“So listen,” said the cop. Then his hands quickly raised up, a firearm in his hand. He fired a rubber bullet directly into Olsen’s face, knocking him unconscious.

It happened in coordination: Army tanks came from each side of Miller Street to cut off the You-Ride’s forward route. U. S. Special Forces converged from behind buildings on each corner of the intersection and charged both the You-Ride and the vehicle behind it, Briggs and Roscoe. The satellites had been following the You-Rides long enough to know that there was a backup car immediately behind.

Briggs and Roscoe grabbed their assault rifles but didn’t even get out of the car before a barrage of rubber bullets pelted them. The Special Forces subdued them almost instantly, without firing a single incendiary round of ammunition.

The process was identical for the second You-Ride truck driven by McPike, except that the Special Forces had approached from the rear. Before the two team members backing up McPike knew what had hit them, assault weapons crashed through the front windows and fired rubber bullets into their temples. McPike hadn’t fared much better, reaching for his sidearm instead of trying to access the fuse to his feet to begin ignition of the bomb. In any event, the Special Forces had smashed through his window and knocked him unconscious before he could spell his own name.

They didn’t know what to expect in the cargo area, other than the incendiary devices, but it turned out there were no humans inside, just the bombs. Specialists jumped inside each cargo area and detached the fuses from the blasting caps, so that even if the drivers had managed to engage the time-delayed fuses before being subdued, the fuses wouldn’t be connected to the blasting caps anymore.

“Truck number one clear!” the specialist in Olsen’s truck shouted into his microphone.

“Truck number two clear!” said the one in McPike’s truck.

The bombs were defused. The trucks were in custody. The terrorists were subdued.

Two trucks down, one to go.

The time was twelve forty-four P.M.