Transfer of Power

WICKER HAD A crew of eight motivated Navy SEALS working feverishly.

Planning ahead, as always. Wicker had called a lumberyard in Forestville, Maryland, and placed an order for the supplies he would need to build the shooting platform. When his CO, Lt. Commander Harris, had given him the green light’ Wicker was on the phone within seconds.

SEAL Team Six’s strike element, which would be used to chase the terrorists if they left the country, was billeted at Andrews Air Force Base, where they were biding their time in hopes that they would be sent into action. Wicker explained his situation to the unit’s executive officer and told him that Harris had given him the okay. Wicker requested six men specifically, and within twenty minutes they had borrowed a truck from the motor pool and were on the way to the lumberyard. The fact that they had not obtained authorization for the truck was something the paper pushers could sort out later.

By a little past two in the afternoon they were downtown in their jeans and T-shirts unloading their equipment. Everything was ferried by hand up the bell tower of the Old Post Office, and now the men, all of whom were experienced snipers, were putting the finishing touches on the platforms.

Building one platform would not work. Two shots would be fired by two men using fifty-caliber rifles. Although the platforms’ construction was sturdy, if only one were used, the slightest movement by one man could send the other man’s shot dangerously awry.

The two platforms were actually rectangular boxes constructed of one-inch plywood and reinforced with four-by sixes and glued and screwed together. Wicker grabbed a hard plastic rifle case by the handle and laid it down on one of the platforms. With the others watching, he popped the clasps on the case and opened it. Inside sat a massive.50 caliber Barrett rifle. Sixty-one inches from muzzle to shoulder butt and weighing thirty pounds, it was one of the largest rifles in the world.

It used the powerful.50 caliber Browning cartridge and was capable of taking out targets at distances in excess of one mile.

Wicker, not a particularly large man, was only a half foot taller than the rifle. Scooping the heavy black weapon from its foam encasement, he pulled the fixed bipod into its extended position and set it down. He climbed onto the platform, slid in behind the rifle, and drew close to the scope. He peered through the circular eyepiece, and within seconds he was staring at the hooded terrorist sitting in the guard booth on the roof of the White House. At this short distance, the.50 caliber Barrett would normally be way too much firepower, but considering the security afforded the terrorists by the bulletproof Plexiglas, it was the right weapon for the job. Not just one Barrett, but two.

Wicker shifted his weight and moved subtly while he kept the crosshairs of the scope centered on the hooded man six hundred twenty feet away.

There was no wobbling. The platform was sturdy. Satisfied, Wicker stood and placed his rifle back in its case. While he put the case back in the corner, his men went to work to complete the project. Wicker looked at the setting sun and noticed a change in the weather just over the horizon. A welcome change. Grabbing the digital phone from his hip, he punched in a number and waited for the person on the other end to answer.