Under Siege

CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

The Longstreet Commission later listed many factors that contributed to the violence that occurred in Washington that day. However nobody disputed the assertion that the black population’s long-cherished, deep-seated belief that they were victims of intentional racist oppression aggravated the situation and brought it to a boil.

Young males in street gangs — black males, by definition in the inner city — began breaking windows and looting stores, and when soldiers showed up, they threw rocks and bottles and everything else they could readily lay their hands on.

At first the soldiers fired their rifles into the air. When that didn’t work, they waded in pushing and shoving and dragging the most belligerent to trucks for transportation to the armory.

Automobiles were set ablaze by the mobs, which became larger and more violent as television broadcast the madness. Inevitably some of the people on the streets were killed by soldiers, most of whom were no older than those who were screaming insults at them and hurling rocks. A television camera caught one of these incidents and instantly it became a rallying cry.

General Land ordered the television cameras off the streets, but by then it was too late. A dozen buildings in the poorer neighborhoods were ablaze and fire trucks and emergency crews were unable to get their equipment to the fires because of the rioting mobs. Some of the army officers decided to use tanks to try to cow the rioters, but the immediate response was to fill bottles with gasoline and stick blazing rags down the neck. These the rioters threw. After one tank was disabled and two men severely burned getting out of it, an accompanying tank opened fire with a machine gun. A dozen people were mowed down. The rioters fled in every direction, setting fire to cars and smashing windows as they ran. The whole scene played on television to a horrified nation.

The smell of smoke and burning rubber wafted throughout the city under the gray sky. Although one could smell the smoke almost everywhere in the city, the rioting was confined to the inner-city neighborhoods, the poor black ghettos, just as it had been during the major urban riots of the Vietnam War era. This did not occur by accident. Over half the twelve-thousand soldiers in the district were being used to protect the public buildings and monuments of official Washington. Still, the vast majority of rioters stayed close to home of their own accord, fighting and looting and burning in their own neighborhoods.

Generals Land and Greer rushed troops to every corner. The only option they had was to continue to increase the troop presence until the situation stabilized. The search for the terrorists was abandoned.

As the sun moved lower on the western horizon, the temperature of the air began to drop quickly from the daytime high of fifty-six degrees. In the armory General Greer and the staff watched the falling mercury as closely as they did the incoming situation reports. Perhaps cold could accomplish what the soldiers couldn’t. Someone prayed aloud for rain.

With darkness approaching General Greer committed the last of his troops to the inner-city neighborhoods. Gunfire and flames still racked the city, but the number of people on the streets was definitely decreasing.

“Captain Grafton. We have a problem out front.” The young army captain was apologetic. “General Greer said he’s too busy and asked if you would handle it.”

Jake laid down the pen he was using to draft a report for General Land. “Yes.”

“It’s out front, sir. If you would accompany me?”

In the hallway the junior officer told him, “We’ve got some people out here, sir, who want their relatives released into their custody.”

“How many?”

“Only three. They had to walk to get here, and with the rioting and all …”

“Yeah. How many have you released so far?”

“We haven’t released anybody, sir. We send the curfew violators and single-possession cases over to Fort McNair, but the rioters and looters and shooters we’ve kept here.”

“These people the relatives want, what category are they in?”

“A looter, a shooter, and a possession case. The possession case is a woman. She was giving a guy a blow job in a car and since they weren’t supposed to be in cars, our people searched them. The guy had some crack on him and she had some traces of powder and crack in her purse. So we brought them in.”

The civilians were standing by the desk near the entrance to the equipment bay. Two were black women and one was a white man. Jake spoke to the oldest woman first.

“I’m Harriet Hannifan, General. I want my boy back.” She was in her fifties, Jake guessed, stout, with gray hair. Her purse hung on her arm. Her shoes were worn.

“What’s his name, ma’am?”

“Jimmy Hannifan.”

Jake turned to the sergeant at the desk, who consulted his notes. “Looting, sir. He was throwing rocks through store windows. We caught him trying to run with a television. He dropped it and it broke all to hell and we caught him anyway.”

“Your son ever been in trouble before, ma’am?”

“He’s my grandson. Lord, yes, he’s been in trouble at school and he runs with a bad crowd. He’s only sixteen and wants to quit school but I won’t let him.”

“Bring him out here,” Jake told the captain.

“How far did you walk to get here?” Jake asked Mrs. Hannifan.

“A couple miles or so.”

“Pretty dangerous.”

“He’s all I got.”

“And you, ma’am?” Jake said to the other woman, who was younger than Mrs. Hannifan but not dressed as well.

“It’s my boy. He shot at some people. I saw the soldiers take him away.”

Jake was tempted to refuse. But he hesitated. “How far did you come?”

“From Emerson and Georgia Avenue. I don’t know how far it is.”

“Five or six miles,” the sergeant said. “Through all that rioting.”

Jake nodded at the captain.

“And you, sir?”

“My name’s Liarakos. I’d like to see my wife. The sergeant says she’s been detained for drug possession.”

“You mean you want her released?”

“No.” Liarakos spoke forcefully. “I want to see her first. Then, maybe, but …” His voice trailed off.

Jake turned to the captain and said, “Bring those men to my office. And take this gentleman back to visit his wife.” He asked the women to accompany him.

Back in his office with everyone seated, he sent Toad for coffee. Jack Yocke sat silently at the other desk.

The younger woman began to sob. Her name was Fulbright. “I know it’s not your fault,” she said, “but it’s more than a body can stand, what with the drugs and the unemployment and the schools that don’t teach them nothing. How can they grow up to be men living in this? I ask you.”

“I don’t know.”

The silence grew uncomfortable as Mrs. Fulbright sobbed. Jake could think of nothing to say, and once he shot a glance at Yocke, hoping he would help. The reporter returned his look impassively and said nothing.

Toad brought the coffee just seconds before two soldiers escorted the men into the room in handcuffs. Men? They were just boys.

“You kids are leaving,” Jake said, “because these women cared enough about you to risk their lives walking over here. You may not have much money, but you got something a lot of folks will never have — people that love you.”

Both the youngsters looked uncomfortable, embarrassed. Ah, what’s the use? Jake wondered. But maybe, just maybe … “Toad, when these ladies finish their coffee, drive these people home.”

“My God, Thanos, why did you come?”

“I—”

She held up a hand so he couldn’t see her face. He pulled her hand away. She was crying.

“You shouldn’t have come,” she whispered. “Oh, my God, Thanos, look what I’ve done to myself.”

The room they had her in held five other women. It stank of vomit and urine. A half dozen bare mattresses lay scattered on the floor, but there was no other furniture. Elizabeth sat huddled on a mattress. Her clothes were filthy.

“I’m sorry, Thanos. I’m sorry.”

“That’s the first step on the road back, Elizabeth.”

“I feel so dirty. So degraded! And I’ve crawled into this sewer all by myself. How can you even look at—”

“You want to go home? Without the dope?”

“I don’t know if I can! But why would you — don’t you know what I’ve done? Don’t you know why I’m here?”

“I know.”

She tore her hand from his grasp and held it in front of her face. “Please leave, for the love of—”

Liarakos rose and pounded on the door.

“Sir, I’d like to take my wife home.”

Liarakos stood in front of Grafton’s desk. Jake Grafton forced himself to look up into the man’s face. “Fine,” he said. “Where do you live?”

“Edgemoor.”

“Isn’t that over on the other side of Rock Creek Park?”

“Yes.”

“Jack, go catch Toad. Tell him he’ll have two more passengers. Go with him, Mr. Liarakos.”

Liarakos turned to go, then looked back. “Thanks, I—”

Jake waved him out.

In ten minutes Yocke was back. “They all left with Toad,” he said and sat down in the chair in front of Jake’s desk. “Do you know who that man was?”

“Lee-something. I’ve forgotten.”

“Thanos Liarakos. He’s the lawyer representing Chano Aldana.”

“Everybody has their troubles,” Jake Grafton said, his eyes back on his report. The skin on his face was taut across the bones. His eyes looked like they were recessed even deeper into their sockets.

“You knew that when you first saw him, didn’t you?”

“You’re worse than Tarkington. Go find something to do someplace else, will you?”

Yocke rose uncertainly. He wandered aimlessly for several seconds, went out the door and down the hall, then out to the desk in the bay where the soldiers were checking in the prisoners. He waited until the sergeant finished logging in two more surly prisoners, then asked, “Mrs. Liarakos. Who was the man arrested with her?”

“Ah, I’ve got it here.” The sergeant flipped through his book, a green, hardbound logbook. He found the entry. “Guy who refused to give his name. Stuff in his wallet says he is one T. Jefferson Brody, a lawyer if you can believe that. Three hours ago. He’s in bay four if you want to talk to him.” The sergeant gestured vaguely to his left.

Some of the prisoners were still drunk and belligerent. They shouted and raved obscenities. The smell of urine and body odor made the air heavy and lifeless. Yocke tried to breathe shallowly.

He looked into bay four, a waist-high enclosure with a stained concrete floor normally used for the repair of vehicles. The bay now held several dozen men who were shackled in place. Immediately across the corridor was another bay which contained women. The women sat with their backs to the men.

Yocke didn’t recognize Brody. Dressed in a filthy blue suit, the lawyer was standing and straining against the chain around his wrist, screaming at the top of his lungs at the women’s area. “You fucking cunt! I’ll rip your fucking liver out with my bare hands. We won’t be in here forever, you fucking bitch. Then you wait! I’ll get you if it’s the last thing I ever do!”

One of the soldiers walked over with a look of disgust on his face. “Hey you! Big mouth! I’m telling you for the very last time. Shut up!”

“That fucking cunt robbed me,” Brody howled. “I’ll—”

“Shut up, butt-face, or we’ll gag you. You hear me!”

Brody fell silent. He stared fixedly across at the women’s holding area. After a moment he sat down, but his gaze never wavered.

Jack Yocke turned away, slightly nauseated. Hell couldn’t be any worse than this, he told himself, and shivered.

The first bomb exploded at six-thirty p.m. A truck packed with five tons of dynamite was driven through the fence at a huge electrical transmission substation on Greenleaf Point, near the mouth of the Anacostia River. The driver ran back through the hole in the wire as two soldiers chased him and fired their rifles. The driver disappeared into the low-income housing projects nearby. The soldiers were going back through the fence to examine the truck when its cargo detonated in a stupendous blast that was felt and heard for miles. The electrical substation was instantly obliterated. The lights went out in downtown and southeast Washington.

In the next fifteen minutes three more substations were attacked, effectively depriving the entire city of electricity.

“At least the damned TV stations are off the air,” Toad Tarkington told Rita Moravia, who had just arrived at the armory on the back of an army truck.

While General Greer was responding to these attacks, a major natural-gas pumping station in Arlington was bombed. The explosion resembled a small nuclear blast. Then the place caught fire. In the darkness that fell on the city when the lights went out the glare of the raging inferno could be seen from rooftops all over the city.

At the same time the explosions were racking the city, an army platoon was ambushed and wiped out on the Capital Beltway by twenty men carrying automatic weapons. Three men in uniform waved the truck to a halt, then shot the driver and sergeant as they emerged from the cab. Some of the men were machine-gunned as they exited the back of the truck. A dozen survivors, trapped in the truck bed and unable to see out, threw out their weapons and surrendered. They were led down into the drainage ditch beside the freeway and shot. The weapons, ammunition, and radios were collected and loaded into the truck.

The attackers climbed into the back of the vehicle under the canvas covering and took their seats. In the cab two men examined the controls of the truck, which was still idling, managed to get the transmission into gear, and drove away.

The truck left the beltway at Kenilworth Avenue and proceeded south toward the city at about twenty-five miles per hour. Anticipating the enthusiasm of teenage soldiers, the Army had long ago installed a governor to prevent the engine from overrevving, yet the inexperienced driver couldn’t get the transmission into a higher gear.

The two headlights behind metal grilles put out little light, but it was enough. The huge tires rolled easily over the potholes and broken pavement that commuters had accepted as their lot for years.

On the front of the truck was a huge steel horizontal beam, painted olive-drab like the rest of the vehicle. This beam was intended by the Army to enable the truck to push other, disabled, military vehicles.

At the Kenilworth — New York Avenue interchange a half dozen National Guardsmen were manning a roadblock. The driver of the hijacked truck didn’t even slow down. The steel beam on the front delivered a glancing blow to the bus parked crossways in the road, shoving it aside as the truck careened on with the engine roaring. The men in back opened up with automatic weapons at the soldiers in the road as the truck swept past.

A third of a mile later the truck thundered by the sign that marked the boundary of the District of Columbia. It was a large white sign with blue letters artfully arranged above and below the logo of the Capitol dome. The sign read: WELCOME TO WASHINGTON, A CAPITAL CITY, MARION C. BARRY, MAYOR.

Henry Charon soaked the old bandage with water from the jug, then slowly unwrapped it from around his waist. It hurt too much for him to twist around to try to see the wound, so he didn’t bother. He merely wrapped strips of the stolen sheet around his middle and tied them in neat knots.

Then he put on a flannel shirt and over that a sweatshirt.

The coat he had appropriated last night from the college boy was fashionable but certainly not utilitarian enough for Charon’s taste. He hung it on a nail and donned a spare water-resistant parka. His well-worn leather hunting boots went on his feet over two pairs of wool socks.

He threaded a scabbard for a hunting knife onto his belt and positioned it so it hung into his rear hip pocket. When the belt was fastened and adjusted just so below the makeshift bandage about his middle, he inserted the thin-bladed razor-sharp skinning knife he favored into the scabbard and snapped the restraining strap around the handle.

Lastly he put on his cap, a wool-lined billed affair with ear flaps folded around the sides, just in case. The cap was a dark brown and bore the dirt and stains of many winters.

The silencer attached smoothly, effortlessly to the 9-mm pistol. He checked to ensure the magazine was loaded and pulled back the slide until he saw the gleam from a round in the chamber. Flicking the safety on, he slipped the weapon behind his belt in the small of his back. The grenades and two loaded magazines for the pistol went into the pockets of the parka.

He opened the duffle bag and checked the Model 70 Winchester. Still secure, properly padded, with a box of .30–06 ammo wrapped in bubble wrap. He zipped the bag closed and slung it on his shoulder.

What else? Oh yeah, the pencil flash. He tried it, then turned it off and stowed it in one of the pockets of the parka.

Not the radio. It would be nice but was too bulky. Food, water? A handful of jerky and a plastic baby bottle full of water — that would have to do. And the street map.

Anything else?

Gloves. He pulled them on slowly, good pigskin gloves that fit perfectly.

True, this would not be a stalk of Rocky Mountain Bighorn above timberline in subzero cold and blowing snow. Yet the quarry would be the wariest, most difficult game of all — man. Henry Charon grinned in delicious anticipation and turned off the battery-powered lantern.

The hijacked truck drove slowly through the gate into the armory parking lot and came to a stop beside three other trucks. The driver turned off the lights, killed the engine, and climbed down. On the other side the sergeant walked back and watched his men disembark from the bed.

The men didn’t line up in formation. They immediately wandered away in twos and threes.

The parking lot was lit by emergency lights mounted on poles and powered by portable generators, which were noisy. The light was adequate, but barely.

The sergeant and a half dozen men walked toward the open door of the armory and passed inside. Two of the men halted inside the huge open bay and stared a moment at the prisoners shackled to the south wall. In the dim glare of the emergency lights that had automatically illuminated when the electricity failed the bay was quite a sight. Over two hundred sobbing, cursing, crying men and women were chained there. The noise was like something from a nightmare about an insane asylum.

After several seconds of silent observation, the intruders turned their attention to the soldiers guarding them, the men coming and going, the ladder that led up to a catwalk and more offices.

Another two of the men walked the length of the bay to the door on the other end while the sergeant and his remaining companions left the bay and walked into the hallway. Although the sergeant knew no English and couldn’t read the posted signs, he immediately headed for the large double door standing open at the end of the hall that seemed to have a large number of people coming and going. He passed several Americans on the way, but they didn’t give him a glance. With his dark, Latin complexion he fit right into this multiracial army.

The fake sergeant, with his two companions immediately behind him, paused in the large open doorway. Maps covered every wall and radios and telephones stood on the desks. In the center of the room behind a large desk sat a stocky man with two silver stars on each collar.

With a nod to his companions, the sergeant unobtrusively removed a grenade from the webbing across his chest and pulled the pin while the two men beside him did likewise. The three of them each tossed the grenades underhanded toward the center of the room and dove behind nearby desks for cover.

“Grenades!”

The shout galvanized the soldiers. Men were leaping and running and diving when the little hand bombs exploded. The shrapnel destroyed the emergency lighting.

The darkness and silence that followed the explosions was broken only by the high-pitched scream of some poor soul in mortal agony. Then the three intruders opened fire with their rifles.

Out in the squad bay the explosions were muffled but plainly audible. As the soldiers reacted the two terrorists near each door began, in a very businesslike fashion, shooting uniformed men as fast as they could aim and pull the trigger.

But there were too many soldiers. In less than twenty seconds the four intruders were dead.

In the parking lot the gunfire and staccato blasts of grenades continued unabated. One of the men from the hijacked truck reached an M-60 machine gun mounted on a swivel on the back of a jeep and began spraying the soldiers indiscriminately. He was soon shot, but another man took his place. Over eighty soldiers went down in the first thirty seconds of the firefight.

Inside the command post, most of the soldiers had been unarmed. Not that it mattered. The only light was the strobing muzzle blasts. Those soldiers who survived the grenades lay huddled on the floor as the bullets lashed and tore through the furniture and radios. By some miracle, all three of the terrorists fired their weapons aimed too high.

One officer had a pistol. When the automatic bursts stopped — he thought the intruders had expended all the shells in their magazines and were changing them — he opened fire with the pistol at the spots in the darkness where the muzzle blasts seemed to have been coming from. He hit two of the gunmen, but the third one successfully reloaded and killed him with a burst of six slugs.

This man emptied his rifle and reached for another grenade. Just as he got the pin out, a private ran up to the door behind him and gave him a point-blank burst from his M-16. The grenade fell, unseen by the private, who was killed in the explosion that followed a few seconds later. From the first grenade blast to the last, thirty seconds had passed.

Outside in the parking lot the battle lasted longer. Between the machine gun and bursts from M-16s on full automatic, the number of men who were down was staggering.

Still the soldiers who were unwounded or not wounded too severely fought back. In the confusion some of the Americans shot each other.

The shooting was still going on a minute later when someone began roaring, “Cease fire, cease fire.” Then it stopped.

The sergeants were turning the bodies of the terrorists over and searching their pockets by the time that Jake Grafton got outside with his rifle. He had been in the head.

“They all look Latin, sir,” someone said to Jake.

“Here’s one still alive.” The man the soldier was referring to was babbling in Spanish. He had a hole in the center of his stomach that was pumping blood. He was staring at the wound and repeating the rosary in Spanish.

“Colombia, sí?”

The wounded man continued his prayer. The soldier grabbed his shirt, half lifted him, and shook him violently. “Colombia, sí?”

“Sí, sí, sí…”

“I hope you die slow, motherfuck!” The soldier dropped the man to the pavement.

“How many did we lose?” Jake asked the major beside him as he stared about at the carnage.

“We’re counting. Sweet Jesus, I think a lot of our guys shot each other. Everybody was shooting at everybody.” The major’s face wore an indescribable look of sadness. “God have mercy.”

Jake Grafton felt a terrible lethargy. He wanted to just turn off his brain.

“General Greer’s dead, sir.”

Jake nodded slowly. Somehow he wasn’t surprised. Toad, Rita, where were they?

He found them inside administering first aid to wounded men. Rita was working on a man with a sucking chest wound and Toad was trying to get the bleeding stopped on a man with a bullet through the thigh.

Jake left them and went to find a radio that still worked.

The radio was in the command post, its metal cover scarred by shrapnel. All over the room the medics and volunteers worked feverishly in the light of battery-powered lanterns and flashlights to save the living. The dead lay unattended in their own blood and gore. Jake Grafton fought the vomit back and held the flashlight as the technician tuned the radio to the proper frequency and made the call.

Minutes passed. The saliva in Jake’s mouth kept flowing and he kept swallowing. His eyes remained firmly on the radio.

After an eternity the chairman’s voice came over the speaker. Jake picked up his mike.

“Captain Grafton, sir. The terrorists found us. They just hit the armory about six or seven minutes ago. We think about eighteen or twenty of them. We haven’t got a good count yet, but we think we’ve got about fifty U.S. dead and a hundred wounded.”

Silence. What was there to say? When the words came it was a question: “Who’s the senior army officer over there still on his feet?”

“Colonel Jonat, I think, sir. He’s checking the wounded in the parking lot. General Greer and the two brigadiers that were here are dead.”

“I’ll be over there by helicopter as soon as I can. Right now the Vice-President wants to see me over at the White House. Tell the colonel to hold the fort.”

“Yes, sir.”

Jake went outside to find Colonel Jonat and get some air. The emergency generators continued to hum and the lights made grotesque shadows.

After a brief conversation with the colonel, who was organizing the transport of the wounded to the hospital, Jake bummed a cigarette. He was standing beside the door savoring the bitter taste of it when Rita came out. “I didn’t know you smoked, sir.”

Jake Grafton took another drag.

The distance was six hundred yards if it was an inch. Little quartering crosswind. Maybe ten knots. Let’s see — the bullet would be in the air for about a second. How much would the wind cause it to drift? He tried to remember the wind tables. Ten knots was about seventeen feet per second. Forty-five degrees off — call it twelve feet in a second. The bullet would drift twelve feet every second it was in the air, if he was right about the velocity of the wind and the direction, and if the wind was steady throughout the flight of the bullet, which it wouldn’t be.

And the trajectory drop — about nine or ten feet at six hundred yards.

An impossible shot.

Only a damned fool would try a shot like that.

Henry Charon steadied the rifle on the concrete rail and stared through the scope at the armory. The average guy was six feet tall, so twice that distance would be twelve feet.

The people looked tiny in the scope, even with the nine-power magnification.

The assassin twisted the parallax adjustment ring on the scope to the infinity setting, then backed off a thirty-second of an inch. He settled the rifle again and braced it against his shoulder and studied the scene before the door of the armory.

He had come here because he knew that General Land would come to the armory eventually. Yet with all that shooting over there a while ago — the chairman of the Joint Chiefs should be coming shortly. All Charon had to do was wait. And make this shot.

Wait a sec — that guy standing there smoking near the door? Isn’t that the officer from last night? Isn’t that the man who was standing on the street outside the house under the streetlight?

It’s him, all right. Same grungy coat and khaki trousers, same build, same shaped head.

That man hadn’t fired the shot that had hit Charon, of course, but he had sprayed a clip full of .223 slugs within inches of his head. He had certainly tried. Wonder if he would try again, given the opportunity?

The thought amused Charon.

He backed away from the scope a moment, rubbed his eyes, then settled in with the rifle hard up against his shoulder. He thumbed off the safety and, just for grins, steadied the scope crosshairs about twelve feet to the right and twelve feet above Jake Grafton’s chest. That was the spot.

He filled his lungs, exhaled, and concentrated on holding the rifle absolutely motionless while he took the slack out of the trigger.

Releasing the pressure on the trigger, Charon breathed several times as he thought about last night, about the feel of being chased.

But now — now was after. He was looking back.

What was he, Henry Charon, going to do with ten million dollars if by some miracle he got away? Sit on a beach somewhere and sip fruit drinks? Perhaps Europe. He tried to picture himself strolling the Left Bank or touring castles on the Rhine. Who was he kidding? He had never expected to get out of this alive. Thirty or forty years of boring anticlimax would be the same as prison.

He exhaled and steadied the crosshairs and ever so gently caressed the trigger with firm, steady pressure. Like all superb riflemen he concentrated on his sight picture without anticipating the moment of letoff. So he was agreeably surprised when the rifle fired.

Something stung Jake Grafton’s upper left arm and he jerked. He looked. A hole. There was a hole in his coat! What …

He heard the report, a sharp crack.

“Take cover!” he screamed. “Take cover!” He pushed Rita down and fell on the pavement beside her. “Fire coming in!”

Where? He looked around. Against the skyline he could just see the hulking shape of RFK Stadium. Jake scrambled to his feet and began to run. A flash from the stadium high on the structure. Something buzzed by his ear.

Luckily he had hung onto his rifle. It held a full magazine.

As he ran through the gate and turned right for the stadium Jake shrugged off his coat and let it fall. Out of the circle of light and into the darkness, running hard, his heart coming up to speed too quickly and his breath not quickly enough, running …

A goddamn sniper! Some nut or dope addict? Or a diversion to pull the troops out of the armory?

Someone was following him, running along behind. He didn’t look back.

The stadium was surrounded by a huge chain-link fence topped by barbed wire. Everything in this goddamn city had a fence around it! He made for an arch in the structure that he thought should be a gate. The fence would have a gate outside that. It did.

It was padlocked. He shot the lock. Then jerked it. No. This time he put the muzzle right up against one of the links in the chain and pulled the trigger. Sparks flew and slivers of metal sprayed him, but the chain fell away.

He tugged at the gate. Rita pounded up. She was carrying a rifle. She helped him pull the gate open.

“Get men to surround this stadium outside the fence. Tell them to shoot anybody coming out unless it’s me.”

“You think he’s still in there?”

“I dunno. Keep moving. Don’t be a stationary target.” He went through the gate and ran for the arch.

Ramps led away to the right and left. Jake turned left and trotted upward.

On the second level he stopped to catch his breath and listen. The place was dark as a tomb.

Madness. This was madness.

Rita met a squad of soldiers running toward the stadium with their weapons at high port. “Surround it. Stay outside the fence. Captain Grafton’s in there. Anybody else comes out, shoot them.”

“No warning shots?”

“No. Shoot first. And take cover. This guy is a sniper. Try to get behind something in the darkness and lay very still.” She pointed to the sergeant. “Go back to the armory and ask the colonel for a couple dozen more men. Spread them around.”

“What are you going to do?”

“I’m going in there too.” And with that she slipped through the gate in the fence and ran for the ramp.

Jake walked now, slowly and carefully with the rifle held in both hands and his finger on the safety. His eyes had adjusted all they were going to. He had had trouble the last few years with his night vision, but giving up smoking had helped a lot. His night vision was almost normal now. And he had just smoked a cigarette!

The place was so quiet. Black slabs of concrete, long corridors, huge doors that led out to the seats.

On the third level he turned and went out to the seats, where he could survey the interior of the stadium. There was a faint glow from the clouds, just enough to see the form of the place but not enough to see anyone on the other side of the playing field, if there were anyone there to see.

He hunkered down partially shielded behind a row of seats and scanned carefully, examining the geometric pattern of seats and aisles. After a minute he shifted position and began scanning in the other direction.

Nothing.

He was going to have to come up with a system. Something scientific. A plan.

Okay. He would go up to the top-level concourse and work his way completely around the stadium, occasionally taking the time to survey the seats. Then he would come down a level and repeat the procedure, and so on.

If the guy is in here …

But he probably isn’t. Why would he stay?

Jake got up, staying low, and moved along the row. He would go out a different place than where he came in. No use being stupid about this.

He heard the bullet smack the seat near him and the booming echo of the report immediately thereafter. He fell flat and crawled, the rifle clunking against the seats.

Well, one thing’s clear at least. He’s still here.

Colonel Orrin Jonat sent a dozen more troopers to the stadium. With that dozen gone and the casualties and people to transport the wounded to the hospital and stack the dead, he was down to less than fifty men to guard almost four hundred and run the war.

First he took the time to arrange four teams of two men each around the armory. Not enough men, it was true, but all he could spare. It had also occurred to him that the sniper from the stadium might be a diversion. Still he had to balance that possibility against the other requirements. He was going to have to bring in a couple of companies from the streets. He didn’t have enough men to get new radios in service and keep track of units on the streets.

Were these terrorists the last of them? he asked himself. If only he knew the answer to that!

The army lieutenant leading the squad across the vast, empty parking lots toward the stadium heard the shot from inside. When he got to the gate the sergeant there quickly briefed him.

“Maybe we should go in, sir?” the sergeant suggested.

“The navy people told us to stay out, right?”

“Yes, sir.”

“So we got two good guys and at least one bad guy in there in the dark. If we send more people in, we’ll end up shooting the wrong folks. It’s inevitable. We just did that over at the armory. Not again. Deploy the men around the stadium. Anybody tries to sneak out, drill ’em dead.”

Henry Charon was thoroughly enjoying himself. Standing at the mouth of one of the tunnels that led out from the concourse, he looked through the scope on the rifle. He could just make out the man on the other side of the stadium scuttling up the stairs toward the tunnel exit. This is a damn good scope, he told himself. It gathers the ambient light, allowing you to see better at night with the scope than you can with the naked eye.

Charon moved the crosshairs slightly to one side of the moving man and squeezed the trigger. The rifle set back against his shoulder with a nice firm kick as the roar filled the stadium.

He worked the bolt, then trotted back into the tunnel. He turned left at the concourse and jogged along.

He felt good. His side was hurting but not terribly so and he had adequate range of motion. He was fit. He could trot ten miles without breaking a sweat.

Henry Charon wondered if the other man was having as much fun as he was.

“Colonel, there’s a bunch of people coming down the street.”

Orrin Jonat looked at the soldier disbelievingly. “What?”

“A bunch of people. Not armed apparently. They’re just walking this way.”

“How many is a bunch?”

“Hundreds. We can’t tell.”

Colonel Jonat followed the soldier outside. He walked to the gate and looked down the street. Good lord, the street was filled with people.

He stepped back through the gate and got his people in. Then he had it closed. It was just a chain-link fence about six feet high. He asked the sergeant to install the padlock.

“I don’t know where the lock is, sir.”

“Go find it,” Colonel Jonat said. “Or get one of those locks we’ve been using for the prisoners. Hurry.”

He stood there waiting. The head of the column turned and a dozen people came toward the gate shoulder to shoulder.

“Open up.”

The crowd was mostly black. Some white people, but predominantly black men and women. They ranged from young to fairly elderly. Some of the people were supporting others. There was even a man in a wheelchair. The man facing Colonel Jonat was about forty. He spoke. “Open up.”

“This is a military installation. I’m the officer in charge, Colonel Jonat. I’m ordering you people to disperse. You may not come in.”

“We’re not armed, Colonel, as you can see. There are about a thousand people here and nobody is even carrying a pocketknife. Now open this gate.”

“It’s not locked, Tom,” the man beside him said, pointing.

Where in hell is that sergeant?

“Open the gate or we’ll open it. I’ll not ask you again.”

“What do you want here? Talk to me.”

The spokesman stood aside. “Open the gate,” he said to the people beside him. They laid willing hands on the gate and pushed.

Jonat jumped back out of the way. He backed up ten feet or so and soldiers with their rifles ready surrounded him. “Halt, goddammit, or we’ll open fire!”

The crowd came through the gate and stopped two feet in front of the colonel. He could see more and more people gathering in the street. A thousand? He believed it.

“We want your prisoners.”

“You aren’t going to get them. Now get the hell off government property or—”

“Or what? You would shoot unarmed civilians who are just standing here? What are you, some kind of Nazi?”

Jonat tried to reason with the man. He raised his voice so that more people could hear. “Listen, folks. I don’t know why you came, but I can’t release these prisoners. They’ve shot at soldiers, killed some, looted, burned, sold drugs — you name it. I know Washington has been through hell the last few days, but these people will have to answer for what they’ve done. They will get a fair hearing and federal judges will treat them fairly. Please, go on home and let’s get this city back to normal. Your sons and husbands will be treated fairly. I promise!”

“We want these people now.”

“Out! Get out. Or I’ll order these men to shoot you where you stand.”

The crowd moved as one. They came forward, crowding, pressing. One woman walked up so close to the soldier beside Jonat that the muzzle of his M-16 was against her breast.

“Go ahead, Colonel,” she said. “Tell him to shoot. He can’t miss. I’ll hold still.”

She was a black woman, about thirty or so, with a strong, proud face. Orrin Jonat stared at her, but she was staring at the soldier who held the rifle. He was black too. He stared back, his jaw slack, his hand on the trigger of his weapon. “Could you do it?” she asked softly. “Could you murder me? Could you spend the rest of your life seeing my face and knowing that you killed me when I offer you no harm?”

The soldier picked the muzzle up, pointing the rifle safely at the sky, and took a step backward.

“Move back, Colonel. Move back.” The spokesman also spoke softly, but with a hard edge to his voice.

Involuntarily the colonel retreated a step. As he did so the whole crowd moved silently forward. “Order your men to stand back, Colonel. You don’t want to be the Reinhard Heydrich of Washington. Order them back.”

“We know who these people are. We’ll find them and arrest them again. They will answer for their acts. As you will.”

“As God is my judge, I know you speak the truth, Colonel. Now stand back.”

To his credit, Orrin Jonat knew when he was beaten. He spoke loudly: “Hold your fire, men. No shooting. Now back up.”

The spokesman led the way through the door. He paused inside and looked at the bodies arranged in rows on the floor as people swarmed in behind him. Then he looked at the prisoners shackled to the wall. He motioned to his companions and they started forward.

Toad Tarkington was making a list of the dead from the information on their dogtags when the civilians came through the door, and now he positioned himself between the obvious leader and the prisoners. “Stop right there,” he shouted. “Not another fucking step, buddy.”

“Get out of the way.” The man spoke calmly but with an air of authority.

The crowd surged past the man who faced Toad. Men, women, old people, they just kept coming.

Toad reached inside his coat and drew a pistol. He pointed it at the man in front of him and cocked the hammer.

“I can’t shoot everybody, Jack, but I can sure as hell shoot you. Now stop these people or I blow your head clean off.”

Out of the corner of his eye he saw something coming. He pulled the trigger just as the lights went out.

Jake Grafton stood in the third-level concourse listening. He was in total darkness, a spot so black he couldn’t even see his hands. He closed his eyes and concentrated on what he could hear.

Some background noise from over toward the armory, but in here, nothing. Quiet as King Tut’s tomb.

He opened his eyes and felt his way along the wall. Ahead he could see the glow where a ramp along the exterior wall came up. He paused. He would be an excellent target when he entered that faint glow. If there were anyone around.

He took a deep breath to steady himself, then moved forward.

Up a level. He would climb up a level.

Five minutes had passed since that second shot had spanged into the seat beside him as he scurried up the stairs for the safety of the tunnel. Too long. He should have moved more than the hundred yards he had come.

He should have set up an ambush. As long as this guy doesn’t know where I am, Jake told himself, I’ve got the advantage.

But there was the ramp. Should he go for it or stay here?

His mouth was dry. He licked his lips and wiped the sweat from his forehead. Okay. To do it or not? The entrance to the ramp was only fifteen yards or so away.

He went for it as fast as he could. He rounded the corner and halted with his back against the wall, breathing hard. Then he heard it. A faint laugh.

Someone laughing!

“This is really too easy. You’re not using your head, mister.”

Jake ran up the ramp. As hard and fast as he could go. He came out on the top level and trotted along the concourse. After about a minute had passed he found a real dark spot and came to a halt. He stood there gripping the rifle tightly with both hands and listening.

Ambush. He needed to find a spot. Needed to sit and let this psycho come to him. Needed to wait if it took all night. But where?

He kept going. Fifty yards further along he came to another place where two ramps came up from below. There seemed to be more light than usual. Aha, the armory was down there and the emergency lights in the parking area were reflecting up here. Jake looked around. If he went along this corridor to the north, he could look back this way. If and when, bang.

His mind made up, he went down the corridor seventy-five feet or so and lay down against the exterior concourse wall, facing back toward the ramp area.

Of course his back was vulnerable, but if the sniper came that way, he would hear him coming. Maybe. The main thing was to stay put and stay quiet.

Who was this sniper, anyway? Could he be Charon? Naw, Charon was an assassin, out to shoot the big trophy cats. He wouldn’t waste a bullet on a mouse.

Toad Tarkington was spinning. He was sitting in a cockpit of a violently spinning aiplane and the Gs were pushing him forward out of the seat. The altimeter was unwinding at a sickening rate. He couldn’t raise his arms or move. His eyes were redding out and he could feel the pain of the blood pooling in his head. Spinning viciously, violently, dying …

He opened his eyes. He was looking into the face of Jack Yocke.

Yocke pried open an eyelid and looked with interest. “You’re going to be okay, I think. Your head’s as hard as a brick. If I were you I wouldn’t try to sit up yet though.”

“What happened?”

“Well, a man hit you on the head with an ax handle. And you shot a man, fellow named Tom Shannon.”

“He dead?”

“No. You got him in the shoulder. He’s sitting right here beside you. If you turn your head you can visit with him.”

Toad tried. The pain shot through his head so badly he felt himself going out again. He lay absolutely still and the feeling passed.

After a moment he opened his eyes and swiveled his head a millimeter, then another. Yocke was applying a bandage to a man who was naked from the waist up. They were on the floor of the armory bay.

Toad held his head and turned it. All the prisoners were gone! The three of them were the only ones in the whole room.

“How long I been out?”

“Fifteen, twenty minutes. Something like that.”

“Damn you, Yocke.”

“Hey, Toad.” The reporter came over and stared down at him. “You could have killed Shannon.”

“If he was the asshole in front, I was trying to. I’m damn sorry I didn’t.”

Yocke looked tired. “I didn’t know you were carrying a pistol under that coat.”

“I told you, being around Grafton, you gotta …”

“Lie still. You probably have a concussion.”

“Jerk. Reporter jerk. Spectator.” Toad tried to sit. The effort nauseated him and made him so dizzy he had to steady himself with his hands on the floor.

When he opened his eyes he was looking straight at Shannon. “So you took ’em, huh? We’ll get ’em back. Those fucking dirtballs won’t get away with killing soldiers and all that shit just because a damn mob turns ’em loose.”

Shannon just stared at him.

Yocke came over and used his fingers to part the hair on the back of Toad’s head. He looked carefully. “You got a real bad goose egg, Toad.”

“We’ll find those assholes, Shannon, even if we have to flood this damn town and comb all the rats with a wire brush.”

“Toad,” Yocke said gently. “They didn’t let those people go.”

Toad Tarkington gaped. It didn’t compute. He looked again at the maintenance bays where the prisoners had been held. It was empty. “What d’ya mean?”

“They didn’t turn them loose, Toad. They’re hanging them. All of them.”

By some ironic quirk of fate, they brought Sweet Cherry Lane to the same light pole where they were hanging T. Jefferson Brody.

“Bitch, cunt, nigger slut! I hope we end up in the same furnace in hell so I can kick the shit out of you for a million years!”

The man in front of him put the noose around his neck while two women and two men held his arms. He struggled. They couldn’t do this to him! He was a member of the bar!

“I got money. I’ll pay you to let me go. Please! For God’s sake.”

He could feel the noose tightening as eight people in front of him pulled the rope. Holy shit! It was going to happen! They were really going to do it.

T. Jefferson Brody peed his pants.

Sweet Cherry Lane was standing there silently, watching him, as two men held her arms immobile and a third draped a noose around her neck.

“Why?” he croaked at her. “Why did Freeman McNally protect you?”

“I’m his half-sister,” she said.

Before he could reply the people holding his arms let go and the rope around his neck lifted him clear of the ground. He grabbed the rope and held on with both hands as it elevated him higher and higher and the merciless pressure on his neck began to strangle him. He was kicking wildly, which caused him to spin slowly, first one way, then the other. His vision faded. Can’t breathe, can’t see, can’t …

He heard a step. Lying there against the curved wall, he could hear a soft sound, followed by another. The sounds weren’t like leather heels clicking on a wooden floor, but like something soft brushing against something that … The sound carried well against the wall. They were footsteps. That was all they could be.

Jake Grafton tightened his grip on the rifle and thumbed the safety off. He had it pointed at the ramp opening. As soon as this dude stepped into that square of faint light…

Another step. He was coming slowly, methodically, step by step. But how far away was he? How far would sounds carry around this curved concrete wall? Maybe a hundred yards, he speculated. Maybe twice that. Naw. Fifty was more like it.

The steps paused, then resumed.

He’s coming.

Sweat dripped into Jake’s eyes but he didn’t move. He merely blinked and tried to ignore the stinging.

Suddenly he realized what a damn poor position he had chosen. He should have picked the doorway to a rest room to lie in, something that would have allowed him to look both ways. For the thought came in all its horror that the man he sought was probably behind him in the darkness.

Jake started to turn around.

“No, friend,” the voice said softly. “Just hold it right there.”

Jake froze.

“Well, we had ourselves a nice little hunt, didn’t we? We stalked and stalked and now we are at the end.”

“You’ll never get away, Charon.”

The man laughed. “I’ll outlive you by quite a while.”

He was behind Jake. But which side of the concourse? Probably near the exterior wall or his footsteps wouldn’t have carried so well.

Jake tried to decide what to do. He knew to the depths of his soul that anything he tried would be futile. But he couldn’t let this guy just shoot him like a dog! If he spun, he would have to rise to his knees and swing the rifle.

Jake thumbed the selector to full automatic fire. He turned his head, looking.

“You’re thinking about turning and trying a shot, aren’t you? Go ahead. I’ll put the first one up your ass.”

“Who hired you?”

Another soft laugh. “Would you believe I never asked? I don’t know.”

“How much did they pay you?”

“A lot of money. And you know something funny? I do believe I would have done it for nothing.” Another chuckle.

The next time the guy spoke. While he was speaking Jake would spin and let this guy have a magazine-full of hot lead. “You really don’t have to kill me, do you? You’ve had your fun.”

“That’s an interesting—”

A burst of gunfire strobed the corridor. Jake had just started to spin. He completed the maneuver and flopped down with the rifle aimed into the darkness in front of him.

In the silence that followed he heard something soft and heavy fall to the concrete. And he heard a sigh.

“Captain, don’t shoot! It’s me.”

Rita!

He got up slowly, almost falling. Then a light came on. She had a small flashlight and she was shining it down on Henry Charon. He lay on his back, the rifle just out of reach of his right hand.

Jake walked up and stood looking down. He kept his rifle pointed at Charon and his finger on the trigger.

“How …?” Charon said. He had been hit in the chest by at least three bullets. The red stain was spreading rapidly.

Rita seemed to understand. She flashed the light on her feet. They were bare. “I took my shoes off.”

When she put the light back on Charon’s face he was grinning. Then he died. The smile faded as the muscles went slack.

Jake bent down and felt for Charon’s pulse. He straightened slowly.

“Come on,” he said. “Let’s go.”

Rita extinguished the penlight. Together they walked along the concourse toward the light.

The bodies hung from every pole. Jake Grafton stared, trying to comprehend. Some poles had one, some had two. But they all hung lifelessly, stirring only as the cold night breeze moved them.

Inside the armory he found the soldiers gathered around Toad Tarkington, who was sitting on the concrete floor nursing his head. Jack Yocke was beside him talking to a civilian.

“You want anything in the paper about why you did it, Tom? You know they’ll try you for a dozen felonies, perhaps even a dozen murders?”

The middle-aged, balding black man sitting on the floor was being worked on by a medic, who was strapping tape around a bandage arranged on his chest. Blood was smeared on his chest and trousers.

The man on the floor ignored the audience. He stared at Yocke. “Will you write it true? Write it the way I say it?”

“You know I will. You’ve read my stuff.”

“The Jefferson projects. You remember?”

Yocke nodded. Oh yes, he remembered. The murder of Jane Wilkens by a crack dealer running from the cops. Another life lost to the crack business. “Jane,” he said.

“Yeah. Jane.” Shannon took a deep breath and grimaced at the pain. “It was my idea. We’re all victims. We all lost somebody — a son, daughter, wife, maybe even our own souls. We lost because we expected someone to fight the evil for us and we waited and waited and they never did. Oh, they talked, but …”

He lifted his good hand and pleaded, “Don’t you see, if we don’t fight evil, we become evil. If you ain’t part of the solution you’re part of the problem — it’s that simple. So we decided to take a stand, all of us victims.

“Then this terrorist stuff started. And the dopers started looting and shooting and trying to wipe out their competition so they could have a competitive advantage when it was all over.

“Now I tell you this, Jack Yocke, and you gotta write it just like this: I hope the talkers try me. I hope I get prosecuted. The people who don’t want to be victims anymore will see how it has to be. We can’t wait for George Bush or Dan Quayle or the hot-air artists. We can’t wait for the police. We have to take our stand.

“I’ve taken mine. You kill my woman, you kill my kids, don’t hide behind the law ’cause it ain’t big enough. Justice will be done! Right will be done. There are just enough people like me. Just enough. You’ll see.”

The medic finished and spread a blanket on a stretcher. Four men lifted the wounded man onto it.

“I’m not good with words,” the man told Yocke. “I never had much education. But I know right from wrong and I know which side I’m on. I’ve planted my feet. Here I am.”

“What can one man do?” Jack Yocke asked.

“Lead an army, part the Red Sea, convert the world. Maybe not me. But here I stand until the world takes its place beside me.”

The medics carried him away.

The chairman of the Joint Chiefs arrived by helicopter fifteen minutes later. Ten minutes after that the Vice-President arrived. Together they walked through the parking lot looking at the dangling corpses.

Jake Grafton went over to where Toad and Rita were sitting in chairs. “Come on. Let’s go home. You got the car keys, Toad?”

“In my pocket.”

“Rita, take the keys and bring the car up to the door.”

“What about Yocke?” Toad asked as Jake helped him into the front seat.

“He’s over with the heavies getting a story. Let’s go home.”

As the car exited the armory parking lot, Toad pointed toward the official party in the parking lot across the street. “Wonder what they’re thinking?” “They’re politicians. Tom Shannon and the other citizens here tonight just delivered a message. They’re reading it now.”