Ricci thought a moment, then shifted his eyes back to the now-empty phone socket on the wall. He still had the first cop in a choke hold.
“You already ring your boss to tell him we’re here?” he said into his ear.
The cop didn’t respond.
“I can hit the redial button, see who answers, find out what I need to know myself,” Ricci said. “Be better for everybody if you save me the time.”
The cop still didn’t answer.
Ricci pushed the snout of his gun deeper into his back.
“I mean it,” he said.
The cop hesitated another second, then finally nodded his head.
Thirty seconds later, Ricci and Newton had backed into the corridor, leaving the disarmed cops in the office.
“Stay put for half an hour, then you’re free to leave,” he said from the doorway. “You get the urge to do something different, you might want to keep in mind we don’t mean your boss any harm. And that no outsider’s worth getting killed over.”
He pushed the door shut, turned to his men.
“Obeng and his guest of honor know about us,” he said. “But we’re between them and the elevators and stairs, the only routes out of the building unless they want to start jumping out windows, and it’s a long drop down the hill from Obeng’s office. So they either go through us or they’re stuck where they are.”
He looked from one man to the other. Their eyes were upon him.
“Cornered animals fight hard,” he said. “Capice?”
Nods all around.
154
BIO-STRIKE
Ricci inhaled.
“Okay,” he said. “Let’s move.”
They continued up the hall toward Obeng’s roost.
J-At the final bend in the corridor, Grillo held out the
* search mirror’s curved pole, glanced into it for barely a : second, pulled it back, and turned to the others behind |him.
“Four of Obeng’s goons, headed straight toward us with AKs,” he whispered to Ricci. “Not a dozen feet
*;”way in the middle of the corridor.”
“Take them out,” Ricci said. “I want it done yester|day.”
The strike team launched around the corner in a con- pltrolled rush, firing short, accurate bursts with their guns.
Two of the militiamen dropped before they could re[ ten fire, their weapons flying out of their hands like hurled batons. The remaining pair split up, one breaking |;.to the left, the other to the right.
Ricci heard the whiffle of subsonic ammo from a baby I’WRS, saw the man on the left fall to the floor, arms |*nd legs wishboned.
One to go.
The militiaman who’d run to the opposite side of the ridor was bent low against a closed door, practically ^flattened against it, seeking a modicum of cover in the
allow recess as he poured wild volleys into the hall|way.
Ricci hugged the wall, aimed, fired his weapon, una- |sble to get a clean shot at his target. His sabot rounds ^whanged against the door frame, missing the gunnie, but ; causing him to duck back and momentarily lay off the |trigger.
155
Tom Clancy’s Power Plays
Ricci knelt against the wall. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Grille and the others take advantage of the distraction and dash up the hall toward Obeng’s office.
He held his weapon absolutely still. Let the gunnie lean out of that space one inch. Just a single goddamned inch…
Up ahead, Simmons was sweeping the entrance to Obeng’s office with the ionic vapor detector, checking for explosives that might be rigged to a tripwire or similar gimmick. Good. The rest were in their entry-preparation positions. Grillo and the newbie Harpswell on one side of the door. On the opposite side, another green recruit named Nichols held the rammer, while the more experienced hands, Barnes and Newton, stood behind him.
Suddenly, movement from where the militiaman was huddled. His back still pressed to the door, he lifted his hands. The tip of his AK tilting outward. His knees unfolding slightly.
Ricci inhaled through gritted teeth.
This was going to be it.
As the gunnie scuttled into the hall, his weapon spitting bullets, Ricci caught him with a single shot to the center of the chest. He went down hard, his green fatigue shirt turning brilliant red.
Ricci pushed from the wall, racing around the fallen bodies in the corridor to join his team. He could see Simmons complete his scan, move himself out of the doorway-
His eyes widened. Nichols had suddenly moved toward the door with the rammer, was swinging it back for momentum, about to drive it against the jamb, unaware of Barnes reaching out to stop him.
“Hold it!” Ricci shouted. “Fucking hold it!”
156
BIO-STRIKE
He could see Nichols try to check himself, but the warning registered an instant too late. His entire upper body was already into the forward swing.
The rammer hit the door and it flew inward with a
crash, and that was when the attack dogs came lunging
out. Pit bulls, five of them, silent and vicious, their voice
boxes surgically removed. Called hush puppies by the
SWAT personnel Ricci had known in his police years,
too often encountered in crack-house raids, they were
; usually maddened from drugs, torture, and starvation,
i reduced to a core of frenzied, bestial aggression by their
; keepers.
Their muscles humped and rippling under their pelts, jaws snapping, lips peeled away from their carnivorous white fangs, they sprang into the corridor and were on his men in a heartbeat-
“Stop!” A voice from Obeng’s office. “Sit!”
The pit bulls stopped in their tracks and got onto their haunches, immediately heeding the firm command.
“That’s it, that’s it, nice doggies,” the voice said. This I time coming from just inside the doorway. ; A hand reached from the entrance, rows of shiny gold and silver bracelets clattering around the wrist. Then an arm in a colorful, hand-beaded shirtsleeve.
The man who stepped into the corridor a moment later had performed his role to the hilt, even dressing the part of a warlord.
He bent over the dog nearest the door, scratched behind its ear, then reached into his trouser pocket for some biscuits and began passing them out to the obedient animals.
They crunched them happily, tails wagging, crumbs flying from their jowls.
157
Tom Clancy’s Power Plays
“Hate to be the one to say this,” he told Ricci, looking up at him. “But-”
The Sword op who’d been the Wildcat for the week- long training exercise strode from the office to finish the sentence for him.
“But your guys just got their balls chewed off,” he said. “And probably some other chunks of their anatomy, too.”
Expelling a long breath, Ricci turned from the office door in disgust. Down the hall, the militiaman he’d nailed with his practice round rose from the floor and pulled his dye-soaked shirt away from his chest.
“Shit’s sticky,” he muttered. “And cold.”
Ricci glared over at Nichols.
In that kid’s case, getting his balls chewed off was exactly what he could look forward to.
No playacting.
158
TEN
VARIOUS LOCALES NOVEMBER 6, 2000
” AWAKEN THE SLEEPER gt> FEE: 50 MILLION
INSTRUCTIONS TO FOLLOW WITHIN ONE
WEEK
in suburban illinois, a man named lance jefififefson
Freeman, formerly known as Ronald Mumphy … An identity he’d shed once he emerged from federal rison upon getting his investment fraud conviction ^overturned on a so-called legal technicality, the appellate H judge reluctantly citing an error in the submission of Ipprosecutorial discovery filings …
In his home office in the affluent town of Hanscom, H Illinois, the reborn and redubbed Lance Jefferson Free- |v’man, or simply L. J. as his devoted Internet radio show ft listeners affectionately called the founder and crown ^minister of the White Freedom Church, was having thoughts that were in many respects identical to those ;J;of Arif al-Ashar in East Sudan, which was quite extraor-
Tom Clancy’s Power Plays
dinary, given the vast gulf of miles, culture, ideology, and personal background separating them. Even more remarkable in terms of their congruence, L. J.’s thoughts had also framed themselves as a familiar saying, albeit one that took its context and meaning from a classically (though by no means uniquely) American experience.
“A kid in a candy store,” he muttered to himself. “That’s what I am, yes, mister …”
Meaning, in other words, that L. J., too, was coming to understand he would have to prioritize between the many ethnic groups he wished to see deleted from existence, like the terse three-line solicitation about to be electronically wiped from his computer screen.
L. J. lifted a pencil off his desk and started nibbling at its eraser with his large, white, perfectly even front teeth. Then he checked himself, recalling that his dentist had warned him the nervous habit could damage the cosmetic bonding he’d recently gotten done. When you were in the public arena, a media personality of sorts, a smile was your calling card. So scratch the pencil. You did not need to constantly chew on something when you were trying to plan things out.