LIKE MOST CAREER cops, Special Agent Don Russell had never fired his side arm in anger, but years of training made his every action as automatic as gravity. The first thing he’d seen was the elevated front sight of an AK-47-class automatic rifle. With that, as though a switch had been thrown, he changed from a watchful cop into a guidance system for a firearm. His SigSauer was out now. His
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left hand was racing to meet his right on the grip of the weapon, as the rest of his body dropped to one knee to lower his profile and give him better control. The man with the rifle would get the first shot off, but it would miss high, Russell’s mind reported. Three such rounds did, passing over his head ir.to the door frame as the area exploded with staccato noise. While that was happening, his tritium-coated front sight matched up with the face behind the weapon. Russell depressed the trigger, and from fifteen yards, he fired a round straight into the shooter’s left eye.
INSIDE, O’DAY’S OWN instincts were just lighting off when Megan emerged from the bathroom, struggling with the suspender clips on her Oshkosh coveralls. Just then, the agent the kids knew as Miss Anne bolted out of the back room, her pistol in both hands and pointed up.
“Jesus,” the FBI inspector had time to say, when Miss Anne bounded right through him like an NFL fullback, knocking him down at his daughter’s feet and banging his head against the wall in the process.
ACROSS THE STREET, two agents ran out the front door of the residence, both holding Uzi submachine guns while Jeffers worked the communications inside. He’d already gotten the emergency code word to headquarters. Next he activated the direct drop lines to Barracks J of the Maryland State Police on Rowe Boulevard in Annapolis. There was noise and confusion, but the agents were expertly drilled. Jeffers’s function was to make sure that the word got out, then to back up the other two members of his team, already crossing the lawn of the house–
–they never had a chance. From fifty yards away, the shooters from Car 1 dropped both of them with aimed fire. Jeffers watched them go down while he got the word to the state police. He didn’t have time for shock. As soon as his information was acknowledged, he lifted his M-16 rifle, flipped off the safety, and moved for the door.
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RUSSELL SHIFT ED FIRE. Another shooter made the mistake of standing to get a better shot. He never made it. Two quick rounds exploded his head like a melon, saw the agent, who was not thinking, not feeling, not doing anything but servicing targets as quickly as he could identify them. The enemy rounds were still going over his head. Then he heard a scream. His mind reported that it was Marcella Hilton, and he felt something heavy fall on his back and knock him to the ground. Dear God, it had to be Marcella. Her body–something–was on his legs, and as he rolled to get clear of the obstruction, four men came into view, advancing toward him, now with a clear line of sight to where he was. He fired one round that scored, drilling one of them right through the heart. The man’s eyes went wide with the shock of the impact, until a second round took him in the face. It was like he’d always dreamed it would be. The gun was doing all the work. His peripheral vision showed movement to his left–the support group–but no, it was a car, driving across the playground right at them–not the Suburban, something else. He scarcely could tell as his pistol centered on another shooter, but that man went down, shot three times by Anne Pemberton in the doorway behind him. The remaining two–only two, he had a chance–then Annie got one in the chest, then fell forward, and Russell knew he was alone, all alone now, only him between SANDBOX and these motherfuckers.
Don Russell rolled to his right to avoid fire on the ground to his left, shooting as his body turned, getting off two rounds that went wild. Then his Sig locked open on an empty magazine. He had another ready, and instantly he ejected the empty and slapped in a full one, but that took time and he felt a round enter his lower back, the impact like a kick that shook his body, as his right thumb dropped the slide lever and another bullet struck him in the left shoulder, ripping all the way down his torso to exit out his right leg. One more round, but he couldn’t get the gun high enough, something wasn’t working right, and he hit somebody straight through the kneecap an instant before a series of shots lowered his face to the ground.
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O’DAY WAS JUST trying to get up when two men came through the door, both armed with AKs. He looked around the room, now full of stunned, silent kids. The silence seemed to hang for a long moment, then turn to the shrill screams of toddlers. One of the men had blood all over his leg, and was gritting his teeth in pain and rage.
OUTSIDE, THE THREE men from Car 1 surveyed the carnage. Four men were dead, they saw, as they jumped out of the car, but they’d done for the covering group and–
–the first one out the right-rear door fell facedown. The other two turned around to see a black man in a white shirt with a gray rifle.
“Eat shit and die.” His memory would fail him on this occasion. Norman Jeffers would never remember saying that as he shifted to the next target and squeezed off a three-round burst into his head. The third man of the team which had killed his two friends dropped behind the front of his car, but the car was stuck in the middle of the playground with open air to the left and right. “Come on, stick it up and say hi, Charlie,” the agent breathed–
–and sure enough he did, swinging his weapon around to shoot back at the remaining bodyguard, but not fast enough. His eyes as open and unblinking as an owl’s, Jeffers watched the blood cloud fly back as the target disappeared.
“Norm!” It was Paula Michaels, the afternoon surveillance agent from the 7-Eleven across the street, her pistol out and in both hands.
Jeffers dropped to one knee behind the car whose occupants he’d just killed. She joined him, and with the sudden negation of activity, both agents started breathing heavily, their hearts racing, their heads pounding.
“Get a count?” she asked.
“At least one made it inside–”
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“Two, I saw two, one hit in the leg. Oh, Jesus, Don, Anne, Marcella–”
“Save it. We got kids in there, Paula. Fuck!”
SO, MOVIE STAR thought, it wasn’t going to work out after all. Damn it, he swore silently. He’d told them there were three people in the house to the north. Why hadn’t they waited to kill the third? They could have had the child away from here by now! Well. He shook his head clear. He’d never fully expected the mission to succeed. He’d warned Badrayn of that–and picked his people accordingly. Now all he had to do was watch to make sure–what? Would they kill the child? That was something they’d discussed. But they might not fulfill their duty before they died.
PRICE HAD BEEN five miles out when the emergency call had come over her radio. In less than two seconds, she’d had the pedal to the floor, and the car accelerating through traffic, the flashing light in place, and siren screaming. Turning north onto Ritchie Highway, she could see cars blocking the road. Immediately, she maneuvered left onto the median, the car side-slipping as it clawed its way across the inward-sloping surface. She arrived a few seconds ahead of the first olive-and-black Maryland State Police radio car.
“Price, is that you?”
“Say who?” she replied.
“Norm Jeffers. I think we have two subjects inside. We have five agents down. Michaels is with me now. I’m sending her around the back.”
“There in a second.”
“Watch your ass, Andrea,” Jeffers warned.
O’DAY SHOOK HIS head. His ears were still ringing and his head sore from the hit on the wall. His daughter was next to him, shielded by his body from the two–terrorists–who were now sweeping their weapons left and right
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around the room while the children screamed. Mrs. Daggett moved slowly, standing between them and “her” kids, instinctively holding her hands in the open. Around them, all the kids were cowering. There were cries for Mommy–none for Daddy, oddly enough, O’Day realized. And a lot of wet pants.
“MR. PRESIDENT?” RAMAN said, pressing his earpiece in tight. What the hell was this?
AT ST. MARY’S, the call of “SANDSTORM” over the radio links had hit the SHADOW/SHORTSTOP details with a thunderbolt. Agents standing outside the classrooms of the Ryan kids slammed in, weapons drawn, to drag their pro-tectees out to the corridor. Questions were asked, but none answered, as the Detail fell into the pre-set plan for such an event. Both kids entered the same Chevy Suburban, which drove not out to the road but off to a service building across the athletic field. One way in, one way out of this place, and an ambush team might be right out there, disguised as Christ knew what. In Washington, a Marine helicopter spooled up to fly to the school and extract the Ryan children. The second Suburban took position on the field, one hundred fifty yards from where the kids were. The class that had been doing gym outside was chased off, and agents stood behind their kevlar-armored vehicle, heavy weapons out, looking for targets.