The new day-care center was more convenient to his route to work, and the people next door loved it for their twin boys. He turned left onto Ritchie Highway, and found the place right across from a 7-Eleven where he could get a pint of coffee for the commute in on U.S. 50. Giant Steps, nice name.
Hell of a way to make a living, Pat thought, parking his truck. Marlene Daggett was always there at six, tending to the children of the bureaucrats who trekked to D.C. every morning. She even came out to meet them for the first arrival.
“Mr. O’Day! And this is Megan!” the teacher announced with stunning enthusiasm for so early an hour. Megan had her doubts, and looked up at her daddy. She turned back in surprise to see something special. “Her name is Megan, too. She’s your bear, and she’s been waiting all day for you.”
“Oh.” The little girl seized the brown-furred creature and hugged it, name tag and all. “Hello.”
Mrs. Daggett looked up in a way that told the FBI agent, it works every time. “You have your blanky?”
“Right here, ma’am,” O’Day told her, also handing over the forms he’d completed the night before. Megan had no medical problems, no allergies to medicine, milk, or food; yes, in case of a real emergency you can take her to the local hospital; and the inspector’s work and pager numbers, and his parents’ number, and the number of Deborah’s parents, who were damned good grandpar-
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ents. Giant Steps was well organized. O’Day didn’t know how well organized only because there was something Mrs. Daggett wasn’t supposed to talk casually about. His identity was being checked out by the Secret Service.
“Well, Miss Megan, I think it’s time for us to play and make some new friends.” She looked up. “We’ll take good care of her.”
O’Day got back into his truck with the usual minor pain that attended leaving his daughter behind–anywhere, no matter the time or place–and jumped across the street to the 7-Eleven for his commute coffee. He had a conference scheduled at nine o’clock to go over further developments on the crash investigation–they were down to T-crossing and I-dotting now–followed by a day of administrative garbage which would at least not prevent him from picking his little girl up on time. Forty minutes later, he pulled into FBI Headquarters at Tenth and Pennsylvania. His post as roving inspector gave him a reserved parking place. From there he walked, this morning, to the indoor pistol range.
An expert marksman since Boy Scouts, Pat O’Day had also been a “principal firearms instructor” at several FBI field offices, which meant that he’d been selected by the SAC to supervise weapons training for the other agents– always an important part of a cop’s life, even though few ever fired their side arms in anger.
The range was rarely busy this time of day–he got in at 7:25–and the inspector selected two boxes of Federal 10mm hollow-points for his big stainless Smith & Wesson 1076 automatic, along with a couple of standard “Q” targets and a set of ear protectors. The target was a simple white cardboard panel with an outline of the vital parts of a human body. The shape resolved itself into the rough size and configuration of a farmer’s steel milk can, with the letter “Q” in the center, about where the heart would be. He attached the target to the spring-clip on the traveler, set the distance for thirty feet, and hit the travel switch. As it moved downrange, he let his thoughts idle, contemplating the sports page and the new Orioles lineup in spring-training camp. The range hardware was programmable. On arriving at its destination, the target
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turned sideways, and became nearly invisible. Without looking, O’Day dialed the timer to a random setting and continued to look downrange, his hands at his side. Now his thinking changed. There was a Bad Guy there. A serious Bad Guy. Convicted felon, now cornered. A Bad Guy who had told informants that he’d never go back inside, never be taken alive. In his long career, Inspector O’Day had heard that one many times, and whenever possible he’d given the subject the opportunity to keep his word– but they all folded, dropped their gun, wet their pant’s, or even broke down into tears when confronted by real danger instead of the kind more easily considered over beers or a joint. But not this time. This Bad Guy was serious. He had a hostage. A child, perhaps. Maybe even his own little Megan. The thought made his eyes narrow. A gun to her head. In the movies, the Bad Guy would tell you to drop your weapon, but if you did that, all you were guaranteed was a dead cop and a dead hostage, and so you talked to your Bad Guy. You made yourself sound calm and reasonable and conciliatory, and you waited for him to relax, just a little, just enough to move the gun away from the hostage’s head. It might take hours, but sooner or later–
–the timer clicked, and the target card turned to face the agent. O’Day’s right hand moved in a blur, snatching the pistol from its holster. Simultaneously, his right foot moved backward, his body pivoted and crouched slightly, and the left hand joined the right on the rubber grips when the gun was halfway up. His eyes acquired the gunsights at the bottom of his peripheral vision, and the moment they were aligned with the head of the “Q” target, his finger depressed the trigger twice, firing so fast that both ejected cartridge cases were in the air at the same time. It was called a double-tap, and O’Day had practiced it for so many years that the sounds almost blended in the air, and the two-shot echo was just returning from the steel backstop when the empty cases pinged off the concrete floor, but by then there were two holes in the head of the target, less than an inch apart, between and just above where the eyes would be. The target flipped side-on, less
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than a second after it had turned, rather nicely simulating the fall of the subject to the ground.
Yes.
“I think you got ’em there, Tex.”
O’Day turned, startled from his fantasy by a familiar voice. “Morning, Director.”
“Hey, Pat.” Murray yawned, a set of ear protectors dangling in his left hand. “You’re pretty fast. Hostage scenario?”
“I try to train for the worst possible situation.”
“Your little girl.” Murray nodded. They all did that, because the hostage had to be important enough in your mind. “Well, you got him. Show me again,” the Director ordered. He wanted to watch O’Day’s technique. There was always something to learn. After the second iteration, there was one ragged hole in the target’s notional forehead. It was actually rather intimidating for Murray, though he considered himself an expert marksman. “I need to practice more.”
O’Day relaxed his routine now. If you could do it with your first shot of the day–and he’d done it with all four– you still had it figured out. Two minutes and twenty shots later, the target’s head was an annulus. Murray, in the next lane, was busy in the standard Jeff Cooper technique, two rapid shots into the chest, followed by a slower aimed round into the head. When both were satisfied that their targets were dead, it was time to contemplate the day.
“Anything new?” the Director asked.
“No, sir. More follow-up interviews on the JAL case are coming in, but nothing startling.”
“What about Realty?”
O’Day shrugged. He was not allowed to interfere with the OPR investigation, but he did get daily summaries. A case of this magnitude had to be reported to somebody, and though supervision of the case was entirely under the purview of OPR, the information developed also went to the Director’s office, filtered through his lead roving inspector. “Dan, enough people went in and out of Secretary Hanson’s office that anybody .could have walked off with the letter, assuming there was one, which, our peo-
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pie think, there probably was. At least Hanson talked to enough people about it–or so those people tell us.”
“I think that one will just blow over,” Murray observed.
“GOOD MORNING, Mr. President.”
Another day in the routine. The kids were off. Cathy was off. Ryan emerged from his quarters suited and tied– his jacket was buttoned, which was unusual for him, or had been until moving in here–and his shoes shined by one of the valet staff. Except that Jack still couldn’t think of this place as a home. More like a hotel, or the VIP quarters he’d had while traveling on Agency business, albeit far more ornate and with much better service.
“You’re Raman?” the President asked.
“Yes, sir,” Special Agent Aref Raman replied. He was six feet and solidly built, more a weight lifter than a runner, Jack thought, though that might come from the body armor that many of the Detail members wore. Ryan judged his age at middle thirties. Good-looking in a Mediterranean sort of way, with a shy smile and eyes as blue as SURGEON’S. “SWORDSMAN is moving,” he said into his microphone. “To the office.”