“Roger, copy that. Bear is lifting off now.” His left hand pulled the collective, climbing the Sikorsky into the sky.
“Did I hear that right, Colonel?” Harrison asked.
“You must have. Fuck,” the Marine observed. Somebody was grabbing the tiger by the balls, Malloy thought. He looked down to see a pair of trucks speeding off the base, heading in the same direction as he. That would be Covington and Team-1, he thought. With a little more reflection, he took the Night Hawk to four thousand feet, called the local air-traffic-control center to tell them what he was doing, and got a transponder code so that they could track him properly.
There were four police vehicles thereon, blocking the access to the hospital parking lots but doing nothing else, Popov saw through his binoculars. The constables inside were just looking, all standing outside their cars, two of them holding revolvers but not pointing them at anything but the ground.
In one truck, Covington relayed the information he had. In the other, Chin did it. The troopers were as shocked as they had ever allowed themselves to be, having considered themselves and their families to be ipso facto immune to this sort of thing because nobody had ever been foolish enough to try something like this. You might walk up to a lion cage and prod him with a stick, but not when there weren’t any bars between you and him. And you never ever messed with the lion’s cubs, did you? Not if you wanted to be alive at sundown. This was family for all of them. Attacking the wife of the Rainbow commander was a slap in all their faces, an act of incomprehensible arrogance-and Chavez’s wife was pregnant. She represented two innocent lives, both of them belonging to one of the people with whom they exercised every morning and with whom they had the occasional pint in the evening, a fellow soldier, one of their team. They all flipped on their radios and sat back, holding their individual weapons, allowing their thoughts to wander, but not very far.
“Al, I have to let you run this operation,” John said, standing by his desk and preparing to leave. Dr. Bellow was in the room, along with Bill Tawney.
“I understand, John. You know how good Peter and his team are.”
A long breath. “Yeah.” There wasn’t much of anything else to say right then.
Stanley turned to the others. “Bill?”
“They used the right codename. `Patrick Casey’ is not known to the press. It’s a name they use to let us know that their operation is real-usually used with bomb threats and such. Paul?”
“Identifying your wife and daughter is a direct challenge to us. They’re telling us that they know about Rainbow, that they know who we are, and, of course, who you are, John. They’re announcing their expertise and their willingness to go all the way.” The psychiatrist shook his head. “But if they’re really PIRA, that means they’re Catholic. I can work on that. Let’s get me out there and establish contact, shall we?”
Tim Noonan was already in his personal car, his tactical gear in the back. At least this was easy for him. There were two cell-phone nodes in the Hereford area, and he’d been to both of them while experimenting with his lock-out software. He drove to the farther of the two first. It was a fairly typical setup, the usual candelabra tower standing in a fenced enclosure with a truck type trailer-called a caravan over here, he remembered. A car was parked just outside. Noonan pulled alongside and hopped out without bothering to lock it up. Ten seconds later, he pulled open the door to the caravan.
“What’s this?” the technician inside asked.
“I’m from Hereford. We’re taking this cell off-line right now.”
“Says who?”
“Says me!” Noonan turned so that the guy could see the holstered pistol on his hip. “Call your boss. He knows who I am and what I do.” And with no further talk, Noonan walked to the master-power panel and flipped the breaker, killing transmissions from the tower. Then he sat in front of the computer control system and inserted the floppy disk he’d carried in his shirt pocket. Two mouse clicks and forty seconds later the system was modified. Only a number with a 777 prefix would be accepted now.
The technician didn’t have a clue, but did have the good sense not to dispute the matter with a man carrying a gun.
“Anybody at the other one-on the other side of town?” Noonan asked.
“No, that would be me if there’s a problem-but there isn’t.”
“Keys.” Noonan held his hand out.
“I can’t do that. I mean, I do not have authorization to-”
“Call your boss right now,” the FBI agent suggested, handing him the land-line receiver.
Covington jumped out of the truck near where some commercial trucks were parked. The police had established a perimeter to keep the curious at bay. He trotted over to what appeared to be the senior cop at the site.
“There they are,” Sean Grady said over his phone to Timmy O’Neil. “Sure, and they responded quickly. Ever so formidable they look,” he added. “How are things inside?”
“Too many people for us to control properly, Sean. I have the twins in the main lobby, Jimmy here with me, and Daniel is patrolling upstairs.”
“What of your hostages?”
“The women, you mean? They’re sitting on the floor. The young one is very pregnant, Sean. She could have it today, looks like.”
“Try to avoid that, lad,” Grady advised, with a smile. Things were going according to his plan, and the clock was running. The bloody soldiers had even parked their trucks within twenty meters of his own. It could scarcely have been better.
Houston’s first name wasn’t really Sam-his mother had named him Mortimer, after a favored uncle-but the current moniker had been laid on him during boot camp at Fort Jackson, South Carolina, eleven years before, and he hadn’t objected. His sniper rifle was still in its boxy carrying case to safeguard it from shock, and he was looking around for a good perch. Where he was standing wasn’t bad, the sergeant thought. He was ready for whatever the day offered. His rifle was a virtual twin to that used by his friend Homer Johnston, and his marksmanship was just as good, too-a little better, he’d quickly tell anyone who asked. The same was true of Rifle One-Two, Sergeant First Class Fred Franklin, formerly an instructor at the Army’s marksmanship training unit at Fort Benning and a deadly shot out to a mile with his huge MacMillan .50 bolt-action rifle.
“What d’ya think, Sam?”
“I like it here, Freddy. How about you go to that knoll past the helo pad?”
“Looks good to me. Later.” Franklin hoisted the case onto his shoulder and headed off that way.
“Those people scare me,” Roddy Sands admitted over the phone.
“I know, but one of them is close enough to take out :t c once, Roddy. You take that job, lad.”
“I will, Sean,” Sands agreed from inside the cargo area of the big Volvo truck.
Noonan, now with the keys to the other site, was back in leis car and heading that way. The drive would take twenty minutes-no, more, he realized. Traffic was backing up on this “A”-class road, and though he had a gun on his hip, and even police identification, his car didn’t have a siren and gumball machine-an oversight he himself had never considered, to his sudden and immediate rage. How the fuck had they forgotten that? He was a cop, wasn’t he? He pulled to the shoulder, turned on his emergency flashers, and started leaning on the horn as he sped past the stopped cars.
Chavez didn’t react much. Instead of looking angry or fearful, he just turned inward on himself. A small man, his body seemed to shrink even further before Clark’s eyes. “Okay,” he said finally, his mouth dry. “What are we doing about it?”
“Team-1 is there now, or should be. Al is running the operation. We’re spectators.”
“Head over?”
Clark wavered, which was unusual for him. The best thing to do, one part of his mind told him quietly, was to sit still, stay in his office and wait, rather than drive over and torture himself with knowledge that he couldn’t do anything about. His decision to let Stanley run the operation was the correct one. He couldn’t allow his actions to be affected by personal emotions. There were more lives at stake than his wife’s and daughter’s, and Stanley was a pro who’d do the right thing without being told. On the other hand, to stay here and simply listen to a phone or radio account was far worse. So he walked back to his desk, opened a drawer, and took out his Beretta .45 automatic. This he clipped to his belt at his right hip. Chavez, he saw, had his side arm as well.