Forged in Honor (1995) (41 page)

He dropped the empty holster on the steps, chambered a round into the pistol, and went through the open door in a shooter's crouch. His blood turned cold-Mary was standing five feet away in the hall with a black man holding a nickel plated 38 to her head.

"Move and she's dead! Drop the piece and get your hands up!" the black man hollered.

Josh didn't move. "You got it wrong, asshole. You want to shoot me, not her. I'm the one in the way of your getting out of here. Now watch me real close, 'cause I'm gonna lower the pistol so you get your chance."

"Fool, I'm gonna kill her!"

"Me, asshole, you gotta kill me!" Josh barked, watching the man's eyes. Slowly, Josh stood up and began lowering the pistol to his side, waiting for a blink or a movement of the other gun. But the man did something unexpected-he smiled as if he knew an inside joke. Josh heard a creak at the top of the stairs and threw himself into a forward roll. Bullets tore into the wood floor where he had been standing. He was now within a foot of the man holding Mary. The assailant pointed his pistol at Josh's face and grinned. "You're dead, muthafuc-"

There was a thunderous kaboom, and the man fell back with a bullet through his heart. Josh threw himself on top of Mary, knocking her to the floor as he screamed, "Upstairs!"

There was no need for the warning, for the second FBI agent through the door was already firing. The man upstairs got two shots off before a back portion of his skull flew off and shattered Kelly's framed police academy graduation picture hanging on an upstairs wall.

Josh slowly got off Mary, who was still trying to scream although not a sound came out of her open mouth.

"It's over," he said softly, then hugged her.

The Silverado Room of the Hilton Conference Center was filled with conference-goers. On the stage, a panel of national and state agency and bureau chiefs sat behind small microphones. The afternoon session had been made up primarily of briefings about proposed drug enforcement programs, followed by a concluding question-and-answer period. Grant, seated in the next-to-last row, leaned over to another DIA colonel. She pointed at her watch as she whispered, "They've already gone past four. I've heard enough and think I'll slip out."

The colonel nodded and whispered back, "Yeah, you might as well. The directors left their deputies to answer the questions. Nothing's been said that we couldn't have gotten from Newsweek. I'll call you if anything important happens."

Grant picked up her purse and raincoat from beneath her chair and stood up. Excusing herself, she scooted down the close row of chairs, finally made it to the aisle, and strode for the guarded rear doors. Stepping into the lobby, she gently closed the door behind her and saw a friend from the DEA leaning against the wall smoking a cigarette. Grant walked over to her as she put on her raincoat. "What'd you think, Shirley?"

The woman shook her head. "We're wasting our time.

Nothing is going to work until we get some leadership. Did you hear the way the agencies bickered?"

Grant shrugged. "A friend of mine says we need one person in charge."

"Your friend is right. This is. a joke. I'm finishing this cigarette, then going home and try to forget this fiasco. You want to join me?"

"Thanks, but no, I found a little world where I can get away. I'm going there now and-"

An ear-shattering explosion inside the conference room ended their conversation. Both women's eyes closed in nature's response to the horrific noise. Neither one saw the conference room's doors blow off the hinges and become lethal projectiles that slammed into the reporters and attendees unlucky enough to be standing in front of them. The blast cloud roared into the lobby, leveling everything and everybody like a giant tidal wave. Grant and Shirley were not in the direct path of the invisible wave, but were caught in its wake and blown down the hallway like bits of cork.

The 4:15 Blue Line Metro train slowed and came to a stop at the Arlington Cemetery Station. Unlike the previous crammed stops at Roslyn, Foggy Bottom, and McPherson Square, the platform here had only a few waiting passengers.

The doors of the train opened and three men stepped out of different cars as the few new riders hunched their shoulders and tried to push their way into the tightly compacted mass of commuters. None of the passengers on board the departing train noticed the briefcases the three men had left behind under the seats.

The three Nigerians walked straight for the exit as the train rolled into the tunnel toward its next stop, the Pentagon.

Hundreds of eager commuters waiting on the Pentagon platform saw the lights flash to warn them a train was inbound, and they began jockeying for position. The Pentagon station was a change-out point. Those who worked in midtown and lived in the outlying communities took the Blue Line to the Pentagon, then they got off and took the escalator to the aboveground Metro bus station. There they could catch a bus to their neighborhoods. Those waiting on the belowground platform and those staying on the train would take the Blue Line to stops in Crystal City and Alexandria.

The train became visible in the black tunnel and the waiting throng began the final press forward. Blue Line Train 23 came to a halt and the doors opened to release the human flood.

Five seconds later, at exactly 4:18, the first car, its passengers, and those waiting to board it disappeared in a flash of light, heat, and debris. Milliseconds later, two identical blasts came from two other cars. Within the huge concrete and steel tunnel, the confined blast rebounded off the ceiling like a rubber ball and roared down the man-made tubes like an invisible locomotive, destroying everything in its fury.

Glenn Grant walked with a painful limp through the wisps of smoke that rose up from the blackened floor littered with chairs and shattered bodies. The pathetic moans seemed oddly louder than the screaming clean people who were shouting as they ran through the debris, searching for survivors. The clean ones were those who had not been inside they were the living. She approached the shattered remains of the stage and halted. Her burning eyes swept over the carnage and she slowly turned, her eyes capturing it all like an imaginary video camera. The vacant stares, shoeless feet, a notepad, an unbroken glass in the hand of what was left of a man--or a woman; she couldn't tell-it didn't matter. She had to get it all, keep moving, capture it, keep it for ... for ...

"Lady, are you all right? Over here! This one's in shock.

Get her to the lobby with the others!"

Josh sat beside Mary in the back of a cruiser with his arm around her shoulders and said softly, "It's going to be all right. These officers will take you and the boys to your mother's. They'll stay with you all the time so you can take it easy."

"How ... how is Skip?" she asked through her sobs.

Josh shook his head. He had found the officer dead in the upstairs hall with his throat cut. "He didn't make it, Mare, but don't think about it, just think how lucky you and the boys are. These officers called in a warning to other precincts, and they're getting the word out to all the families to take precautions. Mary, I have to go now. I have to go downtown and make out a statement. You know the routine. I'll come by your mom's later and check on you." He gave her one more hug and called the boys over. "Okay, you guys get in and take care of your mom."

He closed the door and nodded to the officer behind the wheel, who pulled away from the curb.

A detective motioned him over to the cruiser where he and the two FBI agents were standing. The detective shook his head as Josh approached. "We turned off the radio in the roller Mary is in so as not to disturb her any more. Hawk, the city is so full of code-four emergencies, we can't track them all. There's been a hotel bombing and four or five Metro train bombings in the past couple of minutes, plus it looks like at least two families have been hit."

Josh's face paled and his knees almost buckled. "What stations?" he yelled. "My daughter takes the Metro!"

One of the FBI agents took Josh's arm, seeing he was about to lose it. "She's probably already back at the Front.

Go on and we'll follow you. These guys have got to roll to the code fours. They've agreed that we can fill out statements later."

Josh climbed into his Jeep, gunned the engine, backed up, and threw it into first gear. Shifting to second, he saw the white BMW parked next to the curb a block away and floored the accelerator. Screeching to a halt beside the car, h startled the two passengers by jumping out of the Jeep holding his pistol. "Get the fuck out. Now!" he screamed.

Both men opened their doors and stood up with their hands in the air. He lowered the pistol and fired a bullet into the right front tire, took a step, and fired again at the right rear tire. Walking toward the two men, he waved the pistol.

"On your faces!"

Neither man moved. Josh slugged one in the stomach and pointed his pistol in the face of the other. "Down!"

As the man began to squat Josh brought the pistol butt down on his head, knocking him to the ground. Leaning over the bleeding man, he jammed the pistol barrel into his forehead. "You tell the fucker who hired you I'm going to kill him. Tell him that!"

Josh backed up, keeping both men covered, then turned and fired into their radiator. The FBI car pulled up behind him and the driver jumped out. "Jesus, Hawkins! What the hell do you think you're doing?"

"I'm fucking tired of this! I'm going, so get back in."

Josh climbed back into his Jeep and pulled away. He drove with tears in his eyes and glanced at the empty space where the radio should be. He'd taken it out a year earlier to fix it, and it was still on the boat where he'd left it. He couldn't even listen to the news. "Shit!" He shifted to second gear and floored the accelerator.

Josh sped into the Channel Inn underground parking lot and jumped out of the Jeep at a dead run for the back exit.

The FBI car pulled in and the driver yelled out his window, "We're gonna pick up the other tails!"

Josh ran through the beating rain to the marina gate. As soon as the metal door opened he yelled, "STEFNE!

STEFNE!"

He saw a woman on deck and felt a wave of relief but then heard Meg yelling, "She's not here! Oh God, where is she?" Meg ran toward him, her wet hair plastered to her face.

"Oh God, Josh! Where is she?"

She ran into his open arms, nearly knocking him over. She was as pale as a sheet and soaking wet. Her body was shaking so hard he could barely hold her. "Jo ... Josh, I heard it on the ra ... radio.... I've been wait ... ing on you ... both."

He hugged her tighter and turned toward Wind song. "Did you hear what stations were bombed?" he asked, trying to be calm for both of them.

"N ... n ... no. I came ... up on deck ... t ... to wait."

"We're gonna get you out of these wet clothes and warm you up. We'll watch TV and listen to the radio and find out.

Think positive-we have to think positive."

Josh shut his watering eyes and hugged Meg, who had collapsed against him when they heard the update over the radio. They were in her cabin, watching the television and listening to the radio for reports. There had been three, not five, Metro stations destroyed by explosions-the Blue Line's Pentagon station, the Orange Line's West Falls Church station in Fairfax County, and the Red Line's Bethesda station.

All were outside of midtown, and none were the lines Stefne would have taken from school.

Josh hugged Meg again and opened his eyes to look at the screen. A newswoman from a local station was standing in front of the Hilton. Behind her were fire trucks and ambulances. He pressed the Sound button on the remote control just as the camera panned to the newswoman's right to show a grassy area that was lined with covered bodies.

"... and due to the shortage of emergency equipment the bodies of those taken from the conference room have been placed here. Many of the injured are reportedly still in the lobby awaiting ambulances, and-"

"They bombed a hotel too?" Meg asked, still trembling.

Joshua was staring at the screen, his face stricken.

Meg was about to ask what was wrong when she heard a familiar voice outside. Josh got to his feet first and ran out of the cabin yelling, "Stefne!"

Stefne watched her father walk out the cabin door. She looked back at Meg and saw tears running down the woman's cheeks. She reached over the table and took Meg's hand. "He'll be fine. He has to find out."

Meg nodded and wiped her eyes. "I know, I know ...

God, I hope she's okay. I told him just yesterday he needed to hold on to the lady colonel."

Seeing a traffic jam ahead, Josh pulled off the road and parked on the grassy center median. Getting out of his Jeep, he began a slow jog, knowing it would be the only way to get there. It took him ten minutes to reach the sprawling grounds of the hotel complex that now looked like a war zone. He made his way forward through the crowd of anxious people who had come searching for a loved one or a friend. He skirted the crowd that had gathered at the main entrance, which was blocked by a wooden police barrier and a single MPD officer. Josh approached the officer and flashed the old temporary badge Kelly had given him when he worked for the department.

"Crime scene D-one," he said as he walked by. The officer, busy trying to calm the crowd, only nodded.

Josh saw why they had only the one officer at the barrier as soon as he passed the screen of fire trucks. Every available person was tending to the injured or carrying bodies. He saw that even the TV news crews had been pressed into service.