Pedestals of Ash (30 page)

Bishop could see the man issuing
the orders was dressed like a Secret S
ervice agent. The few men in his field of view wore a mixture of military and civilian clothing. He closed the door and leaned back against the wall taking a few deep breaths.
How fucking primitive are we? How stupid is this all going to get?
Bishop was torn between just walking out and letting the cards fall where they may
,
or taking action and trying to warn someone. He decided there was little he could do
,
and perhaps these assassins were right. Perhaps their actions would shorten the whole ordeal. He walked back to the table
,
lifted his pack onto his back and
had started to sli
ng his weapon
,
when the lights went out. Before he could even turn on the NVD, the door to his conference room burst open
,
and two men ca
me charging through with weapon
s at the ready.

Bishop was lucky. He was slightly behind the doorway
,
picking up the can of gas
,
when the intruders entered. It took them a second or so to acqui
re him in the darkness, and that
instant
gave Bishop time to raise his weapon
,
while ducking low behind the table. The two men opened fire
,
and the shots went high, the muzzle flashes blinding everyone in the small room. Bishop, more from memory than aim, raised and fired back with four rounds
,
and then moved hard to his right. He felt bullets tearing through the air past his head
,
and again fired four more quick rounds. There was no return fire. Turning on his night vision, he moved cautiously around the edge of the table until he could see the two men lying on the floor. He
recognized one of them as the captain who
hadn’t wanted him
to enter
the base. The man was still
breathing and looked
at Bishop with hatred in his eyes. Bishop kicked away the wounded officer’s weapon, closed the
door,
and then bent over. “Why dude? What the
fuck do you have against me?”

The dying man took several deep, raspy breaths and responded. “You are with
them
. You are against t
he Independents. I was ordered to take out any messenger who came here to see the president.”

Bishop didn’t like being shot at any more than anyone
else did
. He could justify a dozen different motivations for trying to kill someone, but politics wasn’t one of them. As he thought about what the captain had said, he began to get angry. The people were going to suffer the most from this out-of-control power struggle. Just like any civil war, it was the innocent civilians who bore the blunt of the agony. As the initial shock of the whole situation began to wear off, Bishop felt a sense of helplessness. What could he do? He was one man
,
and this drama was being played out on
a
national stage.

As the young c
aptain
took his last breath
, a thought occurred to Bishop.
When he was
a teenager, he and his father had often played the mental game of “what ifs,” in world history. What if Hitler hadn’t been so fixated on Stalingrad? What if someone had stopped John Wilkes Booth? As
a boy, Bishop had always fantas
ized about being able to go back in time and watch history unfold. What did General Washington really say to the troops before crossing the Delaware? What was the look on his face? What was the tone of his voice? Did he take a sip of brandy from a flask before addressing his army?

Bishop’s boyhood day
dreaming always led to his wondering what he would have done if he were at that point in history. Would he have stopped Oswald from pulling the trigger on Kennedy? What would the world have been like if Bishop had been there?

It suddenly dawned on him that he was there – right here, right now. Should he try and stop the assassination? What was the better course for the world? Should he interfere with destiny? The sound of gunfire in the distance snapped him back to reality. As he slammed a magazine into his rifle, Bishop had one last philosophical moment. In all of the mental exercises with his father, a single thread of history prevailed – a leader or key person had died
,
causing pain and suffering for millions. Bishop knew he wasn’t smart enough to determine the outcome of the president being killed. What he did know was he was sick and tired of watching people die
,
and it all had to stop somewhere. Maybe there was something he could do. Maybe one guy could make a difference.

Bishop cautiously opened the door and saw the hall was empty and
very dim, lit only by the battery
-
powered emergency lights
.
The hit squad had no doubt killed the
electricity
to gain an advantage. Bishop raised his rifle and peered through the night vision in both directions before hustling down the hallway toward the gunfire in the distance.

He came to a point where the hall intersected with a main corridor of the building. The conference room wher
e he had last seen the nation’s leader
was to the left
,
and so was the sound of
the
gunfight. The tempo of the battle was increasing
,
and Bishop guessed it would all be over soon.

After pi
e-
ing the intersection, Bishop moved quickly down the main hall toward the conference room. He was careful to not stay to close to the walls
,
because he knew bullets sometimes hugged flat surfaces. He came to another corner and stopped, realizing he was very close to the ongoing fight.

Bishop thought about pi
e-
ing this corner, but the wall behind him was full of bronze plaques and awards. He realized anyone waiting around the corner would have an advantage if they
saw his reflection. He
checked
the
building’s construction
,
flicked off his safety
, and
fired t
hree
rounds about waist high into the plaster at the corner. These walls wouldn’t stop his bullets
,
and if anyone was hiding around that corner, he probably had just taken them out of the fight. Sure enough, a body slumped over, falling out into the main walkway.

Bishop spr
an
g around the corner and
encountered
a
spectacle unlike anything he had ever seen.
Somewhere off in the distance, battery
-
powered emergency lights provided
just
enough
illumination
to outline vague, dark shapes
. A rolling cloud of smoke obscured the
strobe of muzzle flashes
,
and the roar of so many weapons in such an enclosed space sounded like thunder. It was like Bishop had stepped into the very soul of
hell’s own thunderstorm.

The first
man
he came across was
on
a
knee
,
spraying the conference room door with automatic fire.
Bishop didn’t hesitate and plugged the assassin
from
behind
. His shots attracted the attention of others
,
and random rounds began to come his way.
He
was committed
,
and charged headlong into the fray. It all became a blur at that point. The door
way leading to the president
had been hastily barricaded with chairs and a small table.
T
wo
Secret Service
agents
were barely holding
off the assault
. T
he attackers were advancing when Bishop’s
arrival
changed the odds. The element of surprise was on his side as he tore into the midst of the gathered assassins
, delivering
pandemonium
.

The fog of muzzle flashes,
smoke,
and debris littering the air didn’t slow Bishop down. He could simply fire at any shape or outline he saw. The other side had to make sure they weren’t shooting one
of
their own
,
which
was
working against them.
The shooters
on both sides w
ere
wearing
body armor
, and that proved to be a two-
edged s
word
. The
small space
,
combined with a large number of men equipped with high capacity
weapons
,
meant everyone just kept
pulling the trigger until the ta
rget wen
t down. The resulting blizzard of lead eventually found a soft spot and did its work. Before the hit squad managed
to
pull back in th
e opposite direction, Bishop
took
out
four of them and leaned
against
the doorway
,
panting for breath. He yelled into the conference room, “Hey inside! This is Bishop
,
and I’ve bought you some time. I suggest you get the president out of that
coffin
before these guys come back.”

Before anyone could answer, the wall beside Bishop’s head exploded with the impact of lead. Plaster and bits of wood stung his face
,
sending
Bishop d
iving for cover.
Unrelenting fire
snapped through
the air
all around him, forcing
Bishop to dig
and squirm
underneath two dead me
n
lying on
the floor
.
He managed to get his rifle up and began firing blindly as fast as he could pull the trigger. The attackers had evidently regrouped quickly and were pushing to regain their position. Unfortunately for them, the hallway wasn’t that wide
,
and Bishop kept
walking
his
rounds
from one wall to the other, spraying
fire
into
anything that entered
the n
arrow space. The
weight
of
the bodies Bishop was using as a
shield
limited
his
aim to
knee high, but those bullets found legs. The first two men leading the charge fell not
1
5
feet from Bishop’s face. Another man
crashed to the floor
in the next volley, narrowing the already
-constricted
fatal funnel by
adding to the casualties lying everywhere
. Despite the barricade of
their dead comrades
, they kept coming.

Bishop’s rifle locked back empty
,
and he realized there
was no way
to reload - he was prone
and
covered
in
a
blanket of
inert flesh and heavy Kevlar.
His hands were slick with other men’s blood
,
and t
here was no way he could reach a magazine before they would
kill
him. Ad
r
e
na
line does a lot of things to
a
man about
to
die. On this day, it gave Bishop
physical
strength
. The surge of fear and certain death pulsated through his sinew and allowed him
to rise up on
all fours
, lifting
the
two dead men still draped over his back and shoulders. He managed to crawl backward across the ice
-
slick floor while
the body armor-
equipped corpses
took
round after round
of incoming fire.

Bishop could feel the thump and tug of bullets slamming into his
shield
,
and it motivated him
even more
.
Despite the floor being
coated
with urine, blood, sweat and dozens of spent cartridges, he made it to the corner and out of the line of fire.
He
shook off the dead men and
regained
his feet
,
while digging for a fresh magazine.
His plan
had
been to buy enough time for
the president’s guards to get the
ir boss
out of that
deatht
rap conference room.
It
hadn’t worked
too well
.