Текст книги "Sacred Stone"

Автор книги: Clive Cussler

сообщить о нарушении

Текущая страница: 17 (всего у книги 26 страниц)

40

OVERHOLT WAS BRIEFINGhis commander in chief.

“So that’s where we are, Mr. President,” Overholt said early on New Year’s Eve morning.

“And you offered the British any help we might have?” the president asked.

“Absolutely,” Overholt said. “Fleming, who heads MI5, said there’s nothing we can do at this point other than have a couple of our nuclear experts from Mindenhall Air Base on standby.”

“And you did that, of course,” the president said.

“The U.S. Air Force helicoptered them down an hour ago,” Overholt said. “They are in London now and should be linking up with the Corporation and MI5.”

“What else can we do?”

“I have contacted the Pentagon,” Overholt said. “They are preparing relief and medical supplies if it goes badly.”

“I’ve ordered all nonessential personnel evacuated from the embassy in London,” the president said. “There were only a few because of the holiday.”

“I don’t know what else we can do,” Overholt said, “but pray for a positive outcome.”

ACROSS THE POND, Fleming was briefing the prime minister.

“That’s the latest,” he finished. “We need to evacuate you and your family as soon as possible.”

“I’m not one to run from a fight,” the prime minister said. “Evacuate my family, but I’m staying. If it goes bad, I can’t let my countrymen die when I knew of the threat.”

The debate raged for the next few minutes as Fleming pleaded for the prime minister to allow himself to be taken to safety. The prime minister held firm to his decision.

“Sir,” Fleming finished, “you becoming a martyr cannot help in any way.”

“True,” the prime minister said slowly, “but stay I will.”

“At least allow us to take you to the bunkers under the Ministry of Defence,” Fleming pleaded. “They are casehardened and have fresh air generators.”

The prime minister rose. The meeting had ended.

“I’ll be at the concert,” the prime minister said. “Arrange the security.”

“Yes, sir,” Fleming said, rising and heading for the door.

OUTSIDE THE APARTMENT on the side street bordering the Strand, four parabolic microphones were hidden on nearby buildings and directed at the windows of Lababiti’s residence. The dishes picked up vibrations on the glass of the windows and magnified the sounds until everything inside the apartment could be heard as clearly as a high-definition recording.

A dozen MI5 agents were posing as London cab drivers and patrolled the streets nearby, while others walked the street staring into shop windows and eating in restaurants. At the hotel directly across the street from the apartment, agents sat in the lobby reading newspapers, waiting for something to happen.

TRUITT STOOD UP from his seat near the driver as the bus came to a stop in front of the Savoy. He had called Cabrillo from his cell phone, and Meadows and Seng were waiting in front of the lobby doors. Truitt filed off the bus, followed by the rest of the team, and walked toward the lobby doors.

“We’re supposed to meet in Cabrillo’s suite,” Meadows said, opening the door.

As the team filed past, Seng handed each a room key. A few minutes later they were all crowded into Cabrillo’s suite. Once they all found seats, he spoke.

“MI5 has decided that there will be no attempt to intercept the device until there is movement,” he said. “We will be working a support role in the off chance the weapon somehow makes it close to the area of the concert.”

“What’s the status of the principal right now?” Murphy asked.

“We have listening devices trained on the apartment,” Cabrillo answered, “and right now they are sleeping.”

“What exactly will we be doing?” Linda Ross asked.

“Each of you is trained in disabling the device, so you will be placed along the possible routes into the area of the concert. We will wait there in case we’re called upon.”

Cabrillo walked over to a cork bulletin board on an easel. A large map of London was tacked on the board and a series of lines had been highlighted with a yellow marker.

“Based on where the apartment is located, these are the highest probability routes,” Cabrillo said. “We believe that, wherever the bomb is now, whoever has it will stop by and pick up Lababiti and the other man so they can place the nuke at the concert together.”

“You believe that they’re going to hide the device, then set the timer and escape?” Kasim asked.

“That’s what we’re hoping,” Cabrillo admitted. “This type of device has a fail-safe switch that requires ten minutes from arming to detonation to avoid unwanted explosions.”

“So you can’t just flip the switch and start the fission process?” Julia Huxley asked.

“No,” Cabrillo said, “the Russian devices are similar to ours in that respect—they require a series of steps before the device is operational. The one we believe they purchased is a ‘baby bomb’ designed for targeted destruction. The entire device could fit in a crate five feet long by three feet wide by three feet deep.”

“What’s the weight?” Franklin Lincoln asked.

“Under four hundred pounds.”

“So we know they can’t carry it or transport it by something like a bicycle,” Pete Jones said.

“They’ll need some type of vehicle,” Cabrillo said, “so that means they’ll need to travel over the roads.”

Cabrillo pointed to the apartment on the map.

“From the apartment,” he said, “there are a couple of routes they might take. The first is right behind us. Turn off the Strand down Savoy Street toward the Thames and turn on Victoria Embankment heading south. Once on Victoria Embankment, they have several choices. Turn at Northumberland Avenue then head down the Mall, or they could continue on to Bridge Street and Great George Street, then drive down Birdcage Walk. The second possibility is for the driver to head straight down the Strand to the Mall, but that takes him through the Charing Cross section as well as Trafalgar Square, where the traffic is usually very heavy. Thirdly, they have a variety of side streets they could cut across and piece together a route that, while not as direct, would be harder to follow. At this point we’re really just guessing.”

“What’s your gut feeling, boss?” Truitt asked.

“I don’t think they are trucking the bomb in from some other part of London,” Cabrillo said quietly. “I think it’s close to Lababiti right now. The starting point has to be the apartment, or somewhere very near, and if I was the driver I’d want to get it over as quickly as possible and try to escape the primary blast zone. I’d drive down Victoria Embankment, make my way to the park where the concert is being held, then initiate the firing sequence and make my escape while watching the time. At nine minutes I’d be looking for a sturdy building to hide inside.”

“How far does the primary blast zone extend?” Truitt asked.

Cabrillo took the highlighter and made a circle. At the north end was the A40 and Paddington, at the south end was Chelsea almost to the Thames. The eastern border was Piccadilly Circus, the west was the far edges of Kensington and Notting Hill.

“Everything inside this circle will cease to exist completely. One mile diameter outside the circle, including most of the British government offices, will be heavily damaged, and in a circle five miles from the center of the blast, buildings will be damaged and the radiation fallout heavy.”

Everyone stared at the map.

“That’s almost all of London,” Murphy said finally.

Cabrillo simply nodded.

“And we’ll all be toast as well,” Huxley, the medical officer, noted.

“Is that a medical term,” Jones said, “toast?”

LARRY KING WALKED out to where Adams had set down in a field near the Oregon.Ducking under the spinning rotor blade, he opened the rear door of the Robinson R-44, slid his cased rifle in the rear and several boxes in back, then closed the door, opened the front, and climbed into the passenger seat. Slipping on a headset, he closed the door and locked it before speaking.

“Morning, George,” he said laconically.

“Larry,” Adams said, pulling up on the collective and lifting the Robinson from the ground, “how’s it going?”

Adams pushed the cyclic forward and initiated forward flight.

“Good day for hunting,” King said as he stared out the side window at the scenery.

Hanley had arranged for them to station the helicopter on top of a bank that was closed for the holidays. The helipad on the top was used by courier helicopters that made nighttime pickups and deliveries during the week.

But first they had a delivery to make to Battersea Park.

MEADOWS, SENG AND Truitt sat in the borrowed Range Rover and scanned the sky. As soon as the Robinson appeared, Meadows turned in his seat and spoke to Truitt.

“Your Majesty,” he said, “your face has arrived.”

Substituting Truitt for Prince Charles had been Cabrillo’s idea, and Fleming had gone along. In the first place, the Magic Shop on the Oregonhad the capability to produce a latex mask that exactly matched Prince Charles’s features, and could make it fit any member of the Corporation team using the computer scans of their faces that Nixon already had stored. In the second, Cabrillo wanted a steady hand in the role and he knew that Truitt was as unflappable as they came. In the third, of all the men in the Corporation, Truitt most closely matched the heir to the throne in physical size and stature.

“Well then,” Truitt said, “why don’t one of you commoners retrieve it—it’s damp and cold out there and I’m quite warm inside here.”

Meadows laughed and opened the door. He ran over to the helicopter as it set down and took the box containing the mask from King. He walked back to the Range Rover and turned and watched as Adams lifted off again.

ADAMS CROSSED THE Thames again then flew north a little into Westminster. There, just off Palace Street, he found the bank and set down on the roof. Once the rotor blade had stopped spinning, King climbed out and walked over to the edge and peered over the waist-high wall surrounding the roof. Just in the distance to the northwest he could see Buckingham Palace Garden and Hyde Park to the north.

Vendors were already setting up for the evening concert.

The large truck from Ben & Jerry’s ice cream did not hold much appeal, but the Starbucks display did. King walked back to the Robinson and smiled at Adams.

“There’s food, bottles of water, soda, and thermoses of coffee prepared by the dining room in one of those packages,” he said, motioning to the rear seat, “and I bought a pile of books and current magazines and put them in the other.”

“How long you figure we’ll wait?” Adams asked.

King stared at his watch. It was 10 A.M. “The most it will be is fourteen hours,” he said, “let’s hope they find it sooner.”

BACK AT THE Savoy, the team was dressing in the clothes Truitt had purchased. One by one they filed back into Cabrillo’s suite for their assignments. Each of them had high-powered microradios with earpieces to communicate. The send units were strapped across their necks near their voice boxes. To talk they simply touched their finger to their throat and spoke. Each person could then hear what they said.

The three two-person teams would form a half circle around Green Park with the closed part nearest the Strand and the open part facing Green and St. James’s Parks.

Farthest to the northwest, Kasim and Ross would take up station on Piccadilly between Dover and Berkley Streets. They left the Savoy and were taken to the area by a driver from MI5. Next, in the center of the semicircle, were Jones and Huxley. They were assigned a position directly across the street from Trafalgar Square, near the Charing Cross subway station. If the bomb traveled straight down the Strand, it would pass right by them. The last team, Murphy and Lincoln, were assigned to the area in front of the War Cabinet Room on Great George Street and Horse Guards Road. If the bomb came along the Victoria Embankment, they would intercept. Depending on where they would stand, they could have a clear shot across St. James’s Park.

Since they had the only clear shot, Murphy had a bag full of small handheld missiles, rifles and smoke grenades. The other teams were armed with handguns, knives and sharp spikes to toss on the road and flatten any vehicle’s tires.

Cabrillo would stay close to the apartment. Along with him, the street was swarming with agents from MI5. Morning became afternoon and still no movement.

41

LABABITI WAS Arake and a cad but he was also a highly trained terrorist. Today was the most critical day, and he was leaving nothing to chance. Waking Amad in early afternoon, he slipped his hand across the Yemeni’s mouth and then held up a slip of paper. It read No speaking from here on, communicate in writing only,in Arabic. Amad nodded and sat up in bed.

Taking a pad of paper and a pen from Lababiti, he scratched out a message.

Are the infidels listening?

We never know,Lababiti wrote.

For the next few hours the two men communicated by notes. Lababiti laid out the plan. Amad made sure he understood the mission. Darkness had fallen over London before they were finished. Lababiti’s last note was succinct.

I have to leave soon—you know where the sword of Allah is located and what to do with it—best wishes on your journey.

Amad swallowed and nodded. His hands were shaking when Lababiti handed him a glass of Araq to calm his nerves. It was only a few minutes later when Cabrillo decided to finally use Al-Khalifa’s telephone to call the apartment. But by then the two had taken the vow of silence. The telephone rang four times until it was picked up by the answering machine. Cabrillo chose to leave no message.

The Corporation’s much-vaunted ace-in-the-hole turned out to be of zero value.

“THERE’S MOVEMENT,” ONE of the MI5 men assigned to monitor the parabolic microphones said over the radio.

The time was just before 9 P.M., and a light snow had started falling in London. The temperature was just at the freezing point, and the snow was not sticking to the roads, merely wetting them. If the temperature dropped any more, they would become an icy mess. The buildings were becoming lightly shrouded and puffs of steam escaped from the numerous roof vents. The remaining Christmas decorations in the windows added a festive nature to the scene, and the streets were crowded with holiday partiers.

Except for the fact that a nuclear weapon was nearby, it was tranquil.

LABABITI RODE DOWN the elevator. He had explained to Amad the way into the shop; the vehicle that would transport the bomb had been gassed and checked a week before. The Yemeni knew how to activate the timer. There was nothing else to do.

Nothing else but to escape.

Lababiti’s plan was simple. He’d drive the Jaguar through the city to the M20. That would take him forty-five minutes or so. Once on the M20 he would drive south to the train terminal at Folkestone, a distance of sixty miles, give or take. Once there, arriving a half hour early, as was required, he would drive the Jaguar onto the train scheduled to leave at 11:30 P.M.

The train would just be exiting the underwater tunnel at midnight for its arrival at Coquelles, near Calais, at five past the hour. Lababiti would be out of danger from tunnel collapse just as the bomb ignited—but he would still be able to witness the fireball from the window of the train.

It was a well-planned and well-timed escape.

Lababiti had no way of knowing that several dozen MI5 agents, as well as the Corporation, were watching his every move. He was a hare and the hounds were drawing near.

Lababiti exited the elevator and walked through the lobby and onto the side street. He glanced around but noticed nothing amiss. Other than a nagging sense that unseen eyes were watching, he felt confident and at ease. The feeling was just paranoia, he thought, the burden from the knowledge of the upcoming destruction. Lababiti shrugged off the thoughts, opened the door to the Jaguar and climbed inside.

Starting the car and allowing it to warm up for a minute, he placed it in gear and drove down the few feet to the Strand and turned right.

“I’ve got tracking,” one of the MI5 men said through the radio.

THE BOX TRUITT had attached to the gas tank was operating perfectly.

Near the entrance to the Savoy, Fleming and Cabrillo stood on the sidewalk and glanced at the Jaguar waiting to turn the corner. Fleming turned his back to the car and spoke into the microphone attached to his throat.

“Teams four and five follow at a distance.”

The Jaguar turned and a cab pulled from the side of the street and trailed at a safe distance. The Jaguar passed a small panel van marked with the logo of an overnight freight company a block down—the van pulled into the traffic and took up station a discreet distance behind.

“The Jaguar was clean, the bomb was not in it,” Fleming said to Cabrillo, “so just where do you think Lababiti is going?”

“He’s running,” Cabrillo said, “leaving the kid to do the man’s job.”

“When should we move to intercept?” Fleming asked.

“Let him get to his destination,” Cabrillo said. “The airport, the train terminal—wherever. Then tell your men to grab him. Just make sure he has no chance to make a call before they take him into custody.”

“What then?” Fleming asked.

“Have him brought back here,” Cabrillo said in a voice that chilled the already cold air. “We wouldn’t want him to miss the party.”

“Brilliant,” Fleming said.

“Let’s see how bad he’s ready to die for Allah,” Cabrillo said.

THE CLOSER IT came to midnight the more the tension increased.

The microphones at Lababiti’s apartment were picking up the sound of Amad praying aloud. Fleming was stationed in the hotel across the street with a dozen men from MI5. The three Corporation teams had been at their stations for just over thirteen hours. They were growing tired of the wait. Cabrillo was walking back and forth near Bedford Street; he’d passed the classic motorcycle dealership, a take-out curry restaurant and a small market hundreds of times as he paced back and forth.

“We have to go in there,” one of the MI5 agents said to Fleming.

“What if the bomb is a few blocks away,” Fleming said, “and someone else has started a delayed timer? Then we’ve missed it—and London burns. We wait—there is nothing else we can do.”

Another MI5 agent walked into the lobby. “Sir,” he said to Fleming, “we now have twenty vehicles prowling the roads nearby. As soon as the principal climbs into whatever car he’s going to use, we can stop traffic in an instant.”

“And the bomb experts are nearby, ready to move?”

“Four British experts”—the man nodded—“a couple from the United States Air Force.”

At that instant Amad’s praying stopped and the sound of him walking across the floor of the apartment came over the microphone.

“We have movement,” Fleming said into the radio to the dozens of men in wait. “ Do notmove on him until he is at his final destination.”

Fleming prayed it would soon be over. The time was 11:49 P.M.

THERE WERE MI5 agents at the front, rear and all sides of the apartment building. Every car on the street had been tagged with a locator; each had an electronic disabling device attached. Each had been scanned with a Geiger counter and found to be clean.

Everyone believed Amad would be driving to another location to retrieve the bomb.

But the bomb was downstairs right now. It was resting in the sidecar attached to a Russian-made Ural motorcycle—just like the one Amad had trained on in Yemen.

AS SOON AS the door to the apartment opened and Amad exited, an MI5 agent passed through the lobby and stared at the elevator button. It showed the elevator going to Lababiti’s floor, and then it started down. The elevator stopped on the second floor.

The MI5 agent whispered the information over the radio, then quickly walked from the lobby. Everyone who was listening tensed up—the time was now and this was the place.

THE FOOD AND beer and fun had not been diminished by the cold and scattered snow. The areas around Hyde and Green Parks were crowded with tens of thousands of holiday partygoers. Backstage, a liaison from MI5 was explaining to a rock star the cold reality.

“You should have warned us,” his agent said loudly, “so we could have canceled.”

“He explained that,” Elton John said. “That would have alerted the terrorists.”

Dressed in a yellow sequined jumpsuit, jeweled sunglasses and black platform boots with lights in the soles, it would be easy to dismiss John as just another spoiled and overindulged musician used to a life of pampered elegance. The truth was far from that. Reginald Dwight had clawed his way up from a hardscrabble existence with strength, perseverance and decades of hard work. No one can dominate the pop charts for decade after decade if they’re not both tough and realistic. Elton John was a survivor.

“The royal family has been evacuated, right?” he asked.

“Come in here, Mr. Truitt,” the MI5 agent shouted outside the trailer.

Truitt opened the door and stepped inside.

“This is the stand-in for Prince Charles,” the agent said.

John glanced at Truitt and grinned. “Looks just like him,” he said.

“Sir,” Truitt said, “I want you to know we’re going to recover the bomb and disable it before anything happens. We appreciate you going along with this.”

“I have faith in MI5,” John said.

“He’s with MI5,” Truitt said. “I’m with a group named the Corporation.”

“The Corporation?” John said. “What’s that?”

“We’re private spies,” Truitt said.

“Private spies,” John said, shaking his head, “imagine that. You guys any good?”

“We have a one hundred percent success record.”

John rose from his chair—it was time to go backstage. “Do me a favor,” he said, “give this one a hundred and ten percent.”

Truitt nodded.

John was at the door but he stopped. “Tell the cameraman not to do close-ups on Prince Charles—the bad guys might be watching.”

“You’re going out there?” the agent asked incredulously.

“Damn straight,” John said, “that’s a crowd of my countrymen and they came to see a show. Either these men”—he swept his hand at Truitt and the MI5 agent—“handle this problem, or I’m going out singing.”

Truitt smiled and followed John out the door.

THERE ARE SIX ways to enter a room. Four walls, the floor, or through the ceiling. Amad was using the latter. At the end of the second floor of Lababiti’s apartment building there was a utility closet. Two months prior, Lababiti had carefully sawed the four corners of the wood-planked floor and removed it, revealing the sub-floor. Then, using a two-foot-diameter round hole saw, he’d bored a hole into the lower shop. Between the sub-floor and the wood hatch above he’d hidden a rope ladder. After cleaning up the dust below, he retrieved the round section of floor and reattached it above with twin plates. Next he filled the edges around the wall in the closet with wood putty so it could not be detected. The hatch had been left alone until now.

Amad opened the utility closet using a key Lababiti had copied.

With the door open and the hallway empty, he pried off the hatch with a screwdriver. Setting the wood-planked section against the wall, Amad entered the closet and shut the door behind him. He took a pair of hooks from his pocket and screwed them into a wall, then attached the rope ladder. After removing the plates holding the round section of floor in place, Amad pulled it up into the closet and tossed it to the side.

He dropped the ladder into the hole and climbed down.

EVERY MI5 AGENT on the rooftops nearby had their scopes trained on the second floor.

“Nothing,” they called in one by one.

The MI5 agent who had walked through the lobby then out again reentered the building. Walking over to the elevator, he saw the indicator light still on number two.

“Still on two,” he radioed to Fleming.

In the hotel across the street, Fleming was staring at his watch. Four minutes had passed since the principal had stopped the elevator on the second floor. “Go up the stairs,” he ordered the agent.

AMAD STARED AT his instructions written in Arabic, then flipped back the hinged panel over the arming mechanism. The symbols were Cyrillic but his diagram was easy to follow. Amad turned a toggle switch up and an LED light began to flash. Turning a knob, he adjusted the time to five.

Then he climbed on the Ural and kicked the engine to life. Once it started, he reached for a garage door opener duct-taped to the handlebars, and pushed the button. He shifted into first and was doing nearly ten miles an hour as the door rose six feet in the air and continued up.

Everything began to happen at once.

THE AGENT REACHED the second floor and reported it empty at the same instant the garage door began to open. “We have a door opening,” Fleming said into the radio as he raced through the lobby for the door.

He was just at the inner glass doors when the motorcycle appeared and drove onto the street. Amad was at the corner crossing onto the Strand in a second.

“The principal is on a motorcycle,” he shouted into the radio.

The sharpshooters followed Amad, but he turned before the order to fire came.

On the Strand, three taxis driven by MI5 agents heard the radio call. They pulled from the side of the street and tried to block the Ural. Amad swerved and took to the sidewalk to pass them, then angled back onto the road and twisted the throttle to the stops. Gaining speed, he swerved in and out of traffic like a madman.

Ahead, a truck driven by an MI5 agent tried to block the road, but Amad squeezed past.

They’re on to me, he thought. Now he just had to deliver the bomb to the chosen area or die trying. Either way, he’d be a martyr. Either way, London would burn.

CABRILLO STARED DOWN the street and saw the vehicles from MI5 were being outfoxed. They had not planned on the principal using a motorcycle, and it threw a screw into the operation. There was only one thing to do—and Cabrillo did not hesitate.

Yanking a newspaper rack off the sidewalk, he threw it through the window of the classic motorcycle dealership’s front window. The burglar alarm started blaring. Cabrillo climbed through the broken glass. The 1952 Vincent Black Shadow on display had the key in the ignition. Using his boot to clear the edges of glass from the frame, Cabrillo stomped on the kick start and the engine roared to life. He lifted the front end of the Vincent over the windowsill, clicked it into gear, and rode over the windowsill and down to the sidewalk.

The Ural pulled abreast of the dealership then headed down the Strand.

Cabrillo twisted the throttle and leapt in behind. The Ural was fast, but there is no motorcycle like a Black Shadow. If the Ural had not had a block head start, the Shadow would have caught him within seconds.

“THE PRINCIPAL IS on a dark green motorcycle with a sidecar, he’s heading down the Strand,” Fleming shouted over the radio, “he has the bomb aboard. Repeat, the bomb is in the sidecar.”

The Robinson with Adams and King took to the air. Near Trafalgar Station, Jones and Huxley drew their weapons and aimed down the road. Hundreds of people were milling about and they angled for a clear shot but could find none. In front of the War Cabinet Room, Murphy and Lincoln turned away from the Victoria Embankment and started sighting down on Hyde and Green Parks. On Piccadilly Street, Kasim and Ross separated and began covering both ends of the street.

TRUITT WAS KEPT away from the others backstage until it was time to walk in front of the microphone. Stepping from foot to foot he waited.

“It’s time,” John’s agent said.

Truitt glanced over at the MI5 agent, but he was talking on the radio, so Truitt walked onto the stage and approached the microphone.

“Ladies and gentlemen,” he said, “could you please join me in welcoming in the New Year with England’s favorite musician, Sir Elton John.”

The stage was dark except for Truitt. Then a spotlight appeared on Elton John sitting at an elevated piano. Still dressed in the yellow jumpsuit, his head was covered with a British army Kevlar field helmet.

The introduction music for the song “Saturday Night’s Alright for Fighting” started to play. A second later, John began to sing.

Truitt walked off-stage and approached the MI5 agent.

“He’s headed this way on a motorcycle,” the agent said.

“I’m going into the crowd,” Truitt said.

THE URAL RACED past Nelson’s Column with Cabrillo and the Vincent Black Shadow hot on its heels. Cabrillo wanted to open his coat so he could get to his shoulder holster, but he couldn’t take his hands off the handlebars to get at the weapon. Twisting the throttle, the Vincent shot ahead and came abreast of the Ural just as they passed Charing Cross. Huxley and Jones ran into the street and tried to line up shots as the two motorcycles passed, but Cabrillo was too close and the crowds too great.

At the intersection of the Strand and Cockspur Street, Cabrillo pulled up next to the Ural and kicked at Amad with his boot. The Yemeni swerved but retained control.

“They’re going straight down the Mall,” Jones shouted over the radio.

Kasim and Ross started running down Queen’s Walk toward the concert.

Murphy could become excitable, but with a sniper rifle in his hands he was always quite calm. Lincoln was spotting for him and scanned the parks in front. “The only clear shot through the trees is when they almost reach the Queen Victoria Memorial,” Lincoln said.

“The street around the memorial runs clockwise, right?” Murphy said.

“Correct,” Lincoln said.

“I’ll plink the bastard as he slows for the turn—JFK style,” Murphy said.

“I’ve got them,” Lincoln said, just catching the front end of the motorcycles.

ADAMS MADE A left turn above the Old Admiralty Buildings and started down the Mall to the rear of the racing motorcycles.

“Head and shoulders,” King said through the headset.

“Shampoo?” Adams said.

“No,” King said, “where I’m going to shoot this little shit.”

He sighted in his scope and regulated his breathing. The cold wind through the open door of the helicopter was making his eyes tear, but King hardly noticed it at all.

CABRILLO GLANCED AHEAD. There was a line of food vendors and booths ahead lining the circular drive where the Queen Victoria Memorial sat. They were nearing the edge of the concert grounds. He pulled alongside in preparation to leap over to the Ural.