Countdown to Mecca (14 page)

He heard another sharp report, then realized they were still under fire. He crawled toward his car, slithering as low as he possibly could to get under the aptly named Escape. He looked for Doc. The man was nowhere to be seen. He looked back and saw the guard on the ground nearby.

“Come on!” yelled Jack. Then he realized blood was spurting from the man's skull. There was another shot. The SUV that had carried Schoenberg screeched into motion. Two more shots, and it crashed through the doors at the front of the building. It came to a smoking, squealing halt, and the horn began to blare.

Jack twisted around so he could get his smartphone and dial 911. He realized he had foolishly left it on the front seat of the Ford. Cursing himself, Jack dove toward it.

Pyotr had the man's spasming back in his sights and pulled the trigger. Had he tried to leap into the Ford's cab, as Pyotr had expected, his spine would have been shattered. Instead, the man was diving for the vehicle's undercarriage, so the bullet had torn into the front seat instead. Now he was sprawled under the vehicle.

Pyotr's lips peeled off his teeth in a wolf's deadly grin.
Clever fellow,
he thought.
But let's see how clever you feel in five seconds.

In those five seconds, Pyotr used his bullets to start splitting open the Ford's lower lip.

“Jesus Christ!” Jack swore as the shells not only tore open a wedge in the vehicle's lower side, but smashed into the parking lot asphalt—sending shards of concrete and metal into the reporter's face. Even as he scrambled back, trying to avoid the shrapnel, he realized that with each shot, the bullets were edging closer and closer to the Ford's fuel line. Where was Doc? Did any of the subsequent shots nail him? Would he appear in time to save them both? The next shot tore open more of the car, its ricochet perforating the exhaust pipe. Jack immediately saw that it would only take two more bullets before the gas tank was hit. And then he might as well be in an exploding oven broiler.

The next bullet hit. Jack jerked to the opposite edge of the car. Could he run? Could the sniper hit him through the cover of the SUV? Did he have any choice but to attempt it? Jack was about to scramble up and start running when, suddenly, police cars, sirens screaming, came tearing into the parking lot from every direction—on the roads as well as through hedges and over grassy knolls.

Pyotr was already disassembling the rifle and securing it in a backpack. He could do that in less than ten seconds. He would slide down the tower's ladder in four seconds. It would take him exactly twenty-three seconds to reach the van. The highway was thirty-six seconds beyond that.

The last man he had been trying to kill clearly hadn't seen anything, and would therefore be of dubious value as an eyewitness. Still, the idea of missing a killing irked him. What is one death compared to the many to come? Pyotr allowed himself a grin, and made like the Ford SUV. He escaped.

Jack, meanwhile, found himself in the center of a police maelstrom. Armed cops seemed to appear from everywhere, like an never-expanding dartboard with Jack as the bull's-eye. Only one weapon was pointed at him. Every officer, save one, was fanning out, looking for the shooter and securing the scene.

That one, however, marched directly at Jack, his Sig Sauer P229 automatic in one hand, and his other hand out. It was Captain Daniel Jeffreys, with an expression that combined concerned and relief.

Feeling that same relief wash over him, all Jack's fear and tension also erupted.

“What is this?” he shouted in adrenaline-fueled defiance. “Have you been following me?!”

Jeffreys stopped in midstep, and nearly laughed in disbelief. Instead he boomed back, “You're damn right we've been following you!”

Jack stepped forward and grabbed the captain by the arms. “Thanks!” he exclaimed, a little too loudly, in the cop's face. “What took you so long?!”

 

18

“He got away,” Doc said as he appeared from around the back of the DR building. “But I might have caught a glimpse of him on video.”

“Let me guess,” Jeffreys said drily. “About six feet tall, slim, blondish?”

Doc raised his eyebrows as he neared the pair. “They teach mentalism at the Academy now?” He jerked the digicam up. “I might even have got his van's license plate.”

“I doubt it,” Jack said miserably. “These guys have a way of obscuring their plates. I learned that at Sammy's apartment.”

They were sitting on the back lid of a SWAT van at the edge of the parking lot. A uniformed officer handed Jeffreys some coffees, and Jeffreys handed them over to Jack and Doc.

“Why was Schoenberg killed?” the cop wanted to know, though he was really thinking out loud. “Were the Israelis catching up with him?”

“Or maybe the United States?” Jack suggested.

“That's a little paranoid,” Doc pointed out.

“Someone's tried to kill me twice in as many days,” Jack retorted. “I've earned my paranoia.”

A squat EMT made a disapproving face as she tried to tend the cuts and scrapes on Jack's face, neck, and shoulder. Jack shut up, raised his chin, and let her do her work.

The forensics van pulled up. Jack and Doc watched as the two technicians got out. They moved to the back and donned protective gear.

“Come back to the station to make a statement,” Jeffreys said.

“Can't I make it here?” Jack asked.

The captain smirked. “Sure. Then how do you propose to get back to town?” He motioned at the bullet-ridden Ford SUV. “Come on. I'll drive you. And I promise, not a single question until we get there.”

Jeffreys was as good as his word. But once they returned to the captain's office, Jack and Doc saw why. Carl Forsyth and Dover Griffith were waiting for them. Dover came right over to Jack and studied his face with concern. Seemingly unconsciously her hand raised to tenderly touch the deepest cut on his cheek. Jack winced at the pain her touch of the wound elicited.

“You should see the bull that gored me,” he joked as Jeffreys closed his office door and lowered the shades on his windows.

“Who was he?” Forsyth seethed as Doc sat on the edge of Jeffrey's desk.

“Your guess is as good as Jeffreys's,” Jack said as Dover took a position between her boss and her boyfriend.

“Maybe better,” Doc drawled, handing the digicam to Forsyth, with the video he made while trying to catch the sniper.

Dover and Jeffreys leaned in on either side of the FBI chief and all three watched the jiggling point-of-view shot as Doc had run toward the tower. Suddenly the image shot upward, and tried to zoom in, on a moving figure in the distance.

“He slid down that ladder like a circus acrobat,” Doc commented. “And he ran like a gold medal sprinter. Even if I had my six-shooter, I doubt even I could have nailed him. I certainly couldn't catch him.”

The others watched as the man, his head obscured by a hoodie, disappeared behind some hedges. Moments later, they could hear a van engine. The image seemed to burst onto another parking lot and Doc's camera just caught the van as it roared out the exit.

“Can I send this to our techies?” Forsyth asked. “They should be able to clean it up.”

Jack seemed reluctant.

“You'll get it back, better than you left it,” Forsyth promised.

Jack nodded.

“Even if they obscured the tags,” Jeffreys said, “the van may have been a rental. That could give us something.”

“Yeah,” Forsyth said. “We'll find the car and discover that the renter paid in cash and used a fake name, while the security camera will only show a hood, sunglasses, and maybe fake facial hair.” He shrugged apologetically. “At least that's the customary MO. Still, we've got to explore every angle.” Forsyth looked at Jack. “You think this guy was one of the hit squad shooters?”

“I don't think so. This guy is in a different class entirely. The Levi Plaza guys didn't have the single-purpose mind-set of experienced killers.”

“Yeah,” Jeffreys agreed. “I don't know a pro hit man who'd ever let themselves be hit by a trolley.”

“So?” Forsyth asked. “I know you, Jack. You're thinking something.”

“Only what I've been saying all along,” Jack said darkly. “You've got the same information we do. How's it adding up to you?”

“Two and two is equaling five, Jack,” he responded, ticking off the facts, as he saw them, on his fingers. “Yes, a Russian plane went down. But we have no conclusive intel that it's connected to this magic word your ‘friend' supposedly heard. And yes, another friend of yours says that something ‘biotoxic' is missing.”

“They said ‘biotoxic' and not ‘nuclear'?”

“That was the exact word they used,” Forsyth replied. “On the alert scale, that's considerably lower than ‘nuclear,' since it's considered, at best, a localized danger.”

“As far as anyone knows
so far,
” Jack said, emphasizing the qualifier.

“Fine,” Forsyth agreed. “Point is we have no idea whether that's connected, either. See the problem I'm having, Jack? Anybody can take anything that happens to anyone anywhere in the world, then play ‘six degrees' with it until it comes out just as circumstantial.”

“But what about what just happened?” Jack asked, pointing at his facial wounds. “Are these just circumstantial?”

“Jack,” Forsyth said, “both you and Schoenberg have plenty of enemies who wouldn't need a magic word to try deep-sixing you. In your case, every Muslim and Mexican in the Bay area. And that's just to start with.”

“Uh-uh, Carl. That would be just too coincidental.”

“Really? That makes more sense to me than dragging in decorated U.S. Army heroes into this tenuous, highly imaginative scheme.”

Jack didn't agree but he had no evidence to dispute what Forsyth had just said. He looked to the other's faces, seeing concern in his friends' expressions, and conviction in the police captain's.

“My immediate concern, here, is that Schoenberg was assassinated,” Jeffreys said. “I can assure you both that we will be investigating that without prejudice to where the trail might lead. And for the record: the general description of the assassin corresponds with the description of a man who has been looking for someone who fits Anastasia Vincent's description.”

Jack's eyebrows raised at that revelation.

Jeffreys continued carefully, “But I think you would have to admit that, even if this attack was connected to the previous attack, it is more likely because of something else Ms. Vincent did, something she isn't telling you, rather than some sort of international conspiracy that involves the second highest-ranking officer in the United States Special Command.”

Jack had to admit that when they put it like that, it sounded like he was lost.

“So give me one good reason I shouldn't lock you up, Jack,” Forsyth said.

“On what grounds, sir?” Dover demanded.

“Obstruction of a criminal investigation, for one.”

“‘Whoever willfully endeavors by means of bribery,'” said a voice as the door flew open. “Emphasis on the bribery. Has that occurred?”

They all looked up to see Sol Minsky standing just inside the office with an extremely embarrassed police officer behind him.

“I'm sorry, sir, he barged in—”

“No problem, officer,” Jeffreys said, putting his fists on the desk and slowly rising from his seat. “Our visitor knows this place better than all of us put together.” He lowered his brow and pinned Minsky with his gaze. “And he knew it long before you were born.”

Sol just smiled and glanced over his shoulder. “That means you're dismissed, sonny.”

The desk cop made a face and left. Sol, resplendent in a perfect suit, calmly closed the door behind him.

“To what do we owe this rare public appearance?” Jeffreys asked evenly.

“I heard my partners in—”

“Crime?” Forsyth interjected.

“Documentary production,” Sol corrected affably, “were being detained. I also heard that one of our company vehicles was damaged in an illegal attack on these innocent bystanders. So I thought I'd give these men a ride.” He looked cordially from Forsyth's consternated face to Jeffreys's grudgingly impressed visage. “That is, of course, if neither of you gentlemen has something better than a half-assed charge.”

Doc stood. “Are we free to go, Captain?”

Jeffreys nodded without taking his eyes off Sol.

Doc's own gaze shifted. “Are we free to go, Agent Forsyth?”

There was another moment of tension, but then Forsyth's shoulders relaxed. “Get out of here,” he growled. The three men started to do just that, Jack and Dover exchanging a tender look as he walked by.

 

19

General Thomas Brooks waited impatiently for the call from the Army Chief of Staff to come through. He'd known General Horace Ortiz since West Point, when Ortiz was a firstie and Brooks a lowly plebe. Brooks's ability as a pitcher won him a spot on the Point's junior varsity baseball team that year, which ordinarily would have accorded him a modicum of respect from upper classmen like Ortiz. But apparently Brooks had beat out a friend of Ortiz's for the position, and the future chief of staff had ridden him all the harder. All these years later, traces of that original gulf lingered in their relationship; Brooks could have earned the Medal of Honor and he would still taste vinegar in his mouth every time he had to deal with the man who had become known as “Asskisser-Ortiz.”

The service chief finally came on the line. Over the years his voice had lost most of its Hispanic twang—except when he talked to people he'd known back when.

“There he is,” drawled Ortiz. “How are you, Tommy-gun?”

“I'm fine, General.” Brooks made a point of showing his superior exaggerated respect.