Bullseye (5 page)

The climb up the vertical did not take long. The ascent had been practiced many times on a mockup at a facility in rural Maryland. And now, for real, the trip was measured and swift.

They made only one stop.

At the fourth floor.

It took a few minutes to cut the opening in the wall there, and then they were on their way again. Better to have cut the hole now. When they were fleeing from here they would not want to waste time doing it.

As the four of them climbed, Chase gave final instructions. They would not have long after it was done to make their escape.

The shaft was well insulated from the outside as the building had been constructed around it. Still, Chase did not want to make any unnecessary sounds. The timing would be tight. They had lost precious minutes when the power had gone out in the bank. But he had built in a contingency because things never went exactly according to plan.

He checked his watch as they climbed. It would be okay, he thought. They would make it.
They had better make it.

They reached the top floor and Chase motioned to the person directly below him. Everyone stopped. Chase eyed the drywall in front of him and checked the construction plans for this part of the building that he’d downloaded onto his phone, confirming the location. He pointed to the wall and the person directly below him rose up beside him while holding on to one of the girders. Both men withdrew cutting blades from their belt holders and began to carefully slice away.

It would not take long now.

Robie, Stone, and Harry peered inside the hole revealing the shaft.

“Pretty dark in there,” said Harry. “And stale air.”

Robie said, “And the higher we go the darker and staler.”

Harry opened his duffel bag. “I only have two pairs of night optics.”

Robie held out his hand. “I’ll take one.”

Harry glanced at Stone and said, “I’ll take the other.”

Stone considered this. It was obvious from his face that he too wanted to go up the shaft. Finally, he deferred to their youth. “Keep me posted.” Then he whispered to Harry, “And watch my lobbyist friend.”

Harry nodded and said, “If they get by us, don’t let them get by you.”

Stone gripped the pistol Harry had given him. “They won’t. But keep in mind that what goes up doesn’t necessarily come down. Or at least
all
the way down.”

As the two men prepared to go inside the shaft, Stone took out his phone and punched in the number. He spoke for one minute. When he clicked off he said, “Good luck.”

Annabelle looked desperately around the room after her call from Stone. He had filled her in on recent developments, which had only heightened her anxiety in having still not located Alex Ford.

She felt a hand on her arm and almost screamed.

It was Bob, the man she had come with.

“Been looking for you. Have someone I want to introduce you to.”

Annabelle caught her breath and said, “I really hope it’s the VP. Been dying to meet him.”

Bob smiled. “Then it’s your lucky day, Annabelle. Just don’t use the ‘dying’ word around him. Gets the Secret Service in a tizzy.”

She looked at him. “This is so exciting.” But she was thinking,
You really have no idea how exciting.

“Hey, stick with me, I’ll take you places.” He gripped her by the elbow and propelled her forward.

They turned the corner and there was the VP.

And on his right-hand side was Alex Ford.

When Alex’s gaze caught on her, his lips parted and his eyes widened. Her panicked look immediately drew his suspicion.

But Bob stepped forward. “Mr. Vice President, I would like you to meet my new best friend, Annabelle Conroy.”

The nation’s second in command held out his hand, his smile wide and inviting. “Ms. Conroy, let me just warn you about this guy. Watch yourself around him.”

Bob laughed. Annabelle managed a titter. She glanced at Alex. He was staring directly at her.

She said, “I know this is silly, sir, but can I take a picture? I have my phone. I can take it myself. I know this is a fund-raiser and I’m probably supposed to be charged for a photo, but it really would mean the world to me.”

The vice president smiled more broadly. “I think we can make an exception.”

Annabelle slid out her phone, stood next to the vice president, held up the phone, and took a shot.

She stepped back and quickly hit some keys. “I’m just sending it to my mom. She’ll never believe this.” But she was actually typing a text. She hit send.

A few moments later Alex’s phone buzzed. Annabelle stared directly at him and then her gaze dropped to his pocket where his phone was buzzing. He slid it out. On the screen he saw multiple missed calls from Annabelle. But the text was what drew his immediate attention.

Assassination attempt coming. Up abandoned shaft from bank. Oliver there. Go!

Adam Chase cut out the last piece of drywall and insulation, and revealed to him was the back of an ordinary wall outlet with electrical lines running to it. He unscrewed the back of the box and handed it to the person next to him. He looked down at the other two people just below him and held a finger to his mouth. He leaned in close and peered between the slits of the outlet plate on the other side of the wall.

He saw people’s ankles and legs at first. When he peered up he saw torsos, and then heads.

He registered on one torso and one head and he couldn’t help but smile. His inside source had been worth every penny. It was fortunate for him that political events like this were so heavily scripted while trying mightily to seem impromptu. But they were organized down to the second and, most importantly, location. It was photo op time and the photo ops, according to the event schedule, were to take place in this very room for the next thirty minutes.

He used duct tape to attach the canister to the back of the wall and pointed one end of it inside the outlet slot. The person beside him cut the duct tape with scissors so as to make no noise and handed the strips to Chase.

They worked away until the canister was solidly supported. The other person checked a small electronic box attached to the canister and then hit a switch on the box. It instantly powered up and he gave Chase a thumbs-up.

Chase placed one last bit of duct tape near the nozzle of the canister, ensuring that it remained directly pointed through the outlet slot. He gave it a pat and smiled.

Then he looked at the other three people with him and pointed down.

They started to descend.

They wanted to be nowhere near this place when it happened. No sane person would.

Many feet below, Robie put a hand on Harry’s arm and pointed up. Harry looked up and saw a rope dangling barely five feet above his head. He looked at Robie. Both men drew their weapons and continued their climb up the exposed steel girders.

The two groups met just above the fourth floor, one ascending and the other descending. It was a memorable collision.

Adam Chase and his team had superior numbers. But they had been surprised.

Harry and Robie had not.

The few extra seconds this allowed Harry and Robie cost Chase’s team dearly.

Chase cried out and slipped the remote from his pocket. He pointed it upward and was a sliver from pressing the button when it happened.

Two rounds fired by Robie hit him in the head and heart.

Chase’s team had been using ropes and pulleys to more efficiently descend after stringing the block and tackle across two girders higher up. The dead Chase hung from one of the ropes for a moment before his grip failed as he died. His body and the remote sailed past Robie and Harry, bouncing off the walls twice before he hit the floor inside the bank with a thud.

A shot blew past Robie’s head and smacked into the wall, where it stayed.

Harry drilled the shooter right through his optics lens.

Another body fell.

However, this time was different. The falling body hit Harry, causing him to lose his grip. He fell off the girder and would have also plummeted to his death, if an iron grip had not encircled his wrist.

He looked up to see Robie holding on to him, his other hand gripping one of the ropes that dangled down.

Suspended in midair, Harry started to swing back and forth using Robie as his fulcrum until his feet once more touched a metal girder. He regained his balance and breathed a sigh of relief.

Both men looked up, their guns pointed in the same direction.

“Shit,” muttered Robie.

There was no one there.

Stone had seen the two bodies hit the floor of the shaft in the bank. His gun pointed at them and praying it was neither Harry nor the “lobbyist,” he ducked inside the shaft. He was vastly relieved to see that it was not either of them. He took the masks off, revealing two men. Though he didn’t know his name, one was Adam Chase. The other was a young man in his twenties. Stone checked the neck of the younger man but did not find what he was looking for.

He was alone in the bank right now. Reuben had led all the hostages out through the hole in the wall that connected to the public restroom in the outside corridor. The police and FBI had been summoned. Stone expected them on the scene at any moment.

Stone’s phone buzzed.

It was Harry.

He said, “We got two and missed two, Oliver.”

“So there were four total?”

“Yes. I saw them. Did you expect there to be?”

“Actually, yes.”

“I think the pair went out through the fourth floor. And whatever they were doing up there, I don’t think it happened. I’m going up there to make sure. The other guy you sent with me is following them out from up here.”

Stone clicked off and pushed aside the bodies until he saw it.

The remote.

He gingerly picked it up. It was battery-operated. He slipped the back off and took the batteries out.

Then Stone was on the move. He couldn’t leave through the bank entrance. He didn’t have the key and it was booby-trapped with C-4. So he left the same way Harry and Reuben had entered and the hostages had escaped—through the hole in the wall to the adjoining men’s room.

As soon as Alex Ford had gotten Annabelle’s text he had launched into full-scale protection mode. Alerting the other agents to the threat, they lifted the vice president off his feet and literally carried him out of the apartment, leaving the other guests stunned.

Annabelle said, “Everyone, please exit the apartment. Don’t run, don’t panic, just leave now.”

But of course everyone did panic. And everyone did run. Annabelle noted that her escort, Bob, trampled over two older women on his way out.

Annabelle helped the ladies to the door and ushered them out. She made sure the place was empty and then closed the door behind her.

The canister duct-taped to the back of the wall outlet remained silent, the remote meant to engage it safely neutralized. Two minutes later Harry Finn reached it. When he saw the label on the side, his eyes went wide. They had been lucky. Very lucky.

Stone raced up the stairs to the fourth floor. When he reached it he slowed down and started watching. The people he was after had seen him back at the bank. He had not seen them. Well, actually he now knew he had seen one of them.

The bank manager had not been in the bank when the other hostages had been led out. That meant he had gone up the shaft with the other three gunmen, leaving the last man on the team down below.

That meant the bank manager was in on it, of course.

That’s why he had been taken out of the room. Not as a hostage, but as part of the assassination attempt.

Stone dropped back a bit when he saw Robie emerge from down one hallway. Robie looked quickly around, seemed to spot something, and darted off to the right.

Stone kept his gaze moving until it settled on some people nearing an exit door. The two men were dressed in suits. One was slightly larger than the other. They passed a woman pushing a stroller, startling her a bit in their haste.

Stone headed in that direction. His hand was on the butt of the pistol in his pocket. The two men were past the woman and nearly at the exit door. Stone picked up his speed.

The men were through the door.

Stone raced up behind the woman and said, “Please keep your hands in view. If you don’t I will shoot you.”

He pushed the muzzle of the gun into her back. “Do you understand?”

She nodded.

He stepped forward and looked down into the stroller. He drew the blanket back. Revealed inside it were climbing equipment, the clothes she had been wearing, and a machine pistol. The collapsible stroller must have been in the laundry cart they had pushed into the bank, along with the rest of their equipment.

Stone looked up at her and then glanced at her neck. “In your line of work, it’s not advisable to have such a distinctive tattoo. It sort of gives you away.”

Robie had come out on the fourth floor through a hole cut into a storage closet.

Despite what he had said to Stone earlier, Robie was very familiar with the mall. He had been reconnoitering the location for nearly a week. He couldn’t be sure his target wasn’t lying at the bottom of the shaft back at the bank. But now he had to make sure.

He slowed when he finally spotted the man hurrying down one of the mall walkways, no doubt seeking the nearest exit. He reached for the gun in his pocket.

Suddenly, the man looked back and saw Robie.

And then he started to run.

It was the bank manager.

The man raced down the stairs and into the underground parking garage.

Robie followed.

The men worked their way into the bowels of the place, which was perfectly fine with Robie. He had no need for witnesses.

They ended up in the equipment area on the very lowest level, well away from any cars and cameras.

From behind a support column the man yelled, “Who are you?”

Robie said nothing. He moved a bit closer, angling his approach to give him a sight line on the man.

The man fired a wild shot that clanged off an overhead pipe and embedded itself in the concrete wall.

“I have money. I can give you money,” the man called out.

Robie kept moving forward. He didn’t waste time or concentration on responding. He was in full predator mode.

“I have powerful friends,” cried the man. “They will kill you if you harm me.”

Robie moved to his left and then took a few paces forward. The man was doing him a favor by talking. It was allowing Robie to zero in on his position. The man was also not moving. Staying still in a situation like this pretty much ensured one’s death.

The man fired another shot. And then another. They both were wild and they both ended up stuck in concrete.

Robie kept moving forward and to the right. He had his position locked down now. It was just a matter of getting there.

“I will kill you!” screamed the man. “You are just a customer of the bank. I will kill you. Leave now and you will survive. This is your last warning. I am not to be intimidated.”

As he said this last part he looked up and saw Robie’s muzzle pointed at his head.

His eyes widened and a scream started up his throat.

It would never finish the journey.

One tap to the head, one to the heart.

The man fell forward onto the concrete, dead before he ever got there.

Robie straightened from his shooting stance, turned, and left.

Mission accomplished.