Jack Be Nimble: Gargoyle (33 page)

Solomon knew the feel and temperament of his McMillan M-88 sniper rifle like he knew his left arm, and he’d been a lefty since Pony League on the Big Island. The .50 caliber repeater was accurate up to 2500 yards, and in addition to his routine ammunition he carried additional magazines of incendiary and armor-piercing shells in various pockets of his black ninja suit.

All told, it looked to be an easy mission. Solomon lay under a hundred meters from the targets, which made accounting for windage and height simplicity itself. After they blew the windows and provided suitable distraction, he would switch to his infrared sight and clear the area using specially prepared Magsafe ammo Ian had loaded for him. The crowd below would be panicky around the cell of killers and Solomon had no wish to accidentally deliver a deathblow to an innocent bystander. Hence the Magsafe: lethal, frangible ammunition that would not penetrate the human body. Solomon’s sidearm held the same type, though in smaller, more conventional shells. Magsafe was best for close quarters battle, but Jack had suggested they come up with a form that could be delivered via sniper rifle for situations like this.

Jack placed great faith in preparation.

Laying supine on the cold concrete, a slight breeze tugging at his black cap as he continued to survey the kill zone, Solomon allowed a few of his thoughts to return to a particular student left behind in Germany. The Hopkins poem had been the right move, though the school board would have collectively scowled had they known Solomon told Carl he was a Baptist.

Solomon sighed. In his professional career as an educator--he refused to think of his job as just a “cover”–he’d always shrugged off discussions about separation of religion and scholarship, though he held tightly to his personal religiosity. Most of his life he’d been a sniper, trained in the twin arts of killing at range and psychologically manipulating enemy troops into sheer terror. Yet if he could make room in his worldview for belief in hope and a higher power, why was it that the teaching profession recoiled from the concept as if it were a form of leprosy?

He never would have seen the movement off to his left if he hadn’t been watching for it. Several meters and three gaping skylights away, Brad gave him the thumbs-up. Like Solomon, he too was making the final adjustments to his weapon, a canister rifle, and like the other man, Brad wore a ninja suit and one of Ian’s jackets. Far above and behind him, the edge of a curtain billowed from one of two open windows, either of which had given him access to the roof.

Solomon settled down to wait out the movie, thinking fleetingly of the green tie as he adjusted his sights. Six more minutes.

Ian’s gaze swept from his wristwatch to the multiple concrete corridors. Where the hell am I? he thought. According to the blueprints, I should be coming up on the service elevator. Nobody said anything about all these branching tunnels. And I’ve definitely never seen
this
before.

He eyed the bundle of thick, dark wires snaking along the ceiling of the tunnel. They weren’t threaded through in any piping, nothing to protect them as they wound along next to the naked fluorescent bulbs. He could be mistaken, but weren’t those microchips embedded every couple of inches in the wire? This could be the special fiber optics. Now, what would they be connected to? he wondered.

Ian began to jog through the narrow, sloping corridor.

Steve was inordinately proud of his communications equipment. He’d designed the bone microphones himself, tiny flesh-colored microdots that nestled quite nicely in the ear. Voice was picked up by vibrations in the bones of the user’s face, so the bone mic was practically invisible. Each mic piggybacked off the user’s cellphone, so as long as nothing interfered with the phone signal, the hardware was solid.

Software was another matter. Steve knew he was good—hell, great, but he also knew there wasn’t a single encryption scheme that couldn’t be broken. As an added security measure, the team used codes and codenames to communicate in the field.

For some damn reason, Jack was partial to classic comedy star and famous fat man, Oliver Hardy.

“Ready for check, Ollie,” said Steve into his headset. The screen before him was taken up primarily by a patched-in view of the building’s security system. Even as his computer sent doctored images to the building’s security force, he was permitted an untampered perspective of the theater lobby, while six smaller windows on his screen rotated through views of various hallways throughout the building. Beside him sat Major Griffin, eyes riveted on the small computer, the huge .45 Combat Magnum in her hand.

Jack cleared his throat over the line. “Groucho?”

“Check,” said Steve.

“Gummo?”

“Lock and load,” said Brad.

“Zeppo?”

“Ready.” intoned Solomon.

“Chico?”

Ian’s voice crackled and warbled strangely over the connection. “Yeah, I’m a little behind, but I’ll be there.”

“Harpo?”

Honk, honk.

“That’s nice. Okay people, two minutes till our show starts. Safeties off, everybody. This is what we train for.”

Steve looked over his equipment, set his pistol next to his keyboard, then sat back. The editing software was running smoothly with the surveillance camera interface, he saw. He’d routed all video feed from the building through the computer before him. The current program would selectively cut all signs of the team out of any scene before relaying it on to the building’s security net. Steve sighed, pleased with his work. He pulled a small serviceman’s Bible from his breast pocket, and began to flip through the worn pages.

Funny, according to the blueprints this was a parking garage. The tunnel down which Ian had been running had gradually taken on the look of the type of mortar he’d seen in blast vaults and bomb shelters, and three steel doors and two broken lockpicks later, he found himself in an enormous circular room heavy with the stink of ozone. Alcoves sat in the yellowed walls, and Ian had the initial impression he’d walked into a mausoleum, though the niches were filled with electronics–

“Holy Mary,” he breathed, looking down from a steel gangway at the machine.

It dominated the room. Not physically, no; the contraption wasn’t much more than ten feet tall and half again as thick. The whole of it sat on an enormous black base–insulation, Ian realized. But why? It had no definable symmetry. More of the thick, steely wires snaked into the machine from five other corridors. A single, glossy pipe of some kind extended from the apex up through the ceiling. Machine is the wrong word for this thing, he decided, squinting as the entire surface lit up. It’s more like some kind of animal.

Twisting silver cables and solid, seamless steel housing wrapped themselves in a lattice around a center core at least four feet thick. The glass or crystal core pulsed with an inner light, and indistinct shapes moved liquidly just underneath its glossy surface. Ian found he couldn’t get a clear look at what they were. Every time he focused his eyes on the tube, its silvery brilliance pulsed yet again, leaving blue and red afterimages dancing on the backs of his eyes. The inner movement gave the eerie impression of life, alien life, to the entire apparatus.

“Steve, Jack, guys,” he spoke into his mike. Nothing. Must be too much interference. Ian turned down the steel gangway and sprinted for what he prayed fervently was an elevator. The thing behind him began to vibrate and pound. Someone had turned it on, and it sounded as though whatever was inside was just waking up, and waking up angry.

Miklos yawned. He wasn’t sleepy in the least; the reflex had been with him since he was a child, a precursor to any activity which excited him. Sound and distorted shadows played across the expressionless faces of his men. They stood silently behind the great white motion picture screen, some looking intently at the enormous images of Douglas MacArthur, the little girl swaying slightly between them. She’d been given just enough narcotics to keep her docile and unaware of her surroundings, though from time to time her eyes tracked the action on the back of the screen, lingering particularly on the face of the young MacArthur.

The movie was winding up; he’d just gotten his call from the President of the Philippine Commonwealth, played by Antonio Banderas, to return to that country he’d loved as a child and organize its military.
Hah!
thought Miklos. Wait a few years. The Japanese have a surprise in store for you, you arrogant American meddler.

But that would remain for the sequel. Already the end credits were rolling, and as the score boomed out from the speakers around them, Miklos signaled his men into motion. The plan was simple; mingle with the crowd and keep the little girl’s face down. He sat on his haunches and looked her in the eye. Still dazed, that was acceptable. “Move,” he said simply. He hated American martial music.

Almost in position, thought Alonzo, waddling down a darkened hallway. He couldn’t wait for the chance to shed his second skin and assemble the weapons he’d brought along. Alonzo could probably get to his HK, but the grenades were beyond his reach.

He hated these shoes. “Some disguise,” he muttered. Without warning, a door opened, and light spilled into the hall.

“Who are you?” asked the man in the pale suit, obviously puzzled.

“I’m fine, thanks, who’re you?” Alonzo said, shuffling by. Nobody’s supposed to be in this part of the building, he thought. What gives?

“Stop right there,” the other man commanded, lifting a radio.

Solomon returned Brad’s thumbs up as the murmur of the crowd increased beyond the glass. “Remember, we wait for Jack,” he said, fitting the rifle snugly against his shoulder in the spot weld, the surest position. The first two rounds were hostage duds, he reminded himself, special pellets that would shatter the glass before him and let it fall straight downward, instead of spraying it all over the civilians. He looked over at Brad, who stood, feet firmly planted and rifle aimed almost straight down.

Below both men, the lobby and surrounding shop fronts were filling rapidly. If all went according to plan, the crowds would drift toward the main elevators and, as those filled, move on to the other elevators, tiled catwalks, and escalators which zigzagged down between the shop levels.

Solomon wiped the back of his hand across his forehead. He was sweating rivers despite the chill air. This was always the most difficult part, the waiting with every sense alert, with every nerve screaming. Waiting until–

There. “Targets onstage, gentlemen.” he whispered into the headset.

“Got ‘em.” said Brad and Steve simultaneously. Six, no, seven men in gray suits all stepped out of a theater exit and began sifting through the crowd. Each man carried an air of indifference and walked at a different speed, but there was something strange about the way they moved, never straying more than ten feet from each other. Solomon could see a child in a blue coat and hat between them, holding the hand of the biggest, a huge blond Slav with craggy, scarred cheekbones like axe heads. The same face he’s seen on CNN only recently.

“The one in the middle is Miklos Nasim, the Albanian terrorist.” Major Griffin’s voice across the digital connection carried an unmistakable note of disgust. “KGB-trained and one of the first to turn against his own people when the Soviets fell. As deadly as they come, fellows.” The man was devoid of expression–not merely relaxed, but utterly empty. Solomon imagined more than saw him expertly frisk each member of the crowd with his eyes as he steered his small charge purposefully toward the elevators.

They were about halfway across Solomon’s line of fire when he saw a bushy-haired Asian woman in a voluminous military jacket and sunglasses sweep around a corner on rollerblades. She slid, oblivious, through the startled theatergoers, pirouetting and bouncing to whatever beat throbbed from her headphones. And she was headed full-out for the ensemble of Slavic killers.

Solomon winced as the young Asian woman came out of a spin backwards and collided clumsily with two of the goons from Eastern Europe. The one closest to her made to step aside and brush her away from the little girl in blue, then folded over sharply in pain, clutching his abdomen. “Now!” whispered Jack’s voice over the headsets, and instantly the windows above the milling crowd shattered. The egglike shells that pounded down around the suited men exploded noisily on impact with the tile and filled the air with a reddish-green haze. The suits stumbled back uncertainly toward their leader. A ratcheting whine filled the air, and the entire crowd stampeded for the exit. Several had their hands pressed firmly to their ears.

Steve’s chortle sounded over the digital connection, then was itself drowned out as he activated every single fire, smoke, and burglar alarm on the floor. The jets in the ceiling opened up full, then closed, then began spurting water sporadically, showering the multitude below.

In the middle of the chaos the huge Slav leaned down and jerked the shrieking little girl back to her feet, more dragging than carrying her as he made for the hall leading to the stairways. He whipped a machine pistol from his jacket and aimed it at the mob before him. Before he could pull the trigger and carve an escape route for himself, the Asian woman, still fumbling, suddenly somersaulted over the back of his doubled-over comrade, in the process raking the huge man across the face and neck with her skates. Miklos barked a curse in his native tongue and swung the barrel of his gun towards her, but was engulfed in the crowd. Someone else ran into the backs of his knees and then his legs were knocked out from under him entirely. Briefly, he went down, under the crowd. Scrabbling upright, he found he’d maintained his grip on the blue jacket, but the little girl inside was nowhere to be found. The cloying smoke continued to rise. Miklos gritted his teeth against the cacophony and staggered towards one of his men.