The Ark: A Novel (17 page)

He and Dilara crouched down behind the maintenance access panel that jutted three feet across the linkage between the first and second cars. He was just as scared as he was in any combat situation he faced in Iraq, but he tamped it down like he always did and focused on what to do next. He heard screams from the back, but no gunfire. The passengers must have seen the gun, but his pursuer was a professional. He wouldn't waste bullets on someone unless they got in his way. Locke took a peek through a gap in the access panel and didn't like what he saw.

The gunman, now in the third car, was methodically walking through the train, checking each passenger. The tourists provided some cover, but Locke was afraid of getting innocent bystanders caught in the crossfire. He had to do something before this turned into a bloodbath.

"Dilara, crawl toward the front," Locke said. "Take my cell phone. Call the police and tell them that there is an armed criminal on board the monorail. Look at me and wait for my signal. When I give the thumbs up, stand. Make sure the gunman sees you." He knew it was risky, putting Dilara in harm's way if the attacker was able to take the shot, but it was their only chance.

Her face reflected his own feelings, a mixture of fear and that sense of
not again
, but she understood immediately what he intended.

"I'm your distraction," she said.

"Right. We don't have much time. Go."

Dilara slithered forward. Locke watched the gunman approach. The man was calm, as if he had hunted down people before and wouldn't have any trouble with Locke and Dilara. In ten more seconds, the gunman was on the other side of the access panel. Locke gave Dilara the thumbs up.

Dilara stood and pounded on the train's front window. The gunman, who had been inspecting a passenger, looked up and saw Dilara. He raised his weapon and took a bead on her. The diversion worked perfectly, the gunman totally focused on Dilara. Locke rose up in the gunman's periphery and lashed out with his leg just as the gunman fired.

The shots went up and wide, shattering the train's left side window. Screams cleaved the air. Locke followed the blow with an elbow to the head. For a moment, the man was dazed, and Locke reached for the gun, wrestling it from his grip.

Before he could use it, the gunman recovered and grabbed Locke by the throat. They fell to the floor, with the gunman on top of Locke. His hands gripped Locke's neck like a vise, cutting off the blood flow to his brain. Locke let go of the gun, but he couldn't force the hands to part. His vision narrowed. He tried to inhale, but got nothing. The grasp was crushing his larynx. He couldn't breathe. If he couldn't get this guy off of him, he'd be dead before the train arrived at the next station.

Through his tunnel vision, Locke saw the man turn his head in apparent surprise. He released one hand to defend himself from something, and then Locke saw an object plunge into the man's eye. More screams from the passengers around him. The man went slack instantly and collapsed on Locke.

Locke pried the hands off his throat. He coughed until he caught his breath and heaved the man off of him. Then he could see what was sticking out of the dead man's eye. A pewter model of the Space Needle, embedded in his face up to the base. He looked up to see who his savior was and saw Dilara looking down in a mixture of shock and relief.

"I am so sick of these guys," she said, a sob catching in her throat.

"Are you all right?" Locke asked hoarsely.

She nodded. "I didn't mean to kill him...I was aiming for his ear, just to knock him off you, but he turned his head and..." Her voice trailed off as she stared at the man, whose other eye stared back at her. She obviously had never killed someone before.

Locke stood and put his arm around her. "You did great. You saved my life. Thank you. Is anyone hurt?" he said loudly. Several people shook their heads. He looked around at the monorail passengers who had retreated in fear from the fight and were now staring in horror at the dead man on the floor. Although some of them were crying, nobody seemed to be injured.

He looked outside. They were entering the station at Seattle Center. Too late to stop. He had to hope the police were already there. He didn't want to be stuck on the train any longer. There was still another gunman out there, the one he'd seen in the store window. If one guy was brazen enough to go after them on the monorail, then it wasn't likely the other guy would give up any more easily.

The train came to a halt and the doors slid open. He tugged on Dilara's hand. "Let's get out of here." Not wanting to be mistaken for one of the gunmen and getting shot by the police, Locke left the submachine gun where it was.

They ran down the station's exit ramp, and Locke saw a squad car screech to a stop on the sidewalk outside 50 yards away where barriers blocked it from coming further. He could breathe a little easier now that the authorities had arrived. More squad cars were surely right behind this one. The driver's door flew open, but the man emerging wasn't wearing a policeman's uniform. He was dressed in black. It was the mustached man from outside the clothing store. He must have hijacked a police car.

Oh, come on!
Locke thought.
Is one break too hard to get?

He yanked Dilara's hand and dashed toward the closest cover: Seattle's famed Space Needle. The 600-foot-tall tower was a concrete spire with a two-story disk on top for the viewing pleasure of the thousands who visited daily. On a clear day like today, Locke knew it would be crowded, and that he would be putting many people in harm's way, but caught in the open as he was, he didn't have a choice. He raced up the curving ramp, pulling Dilara with him.

Locke flung open the door and looked back. The gunman was sprinting toward them, snapping off erratic shots as he ran. A carpeted ramp led up and around to the elevators.

Locke and Dilara wound up past a line of sightseers patiently waiting their turn. When they reached the top of the ramp, Locke saw an elevator emptying. It was just what they needed.

They blew past the attendant, who could only yelp, "Hey!" as they passed him. Locke heard screams from the people in line, who must have seen their pursuer brandishing a gun.

"Get out!" Locke yelled at the nonplussed elevator operator who was guiding people to the exits. She stared at him, not sure what to do until shots from the silenced Hechler and Koch tore into the elevator wall. She dove aside, and Locke frantically pushed the elevator's button for the observation level, while Dilara pressed herself to the opposite side.

The doors were closing, but not fast enough. The gunman dove in before they slid shut. The elevator began to rise, and light flooded through the external windows that looked out on the city. The gunman brought the weapon up and aimed it straight at Locke, who for a fleeting moment realized that he was about to die. The assassin pulled the trigger.

The hammer clicked on an empty chamber. The gunman had made the classic mistake of not counting his rounds. Locke seized the stroke of luck and pounced on the gunman, who still lay on the floor. He knelt on the man's arms, but the man kneed him, throwing Locke to the side. The man leapt to his feet and reached behind him. He withdrew a Sig Sauer 9mm pistol.

The man shook his head and smiled. Locke wasn't sure, but it almost looked like the man admired him.

Dilara slammed against his arm as the assassin fired, sending two shots into the window. Locke took advantage of the momentum shift and threw his full weight into the gunman. As the three of them wrestled, more bullets hit the glass. Locke shoved his shoulder into the assassin's torso, lifting him up and slamming him against the window. The glass, weakened by at least eight shots, shattered outward.

The gunman fell through, but he was able to grab the metal support. He dangled there, looking up at Locke. The elevator would reach the top in seconds, and the man would be crushed against the inside of the observation deck's elevator shaft.

Locke instinctively began to reach out to help the man back in, then hesitated. Did Locke really want to save him? This guy had just tried to kill him. Locke considered leaving the man where he was, but he grudgingly realized he needed to question him. His arm shot out to grab the assailant, but to Locke's astonishment, the man just smiled again, making no move to grab Locke's hand.

"Why?" Locke yelled over the rushing wind.

"All flesh has corrupted his way upon the earth," the assassin yelled back. Then to Locke's surprise, the man released his grip and plunged out of sight.

Locke leaned against a squad car as he gave his statement to a Seattle police detective, going through every detail from the time he saw the gunman in the window reflection to the time that the man fell to a suicidal death. Dilara sat in a cruiser 15 feet away talking to his partner. Dilara still looked shaken up by the experience and sipped a cup of coffee. Ambulances and police cars surrounded the base of the Space Needle, and police were gathering eyewitness accounts from dozens of other people.

Locke had no doubt that the latest attempt on their lives was another link in the chain of events, and it only reinforced his belief that more deaths would be coming, particularly on the Genesis Dawn. Even though he had no proof, these assassins must have been involved with the same group as the man who had tried to blow up Scotia One.

Luckily, no one had been killed in the cross town battle except for the gunmen. The only person injured was the policeman the mustached man had shot in the back. Initial reports said the injury wasn't life-threatening.

Locke was just wrapping up his account with the detective when a dark-haired man in a crisp gray suit approached them. He was accompanied by an attractive blonde in a similarly well-fitted suit. The man flipped open his wallet and showed the detective an ID.

"Special Agent Thomas Perez, FBI," the man said. "This is Special Agent Trina Harris. Dr. Locke is working with the agency on the Rex Hayden plane crash, and we have reason to believe this attack is not only related to that disaster, but that the attempted assassination is part of a broader terrorist plot."

That caught the police detective off guard.

"This is a homicide investigation..." he sputtered.

"No one other than the perpetrators was killed."

"A Seattle police officer was shot. We want to find out why."

"As you are no doubt aware," Agent Perez said, "the FBI has authority under the US PATRIOT Act to take over any investigation that may involve terrorist activity. Please ask your partner to bring Dr. Kenner over here."

"This is bullshit."

"We're setting up a task force, and I'm sure your department will be involved, but for now, we need to question Dr. Locke and Dr. Kenner privately. I have full cooperation from your chief of police if you'd like to check with him."

Miles worked fast, Locke thought, if he had already convinced the FBI to take over the investigation.

The police detective grumbled and walked over to his partner. He jerked his thumb at the FBI agents. After a few more choice words from his partner, they nodded at Dilara, and she came over to Locke, who introduced her to the agents.

"We know about your involvement in the Scotia One incidents," Perez said. "Although that's out of US jurisdiction, we've been asked by the Canadian government to lend any assistance we can in identifying the assailant. We've also been briefed by Miles Benson about your situation, Dr. Kenner. He was persuasive in convincing my superiors that there is some kind of link between these events. Dr. Locke, did you receive any verbal threats before the attack downtown?"

"I think whoever was behind this made their intentions known when they crashed the helicopter and tried to blow up a billion-dollar oil rig."

"We don't know the helicopter crash was anything other than a mechanical failure."

"A couple of days ago, I thought the same thing," Locke said and looked at Dilara. "Now I'm going under the assumption that it was crashed on purpose."

"Have you ever seen either of the men before?"

"No," Locke said. Dilara shook her head in agreement. "All I know is that they're completely fanatical. One of them committed suicide rather than let himself be caught, just like the intruder on Scotia One."

"Do you know why they would want to kill you?"

"I have to assume it's because of the incident with Sam Watson at LAX that Dr. Kenner witnessed and the downing of Rex Hayden's plane."

"How?"

"That's what I'm trying to find out."

"These assailants were definitely targeting you. The other witnesses on the monorail and inside the Space Needle said they didn't care about anyone but you and Dr. Kenner."

Perez took a digital camera from his pocket and showed the screen to Locke. He cycled between two shots. Each showed a close up of the perpetrators' faces. One was of the man with the miniature Space Needle still embedded in his eye, but with the skull cap removed. The second was the man who fell to his death from the elevator. The back of his head was misshapen from the impact with the ground. His mustache was gone, and his hair was now short-cropped brown instead the shaggy black it had been. Obviously a disguise.

"Now do you recognize them?" Perez asked.

Locke hadn't seen either man before. He shook his head.

"This guy," Perez said, pointing at the second man, "had pictures of both you and Dr. Kenner in his pocket."

"Did they have any ID?"

"No. They were pros. We're checking their fingerprints now. But using the fingerprints Miles Benson said you obtained on Scotia One, we do have an ID on the oil rig bomber. He was a former US Army Ranger. Dishonorably discharged. Went into private contracting, but we can't identify his employer. All of the C-4 was destroyed, so we can't trace it. For now, that trail is a dead end."

"Maybe you'll get luckier with these guys."

"I'm not counting on it. I'm sure they've covered their tracks. What I'm curious about is why they would try to take you out in broad daylight in front of dozens of witnesses. That's pretty risky."