Ryne Pearson - Capitol Punishment

The three guests of the president stood, receiving a dose of welcoming applause from the members below.

“Members of Congress, these three wonderful people have experienced the depths of despair, and the heights of renewal. They have seen the result of hate. Darren and Felicia Griggs have experienced it more personally than most of us ever will with the loss of their daughter to an act of hatred at Saint Anthony’s Church in Los Angeles along with three of her friends. And Dr. Anne Preston has worked with them to see that their lives are not also destroyed by this senseless act. The weak use hate as their ally, the strong reject it. But the sting is painful all the same. Darren, Felicia… our sympathy is for your loss, our admiration is for your strength.” The president was the first this time to lift his hands in applause.

The front door to the secretary of state’s house opened after a quick knock. One of the two Secret Service agents guarding the front entered and came straight to the study. Coventry lowered the volume and stood to meet him. “Yes?”

“Mr. Secretary, Fauquier County Emergency Communications just got a nine-eleven call saying that four black males are planning to kill you tonight.”

Art and Jones both stood upon hearing that, followed quickly by Bud.

“The caller apparently overheard these guys talking,” the Secret Service agent explained briefly.

Coventry looked back to Jones. “The militants?”

“It would fit,” Jones said. “I think.”

“But why would they let themselves be overheard?” Bud asked.

Blame the monkeys . Art recalled that statement from Chester Hart. “Is someone running down where the call came from?”

“State Police have a unit on the way to the call site.”

The gathering was quiet for a moment before Coventry spoke. “Is there anything…”

“It could be a crank, sir,” the agent theorized. “Or, who knows? But our team out back got the same word, and the State Police is sending two cruisers by just in case. Just relax, sir. We’ll take care of everything.”

The four men watched the agent exit to the front.

“Interesting,” Coventry said as he turned. He saw Jones staring at Art. “What?”

“Jefferson?”

Art didn’t hear the director’s one-word inquiry. His mind was racing through the possibilities that this new piece of a very interesting puzzle might present. Blame the monkeys… Have to get them to do it for you… But why the call? A setup? “A setup.”

“A setup what?” Bud asked.

Art looked left toward the rear of the house, then to the windows on his right. Whiteness swept across the curtains covering them. Headlights . Then a brighter flash, and a sound familiar from so long ago. Familiar and frightful. “GET DOWN!”

The front door blew in just as Art’s warning was heeded.

The side door of the minivan was already fully open when Darian slowed the vehicle a hundred feet shy of 695 Hillsborough. Mustafa took aim through the opening with the M79 as he did, drawing a bead on the front door of the secretary’s house. He breathed, noted one target already near the door, another coming out through it, and squeezed the trigger. The six-ounce 40mm grenade leapt from the fat barrel with a metallic pop and arced gently toward its aim point, impacting low on the small stone porch a hair more than a half-second after firing.

Hundreds of shrapnel fragments flew outward from the explosion, a good deal of it tearing into the two Secret Service agents standing just feet from the point of impact. Both were killed instantly, and the remaining blast and fragmentation did the rest of its significant damage on the wooden front door of the secretary’s house. The seven-foot-high slab of oak was split in the middle and pushed into the foyer by the force of the blast.

Darian accelerated to the house and stopped in front. He hopped out, weapon in hand, Moises joining him in a race to the smoking door. Mustafa had already reloaded the M79 and stayed with the car. He caught sight of a form coming up the driveway of the house and fired straight at it. It disappeared in a flash and a scream.

Jesus! Art lifted his head in time to hear a second explosion and immediately drew his weapon. He was on his knees and looking at the shattered front door as shadows fell across the opening.

“Get them back!” Art yelled to Jones, who also had his weapon out.

The director pulled the secretary up and toward the kitchen. Bud followed, looking back at Jefferson just as he began to fire toward the front door.

“SHIT!” Darian yelled, two shots hitting the doorjamb to his right. He stuck the Ingram through the opening and sprayed fire to the left. Moises saw movement toward the rear of the interior and fired half a magazine that way.

Art saw the stubby weapon just before it fired. He rolled left and retreated in the same direction as the others had. He found them in the kitchen, the director covering the arched opening to the foyer.

“Everyone all right?” Art asked.

“Yeah,” Jones reported. “They’ve got firepower.”

“Where are the Secret Service guys?” Coventry asked. There was no response. He knew what that meant.

Art lifted his head a bit and looked over the island to the far side of the kitchen. There was a door, shades on it drawn. The two Service agents guarding the rear were supposed to be out there, but Art hadn’t heard any fire from them. Had the second explosion taken them out? He then looked behind, checking the abandoned study. Empty. And… His eyes saw the steps rising from an alcove off the kitchen. “Does that go upstairs?”

Coventry nodded.

Darian and Moises stepped back from the front door together. The NALF leader had communicated his wish to Mustafa with a clear hand signal. As they hunched behind large cement planters to either side of the porch a third grenade was fired. It penetrated to the rear of the house before exploding.

The NALF entry team went in behind it.

The detonation of the small but powerful fragmentation grenade threw all four men in the kitchen to the floor. Despite the protection of the counter, shrapnel ripped through the room. One shard of metal tore a gouge across Bud DiContino’s forehead.

“Damn!”

Coventry pulled the NSA farther back in the kitchen, finding more shelter back behind the island and nearer the sink.

“This is not good,” Art said to the director.

“We need cavalry.”

As Jones said that the kitchen was peppered by automatic fire from two weapons.

Darian reloaded, as did Moises, and advanced along the left wall of the foyer. He stopped, went to his tiptoes, and fell back to his young comrade.

“Back there,” Darian whispered, pointing toward the kitchen. Moises peeked around him briefly. “I’ll move there, you cover my rear. That room back there. That’s where the shots came from.”

“Got it.” Moises backed up, taking a position at the base of the stairs, his eyes sweeping left and right as his leader inched deeper into the house.

Jones held up two fingers in a V. Two guns .

Art nodded, looking behind once again. In the study he saw a shadow fall from the foyer. He looked back to the director and mouthed behind us .

It was obvious they had to do something. They were outgunned — at least two automatics and someone lobbing grenades at them — and outmaneuvered. Art looked to the small staircase again. Or were they?