Andrew Britton - The Operative

He reached the Saab and popped the trunk. It was mostly bare: a tire jack, a plastic jerrican, a first-aid kit, a couple of neatly folded blankets… and a padded black pistol bag about the size of a typical carryall.

Moments after telling him that he was going to a dinner, that he was not in a war zone, Allison watched Kealey arm himself with movements so precise, they were almost mechanical. He pulled off his jacket, then opening the bag, he took out a right-handed shoulder harness and put it on over his shirt. Then he produced a pistol rug containing a Sig P229R chambered for. 40 S amp;W rounds, a more powerful variant of the 9-millimeter variety that was standard issue for the U.S. Secret Service. Transferring the gun to his holster, he reached into the bag again for his backup-a Beretta 9mm. This one was a nine, lighter and with quicker action than the other.

“Did you ever learn to use one of these?” he asked Allison. “Take basic firearms training, anything like that while you were with the Bureau?”

She shook her head. “It was never intended that I shoot my patients.” She watched with rising alarm. “We were just attacked. Hit again.”

“Yeah.”

Kealey set the gun down in the trunk and reached back into the bag for his concealment holster. Sliding the Beretta into it, he tucked the holster into his pants behind his right hip and clipped it to his belt. Then he opened one of the bag’s side compartments and extracted a doubled-handled metal knife, a Filipino balisong. Kealey put the knife in his jacket pocket and reached into his bag one more time before finally dropping it back into the trunk. He removed a magazine pouch and nylon web harness, strapping it on so the magazine pouch rested snugly against his left side.

He shrugged into his jacket. “You really need to get out of here.”

“No. I’m coming. Open the door. I want my other shoes.”

“Listen, Allison,” he said. “I don’t know if this is over-”

“I don’t care, Ryan. I have medical training. That may be more important than a gun.”

He looked at her. He took a deep breath, exhaled, remotely popped the back-door lock, then slammed the lid of his trunk.

“All right,” he said. “In that case, stay close.”

They emerged in the humid air, made even stiller, more uncomfortable, by the dust that already hung in the air. Cars were screeching to a stop in the eastbound lanes approaching Charles Street or veering toward its central traffic island to avoid collisions. Kealey looked up, saw rolling clouds of dull white smoke, typical of urban demolition. Only this wasn’t a controlled blast. The smoke was coming from the direction of the convention center. Out on the sidewalk pedestrians had reacted to the explosions with shock and confusion, many of them becoming rooted where they stood, others scattering wildly across the sidewalk and roadway or trampling the traffic island’s manicured grass. Some were wriggling fingers in their ears, trying to clear hearing impacted by the blasts.

There was a crash on Charles, and Kealey whipped his head around as a semitrailer scissored across the intersection. The large semi partially overturned in the middle of the road, where its driver apparently attempted to make a hard stop to avoid the fender bender in front of him. Just as on Conway, the men and women in the crosswalk were either frozen with shock or scrambling around in a panic, some running away from the blast, a few toward it, a few others stopping to help the driver of the semi.

A few seconds later, Kealey heard a rumbling noise from somewhere behind him, the unmistakable groan of twisting, tortured metal and a monstrous snap. It was followed by a crash that shook everything around him, sending tremors through the street.

“Ryan, look!” Allison screamed from behind him. “God help us. Look over there!”

He turned back, following her eyes. The hotel sky bridge had come down, and a gray ram of smoke and dust was pushing up the block, whipping through the trees on the traffic island, rushing over the taxicabs at the stand across the street to coat their yellow bodies with cinders. Dashing blindly for cover, people had thrown their hands over their noses and mouths as the choking ash swept over them.

“The hotel is burning!” she said.

Kealey had already caught sight of orange licks through the cloud. His temples throbbed. He heard sirens and clattering fire bells, the sounds blaring up from every direction. Going to the hotel was not an option. They’d choke before they got there. The convention center was a better bet. It appeared to have taken two hits, judging from the three blasts they heard and the twin columns rising from the site, but the boxy structure covered a much larger area, with discrete support sections. There would be more ways to get in.

And then, suddenly, there was another noise, so ordinary against the dissonant clamor of the alarms that it drew his attention: the electronic chirp of a cell phone alert. He turned to Allison, who was digging at her purse with trembling fingers. She fumbled out her phone and thumbed the HOME button.

“Colin?” Kealey asked.

“I think so,” she said, fighting tears. “I enabled Twitter pushes when we left the aquarium.” She nervously scrolled down the timeline queue to read her updates. She stopped, her eyes on the display, her cheeks draining of color.

“What is it?” Kealey demanded.

She just stood there, gaping mutely at the phone, a numb expression on her face. Kealey stepped closer, took the cell from her cold, loose fingers, and scanned the messages on its screen. The last one was a post from Colin. It consisted of only two words: Help us.

“Jesus,” she said.

“Do you know if he was near Julie’s event?” Kealey asked. “I’m guessing that was at least one of the targets.”

“The food vendors are usually set up nearby, so yes-”

“All right,” he said. “Maybe we can get to him and to Julie. Do you have her number?”

Allison nodded and scrolled to it. She pressed the name, the phone rang, but the call went to voice mail. Allison put the phone away. Her dusty cheeks were tear-streaked.

Kealey cupped her face reassuringly, then turned toward Pratt Street to the north. Beyond about halfway up the block the downtown skyline looked blurry and indistinct, as if it had been partially erased. Aside from the smeary glow of emergency lights-the fact that they had come on meant the main power was gone-and the scattered, ghostly forms of pedestrians, it was impossible to see anything clearly through the haze.

“We need to keep ourselves from breathing in the fumes and dust,” he said.

Allison reached into her purse and produced a floral silk scarf, yellow and violet chrysanthemums against a green background.

“I’ve got this,” she said, handing it to him.

Kealey took out his knife and cut the scarf up the center. He gave one half to Allison and wrapped his segment over his nose and mouth like a bandanna. He helped her do the same as people ran past them. He heard the sirens of emergency vehicles in the distance.

Her cell phone beeped again. She looked at it.

“Colin’s checking to see if I got his last post. Shit! I didn’t even think to answer him.”

“It’s all right,” Kealey said. “Ask him where he is, any landmarks we should look for. Tell him to keep it up. We need his exact location.”

She nodded, typed out her message, sent it. “Okay,” she said. “Done.”

He put a hand on her shoulder, kept it there, felt her relax a little. As a young lieutenant with the 3rd SFG in Bosnia, he’d learned to read his men’s pressure gauges before leading them into peril. A certain amount of tension could keep you sharp, but too much and you became distracted. Allison seemed as steady as could be expected.