Andrew Britton - The Operative

His cheek against the HK’s black synthetic stock, Chandra saw the gunman continue to press his weapon into the hostage’s throat while facing the Company guy, or whatever he was, who had come running into the conference room and had taken down one of the hostage takers in a slick, nasty bit of business. It did not look to Chandra like he was making any progress in getting the mark to surrender. Just moments before the Company guy had raised his assault rifle. Classic standoff. But with a weapon to the throat of a hostage and the SWAT teams already closing in, time was not on the snipers’ side.

“Ready to do this?” Alterman said, as if reading his thoughts. They had been given full discretion on proceeding with the drop, and the senior agent was clearly in sync with him on the pointlessness of waiting.

“Yeah.”

“On my count,” Alterman said.

Chandra resumed his rhythmic breathing, centering the target in his crosshairs and then tilting the gun up by a tiny degree.

“Standby,” Alterman said. “Four, three, two, one…”

Chandra exhaled on the one, aimed in the center of his own faint red circle and, at Alterman’s fire command, gave the trigger of his rifle a smooth pull.

His full metal jacket NATO slug broke the conference room’s sheet-glass window with a crack and drilled harmlessly into the wall above their mark’s head. An imperceptible moment later, Alterman’s full metal jacket round entered the room, twinkling as it passed through the down-turned chopper beacon.

Out in the corridor, Allison heard what sounded like the sharp tak of a stone bouncing off the windshield of a car, a high-pitched whine, and then the screams. The first cry came from Colin. She had heard that whoop at enough U of V Cavaliers basketball games to be sure of it. The rest of the yells came from many different people, men and women. But there were no sounds of gunfire, not from within the room.

She went rushing into the conference room. As Allison moved clumsily on cramped legs, she became aware of the rumbling of automatic weapons fire in the distance. It sounded different than what she and Kealey had heard before. This was rhythmic, deeper, somehow coordinated.

It was instantly forgotten as she swung into the room. She nearly tripped over the throat-cut guard at the door, splatting through the pool of his blood as she swerved around him, her eyes seeking Colin. She saw the people who’d been crowded together at one end of the room rising slowly, like time-lapse plants, looking as stunned and overwhelmed as she was. Then she saw Kealey crouched beside her nephew, comforting him. Colin was squatting and was covered with blood. It looked like he had been the loser in a paintball competition, and her first thought was that they had failed Colin, failed him totally and horribly. He was covered with such a massive quantity of blood that her mind initially refused to accept what she was seeing. She was a doctor; she’d seen people bleed. She was very aware that the five and a half quarts in a human body Colin’s size was a lot of blood when you saw it draining out. But this much… How was he even awake? As she scurried forward, dropping the gun, her eyes scanned for a wound. Perhaps in his back, his shoulder…

“Colin!”

His eyes snapped toward her. He was sobbing openly, but not from pain. Something resembling a smile pulled at his mouth.

“He’s okay,” Kealey told her. His voice seemed far away, hollow, like he was in the bottom of a trash can.

Kealey helped Colin up by the arm.

And then, behind Colin, she saw the fallen gunman. He was lying facedown, splayed like a crime-scene chalk outline. The back of his head was gone, disintegrated, tiny bits of white showing around its gaping remnants like the pieces of a broken eggshell. There was the source of all the blood.

She was crying by the time she reached Colin. She threw her arms around him, felt his weight fall into them-but only for a moment, as he sought to stand on his own.

“I’m okay, Aunt Allison,” he said, sounding like the little boy she used to hug, when he let her, on birthdays and holidays.

“I love you,” she said. “I was so worried.”

“Me too,” he replied, weeping.

Her fingers feeling Colin’s scalp just to be sure, she turned to Kealey while she held him. “Thank you,” she sputtered.

“Wasn’t all me,” he said. Facing the exterior wall, he made a show of unshouldering his weapon and placing it on the floor before walking toward the shattered window. “We got some help. And I’m guessing there’s more on the way.”

“Those shots…?” Alison asked.

“From the church,” Kealey said as he reached the empty window frame and flashed a thumbs-up at the steeple. “It’s the only place that has a direct line of sight.”

Allison sought out the church, could barely see it in the dark. Then a helicopter moved in, throwing a bright white light across the steeple as it rotated toward the broken window. She looked away.

Kealey returned to her side a moment later. “I have to go,” he said.

“Why?” she asked.

“I have to get upstairs to the ballroom. The one where Julie was supposed to give her speech.”

Allison released her nephew. “Dear God, forgive me!” she said. ”I forgot.”

“No need to apologize,” he said. He bent to retrieve the gun. “We’ve been thinking in little, bite-size pieces.”

“But we don’t even know if she’s-”

“There’s a lot we don’t know,” Kealey interrupted. “So let’s take things one at a time. How are you?”

“Don’t worry about me, Ryan.”

He regarded her closely. “You sure?”

She nodded.

He looked at her nephew. “Colin?”

“Same here,” Colin said, although his voice was tremulous. “Man, you did so good,” he said. “You saved me.”

“You got us here, and you stayed cool,” Kealey said. “It was a team effort. You saved all these people, too,” he added with a sweep of his arm behind him. “Your tweet said the hostages were in two groups. Where are the others?”

“They’re in a room across the hall.”

“How many altogether?”

“Fifteen, maybe twenty people. They separated us down the middle.”

“The number of guards with them?”

“I don’t know exactly.”

“Your best guess,” Kealey said. ”It’s important.”

Colin looked thoughtful. “I think they split in half,” he said. “There was him, you know”-he glanced back at the dead gunman’s body-“and a second guy, who left the room when he heard the noise out there. The one you got with the knife. Then there was a third guy, who I’m guessing you shot at the door.”

“So you’re saying there were only a few in each room. That’s it?”

“I think so, yeah.”

“Ryan, I heard gunfire downstairs,” Allison said.

“Those were point men for the hostage takers being picked off by SWAT personnel,” Kealey said. “I heard it, too. The enemy was patrolling in twos, and there were a dozen bursts from FBI Glock twenty-twos. Nothing since. Our boys are working their way up here methodically, standard operating procedure, and they may not be in time. Not if the guys in the other room figure out they’re licked.”

He didn’t have to finish the thought. Allison knew what he meant.

Kealey retrieved his weapon and slid his arm through the leather strap. He pulled in a breath, blew air out his cheeks, and turned toward the door. Everyone else in the room was standing there, looking at him, awaiting instructions.

“You’re all going to stay put,” he said. “Help is on the way. I’m-”

He stopped.

“What is it?” Allison asked.

Kealey held up a hand to silence her. He tilted his head toward the window, listening. Allison saw his expression go from thoughtful to sharply attentive.