Marc Cameron - Act of Terror

Special Agent Jack Blackmore with the Secret Service loitered directly behind his protectee, head on a swivel, looking for any abnormality in a sea of guests. Other agents on the POTUS detail, all in dark tuxedos to fit in with the crowd, took various positions around the yard. Some faced inbound, keeping an eye on the guests. Two dozen more faced outward, watching for oncoming threats.

Sonny Vindetti stood directly behind the vice president with Jimmy Doyle. Six more agents assigned to the VP detail stood in front of the receiving line. Each wore the regulation skin-tone earpiece for the radio at their belt. Their eyes scanned each guest on the way down the line.

Melissa Ryan looked ravishing, Nancy thought, in her dark blue Burberry wool suit. Even at her son’s wedding, the top two buttons on her white silk blouse remained alluringly open. Winfield Palmer stood beside her, looking dapper but uncomfortably cramped in his tux.

“Heads-up,” Nancy heard Sonny Vindetti’s voice behind her as he spoke to his team of agents.

President Clark had, at long last, disengaged himself from his conversation with Braithwaite and now strode quickly across the lawn, his team of agents in tow.

“Longbow is on the move,” Vindetti said into the microphone at his lapel, using the president’s code name.

POTUS was finally on his way and Nancy would be able to get her photo.

“Amanda, dear,” she said over her shoulder. “It’s time. Would you be so kind as to bring the photographer around?”

“How do you know who you’re looking for?” Smedley said as he brought the Osprey from Battery Park over the south tip of Governors Island. He’d received clearance to land in the center of the island, in an area the Secret Service and the NYPD had set up as a joint receiving point. He deviated from his flight path to fly directly over the wedding party.

“I’m hoping I know when I see them,” Quinn said. “You have a FLIR onboard?”

“Sure,” the pilot tapped the console. “But what good will thermal imaging do with that crowd?”

Quinn went forward to look at the color screen. People, generally warmer than the surrounding air temperature of late evening, showed up in various shades of yellow and red on the forward-looking infrared system. The cooler ground and foliage ranged from light blue to purple. Quinn concentrated his search in the area around the vice president and his wife and it didn’t take long to find what he was looking for.

Behind the reception line was the form of a young woman. Her arms and head glowed red, but her chest was baby blue as if she wore something heavy under her clothing that didn’t let her body heat escape.

“That would be Mrs. Hughes’s assistant.” He tapped the screen with his finger. “I’m willing to bet she’s wearing a suicide vest!” Quinn looked up to get a clear view out the front window. “And the president is walking straight for her.”

Quinn racked his brain. “Fly straight at them, Smeds-and if you have a spotlight, see if you can light up the girl. We need them to see who we’re focusing on-and hopefully get the president to cover.”

The pilot looked up, nodding grimly. “You know they’ll probably shoot us down?”

“Not this low, beb,” Thibodaux offered. “They’ll be afraid our flaming wreckage would land on the big boss.”

“You have about ten seconds before the president makes it across the lawn,” Quinn said.

“Roger that,” Smedley said throwing the Osprey into a dive. “What are you going to do?”

Quinn had punched the button to open the rear ramp and was already running back toward the strapped Ducati. “I don’t know,” he yelled over his shoulder. “I’m making this up as I go along.”

Nancy Hughes looked up as a thunderous roar filled the evening sky. She glared at the vice president. “Bobby,” she hissed. “I thought we agreed to kee-”

Her voice was drowned out by an approaching aircraft that looked like a plane with upturned propellers. It swooped in over the wedding party to hover just over treetop level-lower than the roof of the mansion. It was close enough she could make out the strained looks on the pilots’ faces.

Trays of food and drinks flew from the hands of the staff. Folding chairs, caught in the mini tornado, were tossed around like rag dolls. The aircraft began to work its way even lower, settling between the trees as if to land on the front lawn and crush half the guests. The tremendous force of whirling wind blew open suit jackets, exposing agents’ weapons. The women who wore more skimpy gowns had them literally ripped from their bodies.

A blinding beam of light burned from the nose of the aircraft, cutting the dusky evening haze to point directly at the bride and groom.

“Mr. Vice President!” It was Sonny Vindetti’s voice. The Secret Service agent grabbed Bob Hughes’s shoulder and tugged him backward toward the mansion. “Sir! I need you to come with me! Now!”

“Nancy!” Hughes spun away from his would-be protector, reaching out with both arms in an attempt to shield his wife from unseen dangers.

President Clark ran amid a tightly packed mob of his agents, bent at the waist, to a waiting armored limousine that had been rolling silently over the grassy lawn, following his every move.

Hand over her hair against the horrific wind, Nancy turned just in time to see Jimmy Doyle running to intercept Amanda Deatherage. The girl’s ridiculously long jacket had blown up around her face. Her loose dress was pressed to her body by the downdraft, exposing what looked like a bulky life vest underneath.

Blinded by the tangle of cloth, Deatherage screamed with rage, clawed at her face to clear her vision.

“BOMB RIGHT! BOMB RIGHT!” Jimmy Doyle screamed above the melee. He hit the girl with the full force of his body, knocking her behind the huge iron cannon.

A split second later, Nancy Hughes was knocked off her feet. Every molecule of air seemed inexplicably drawn away, vanished. She felt a tremendous heat, then pressure, as if someone had hit her in the chest with a baseball bat. She was vaguely aware that her daughter lay on top of her-and the world was eerily silent.

Quinn and Thibodaux rode off the back ramp moments after the explosion. Smedley was able to bring the Osprey within five feet off the ground-still a tall order for the sporty Ducati’s suspension.

The wedding party looked as though a huge bowling ball had come through and knocked everyone to the grass. Quinn knew the Secret Service would be in reactive mode, bent on egress with their charges more than stopping to face an unknown enemy. The countersnipers, on the other hand, would be back to their scopes in no time, scanning from their rooftop perches to stop all signs of threat.

Two crazy men deploying from a V-22 Osprey, dressed in black on screaming motorcycles, would certainly qualify.

After an explosion people generally do one of two things-lie still to protect themselves or try and get away. It is a rare hero who moves toward the blast zone while debris is still falling-or someone with something more sinister in mind.

Quinn saw the waiter in the white waistcoat at the same moment the Ducati gained traction. The sight of him sent a chill of cold recognition coursing through Quinn’s body, renewing the ever-present throbbing pain in his foot.

Picking his way through the mass of dazed and injured toward where the vice president lay unconscious beside his wife, was the unmistakable bald head and black eyes of Military Interrogator First Sergeant Sean Bundy.

Quinn planted his right foot and gassed the throttle. A rooster tail of grass and dirt spewed into the air as the little 848’s Testastretta engine spun the back tire. Deafened by the previous blast, Bundy continued on a direct path for the vice president, his right hand behind his thigh as if he carried something.