John Abbott - Scimitar

He turned off the Walkman the moment he heard Bush’s salutation, yanked the earpiece from his ear, and dropped radio and cable on the floor beside Rhodes’s body. Picking up the camera bag and the black hat, he came out of the supply closet, and pushed at the door, closing it firmly behind him, satisfied when he heard the latch clicking into the strike plate. He did not want anyone opening that door, not with Rhodes’s body in there, not until he had done what he was here to do.

He went into one of the stalls, lifted the lid on the toilet tank, dropped the black hat into it, and replaced the lid. He dropped the camera bag into the restroom trash basket.

Boldly, he stepped into the corridor.

The FBI tag clipped to his lapel identified him as Frank Mercer.

But he knew who he was.

He was Sonny Hemkar, and he was stepping forward to meet his destiny.

“... on this Fourth of July, a day we call glorious — not only because it is a glorious day here in New York — but because this day marks a day of glory for us and for the world, the day upon which freedom was born. Freedom,” Bush said, and paused. “Well now,” he said folksily, “that’s a word we sometimes take for granted nowadays, especially since dramatic changes all over the world have brought freedom to peoples everywhere. But I can tell you, it’s a word which wasn’t so darned familiar back then when the founding fathers thought of it. Back then, it was a new concept for these brave men to declare themselves free and independent and forge for themselves, and for all mankind to follow, a constitution that has survived the centuries, a document that has served as a model of inspiration for democratic nations everywhere. It was a good idea then, and it’s still a good idea. And I’m here on this glorious — yes, glorious — day of celebration to tell you that America will continue to be the brightest star in a firmament of emerging democracies.”

He paused for merely an instant.

Soberly, dramatically, he gazed into the whirring cameras.

Here it comes, Dobbs thought.

“Four years ago, I promised the people of America a thousand points of light. Well, four years later, we’re living in a nation where none need go hungry and none need go poor, a nation of healthy, educated, employed, hard-working, proud and patriotic people who can achieve whatever their minds can conceive, who can aspire to whatever their souls...”

God, what bullshit, Dobbs thought, and turned his attention to Elita.

She wasn’t watching Bush.

Her eyes were darting everywhere.

The President was already three minutes into his speech.

He took the steps up swiftly, the walkie-talkie in his right hand, quite official-looking in the event anyone stopped him, ten steps to each of the two flights, past the non-functioning telephone exhibit, and up the two shorter flights of steps leading to the star-shaped Fort Hood level.

No one in sight yet.

The three bronze-framed plate glass doors just ahead of him.

Deadbolts on all of—

He hadn’t once thought—

God, don’t let them be locked!

He shoved out at the middle door. It yielded to his hand. He caught his breath, came out into daylight. Stopped dead. Looked left and right. No one. His right hand went into his inside pocket, over his heart. His fingers closed on the bottle of sarin. Breathing hard, he lifted the bottle from his pocket, and turned the nozzle to the STREAM position. He hesitated a second longer, then walked swiftly to the steps leading to the level above. When he got up there, he would crouch down below the chest-high wall that enclosed it, and then work his way to a position directly above the President. The Statue of Liberty would be facing both of them; she would witness it all. He had practiced it a hundred times. Before anyone below knew what was happening, the President would be doused with a shower of poison that would kill him within minutes.

He started up the steps.

Came out onto the level above.

Ducked below the wall.

Half-crouching, half-running, he moved toward the corner where a right-angle turn would take him to the front of the monument. Above him, the lady clutched the tablet in her left hand. In the distance, he thought he could hear the President’s droning drawl. He turned the corner. Still crouching, he lifted his head to get his bearings.

No, he thought.

No.

He was looking at a squad, a platoon, a company, a battalion, a goddamn regiment of marines in dress blue uniforms!

One of them, a man holding what appeared to be a trombone, turned to look at him, puzzled. Sonny came to his feet immediately, as if recovering from a stumble, put the walkie-talkie to his ear, turned without glancing again at the man, and hurried back toward the corner of the monument.

But he had already been seen from below.

Dobbs had caught movement from the corner of his eye.

He’d glanced upward, seen what looked like one of their own people up there — blue suit, white shirt and dark tie, walkie-talkie in his hand — moving swiftly toward the corner of the monument, where suddenly he disappeared from view.

“... in a nation where education and health are the birthrights of not only a privileged few but of everyone, where shining cities stand as beacons of achiev...” the President was saying.

Dobbs wondered what one of their own was doing up there with all those marines. And then he wondered if the tall man he’d seen was in fact one of their own. He decided to investigate. He was heading for the stairs leading up, when Sonny broke into the open at a dead run, a pistol in one hand, the bottle of sarin in the other.

In the instant that Dobbs yanked his revolver from his shoulder holster and rushed to intercept the man who was most certainly the one Elita had described, he knew that his worst nightmare was about to be realized: he was going to lose his life defending someone he despised.

The words propelling him were No-Fail .

The motives that drove him toward that podium were hatred and revenge, coupled with the realization that what he was about to do would earn him a place in Paradise. Like one of Khomeini’s ten-year-old boys — the Basseej who’d rushed across Iraqi minefields, their forearms roped together, the black cloths of martyrdom tied across their foreheads, metal tags around their necks — like one of those young martyrs whose tag was a key to Paradise, Sonny now rushed forward to accept his fate.

It was not Dobbs who stopped him.

He dispatched Dobbs with two neat whispered shots, puffing on the still summer air, felling him in his tracks.

Nor was it Elita’s shouted words that stopped him.

“There he is!”

Her finger pointing like an arrow at his heart.

He recognized her in that instant, but dismissed her as inconsequential, and continued his headlong rush toward the podium, where now he saw the President and heard his words and saw as well...

And this was what caused him to stop for just an instant...

And then turn from his course...

Swerve away from the podium...

And race for the nearest point on the star-shaped level.

He leaped over the wall to the level below, ran across a parched stretch of grass... Elita’s voice shouting again behind him...

“Stop him! That’s the man!”

... hit the pavement that ran straight to the water’s edge...

“Stop him! Stop him!”

... shots behind him... stepped off the pavement in a zigzagging maneuver... more shots... stop him... get him... reached the metal railing... climbed onto it... and dove into the water.

There was immediate darkness.

Cold wet darkness.

He swam some distance underwater, and then surfaced, gasping for air.