Patterson, James - Alex Cross 3 - Jack and Jill

“Kill him now!” I heard up ahead.

"Let me through? I shouted as loud as I could.

The man who was causing the scene up ahead had shoulder-length blond hair. He wore a baggy black parka with a black backpack attached.

I grabbed him at the same time as someone else from the other side of the aisle. We brought the blond man down hard and fast.

His skull crunched against the cement floor.

“New York police!” the other guy holding the blond man yelled.

“D.C. police, White House detail,” I yelled back. I was already patting down the suspect. The New York cop had his gun in the suspect's face.

I didn't recognize the blond as Kevin Hawkins, but there was no way to tell for sure, and absolutely no way for us to take a chance on him. We had to take him down. There was no choice about that.

“Kill the bastard! Kill the President!” the blond man continued to scream.

He was absolutely crazy, everything was, not just this asshole on the floor.

“You hurt me!” he started to yell at me and the New York cop.

“You hurt my head!”

Madman ? I wondered.

Copycat?

Diversion ?

KAMIKAZE ATTACK! It was coming any second now. A killer willing to commit suicide. That was why this couldn't be stopped. It was also why President Byrnes was the walking dead.

Kevin Hawkins hadn't experienced any problems getting into a prime position in the noisy, crowded auditorium. He had used his imagination and visual skills to create an unusual identity for himself.

Hawkins was now a tall brunette woman dressed in a dark blue pantsuit. He wasn't a very good-looking woman, he had to admit, but he was much less likely to draw attention because of it.

Hawkins also had a Federal Bureau of Investigation ID, which was authentic down to the stamp and thickness of the paper. It identified him as Lynda Cole, a special agent from New York. The photojournalist stood at Lynda Cole's seat in the sixth row and calmly observed the crowd.

Snapshot.

Snapshot.

He took several mind photos, one after the other, mostly of his competition. The FBI, the Secret Service, the NYPD. Actually, he didn't believe that he had any real competition.

Kamikaze. Who could stop that ? No one could. Maybe God could.

And maybe not even God.

He was impressed by the sheer numbers of the opposition, though. They were serious about trying to derail Jack and Jill this morning. And who knew? Maybe they would succeed with their superior numbers and firepower. Stranger things had happened.

Hawkins just didn't believe that they could. Their last real chance had been before he'd gotten inside the building -- not now. The photojournalist versus the FBI, the Secret Service, the U.S. marshals, and the NYPD. That seemed reasonable enough to him. It seemed like a pretty fair game.

Their elaborate preparations struck him as being ironic. He waited for the target to appear. Their game plan was an essential part of his. Everything they were doing now, every step, had been anticipated and was necessary for kamikaze to work.

“She's a Grand Old Flag” began to play from the loudspeakers, and Hawkins clapped along with the others. He was a patriot, after all. No one might believe it after today, but he knew that it was so.

Kevin Hawkins was one of the last true patriots.

NO ONE stops an assassin bullet.

There was a fire burning inside my chest. I was moving quickly through the crowd -- searching for Kevin Hawkins everywhere.

Every nerve in my body was stretched tight and burning. My right hand rested on the hard butt of my Glock. I kept thinking that any one of these people could be Jack or Jill. The handgun seemed insubstantial in the huge, noisy crowd.

I had made it to the second row, just to the right of the ten- to twelve-foot-high stage. The light in the hall seemed to be fading, but maybe it was the light inside my head. The light inside my soul?

The President was just stepping onto the gray metal stairs.

He clasped the hand of a well-wisher. The President patted the shoulder of another. He seemed to have forced the idea of danger out of his mind.

Sally Byrnes climbed the stairs in front of her husband. I could see her features clearly I held the thought that maybe Jack and Jill could, too. Secret Service agents seemed to take up all the available space around the stage.

I was there when it finally happened. I was so close.

Jack and Jill struck with a terrible vengeance.

A bomb went off. The loudest imaginable clap of thunder struck near the stage- maybe even on the stage itself. The explosion was completely unexpected by the bodyguards surrounding the President. It detonated inside the defense perimeter.

Chaos! A bomb instead of gunfire! Even though the auditorium had been swept for bombs just that morning, I was thinking as I rushed forward. I noticed that my hand was bleeding -- probably from the earlier tussle with the nutcase, but maybe from the bomb.

The worst imaginable sequence of actions began to unfold, and in very fast motion. Pistols and riot-control shotguns were pulled out everywhere in the crowd. No one seemed to know where the bomb had hit yet, or how, or the actual calculations of damage done. Or what purpose the explosion was meant to serve?

Everyone dropped to the floor in the first twenty rows and up on the stage.

Thick black smoke billowed toward the ceiling, the glass roof, and overhanging steel girders.

The air smelled like human hair burning. People were screaming everywhere. I couldn't tell how many were hurt. I couldn't see the President anymore.

The bomb had detonated close to the stage. Very close to where President Byrnes had been standing, shaking hands and chatting, just a few seconds before. The ringing was still vibrating in my ears.

I frantically pushed my way toward the stage. There was no way to tell how many people had been injured, or maybe even killed, by the blast. I still couldn't locate the President or Mrs. Byrnes because of the smoke and the bodies suddenly in frenzied motion. TV cameramen were wading in toward the disaster scene.

I finally spotted a cluster of Secret Service agents huddled tightly around the President. They had him up on his feet.

Thomas Byrnes was alive; he was safe. The agents were starting to move him out of harm's way The Secret Service bodyguards acted as a human shield for the President, who didn't appear to be hurt.

I had my Glock out, pointed up at the rafters for safety I shouted, “Police!”

Several other Secret Service agents and NYPD detectives were doing the same thing. We were identifying ourselves to one another.

Trying not to get shot, trying not to shoot anybody else during the terrifying confusion. Several people in the crowd were crying hysterically I kept pushing and pulling my way toward the southwest side exit that the Secret Service had used to bring the President in.

The escape route had been established beforehand.

Beyond the glowing red EXIT sign, a long concrete tunnel led to a special visitors' parking area on the river side of the building.

Bulletproof, armor-plated cars were waiting there. What else might be waiting? I wondered. A voice in my head shouted for attention as I moved forward as fast as I could. Jack and Jill have always been a step ahead of us. They missed him Why did they miss ?

They don't make mistakes.

I was less than a dozen yards from the President and his Secret Service guards when it hit me, when finally I understood what no one else did yet.

“Change the route out!” I yelled at the top of my voice. “Change the escape route!”

NO ONE heard me shouting. I could barely hear my own voice in the melee. There was too much noise and confusion inside Madison Square Garden.

I pushed ahead anyway, desperately following the phalanx that looked like the rabble at a prizefight from my vantage point.