“Captain Magruder?”
Tombstone turned and was surprised to see Abdulhalik, his guide and driver from the day before. He was wearing a conservative dark suit this morning. The jacket was open and there was an obvious bulge beneath his left arm.
“Abdulhalik!” Tombstone said. “How’s the spy business?”
“Dangerous,” the man said, not bothering to contradict Tombstone’s assumption. “Especially when the general gives his little speech in a few minutes.”
It was also interesting, Tombstone thought, how the man’s broken English had mended quite a bit overnight. No more “A-okay” slang or dropped articles.
“I need to ask you, Captain, how long the helicopter flight to your carrier will take.
Tombstone looked at the man curiously. “Didn’t the general’s staff cover all of this after their briefing?”
Abdulhalik gave Tombstone a narrow, inscrutable look. “I feel safer sometimes if I can… confirm information I have been given.”
Though he hadn’t been in on the original planning, Tombstone had seen the day’s schedule, worked out item by item by UN and Russian personnel several days earlier, and approved by both him and Captain Whitehead yesterday. Boychenko would make his speech, followed by a speech from Special Envoy Sandoval on behalf of the UN, and another by Admiral Tarrant. There would be a brief opportunity for questions from the press, and immediately afterward, Boychenko and his senior staff officers, along with Tarrant and his staff, would be taken to a CH-53 Sea Stallion waiting on the east side of the White Palace grounds. The group would be flown out to the Jefferson, where Boychenko would officially request asylum.
As CAG, Tombstone had been consulted on the aircraft timetables, especially in regard to the CAP that would cover the helo on its flight back to the Jefferson. Tombstone had assumed that the necessary information had been passed on to Boychenko’s security personnel. Apparently, though, Abdulhalik wanted to make sure that the information he’d heard was the same as what Tombstone had provided.
Which suggested the possibility of informants or worse within Boychenko’s own planning staff. It wasn’t a pleasant prospect.
“Well,” he said, “the Jefferson’s about one hundred nautical miles out right now. If the helo pilot goes flat out? Call it thirty-five, maybe forty minutes. You sound like the general’s going to need a quick getaway after his speech. You’re afraid of critics?”
He’d meant it as a joke, but Abdulhalik nodded gravely. “Just so. We have word that a large part of the navy does not approve of the general’s plans. They might try something to block them.”
“I know. I was making a joke.”
Abdulhalik did not look amused… but after a moment he cracked a thin smile. “I see. You will forgive me if my sense of humor is lacking this morning. It has been a long night.”
“Just who are you working for, anyway? The FBS?”
Abdulhalik considered the question for a few seconds before answering.
“Actually, I am on the general’s personal staff. Security. At the moment, the Federal Bureau of Security is the opposition.”
“I see. Why were you keeping an eye on me last night, then?”
A shrug. “If the general is to have his ‘quick getaway,’ as you call it, it is important that nothing happens to you. Yes?”
Tombstone considered telling him about the knife-wielding mugger in the stairwell, then thought better of it. Abdulhalik looked like he had enough on his mind already without having Tombstone bother him with irrelevant might-have-beens.
A stir in the crowd and a rising murmur of conversation marked the appearance of General Boychenko, Admiral Tarrant, and Special Envoy Sandoval at the front of the White Palace. Boychenko was tall and silver-haired, with a beaklike nose that gave him the look of a bird of prey. Sandoval was shorter and dark-haired, with a sketch of a mustache and a self-important air. Tarrant looked businesslike and matter-of-fact, even a little bored. Accompanied by several aides and a small army of security troops, the three made their way up the steps and onto the stage. Captain Whitehead stood to greet Boychenko and shake his hand. The others stood until the VIPS took their places behind the podium, then sat down with a creak and scrape of chairs on wood.
The speech was in Russian, and Tombstone understood not a single word.
Not that he was particularly interested in the content. Had he wanted one, there were translations available in various languages, but he already knew the overall topic and didn’t particularly care if he could follow the reasoning or not. Boychenko was talking about the need for international arbitration, the importance of the UN, the need for world peace.
Not that anything being said had meaning. The UN hadn’t enforced a working peace anywhere in the world yet… not until all parties in a given dispute had their own reasons for stopping the fighting. Ukraine would be watching these proceedings with considerable interest, and Tombstone was pretty sure that they, at least, would soon be testing the UN’s resolve. As the speech-making droned on, Tombstone looked away from Boychenko and let his gaze move across the crowd. Pamela, he saw, was watching Boychenko raptly, though he knew that she spoke no Russian either; a battery of cameras, both still and video, were trained on the Russian general as he spoke, and Tombstone could hear the ratcheting whir-click of automatic winders as the cameras fired. There must have been fifty or sixty reporters present, and easily ten times that many other people ― dignitaries, civilians, and soldiers. Tomboy was also in the crowd, over with the civilians and those members of Jefferson’s company who weren’t up on the stage. The seat was uncomfortable, and Boychenko’s droning monotonous. How the hell had he gotten into this situation?
Perhaps because he was watching the reporters instead of Boychenko, Tombstone saw the movement first, a crucial second or two before anyone else was aware. Three men detached themselves from the closely packed group of reporters, advancing toward the stage. They wore long-hemmed trench coats, and each was extracting something hard and metallic from beneath his garment’s open front as he moved. Someone was shouting. A woman screamed. Two of the running men had their weapons out and clearly visible now ― AKMS firing port weapons ― basically AKM assault rifles with folding steel-frame butts to make them smaller and more concealable under a trench coat. The third was waving a handgun; Tombstone couldn’t see what kind it was.
Abdulhalik was leaping forward toward the front of the stage, fumbling inside his jacket for his own weapon. Other security men were also reaching for their guns, but slowly… too slowly. Except for Whitehead, who sat stunned and unmoving, Tombstone was closest to Boychenko. He leaped forward with the suddenness of an F-14 catapulted from the bow of a carrier, his chair flying off the back of the stage; he hit Boychenko low and from behind, driving the man forward into the podium and the forest of microphones, then toppling man and podium together in a splintering crash.
Gunfire cracked, a thundering, stuttering fusillade as the trench-coated assassins opened up with their weapons on full auto. Tombstone heard the bullets snapping through the air overhead or thumping loudly into the heavy podium. Microphones clashed together, and the sound system gave a shrill squeal of feedback that mingled with the steady crack-crack-crack of automatic weapons. Shrieks from the audience rose to a shrill, terror-stricken cacophony mingled with cries of pain.
Everything was chaos, raw and uncontrolled. He was lying on top of Boychenko, one arm thrown protectively over the Russian’s back. Rolling to the side, he looked up, past the toppled podium and off the stage. One gunman was going down under the combined gunfire from Abdulhalik and another security man. The man with the pistol was out of sight at the moment, but Tombstone could see the other assault-rifle-armed assassin clearly as he ran up to the edge of the stage, firing wildly as he ran. Abdulhalik staggered, dropped his weapon, and collapsed onto his back, legs sprawling. Captain Whitehead flailed his arms and fell off the back of the stage, his face a mask of blood. Tarrant was down, too… and Sandoval. The assassins had sprayed the entire front row of VIPS, killing or wounding eight or ten of them in one long burst.