Somewhere behind her she heard a helo.
“Delta Two. We got visual on you, Agent Gage.” This came from the SWAT sniper in the helicopter.
Thank God! “The uniform cop. About two fifty yards ahead of me heading south. Take him down!” Marsha tried to run faster, but her legs felt as if they might buckle from her exertions. “Take him down!”
“One hundred percent confirmation cop is Cochrane?”
“Negative.”
“Then I’ve no clearance to proceed.”
“Wound him then!”
“Negative.”
“What?!”
“Bullet in the leg can still kill. Man might be a legitimate cop.”
Jesus! The SWAT sniper was right, but she was now losing all hope. “Okay. Take out the gunmen in the north.”
“Roger that.” The helo turned away.
Marsha leapt on top of a stationary car and began running along the row of vehicles that had been abandoned by terrified drivers and passengers. The extra height gave her better visibility and the ability to move without constantly bumping into people. Either side of the vehicles was still chaos, with people racing into shops, falling over each other, wailing; and the drone of police sirens was all pervasive.
She jumped to another car and saw the cop dash off of Wisconsin Avenue into a side alley.
Scott and Oates were expertly holding their ground, covering angles, one of them opening fire while the other changed magazines, crouching while shooting, moving, sending short and long bursts of death at anything that might be a threat to them.
The former SAS operatives knew there was no way out of this.
It was their last stand.
Their day of the bullet.
And they were making it a memorable one for every person here.
Duggan sprinted into open ground, shouting, “Out of the way!” at civilians he had to swerve around to get closer to the gunmen. Some of them did as he commanded, others dropped to the tarmac because assassins’ bullets had just entered their brains.
“Delta Two. I got one of them in my sights.”
Duggan yelled into his throat mic. “Do it! Now!”
As the sniper’s high-velocity round bored a hole through Oates’s head, Duggan ran faster than he’d ever done in his life, and hurled himself through air to grab Scott.
But the assassin sidestepped.
Duggan crashed to the sidewalk and rolled onto his back.
Scott was standing over him, his SCAR pointing at Duggan. “Got to be quicker than that, sunshine.” He smiled. “But I guess that was the point.”
It was the point. Duggan’s clever strategy had laid Scott momentarily open to anyone and everyone. Even if it meant he was putting his life at the feet of a highly trained killer.
But Scott knew he’d been outwitted.
He took his eyes off Duggan and looked toward the sky.
Allowing Duggan time to lift his submachine gun.
Scott closed his eyes.
Duggan’s rounds hit Scott’s chest at exactly the same time as Delta Two’s sniper bullet entered the assassin’s head.
Marsha had to slow down as she reached the entrance to the alley; her breathing was too fast, her legs felt like lead, but more than anything she felt abject fear as she held her gun in two hands and entered the dark and narrow passageway. She moved cautiously down the alley. Trash containers were sporadically positioned on both sides; fire escape ladders hung down the tall walls above them; water poured from roof gutters that were overflowing from the day’s earlier heavy rainfall. No one was visible in the alley, but there were plenty of places for a man to hide while he changed his appearance from that of a cop to an ordinary citizen.
In her earpiece she heard Duggan saying that the three gunmen were dead, that all law enforcement officers needed to scour the area in case there were more of them, and that every paramedic in D.C. was needed on Wisconsin Avenue.
She could still hear the sirens and the commotion on the avenue, but the noises grew quieter with every step she took. And despite the fact that thirty yards behind her was the start of what was temporarily the most heavily policed zone in the U.S., right now she felt completely alone.
She wondered if she should call for backup; even just one or two cops would make a difference.
But every able-bodied man and woman was needed on the avenue.
People were injured.
Dying.
Dead.
And there was the possibility that there were more gunmen loose.
But they weren’t the only reasons she didn’t call for assistance.
If Cochrane was in the alley, she couldn’t signify her presence here to him by allowing him to hear her voice.
She kept walking, estimating that she had another twenty yards to go before she reached the ten-foot-high wall that blocked the end of the alley — a wall that Cochrane would easily be able to scale in order to disappear into the hectic throngs of the city.
Part of her now hoped that was what had happened, because the prospect of confronting a cornered Will Cochrane terrified her.
But she was in no way going to back down from her duty.
After another forty yards, she stopped and listened but heard nothing. And she had a clear view of the remainder of the alley and could see nothing out of the ordinary.
He wasn’t here.
She was sure.
She breathed in deeply; her heartbeat began to slow; her muscles started to relax.
Then she tensed again as she heard a clanging noise behind her, and spun with her gun ready to fire.
But it was merely a pigeon that had landed on one of the rusty fire escapes.
She silently cursed, turned to complete her search of the alley, and involuntarily gasped in shock.
Will Cochrane was standing right in front of her.
His gun’s muzzle inches from her forehead.
A nondescript brown jacket covered his police tunic, the cap was gone, and sunglasses were clipped to his collar; he no longer looked anything like a cop. In a flash, he ripped the gun out of her hand, pulled out the radio set that was clipped to her waist, and smashed it against the wall. “Any secondary weapons on you?”
She shook her head.
“Prove it.”
“You… you want me to strip?”
“Not in this weather. You’d catch your death from cold. Frisk yourself — firmly.”
Marsha ran her hands tightly around her arms, legs, and the rest of her body.
As she did so, Will threw her handgun as far as he could down the alley behind her. He nodded toward the weapon as it rolled to a halt. “You can pick that up after I’m gone. I know you cops give each other a lot of grief if someone disarms you.”
“Thank…” God, was she really about to thank him? “I’m not a cop.”
“FBI?”
Marsha nodded.
“You work for Marsha Gage?”
Should she lie? Would he put a bullet in her brain if she answered honestly? She recalled what Alistair had said to her.
Once he’s found out the truth about why he’s on the run, he wants you to get very close to him, though I must warn you it will be completely on his terms.
It made sense. He’d tried to come to her home last night but was confronted by men with guns — probably the same men who’d been killed today. And he had no gripe with Marsha, because he’d know that she and the rest of the FBI were as much in the dark about Project Ferryman as he was.
She made a decision.
Not an easy one, but she just made it.
“I’m Marsha Gage. I was warned you might come for me once you had answers.”
Will smiled, though his expression remained menacing. “Between Norway and here, time and time again you considerably inconvenienced me.”