The homemade grenades were constructed of a piece of thin, pliable plastic tubing, black powder encasing a nonelectric blasting cap, compacted under pressure with iron and steel scraps and detonated by a six-second fuse. Deng Zhen picked up one of the devices and examined Zhao Shi's handiwork.
Zhao Shi was the appointed triggerman. He was very young, very quick, and very good at what he did.
As Deng Zhen crawled down out of the truck, he heard the phone ring. He stopped while the answering machine announced that the offices of Stacy Clean Pro were closed on Sundays. Then he waited to see if there would be the expected follow-up call. When it rang the second time, Tang Ro Ji answered.
"They passed through the main gate less than ten minutes ago," the feminine voice announced. "We are monitoring their car phones. The second car was inquiring about traffic conditions after they leave Pennsylvania and proceed on Lobard." The caller did not wait for confirmation, nor did Tang offer any.
Tang Ro Ji hung up and turned to his colleagues. "We are ready except for one small matterthat of Mr. Kovnir," he said. "And I will tend to that."
For Tang Ro Ji, the dispatching of Sergei Kovnir was a matter of expediency; there was no emotion involved. As the hour of Schubatis's arrival approached, the terrorists had sedated the old man, dressed him in an inexpensive dark blue business suit complete with shirt and tie, and informed him that they had a very important job for him.
Now, as Kovnir waited, Tang Ro Ji walked into the room and, from a distance of less than three feet, put a .45-caliber bullet into the back of the old man's head. When the bullet erupted from the man's face just below his left eye, it destroyed most of his facial features. That, too, was according to plan.
Then Tang Ro Ji walked around in front of the body, assessed the magnitude of the destruction, and smiled. Identification would not be easy.
When he walked back into the garage area, he instructed Deng Zhen to put the body in the back of the van and motioned for Zhao Shi to open the garage door. "Chin wha` do~ dun kow," he said, smiling.
While Deng Zhen and Zhao Shi eased the Dodge van out into the alley, Tang Ro Ji went back into the building and picked up a small canvas valise containing two bottles. The bottles contained cacodyl, a mixture that assured them of spontaneous flammability. Tang Ro Ji knew the mixture, designed to explode on contact, would give off a dense white smoke. He had used it before. That dense white smoke was a deadly arsenic. At the strength Tang had formulated it, one inhalation of the cacodyl would cause death in a matter of seconds. Then, almost as an afterthought, he picked up the three gas masks and took them with him.
Outside in the rain, Tang crawled into the passenger's seat and checked his watch. "We have approximately eleven minutes," he said.
Mike Capelli glanced at the veteran ISA agent in the seat beside him. Like Bogner, he was eager to hear the latest on the burning Saratoga oil rig. When Bogner nodded, he turned on the radio.
"We're coming up on checkpoint two at East Fifty-seventh, Pack," Bogner advised. "We'll go north and intersect at Saint Martin's on Lobard."
"How's the traffic look?" Packer inquired.
In the rearview mirror Bogner could see Breeden. The redhead was monitoring the conversation. He smiled and gave Bogner the thumbs-up signal from the second car.
"Harvey says the coast is clear," Bogner confirmed. "So far, so good."
At the corner of Fifty-seventh and Lobard, Capelli eased to a stop for a red light. Bogner, still on the car phone with Parker, was explaining the delay in their anticipated arrival time at the Franklin. "We lost some time on the belt because of the rain."
Across the street, churchgoers from the 10:30 mass at Saint Martin's were starting to stream out of the old edifice. A few darted through the rain oblivious to the traffic. The driver of an approaching station wagon rolled to a stop and opened the door to pick up passengers. Few noticed the white Dodge van that rolled to a stop immediately behind it. Only Bogner saw the rear doors of the van fly open and the man with the .50-caliber automatic drop to his knees into firing position.
Bogner shouted, but it was too late.
Zhao Shi opened fire and the scene became an instant sensory blur. There was a silence-shattering cacophony of gunshots, explosions, and screams.
The station wagon tried to accelerate through the intersection, the driver lost control on the wet pavement, and the rear end of the car came around, plowing into the Lincoln. Capelli was trying to back up as Bogner began shouting instructions.
"Get us the hell out of here! Swing out on Lobard." Then he spun in the seat to see if Schubatis and the Akimerov woman were still safe. As he did, a hail of bullets shattered the Lincoln's windshield and Capelli's head exploded, showering the others with bone shards and fragments of flesh.
Bogner threw open the door and dropped to the pavement. When he did, he realized that the rear door had been blown open and the Akimerov woman was lying in the street beside him. There was an ugly hole in her body where her stomach should have been, but she was still alive. Bogner knew she was pleading for help, but the only thing coming out of her mouth was a torrent of red-purple fluid. He tried futilely to reach out to her. He was giving his body commandsbut there was no response.
He could hear gunfire and then an explosion. The second car, driven by Myers, erupted in a ball of flame. He saw Myers lying in the road. He was on fire.
It had evolved into a world of half-images. He saw a manhis brain registered the word Asian holding some kind of long-barreled weapon. He was firing it from his shoulder. There was another explosion and the front of the church disintegrated, erupting into an inferno. There were more screams and Bogner rolled over again and again, trying to pull the pieces together. The rain had become something terrible: a thing of bricks and mortar, stone and steel, glass and marbleand flesh.
He looked for Schubatis. Then he realized one of the terrorists had an AK-47. It belched out more destruction, more explosions. Holes were being gouged in the street. Bogner covered his head.
He heard the cry of a child. The frantic screams of a mother. Then he saw a man, dressed in black. The back of his robe was gone and what was left of it was covered with a wet, ugly crimson color.
Bogner began to shake. It was Vietnam all over again. He was lying in a rice paddy, the wreckage of his downed A-4 smoldering behind him. His vision blurred as his eyes clouded with tears. There was smoke… and fire… and women and children screaming.
For a moment there was silence, then more gunshots, and ricocheting bullets. He could smell wet asphalt and blood… and, when he least expected it, the distinct scent of perfume. He looked back at the second car. It was on fire and the doors had been blown off. He saw Reba Schubatis clawing her way away from the holocaust. He saw people running and screaming. He saw men with weapons. He tried to get up, his legs crumpled, and he fell back to the pavement.
Then, as suddenly as it all began, the shooting ceased. He saw one of the terrorists, wearing a gas mask, loft some kind of bottle into the chaos and begin to run. He saw the body of Schubatis still in the burning car.
Somehow he managed to get to the car and grab hold of the Russian. When he looked at him he realized that the man no longer had a face. Still, he had enough strength left to drag Schubatis out of the car and pull him away.