Chapter 18 - The Sniper’s Shadow
The heavy, concussive echo of the sniper rifle shot rolled off the concrete walls of the ambulance bay, bouncing between the high-rise administrative wings of Walter Reed like rolling thunder.
"Down!" Nathan roared.
Before the sound had even finished fading, Nathan dropped his cane, lunged forward with explosive, instinctive combat reflexes, and tackled me hard to the asphalt, dragging us both behind the heavy, thick-plated engine block of Carson’s idling Mercedes.
A second high-velocity round slammed into the driver-side door of the sedan with a deafening *THWACK*, punching clean through the heavy steel armor and sending a shower of hot lead fragments and jagged metal shrapnel raining down across our backs.
"Sniper! Twelve o'clock high! The roof of the central diagnostic tower!" Nathan shouted over the ringing in our ears, his eyes darting upward through the shattered windows of the vehicle.
I pulled my service pistol from my holster, pressing my back flat against the warm, vibrating metal of the car door. My heart pounded like a jackhammer against my ribs, but the cold, surgical focus that had kept me alive in field hospitals under mortar fire took over instantly.
"That wasn't a warning shot," I panted, my eyes scanning the jagged silhouette of the roofline against the lightening gray sky. "They didn't want Harris to talk. They just executed their own loose end."
"Professional grade," Nathan muttered, his jaw set in a hard, unyielding line as he pulled his own concealed tactical blade from his ankle sheath, his eyes never leaving the high perimeter. "Suppressor, sub-sonic rounds, wind-adjusted from at least four hundred yards. That wasn't a standard facility guard. That was a black-ops wet-work detail."
"Which means Thorne knows we have the data," I said, my grip tightening around the polymer grip of my pistol. "And he knows the federal marshals are already moving on his residence. We’re sitting ducks out here in the open."
"We don't stay ducks," Nathan replied, his voice dropping into that terrifyingly calm, tactical cadence that had once rallied a broken platoon through an ambush. He reached up, grabbed the heavy leather strap of a tactical go-bag left on the floor of the Mercedes by Harris, and slung it over his shoulder. "We use their own blind spot against them."
"What’s the play?"
"The steam tunnels," Nathan said, pointing toward a low, heavy iron maintenance hatch set into the base of the retaining wall behind the sedan. "They run beneath the entire D.C. medical complex, connecting directly to the old congressional fallout shelters under Capitol Hill. If we take the tunnels, we bypass their sniper kill-zone entirely."
"And if they've mined the exits?"
"Then we die fighting," Nathan said, a grim, defiant smile touching the corners of his lips as he reached out and grabbed my hand, squeezing it with absolute, unshakeable strength. "Are you ready, General?"
I looked down at the lifeless body of Colonel Harris sprawled on the wet asphalt, then up at the dark, menacing silhouette of the sniper tower silhouetted against the bloody pink of the sunrise.
I released the safety catch on my pistol.
"Lead the way, Captain," I said.
May you like
Nathan kicked the heavy iron maintenance hatch open with a violent, boots-first strike, revealing a dark, yawning concrete shaft that plunged deep into the earth. We dropped down into the cool, echoing dampness just as a third high-velocity round sparked off the pavement exactly where we had been standing a second before.
The heavy iron hatch slammed shut above us, plunging us into total darkness, save for the single tactical flashlight beam cutting through the swirling steam of the subterranean labyrinth.
