Danya jumped at the pistol shot and swiveled the gunsight. The children were screaming, trying to move even closer together, some crawling on top of others.
Not again.
As she scrutinized the small bodies, all appeared to be alive and moving. Relief washed over her, and at least for the moment, lifted her guilt.
Sacheen still had her Beretta aimed down at her captives. She had just drilled a bullet into the pavement, and she adjusted her aim.
“The next shot will be into the chest of the little redhead. I don’t think she’s even in middle school yet. So much life ahead for her. A future filled with possibilities. And it will all end violently if you don’t show yourself. Just think about it. You will be responsible for this little girl’s death.”
Danya’s mind was racing. If she surrendered, it was likely Sacheen would kill her. But if she didn’t give herself up, she believed at least some of the children would be killed.
She counted nine youths, plus Toby, and tried to complete the calculus: I have to prioritize the man. He has the greater firepower. Take him out with a double tap. Sacheen will likely fire two shots into the children, maybe even a third, before I drill a round through her face. In all likelihood, the FBI agent will be killed, and two, maybe three children. But six of the hostages will survive. How many will live if I surrender?
Taking no comfort in the decision she’d arrived at, and believing she was likely making a pact with the devil, she saw Sacheen adjust the aim of her pistol. Time had run out, and Danya had to act.
With the red dot placed where the torso of the male assailant was positioned partially behind the federal agent, she started to apply pressure. It was too risky aiming for his head. Better to place two quick shots into the center of mass—his chest.
In Hebrew, she murmured a short prayer she’d learned as a child, then took up the slack on the trigger. She excelled at delivering death. But too often, innocent lives were lost to the vagaries of battle.
Through extensive training, Danya had become intimately familiar with many weapons, including the MP5. Her finger had grown sensitive to the minute changes in the feel of the trigger as pressure was applied. In her mind, events had slowed, and her senses were acute. She felt the cessation of trigger movement, and knew she was microseconds away from sending the bullet downrange into the terrorist.
The silence within the portico was shattered by gunfire, and simultaneously, rounds ripped into the pillar just above her head. She rolled forward, seeking shelter from the barrage coming from the far end of the colonnade. More bullets pelted the concrete, chipping out large pieces of the aged material.
With no time to aim, she fired a quick burst to drive the shooters to cover. Then she was on her feet, dashing for the gift shop. Leonard snapped up his MP5 and fired at the fleeing figure, but his shots were trailing her, and none connected.
Reaching the relative safety of the store, Danya dove through the open doorway and slid to a stop behind shelves pilled with books and T-shirts.
“It’s a woman!” Leonard said.
“Yes, I can see that,” Sacheen replied. “But who is she, and how is it that she seems have caused so much trouble?”
“You’ve got no idea who you’re up against,” Toby said. “She’s kicking your ass. And she’ll keep at it until you’re all dead.”
Sacheen glowered at Toby. In less than ten minutes, her plan had unraveled. She still had the special agent in charge, to be used for leverage, but the drones were out of commission. Her threat would not be taken seriously unless she could place at least one more drone in the air.
All along, the plan had been to carry through with dispensing radioactive dust over the abandoned Alameda Naval Air Station. She and Leonard were certain that a demonstration would be necessary to prove their capabilities and determination. And by sending back Flynn—the top FBI agent from the San Francisco field office, who would certify the existence of numerous drones—all political opposition to their demands would be crushed.
Although she’d nearly achieved that goal, what they had done—delivering one drone with a radioactive payload—would be viewed as a bluff in a high-stakes poker game.
Sacheen still had an iron grip of Flynn’s collar.
She told Leonard, “It’s time we adapt to the changing battlefield.”
s
Two gunmen advanced along the portico toward the gift shop. They clung to the sides of the arcade, closing the distance to where they’d seen Danya flee. The men handled their weapons like they’d had some training, but they were not skilled with firing under pressure.
She recognized their deficiencies and allowed them to approach closer and closer. She’d worked into a hidden location behind a product display consisting of a base cabinet topped with shelves. Sweatshirts of different sizes and colors we folded and stacked on the shelves. And resting stationary between two piles of garments was the barrel of her MP5.
Sacheen’s voice carried over the distance. “Find her and kill her.”
The men approached with weapons pointed, sweeping back and forth, searching for a target. Their faces were dappled with beads of perspiration despite the cool temperature, nerves tight as piano wire, wary of an ambush. Given the option, they’d have preferred to let someone else flush out the woman, but it wasn’t a choice they could make. If they ignored Sacheen’s order, they would forfeit their pay—more money than either would make in ten years cleaning hotel rooms and bussing tables at the casino. And that was the best-case scenario. Neither wanted to contemplate the worst-case possibility.
Danya willed them in, closer and closer. With her gaze on the tangos, she remained still, not even blinking. Any movement was likely to draw their attention. She remained hidden like a black widow, waiting and watching as her prey stumbled into her trap.
When they were twenty yards away, she pressed the trigger twice, sending two bullets into one of the tangos, hitting the middle of his chest. The other gunman squeezed off a volley of gunfire into the shop. But his finger pressure on the trigger ended a second later when she placed a single bullet between his eyes.
The echo of gunfire soon faded. She eased from her cover and returned her red dot optical sight to Sacheen. But the federal agent was still in the way.
“Drop your weapons!” Danya shouted across the courtyard.
Sacheen reached out and pulled Toby in next to Flynn.
“No,” she said. “Not gonna happen. We’re gonna get on that helicopter. Just the four of us. And you can wave goodbye as we fly away.”
“The pilot’s dead. How do you think you’re going to leave?”
“You’re not the only one with surprises.”
Unseen by Danya, another pair of assailants emerged from the sally port, having taken the pathway down from the cell house. They were jogging toward the shouting and gunshots, and as soon as they set foot in the courtyard, they saw Danya and opened fire.
Rounds splintered wood from a display shelf she was leaning against, but she was unscathed. She snapped off a trio of shots toward them, and then dove deeper into the store for cover.
That was all the break Sacheen and Leonard needed. They shoved Toby and Flynn into the idling Eurocopter. Toby craned her head toward the children, shouting to be heard above the whine of the engine, her voice filled with angst.
“All of you. Into the restrooms. Go! Now!”
The small concrete building beside the courtyard appeared to be built like a bunker. It would be a safer location for the children if the shooting continued.
A short skinny boy wearing a Boy Scout uniform had removed his neckerchief and wrapped it around the leg of another child to staunch the flow of blood. A second child held a bloody hand against the side of her head, while a third had her arm cradled in a bulky sweatshirt.
Most of the kids moved toward the door, but then hesitated. With longing in their eyes, they watched as the door to the helicopter was closed.
Toby pressed a hand against the window and mouthed, Go.
Leonard kept his gun aimed at his two prisoners while Sacheen took hold of the controls. Increasing the turbine power, she soon had the aircraft rising straight up for fifty feet, and then dipped the nose and skimmed over the water. Leaving Alcatraz Island behind, the helicopter accelerated as it traveled east, and then turned north. Sacheen flew low and followed the contours of the land.
“You’ll never get away,” Flynn said, trying to sound more convincing than he felt.
“Looks to me like we’re doing just that,” Leonard replied.
“They’ll track you by radar from the airports in San Francisco and Oakland. They’ll know exactly where you land this bird. Local law enforcement will be on you before the rotors stop spinning.”
Sacheen didn’t bother with the pointless dialog, preferring to concentrate on her flying.
“You think we haven’t thought this through, Mister FBI man?” Leonard said. “That we don’t know what we’re doing? No one will track this aircraft, because it’s flying too low.”
The helicopter skirted over the Richmond-San Rafael Bridge. The cars passing beneath were no more than fifteen feet below the skids. Just ahead and to the right were dozens of large cylindrical tanks for storing oil and petroleum products.
Sacheen nudged the cyclic, and the Eurocopter hugged the shoreline, flying between a point of land and a large tanker unloading its black gold at the end of a pier. She angled over San Pablo Bay, and then turned east. She was flying recklessly fast, and it was making Leonard nervous. He had flown with Sacheen countless times before, including in rotary wing aircraft. But never like this, where the water was close and there were obstructions—land, bridges, buildings—too close.
If Leonard was nervous, Flynn and Toby were terrified.
“You’re going to get us all killed!” Toby had one hand in a death grip on a handle mounted to the sliding door.
Sacheen pulled back and to the left on the cyclic, causing the aircraft to slew north as the Carquinez Bridge loomed ever larger through the front plexiglass dome of the helicopter. The massive twin steel bridges—one a cantilever design, and the other a suspension bridge—presented a tight interlocking network of steel cables and I-beams, an impenetrable barrier for any aircraft.
On the left side of the helicopter, Flynn found himself looking down into muddy waters flowing out of the Carquinez Strait. Then they were flying level again, across the narrow Mare Island Strait. To both sides, Flynn and Toby watched as industrial facilities and ship docks passed by at a blistering pace. After covering a little more than a mile, the channel flared.
Sacheen followed the delta, hopping up to gain just enough elevation to clear the occasional bridge. As she continued flying on a northerly route, the shipping channels gave way to meandering streams. They were entering the California wine country.
Finally, Sacheen cut inland across broad marshlands and flat fields covered with wild grass. Two intersecting runways lay ahead—Napa County Airport.