Friday, September 16, 1:30 p.m. EDT

Gunmen grabbed Riley and roughly shoved him forward as soon as he walked in.

“I’m here, everyone,” he called out as he stumbled. “Captain America’s come to save the day!”

Something hard hit him squarely between the shoulders, dropping him to his knees. Riley turned to see a man in black holding his assault weapon butt first.

Create as much havoc as possible, he thought. Anything you can do to get everyone’s attention so that Scott and the guys can get into place.

“Why, Majid Alavi! As I live and breathe,” he said to the man who had hit him. Alavi pulled up short on his next blow. “Oh, don’t look so surprised. I saw you on the surveillance cameras. I know all about you.”

He dropped his voice to a stage whisper. “I hear your dad stunk rocks as a clothes salesman.”

Alavi launched at Riley, gun butt first. In a move he hadn’t used since his Air Force Special Ops training, Riley grabbed hold of the gun and pulled hard, yanking Alavi off balance. At the same time, he rocketed himself to his feet, driving his shoulder into Alavi’s chest. Just like he’d done against blocking sleds since he was twelve, he pushed the man backward until a pillar stopped their momentum. All of Alavi’s air rushed from his lungs.

Riley swung the terrorist in front of him, pulled the pistol that was in the man’s belt, and held it to his head.

“Stop where you are,” he yelled to the rapidly approaching gunmen. Alavi was gasping for breath, and the back of his head was bleeding. “Come any closer and stinker here gets popped.” Then to Alavi, he said, “And you really do stink. Do you guys ever bathe? You smell worse than a hockey goalie’s equipment bag.”

“Drop the weapon now!” said one of the gunmen.

Recognizing him, too, Riley said, “Forget it, Saliba. By the way, did you tell all your friends here about that girl you knocked up a few years back?”

Saliba made a rush toward Riley and Alavi. Riley fired a shot into the floor. It ricocheted off the tile and embedded itself who knew where. Saliba pulled up, but Alavi took the opportunity to try to pull away.

Riley cinched his hold around Alavi’s neck tighter and clocked him hard on the side of the head with the pistol.

“Wait a second, this is Khadi’s gun,” Riley said, giving him two more hits. Alavi was bleeding from four places on his head now.

As Riley looked around, every eye was on him—hostages and gunmen. Not one terrorist that he could see was watching out the windows or looking at the stairs. Freaking amateurs!

“Stop! No more,” said a new voice. Riley looked over and saw Saifullah walking toward him. He had an aura of smoldering rage about him, and Riley knew he was no one to underestimate. Walking just behind the imam was another gunman—Bazzi, I think. He was calmly leading Senator Lowell Martin, holding a pistol under the taller politician’s chin.

“Drop the gun, Mr. Covington, or Mr. Bazzi will kill the senator.”

Riley laughed. “What, like that’s a threat? Have you seen the crap that’s been coming out of Washington lately?”

“The time for joking is over,” Saifullah said, and Bazzi cocked the gun.

“Okay, okay,” Riley said. “Don’t get your ceremonial loincloth in a bunch.”

He shoved Alavi hard, and the terrorist sprawled out on the floor. “It’s just, I’ve got this thing about being touched,” he said, as he slid his gun away, “so if you could please just tell your boy here . . .”

He stopped talking when Saliba pulled a new weapon as he strode toward him. Riley looked down at his bare chest and saw a red dot.

“Not good,” Riley said, just before two prongs released from a Taser gun and embedded in his chest. His whole body clenched, and he dropped to the ground. He had been tasered before as part of his Special Ops training, but that had lasted only five seconds. This just rolled on and on as the electricity pulsed through his body.

As soon as the current stopped, the pain stopped. But his muscles were exhausted from the strain. Opening his eyes, he saw Majid Alavi standing over him.

He was holding a long metal rod.

Riley lifted his hands to protect his head. But that left the rest of his body exposed. The first five blows landed across his back, sending shocks of pain from his spine and kidneys. He rolled and tucked himself into a fetal position.

Help me, God! Help me! “The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want. . . .”

The first rod was joined by a second and then a third. Blow after blow fell on him—bruising ribs until they cracked; crushing the knuckles on his fingers as they tried to protect his head; breaking joints as ankles, knees, elbows, and shoulders were targeted.

“He makes me lie down in green pastures, He leads me beside quiet waters, He restores my soul. . . .”

Riley’s battered fingers gave way, and the blows began landing on his unprotected skull. Each crack seemed to knock him momentarily outside himself, before the pain snapped him back into reality.

He walks . . . He walks me beside . . . the valley of shadows. . . . He guides me . . . in my enemies . . . I will not fear . . . I will not fear . . . I will not fear . . .

“Enough!” a voice called out. A stillness like the eye of a hurricane descended on the scene. But even though the rods had stopped landing, phantom blows kept raining down on Riley’s body as his nerves and brain danced, trying to process what had just happened.

Eventually, the contortions stopped, but the pain didn’t. It was like nothing Riley had ever felt before, and it made him scared to even breathe in. Then fingers grabbed his ear, twisting it and lifting his head up from the tile. Riley fought down a scream.

“My father is a great man,” Alavi said.

Riley tried to smile, but his face instead contorted in something that was very much not smile-like. “That’s . . . what . . . Saliba’s mother . . . said.” The semilaughish convulsion his body made sent blood and spit shooting out his nose and mouth.

Alavi threw Riley’s head down onto the tile.

“I said enough! We are scheduled to go live in six minutes,” Saifullah said. “I don’t want to be delayed by having to wait for him to regain consciousness. Bring him.”