Declan O’Neill hiked his rucksack higher on his shoulders and trudged down the sidewalk in downtown Washington, DC. The last time he’d seen so many people in one place, he’d been a fresh recruit at US Marine Corps Basic Training in San Diego, California, standing among a bunch of teenagers, just like him, being processed into the military.
He shouldered his way through the throngs of sightseers, businessmen and career women hurrying to the next building along the road. The sun shone on a bright spring day. Cherry blossoms exploded in fluffy, pinkish-white dripping petals onto the lawns and sidewalks in an optimistic display of hope.
Hope.
Declan snorted. Here he was, eleven years after joining the US Marine Corps...eleven years of knowing what was expected of him...of not having to decide what to wear each day. Eleven years of a steady paycheck, no matter how small, in an honorable profession, making a difference in the world.
Now he was faced with the daunting task of job hunting with a huge strike on his record.
But not today.
Why he’d decided to take the train from Bethesda, Maryland, to the political hub of the entire country was beyond his own comprehension. But with nowhere else to go and nothing holding him back—no job, no family, no home—he’d thought why not?
He’d never been to the White House, never stopped to admire the Declaration of Independence, drafted by the forefathers of his country, and he’d never stood at the foot of the Lincoln Memorial, in the shadow of the likeness of Abraham Lincoln, a leader who’d set the United States on a revolutionary course. He’d never been to the Vietnam War Memorial or any other memorial in DC.
Yeah. And so what?
Sightseeing wouldn’t pay the bills. Out of the military, out of money and sporting a dishonorable discharge, Declan would be hard-pressed to find a decent job. Who would hire a man whose only skills were superb marksmanship that allowed him to kill a man from four hundred yards away, expertise in hand-to-hand combat and the ability to navigate himself out of a paper bag with nothing more than the stars and his wits?
In the age of the internet, desk jobs and background checks, he was doomed to end up in a homeless shelter. With his last ninety-eight dollars and fifty-five cents burning a hole in the pocket of his rucksack, he’d decided to see the country’s capital before he couldn’t afford to. As for a place to sleep? He could duke it out with the other homeless people for a back alley or a park bench. Maybe he’d get lucky and someone would slit his throat and put him out of his misery.
He paused at a corner, waiting for the light to change and the little walking man to blink on in bright white.
As he waited, he noticed a couple of dark SUVs sandwiching a long, sleek white limousine. Not that he hadn’t seen at least half a dozen limousines pass in the last twenty minutes he’d been walking. But he was standing still now and had nothing else but the backs of people’s heads to stare at.
The lead SUV turned on the street in front of Declan.
Before the limousine could follow suit, a white van erupted from a side street, tires screaming, and plowed through the people traversing a crosswalk to cut off the white limousine before it could make the turn.
Another white van followed the first and raced to block the rear of the limousine, effectively bracketing the big vehicle.
Men dressed in dark suits and ties jumped out of each of the dark SUVs, weapons drawn. They’d only taken two steps when the sliding doors on the vans slashed open and men in dark clothes and ski masks leaped out, carrying submachine guns.
“Get down!” Declan yelled. He grabbed the blond-haired woman in the fancy skirt suit beside him and shoved her to the ground as bullets sprayed into the men in suits from the SUV. Declan threw his body over the woman’s, shielding her from the rain of bullets.
The men and women surrounding him dropped to the pavement out of fear or injury. Ladies screamed, children cried and chaos reigned.
While the gunmen from the white van continued to fire toward the pedestrians, more men piled out of the vans and raced for the white limousine. They yanked at the vehicles’ doors, but the handles didn’t budge.
One of the attackers aimed at the handle and pulled the trigger on his handgun.
The limousine door burst open. A black-suited bodyguard poked a gun out and fired.
The man who’d shot the door handle edged out of range, jammed his handgun through the door and pulled the trigger.
Over the top of the other side of the vehicle, another man in a dark suit emerged from inside the limousine and aimed at the man who’d just shot one of the limousine passengers.
From his prone position, Declan watched as it all went down. Whoever the security detail was guarding must have been important enough for trained gunmen to stage such a daring operation in the middle of the day, on a crowded street.
Unable to stand by while people were being attacked, Declan shrugged out of his rucksack and shoved it toward the woman he’d pushed to the ground. “Watch this,” he commanded. “I’ll be back in a minute.”
The woman lay with her cheek to the ground, her eyes wide, a frown marring her pretty features. “Where are you going?”
“I can’t just stand by and do nothing.” He bunched his legs beneath himself and pushed to a low crouch.
A hand reached up to capture his arm. “Don’t. They’ll kill you.”
“If nobody does anything, they’ll kill everyone in that limousine and the security detail that was supposed to protect them.”
“But you’re only one man.” She stared up at him with soft gray eyes.
“Just watch my ruck. Everything I own is in that bag. And stay down.” He didn’t wait for her response. Instead, he ran to the side of a Lincoln Town Car that had stopped short of the vans and SUVs caught in the crossfire.
The driver lay sideways in his seat, the front windshield having been peppered with bullet holes. He wasn’t moving, his eyes open, unseeing.
Declan moved on, keeping the body of the sedan between him and the men wielding submachine guns. He waited for the shooter closest to him to turn away before he pounced, throwing the man off-balance and pushing him to the ground. With a combination of surprise and strength, he took the man down and jerked his head back with a decided snap.
The man hadn’t even fired another round. He lay still, unmoving at Declan’s feet.
Declan retrieved the attacker’s submachine gun and moved to the next man closest to him. Again, his attention focused on the limousine and the crowd lying crouched against the concrete sidewalks.
Moving silently, Declan eased up behind the next guy.
A scuffle with another security guard in the limousine generated more shouting and an eruption of gunfire.
Under the resulting confusion, Declan made his move and took out the next attacker, bringing him to the road surface with barely a whimper before he snapped his neck.
Sirens wailed in the distance.
One of the attackers yanked a dead security guard out of the back seat of the limousine and reached in to grab someone.
“Let go!” a voice inside yelled.
The attacker yanked a woman out of the limousine. She had gray hair and wore a dark gray suit and sensible pumps. “Don’t hurt anyone else. I’ll go with you. Just don’t hurt anyone else.”
He pulled her against him and pointed the handgun against her temple.
Declan cursed silently beneath his breath. A hostage meant the attackers had more than the upper hand. No matter how many bad guys he took out, he couldn’t get to the one who held the bargaining chip. Unless...
He’d worked his way closer to the white van blocking the front of the limousine. A couple of bad guys stood at the front of the vehicle and one guarded the rear.
Declan rolled beneath a long black sedan parked several feet away from the van. If he could just make it to the van the kidnapper was edging toward, he might be able to...
A police car rounded the corner two blocks away, lights flashing, siren screaming. It ground to a halt. The two officers inside flung open their doors and leaped out, using the doors as shields.
“Time to go,” the kidnapper shouted. Holding his victim with the gun to her head, he hurried toward the van closest to Declan.
If the kidnapper made it inside, the police would not be able to stop him without potential injury to the woman.
The van door slid open. A man inside grabbed the kidnapper’s arm and the woman’s and yanked them both inside.
The rest of the attackers backed toward the other van, still providing cover but unaware of Declan standing near the rear of the kidnapper’s vehicle.
As the sliding door started to close, Declan reached for the back door of the van. The handle turned, the door swung open and Declan leaped in as the sliding side door slammed shut.
Four bad guys filled the interior. The kidnapper had released his charge and was in the process of shoving the woman to the floor of the van.
When she collapsed to her knees, Declan had a clear shot.
He braced himself and pulled the trigger on the submachine gun as the driver shifted the gear into Reverse.
The kidnapper and the man who’d helped him into the vehicle dropped on top of the woman and lay still.
“Stop the vehicle,” Declan yelled. “Or I’ll shoot.”
The man in the passenger seat swiveled, a handgun in the palm of his hand.
Declan didn’t hesitate—he fired several shots at the man, the bullets hitting him in the arm and penetrating the back of the seat. The man slumped forward, the pistol falling from his hand.
The driver hit the accelerator, with the vehicle still in reverse, and he pulled hard on the steering wheel.
Centrifugal force flung Declan across the bed of the van. He hit the other side with his right shoulder, losing his hold on the submachine gun. The weapon clattered to the floor and skittered beyond his fingertips, out of Declan’s reach.
As he righted himself, the driver shifted into Drive and gunned the engine.
Barely reclaiming his equilibrium, Declan staggered backward, caught himself and lunged for the driver, ready to end the rodeo. He grabbed the back of the driver’s seat to brace himself and then wrapped his arm around the driver’s throat and pulled up hard. “Park it. Now!” he yelled.
The driver clutched at the arm with one hand and steered with the other, directing the van toward a heavily populated sidewalk and the corner of a brick building beyond.
With a quick twist, Declan snapped the man’s neck, shoved him to the side, leaned over the back of the seat and steered the van away from the crowded sidewalk and back into the street crowded with other vehicles.
Though dead, the driver’s foot remained on the accelerator.
Declan held on tightly as the vehicle plowed into a delivery truck, rocking it on its wheels. The van crunched to a full stop, slinging Declan forward.
Because he held on to the back of the driver’s seat, he wasn’t thrown through the window; instead he flipped over the back of the seat, hit his head on the steering wheel and landed headfirst into the driver’s seat.
He lay stunned for a moment, a dull pain throbbing in his head where he’d hit the steering wheel, but he was alive. He pushed backward over the seat, sat down hard on the floor of the van and surveyed the carnage.
A moan sounded from beneath the two men who’d hauled the woman inside.
Declan shook the gray haze from his head and crawled toward the groan. “Ma’am, are you okay?”
For a moment, nothing but silence came from beneath the two men.
“Ma’am?” Declan repeated. “Are you all right?”
“Can’t breathe,” her voice sounded.
Declan dragged the top man out of the way and then the other. Blood soaked the woman’s gray suit, though she showed no signs of open wounds or ripped clothing. Declan assumed the blood wasn’t hers. When she tried to sit up, he touched her shoulder. “You might want to lie still. You could have an injury from being handled so roughly.”
“I’m all right...no broken bones... I just need to...sit up.” She pushed to an upright position, her hands covered in the blood of her captors.
Declan glanced through the front windows.
Police vehicles surrounded the van, and men in SWAT uniforms rushed toward them, rifles aimed at the van.
“The police have arrived,” he said.
“Thank God.” The older woman wiped her hands on her skirt, leaving bright red streaks. Then she pushed the gray hair back from her face and squared her shoulders, a frown pulling her brow downward. “Do you think they know these terrorists have been stopped?”
“We can’t bank on it. They might take one look at me and shoot.”
Her eyebrows shot upward. “But they can’t. You saved my life.”
“You in the van, come out with your hands up!” said a voice amplified by a bullhorn outside.
“Coming out,” Declan said. “Don’t shoot!” He reached for the door handle.
The gray-haired woman touched his arm. “Let me go first. Surely they won’t shoot me, and I can let them know you’re one of the good guys.”
Declan shook his head. “You never know when one of them might get trigger-happy. I’ll go first...with my hands up.”
“At least let me open the door so they will see your hands up.” The woman grabbed the handle and pulled back, opening the door slowly. “Don’t shoot,” she called out. “We’re unarmed.”
When Declan stepped out of the van, he held his hands high.
“On your knees!” a voice boomed.
Declan dropped to his knees.
“Hands behind your head.”
Declan laced his hands behind his neck.
The man with the bullhorn called out, “Anyone else in the van, get out now, hands in the air.”
Out of the corner of his eye, Declan could see the gray-haired woman step out of the van, her hands held high, her hair disheveled and blood smears on her gray suit.
“On your knees. Hands in the air,” boomed the man with the bullhorn again.
“I will not go down on my knees in this skirt. Never mind, my knees can’t take that kind of brutality.” She started to drop her hands, but must have thought better of it and held them higher. “My kidnappers have been disabled and are in the van behind me.” She nodded toward Declan. “This young man saved my life. I expect you to treat him well.”
“Ma’am, you need to get on your knees,” a SWAT officer said from behind the door of his vehicle.
Declan glared at the man. “She’s not the problem.”
“Silence,” the SWAT guy said. “On your knees.”
“Oh, for the love of Pete.” The woman dropped her arms and eased herself to the ground, on her knees.
“Hands in the air,” the SWAT team leader commanded.
“Pushy bastard, aren’t you?” the woman said.
A chuckle rose up Declan’s throat. He swallowed hard to keep from emitting the sound.
The SWAT leader motioned for his men to close in on the van. Once they ascertained the other men inside the vehicle weren’t a threat, they dragged them out on the ground and laid them out in a line.
The other van had been stopped before it had gone two blocks. The men who’d been inside were lined up on their knees, being handcuffed.
Several SWAT team members approached Declan with their rifles pointing at Declan’s chest.
He didn’t dare move or breathe wrong. With a vanload of dead men, they would assume the worst first and check the facts later. Declan couldn’t blame them. Not with the woman bathed in blood.
“I told you, this man saved my life,” she was saying. “Treat him well, or I’ll have your jobs.”
“It’s okay,” Declan said quietly. “I’ll be all right.”
“You’d better be,” she said with a frown. “I haven’t had a chance to thank you properly.”
A man grabbed his wrist and pulled his arm down behind his back. Then he pulled the other one down and bound them with a thin strand of plastic. Once they had him zip-tied, they yanked him to his feet and patted him down thoroughly, removing his wallet and dog tags. “Declan O’Neill, you’ll have to come with us.”
“Aren’t you going to tell me why I’m being detained, and read me my Miranda rights?” Declan asked.
“We will. On the way to the station,” the man closest to him said.
“I left my backpack with a bystander. I’d like to get it before we leave for the station.”
Before Declan finished speaking, the SWAT team leader was shaking his head. “I’m sorry. But you’ll have to come with us now.”
“You don’t understand.” Declan stood still, resisting the pressure on his arm. “That backpack is all I have in this world.” Geez, he sounded like a pathetic homeless character. Then again, he was homeless.
The SWAT team leader nodded to one of his guys. “Find the man’s backpack.”
One of his men peeled out of the group and walked toward the bystanders on the sidewalk.
Forcibly dragged, Declan had no other choice but to go with the officers. He was shoved into the back seat of a police service vehicle, and then the door was shut in his face.
Without his backpack, he had nothing. Absolutely nothing. It contained his last bit of cash, a couple changes of clothing and photographs of him and his Force Recon team before they’d either been killed or split asunder. His phone was also in his backpack. It contained the numbers for his friends. He couldn’t remember any of them off the top of his head. He’d never needed to commit the numbers to memory. They’d always been in his phone directory. Now he wished he had taken the time to learn the numbers.
His heart hurt as the vehicle pulled away. He twisted in the seat and stared back at the crowd, searching for the blond-haired woman. He didn’t see her or his rucksack. The man who’d gone looking for it was on his way back to the rest of the SWAT team...empty-handed.
His only hope was if they gave him at least one call. He hoped the woman he’d left the rucksack with would answer the cell phone inside one of the pockets. And he prayed it had enough battery power left for her to answer. Considering he hadn’t had a chance to charge the cell phone, he doubted it would ring.
Just when he’d thought he’d sunk as low as life could take him, he’d once again been proven wrong.