Book 18 in the Ben Kincaid series, 2010

When the second shot blasted, the crowd panicked.

Seamus McKay swore under his breath. This sort of thing never happened in the deserts of Afghanistan, where there were rarely any crowds to panic. He never should’ve accepted a domestic assignment. But it was too late to worry about that now. There were four terrorists in there, at least three of them armed. He had kept his weapon holstered to avoid exactly the frenzied chaos that now surrounded him. But there was no point in remaining unarmed now. He drew his Glock 23 and pointed it into the air. The sooner all these tourists dispersed, the better.

He had no idea why the four men he was tracking had come to the Washington Monument, one of the most popular tourist attractions in D.C., but none of the possible answers was good. A fully capable nuclear suitcase had been stolen from a top-secret Arlington armory, and Seamus was convinced these men had it, or knew someone who did. He mentally combined all the possible reasons terrorists with nuclear capability might come to the Washington Monument… and every potential explanation sent chills racing down his spine.

Seamus fought his way through the crowd, both hands on the gun, making his way toward the front door against the flow. Why were they inside the monument, where several hundred tourists would be traveling up and down the elevators or perched at the top at any given moment? He needed to get there before they made it to the elevators. He stepped sideways, hands over his head, doing his salmon-swimming-upstream act, all the while being battered by screaming teenagers and overweight men wearing T-shirts and ball caps.

Another gunshot rang out, causing the stream of maddened tourists to move even faster and with less care for their surroundings. He had to keep his mind on what he was doing, without distractions. There were four of them and one of him, and although he had faced worse odds over the course of his CIA career, it wasn’t something he looked forward to reexperiencing. The clichéd thought would be: I’m getting too old for this. But in the present case it had nothing to do with age. It was more the desire to live a real life, to experience what other men were doing in middle age, to settle down with-

Someone cuffed him on the back of the head. Damn it all, that would teach him to let his mind wander. He swung the gun around in a perfect one-heel pivot-

And brought it smack in the face of an elderly woman wearing a “Virginia Is for Lovers” lightweight jacket. She was carrying an umbrella, which was apparently the weapon of mass destruction she had used on him.

The gun didn’t intimidate her. “You stepped on my foot!”

“Beg pardon, ma’am,” Seamus said, bowing his head, then moving along again, back on his line drive toward the front entrance.

He jumped the turnstile.

The lobby was more spacious than you could ever believe possible just from looking at the tall, lean, sleek marble obelisk from the outside. At the far end, he saw the two elevators, and between them the famous bronze statue of George Washington designed by Jean-Antoine Houdon, the French neoclassical sculptor who had immortalized most of the great men of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. Though the lobby was large, it was still jam-packed with tourists. Why? There had been three gunshots, for God’s sake. What were they waiting for, the city bus?

He scanned the crowd but didn’t see any of the men he had been chasing. That was frustrating. Were they already riding to the top? Seamus didn’t think there had been enough time. So where were they?

At least he didn’t see any corpses lying on the floor. That was a relief. Those men must have fired for a reason, but as far as he could tell, it was not to kill. Probably just herding crowds out of their path or, perhaps, trying to instill terror. That was what terrorists did, right? It gave him cold comfort to see how ineffective they had been. There were still far too many people in here. But he could deal with that.

He raised his gun into the air, aimed toward a window (because damaging a national treasure could really dock his pay), and fired.

“Listen up!” Seamus bellowed at the top of his lungs. “I’m a federal officer. This is an emergency situation. As long as you remain here, you will be in danger. I want everyone to leave the building and the immediate vicinity of the monument. Now! Understood?”

In response, he heard a mixture of squealing and gasping and grumbling, even a muttered “Will they refund our tickets?”

Seamus fired his gun again. “So get out now, or I’ll shoot you myself!”

That got the crowd moving. He had to suppress a smile. Yes, if nothing else, a decade in the Middle East trained you to be good at scaring people. In a few seconds, most of the spectators had cleared out. Now if he could just find-

Something hard bashed against the back of his head, and this time he was certain it was not an old lady’s umbrella.

He fell forward but caught himself with his free hand and rolled around. One of his quarry was standing over him, grinning, his automatic weapon in his hands. He’d slammed Seamus with the butt and he was eager and ready to do it again. He had a deep scar-or perhaps a burn-on the left side of his face that made him both instantly identifiable and instantly threatening.

Seamus brought his gun hand around but the terrorist was too quick for him. He knocked the gun away. It skittered across the floor and disappeared in the distance.

Great.

While he was ducking, Seamus brought his fist around and pounded his assailant in the solar plexus. While he was doubled over, Seamus hit him again and again. When he saw the man’s fingers weaken, he knocked the gun out of his hand, then followed through with another blow to the neck. Hard.

The man dropped to the floor like a withered flower. Seamus had literally knocked the wind out of him. He wasn’t dead, but he would be out of the game for a good spell. That meant-

Another gunshot whizzed by just inches from Seamus’s head. Damn. Another one. Where was he?

Early retirement was sounding better all the time. As long as he wasn’t retired to a coffin.

More gunshots rang out. Seamus dove behind the priceless statue of George Washington between the elevators. He tried to spot the shooters. Staying low enough to be safe, he managed a quick survey of the lobby.

Two men were down on the floor, at opposite ends of the lobby. And the third was above him, on a raised platform in the north corner. Probably a security roost. But perfectly adapted to becoming a sniper’s nest.

Seamus crouched beneath the statue, pinned down like a bug. Eventually someone would tell the police what was happening, but he would be dead long before that came about. He needed a weapon, or some plan of action.

But instead he got a major complication. He heard a sharp, abrupt ringing sound.