Total pages in book: 116
Estimated words: 107096 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 535(@200wpm)___ 428(@250wpm)___ 357(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 107096 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 535(@200wpm)___ 428(@250wpm)___ 357(@300wpm)
Gabriel nodded slowly. “We have to do this ourselves. Get into the stadium, get the President out of there, stop Maravić.” He looked at me, rubbed at his bandaged ear...and then passed me a spare radio. I nodded and put the radio on.
A half hour later, we flew over the stadium, a vast oval with a white, domed roof. And the roof was firmly closed, sealing everyone inside. Chyort! Gina touched down in the parking lot and we jogged towards the rear of the stadium. It loomed bigger and bigger as we approached, until it filled our entire vision. “How the hell are we going to find Maravić in there?” growled Colton.
With the game about to start, everyone was already inside and the entrances were quiet. But they all had Secret Service agents standing guard. Gabriel led us around the back and down a ramp that led to the underground employee parking lot. It had been locked and then padlocked for good measure, but Gabriel pulled out a set of lockpicks and opened both as fast as if he’d had the keys. “What did he do before he joined the team?” I whispered to Colton.
“Professional thief,” rumbled Colton. I checked but...no, he wasn’t joking.
Inside, it was dark and eerily quiet, a maze of trucks and vans belonging to cleaners and TV crews. As we moved through it, I suddenly drew in my breath and tapped Colton on the arm, pointing. I’d spotted the crappy brown van we’d seen in New York.
We crept over to it, guns drawn. Danny reached for the driver’s door handle but I grabbed his arm just in time. “Wait!”
I’d glimpsed something inside. I shone a flashlight through the windshield for a better look. Two men of Arab descent sat up front, both dead, their bodies contorted in agony. “There’s gas in there,” I warned.
I played with the flashlight behind them. I could see two pairs of feet on the floor in the back of the van. “After the attack, when the police comb the place, they’ll find these four,” I said, my voice choked. “They’ll think they were about to escape, but their van had been contaminated and they were killed by their own gas. Case closed. No one will ever look for Maravić and his men.”
Colton was peering at their clothes. “They’re all in the same overalls and baseball caps. Maintenance workers.”
“Maravić and his men will be dressed the same way,” said Gabriel. “Clever. They keep the caps pulled down to hide their faces and if they get caught on the security cameras, everyone will think they’re these four.”
We hurried deeper into the stadium. At first, the hallways were deserted. We were down in the bowels of the place, where colored tape on the floor directed all the backstage workers: turf crews this way, uniform laundry that way. But as we started climbing stairs towards the seating, we began to see Secret Service patrols. Bradan, who was unnaturally good at sneaking, took the lead and helped us dodge past them. But when we reached the final set of double doors that led to the main seating area, we found three agents standing guard, and they weren’t moving.
“There’s no other way through,” said JD. “And we’re out of time.” he looked at Colton and me. “The rest of us will clear the way. You two get to Kian and the President.”
I blinked at him. He’d distrusted me for so long. Now he was relying on me to get the job done. I felt something I couldn’t describe, something I hadn’t felt since I was a naive young thing at the academy, eager to serve my country. I looked at Colton, flustered, then back at JD. “Sure,” I muttered.
“You got it, boss,” said Colton.
“Leave your guns with us,” said Danny. “If you run up to the President with them, they’ll shoot you.”
We handed over our weapons. Then JD, Danny, Gabriel and Bradan ran at the three Secret Service agents, tackling them and grabbing their radios before they could warn anyone. As soon as they were down, Colton and I picked our way through the sea of fighting bodies on the floor, hauled open the double doors and—
Chyort!
I knew we had to move, before one of the Secret Service agents behind us raised the alarm. But my legs wouldn’t function. The space in front of me was just so unthinkably vast. I was looking across the field at a towering wall of screaming, cheering people ten stories high, the figures so tiny they were just blobs of color. And the wall extended out to the left and right, all the way around me.
I’d had no idea what eighty thousand people looked like.
I saw men and women of every race. Families. Oh God, so many children. All cheering together.
Except they weren’t cheering. As my ears adjusted to the deafening noise, I realized they were singing.