Act of Terror by Marc Cameron Read Free Book Online

Showers of white dust rained from the high ceiling like fissures of venting steam. Smoldering napkins fluttered amid smoky silence. Charred bits of noodle and French fries stuck to walls and columns.
    Ronnie wiggled her jaw, trying to clear the jumbled mess of thoughts in her head. Even absent shrapnel wounds, the sharp concussion from such an explosion had a powerfully stunning effect on the body’s soft tissues.
    The blast left an eerie void, punctuated by whooshing stabs of pain in Ronnie’s ears. She pushed up slowly from the floor, staggering to her feet.
    The greasy smell of gun smoke and blood stuck to the roof of her mouth. She shook off the urge to vomit, took a deep breath, and moved to the corner that loomed in front of her. One more step would bring the shooters into her view—and put her in theirs.
    Ronnie Garcia wasn’t the best shot on the force, but she was consistent, even under the pressure of a screaming, spit-launching line coach.
    Ninety seconds after the killing began, she stepped back from the corner and brought her Glock up to eye level in both hands. With slow deliberation, she began to sidestep, inch by slow inch— cutting the pie , they called it. Her heart beat like a kettledrum as the first assailant came into the picture formed by the glowing tritium sights of her Glock.
    She struggled to control her breathing and mouthed the words her instructor had drilled into them on the range: “ ‘The key to life is front sight and trigger control. ’ Focus on the front sight... . Press the trigger, front sight... . Press ... front sight ...”
    A young, redheaded analyst she recognized from the Central Asia Desk pushed his way through overturned plastic chairs toward a group of three women huddled under the edge of a round table. Even at twenty yards, the bloodlust was palpable in the kid’s wild eyes. He flung a chair out of the way and loomed over his cowering victims, grinning maniacally.
    Front sight ... press —
    Ronnie shot him twice, center mass. She prayed he didn’t have on a vest.
    Watching him crumple, she took another half-step to reveal not one, but two shooters working their way between the long tables less than ten yards away. She took the one in the lead first, a tall, quiet man with a bobbing goiter—Timmons was his name. She’d always liked him... .
    She rushed her first shot. It went low, slamming into the man’s groin. He staggered back, eyes thrown wide in surprise, struggling to keep the gun in his hand. Her second round caught him square in the chest. The Browning slipped away. A wan smile crossed his face as his body toppled across the screaming woman he’d been about to kill.
    Ronnie processed the identity of the third shooter a split second later. Her breath caught hard and painful in her throat.
    Surrounded by a melee of screams and gunfire—and surely deafened by the grenade blast—the third man walked from table to table, finishing off the wounded with another Browning Hi Power. Up ’til now, he’d not even noticed Ronnie’s presence. It was a man she knew well, someone she’d called a friend. Her stomach lurched. She had to force herself to stay aimed in.
    Dressed in the maroon polo shirt of CIA Academy staff was a decorated veteran of the Clandestine Service—and the firearms instructor who’d supervised her and countless others at the range.
    Ronnie put her front sight over the chest of Marty—Mags—Magnuson, the newly appointed CIA deputy director for training. When he looked up from his bloody rampage, she demonstrated his old mantra with two center-mass shots. The key to life was indeed “front sight and trigger control.”

C HAPTER F IVE
    The White House
2025 hours Eastern Time
    Â 
    â€œP lease sit.” President Clark flicked a hand toward the green Queen Anne couches on either side of his larger, olive-colored chair. His back was to the fireplace, facing