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Authors: Mack Maloney

BOOK: Strike Force Charlie
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The snarl had started inching forward when suddenly Ozzi heard a tapping noise on his window. He turned to see a D.C. policeman standing next to the van. He was a huge African-American guy his uniform soaked from the recent rain. A bright red ruby stud sparkled from his right ear.
“Just stay cool, Lieutenant,” Hunn urged Ozzi, under his breath. “We're delivering flowers here, remember?”
Ozzi lowered the window as calmly as possible.
“Is there a problem?” he asked the cop.
“You boys just ran a red light,” the cop replied.
“That's
the problem.”
Ozzi was not unprepared for this. He was a resident of D.C., so he had his D.C. license on him. And as the van was a rental, the agreement came attached to the registration. But if the cop ever ran a check on Ozzi's license, God knows what
would happen. After all, he was technically an escaped felon. The same was true if, for some reason, the cop wanted to search the van.
But before Ozzi could hand his papers over, the traffic started to move. Hunn saw an opportunity and interceded.
“Look, pal,” he said to the cop. “We've been riding around with these flowers all day, fighting this traffic. Everything's dying and we still got a bunch of deliveries to go. The kid just got a little anxious, you know?”
It was not so much what Hunn said but how he said it. He did have a certain amount of charm and he could lay it on thick at times. In this case, the cop fell for it.
“OK,” he said. “I'm too wet to write you a ticket anyway. Just watch yourself.”
With that, he walked away.
Ozzi felt his shoulders sag in relief. He looked over at the hulking Delta soldier and smiled. Hunn smiled back, a very rare occasion.
“It's called the ‘power of persuasion,' Lieutenant,” Hunn said. “It comes along with being a bullshit artist.”
At that moment, the traffic started to move for real. Ozzi hit the gas and they were back on the limo's tail again.
 
The slow-motion chase ended five minutes later when the limousine turned back onto Connecticut Avenue and pulled into an alley next to an old redbrick building. This was the Oak House, a very famous, very private club that was a favorite of Washington's elite, or at least those lucky enough to gain membership.
Hunn recognized the place and pumped his fist.
“There's no way his kids are going in there,” he said. “I'll bet not even his bodyguards can get in.”
And he was right. They rolled past the alley just in time to see Rushton emerge alone from the limo and duck into the club's side door.
Hunn was already looking at the buildings bordering the alleyway.
“Oh yeah,” he said, clapping his hands together. “We got plenty of places to pop him up there.”
 
They drove the van to a multilevel parking garage one block away. It was conveniently located, as its roof was adjacent to the roofs of buildings facing one side of the alley.
Parking the van on the top floor of the garage, Ozzi and Hunn quickly changed into their black combat duds, then took the sniper rifle, Ozzi's weapon, the armrest, and the binoculars and walked to the edge of the garage's roof. There was about a six-foot separation between the garage and the top of the building they wanted to get to. Hunn made the leap first, jumping with no more concern than if he were jumping over a puddle in the street. Ozzi, however, made the mistake of looking down between the buildings before he made his move. It was at least 50 feet to the bottom, with nothing but cobblestones and asphalt waiting below.
Ozzi knew he wasn't going to sprout wings in the next few seconds. So he backed up, took a deep breath, then took a running leap. He flew out into space like Batman, arms spread, feet together. He landed, hard, face-first on the gravel and tar roof of the next building over. Hunn just looked down at him.
“You might want to work on your approach, sir,” he said drily.
They crept to the opposite side of the roof. It overlooked the alley and the side entrance to the Oak House. It seemed to be the ideal sniper's post. They could set up, get a good aiming point down in the alley, and still remain in the shadows. What's more, the other roofs around them were very dark, too.
“Perfect,” Hunn whispered. “We might be able to put two into him from up here.”
Ozzi helped him set up the rifle rest. A few loose bricks on the roof's artifice further stabilized the weapon. The thunderstorms had passed over, and even though the roof was wet, the sky above was clear and the stars had come out. Two fighter jets passed over, their engines sounding muted
and dim, even though their navigation lights were flashing madly. Somewhere off in the distance, a siren was blaring.
The limousine was still parked in the alley below, its engine running. This led them to believe that Rushton might be in the club for only a short time.
Hunn checked his weapon over and over again. The bolt, the ammo supply, the armrest. He was a hulking individual, big hands, big head, big everything. But he handled the gun like a mother handled a newborn baby. Ozzi thought perhaps all this attention was a way to divert the fact that he was about to take a human life. A repulsive human life, but a life nevertheless. But to get that deep with the big Delta soldier was the last thing Ozzi wanted to do at the moment.
They lay in wait for the next 15 minutes, getting their clothes wet, not speaking, Ozzi counting the number of times the two fighter jets passed overhead.
Then they heard a thump and a slight electrical sound, like a fan had been turned on. Ozzi peeked over the edge of the building and saw the limo driver, only his hands visible through the windshield, adjusting the limo's air conditioner. This convinced them Rushton was about to emerge from the club.
“Can we go over the egress again, Lieutenant?” Hunn asked, never taking his eye from the rifle scope.
They
had
gone over their escape plan already, just after setting up the weapon. Once Hunn took the shot, they would quickly disassemble the rifle and shove the individual parts down the chimneys and water pressure pipes, of which there were many on the roof. Then they would shed their black camos and dispose of them in a similar manner and jump back over to the garage roof. They would retrieve the van and leave, all before the crush of police and security vehicles arrived, they hoped.
Ozzi had begun to recite their escape procedure again when suddenly they heard:
“Hey! What are you guys doing here?”
They both spun around to see a cop walking toward them, flashlight in one hand, service revolver in the other.
But this was not just some cop. It was the
same cop
who had almost given them a ticket down near Connecticut Avenue about a half hour before. The guy with the ruby stud in his ear.
“I
knew
you guys were kind of queer,” the cop said. “Who's delivering flowers this time of night? Dying flowers at that … .”
Ozzi was speechless.
But not Hunn.
“Shut your fucking mouth, will you!” Hunn hissed at the cop. Ozzi was stunned.
The cop was, too. So much so, his flashlight started jiggling.
“What did you say?” he demanded of Hunn.
“I said shut the fuck up—and keep your voice down,” Hunn replied harshly. “We're part of General Rushton's security team. We weren't about to tell you that back there. But we're up here covering his flank.”
The cop lowered his pistol, just a little. He looked like he believed Hunn.
But then he yelled, “Hey … everyone … are these guys with you?”
At that moment, Ozzi saw about a dozen heads pop up from the roofs of the other buildings surrounding the alley. All of these people were dressed like him and Hunn, in black camo gear. All of them were also holding huge rifles. He couldn't believe it. There were
other
sniper teams up here. Three alone were stationed on top of the Oak House. In fact, there were sniper teams on every roof around them but theirs.
Ozzi smacked himself upside the head. How dumb could they be? There was no way Rushton would have let his security lapse for such a long period of time. He'd just redistributed it to another place.
“They're not with us!” someone across the alley yelled.
“Who the hell are they?” came another voice in the night.
“We're absolutely screwed,” Ozzi said under his breath.
But Hunn had other ideas.
Ozzi was amazed at how quick the Delta soldier moved.
One moment his huge sniper rifle was pointing down at the alley below; the next it was pointing right at the cop's head.
“We
can't
get caught,” Hunn whispered to Ozzi. “Not now. Not here.”
“I'm with you there,” Ozzi replied.
“Drop the weapons and put your hands on your heads … now!” the cop screamed.
Hunn and Ozzi were frozen in place, but they made no move to lower their weapons.
The cop repeated his warning, shouting even louder now.
Ozzi noticed the cop was armed with a smallish service revolver. A popgun compared to what Hunn was carrying. One shot and the cop would no longer be a problem. Besides, Ozzi and Hunn had been in so many gunfights, so many close calls, in the past few months, they were ready for anything.
Except this … .
They could not fire on a fellow American. Especially an innocent guy like this.
“I
will
shoot if you don't lower your weapons now!” the cop yelled again.
“We're on a special operation!” Hunn tried again. But it wasn't working this time.
There were no more warnings. The cop fired his weapon, hitting Hunn right in the chest. The Delta soldier went down instantly, his sniper rifle splitting into pieces as it hit the roof.
Ozzi freaked. He began firing his own weapon, not at the cop but just inches above his head. The cop stumbled backward, falling on his substantial behind.
At the same moment, Ozzi felt the heat of other bullets zinging by him. The snipers on the other roofs were shooting at him!
Damn
… . He had to think at light speed. There would be no copter coming in to pull them out this time. They were on their own. Going back over the roof to the parking garage was no longer an option. But they had to get out of here—and quick.
Tracers
… . He had an ammo magazine on him that was full of them. They were his only ace in the hole.
He went down to his knees and jammed the “hot” clip into his rifle. Then he just started firing.
It was as if a fireworks display had suddenly erupted on top of the roof. Streaks of phosphorus light were flying everywhere, hot burning greenish red, going off in all directions. It was enough of a shock to the other snipers that most of them went heads-down for a few seconds.
When they looked up again, Ozzi and Hunn were gone.
 
One of the sniper teams atop the Oak House roof was just able to see what happened.
After dropping down to avoid the fusillade, they saw the little guy pull the big guy to the edge of the roof—and then
jump off.
But Ozzi and Hunn didn't miraculously fly down to the alleyway. Instead, Ozzi somehow managed to drag Hunn, all 260 pounds of him, out of the fire coming from the sniper teams and over the edge of the roof. Twenty feet down was a very rickety fire escape. It was their only chance. Ozzi lowered Hunn down first, or at least tried to, as they both really toppled over together, the rusty iron of the fire escape ladder breaking their fall. Hunn nearly crushed the life out of Ozzi on landing; it was all he could do to get himself out from under the big soldier.
But no sooner had Ozzi done this when he felt himself falling again. It seemed for an instant that he was stationary and the rest of the world was moving. But then he realized what was happening. The fire escape ladder itself was going down, as it was designed to do, five stories to the alleyway below.
He landed hard, again, and then Hunn came down on top of him—again. Once more, he had to crawl out from under the monstrous soldier.
But at least they were on
terra firma.
They'd hit the alleyway not far from the limousine. Ozzi could still hear its air-conditioning cranking at high speed, the silhouette of the driver visible just beyond the windshield.
Ozzi saw the eyes and faces of the sniper teams and the
D.C. cop looking down at him. He let loose another barrage of blinding tracers, almost giddy that he'd made such a dramatic escape.
But then he looked down at Hunn and for the first time realized his chest was covered with blood.

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