Juba ran down the nave to the transept, amid slanting beams of holy light, in full view of the tortured man on the cross. He pushed his way through a crowd of frightened, bound priests, but none had the nerve to try to block him. He twisted into a hall, heard shrieks and screams from civilians in the rooms on either side, came to a corner, took a quick look back down the hall over his gunsight and saw no one. He kept moving and came to a door, pushed it open, tasted sun and air and the glories of a garden, negotiated it forcefully and saw a street before him through an archway. He put the rifle to his side, after folding the stock, and set out. Trying to walk naturally, though breathing heavily, he hit the sidewalk, was about to turn right down the street, and then a man crashed into him, the rifle clattering away, and the two went down, tangled in each other’s arms, strength on strength.

•   •   •

Swagger had no gun. What good was he? And each arriving officer seemed more eager to get into the fight than to pay him any attention. The FBI Ford pulled into the formation, Nick rolled out, Chandler the other way, and Neill from the rear.

He scrambled low and hard to them.

“Gun!” he yelled.

“I’m using mine!” said Nick, not really paying much attention, and leaning over the wheel well to put several Glock .40s out into the generalized target area thirty-five yards away.

Fire everywhere. The cars trembled as they were hit, the noise of the shots hit eardrums like driven spikes, the smell of burned smokeless drifted all over.

Swagger, in his quest for firepower, kept sliding car to car and reached the last of them in the barricade around the enemy position and found two Marshals blazing away with .45 automatics. They wouldn’t relinquish a gun either.

That’s when he saw Juba.

The man wore yellow shooting glasses, and had just emerged from the entry to the cathedral. Heavyset, intense, muscular under the priest’s robes, no fear in him. Bob decided to charge. Somehow he felt that his aged body could outrun the bullets that Juba’s bodyguard sent his way and overcome them both with well-executed punches, bellicose profanity, and hard-steel U.S. Marine Corps attitude. But he saw the error of his ways when the companion saw him and raised the rifle to kill him. However, in the next second, before his death was enacted, Bob saw a burst of shots riddle the huge door, drive the two back. He took this as God’s belief in his mission and continued his charge after the momentary lull.