At about one, I was still at my desk when a shrill, ear-splitting alarm sounded in the building.

At the same time my pager signaled a terrorist alert.

I heard loud voices up and down the hall. "Look out your window! Go to your window, quick!"

"Oh, good God! What the hell are they doing down there?" somebody else yelled.

I took a look outside and was stunned to see two men in fatigues running across the pink granite cobblestone of the inner courtyard. They were just passing the bronze sculpture "Fidelity, Bravery, Integrity."

My first wild thought was that the men might be human bombs. How else could just two of them hope to damage the building or anybody inside?

An agent named Charlie Kilvert from next door peeked his head inside. "You catching this, Alex? You believe it?"

"I see it. I don't believe it."

I couldn't take my eyes off the action down in the courtyard, though. Within seconds, heavily armed agents had appeared on the scene.

At first there were only three, then at least a dozen. The guards from the sidewalk booth suddenly came tearing up the driveway, too.

All the agents below had their guns pointed at the two men in fatigues. Both of them had stopped running now. They appeared to be surrendering.

The agents weren't coming any closer, though. Maybe they shared my idea about "human bombs," but more likely they were following procedure.

The suspects were holding their arms high over their head. Then, slowly and deliberately, they lay flat on their stomach. What the hell?

Then I spotted a helicopter drift around the south side of the Hoover Building. Just about all I could see was the nose and rotor.

The ominous hovering of the copter caused the agents in the courtyard to aim their weapons into the sky. This was a no-fly zone, after all. The agents on the ground were yelling and threatening with their guns.

Then the helicopter banked sharply away from the Hoover Building. It disappeared from sight.

Seconds later Charlie Kilvert was in the doorway again. "Somebody's been shot upstairs!"

I almost knocked Charlie over getting out the door.

Chapter 32

The MD-530 was really moving as it got to Washington; the pilot was using office and apartment buildings for cover now, sliding between them like somebody playing the craziest game of hide-and-seek.

The flying tactics would avoid radar detectors and also confuse the hell out of casual observers, Nikki Williams figured. Besides, this was all happening incredibly fast. No one would be able to react, and an air force jet wouldn't fly in this close to these office buildings, anyway.

She could see the target now. Hot damn! The disturbance on the ground had been planned and lots of people were at their windows at the target building, which she knew was FBI headquarters. This is really something! She loved it! She had seen some major-league action in the army, but not enough of it, and there were always a thousand rules you were supposed to follow.