Gasping, Tesla saw Archer jerk Charley forward and drag her downward toward the crowd.

Taking advantage of Umer’s resolute focus, Middleton slammed into him from the side, hand thrust forward to jerk back all the fingers he could find. Umer whelped in pain, enraged eyes finding Middleton as if aroused suddenly from a beautiful dream. The commotion spilled those crowded closest to the front into a domino-like fall, leading Secret Service personnel to storm the stage and enclose the president in a protective, moving bubble.

Chaos.

The word locked in Middleton’s mind as it raged around him. He slammed an elbow into Umer’s face, crushing his nose and mashing his front teeth. He heard something clack to the concrete and knew it could only be the detonator, as Umer dropped to feel for it. Middleton joined him amid the thrashing feet moving in all directions at once. If one of them pressed down on the detonator’s button . . .

On stage he glimpsed the Secret Service just now starting to rush the president to safety, still any number of long, long seconds before he was out of range of the kind of blast 50 separate thermobaric explosions would wreak. Middleton felt a knee smack his skull, a foot jab his ribs, courtesy of the fleeing throngs. He continued to grope about the ground for the lost detonator, afraid to spare the hand it would take to draw his gun on Umer. He grabbed sight of him pawing about the ground through the sea of churning legs and desperate fleeing frames.

Middleton glimpsed the detonator, its black casing now cracked, stretched a hand toward it only to have his fingers stepped on as another foot kicked the device from him. It bounced once and skittered straight toward Umer who lashed a hand toward it.

The fingers on his right hand throbbing and useless, Middleton drew his pistol with his left and fired in a single motion. The bullet took Umer in the cheek, blowing off a hefty portion of his face. He collapsed atop the detonator, shielding it from the onrushing feet long enough for Middleton to close desperately on all fours and jerk it from beneath his body.

Rising to his feet proved an arduous, almost impossible task as he clung to the detonator with both hands to protect it. His eyes fell on an impossible sight, conjured certainly by the sharp blows to his head: a vision of his daughter Charley.

But then the haze cleared, revealing Archer, holding a gun to Charley’s head.

“Give it to me!” Archer bellowed, looking surprisingly young and desperate. “Give it to me or she dies!”

16 - JAMES PHELAN

16

JAMES PHELAN

Archer’s hand exploded and painted Charley’s face with gore. A high-caliber rifle round took out his pistol.