“Abort! Abort! Abort!” his sergeant yelled, charging like a fullback.
Catfish caught a flash in his peripheral vision. Uniform. Sarge. Waving. Abort.
He eased off the trigger as his cammies filled anew.
“It’s the bad man!” Danny’s granddaughter shrieked. “I’ll save you, Grandpa!” She wriggled out of his grasp and plunged into Catfish. “Wah! Hyah!” she yelled, chopping the giant’s legs. It wasn’t falling so she threw an elbow into its kneecap.
Catfish buckled, howling. The M-4 burped full auto.
“Condition Red,” Annie spat. “All commands, all nets, Condition Red.”
The Executioner unrolled the official document. Thanks to the eye-popping checks to the governor’s “Dreams of Justice” fund, Covington asked the man he knew as Leonard Hill to be the chief witness and read the death warrant to the condemned. “Mr. Hill” gratefully accepted. It gave him the entrée he needed into this holy of holies.
“Corrigan Bowie Trent,” he intoned, nearly drunk with the thrill. So close now. So damn close. “Having been found guilty of murder and infanticide, we the people of the sovereign State of Illinois hereby sentence you to . . .”
The M-4 burped twenty-six bullets before Catfish un-jammed his finger.
“Reverend!” the choir director screamed.
“Grandpa!” his granddaughter screeched.
“Medic!” Catfish yelled. “Medic!”
The crowd exploded like an anthill stomped.
“Riot, riot, riot,” Annie said. “Launch gas, ready on water. Sharpshooters, lock and load. If they reach the moat” - a fence 100 yards off the castle walls that bristled with warnings of lethal force if breached - “you have a green light to open fire.”
Tear gas vomited from the roof cannons. Twenty seconds later, the lower hill was covered with white chemical fog and screaming, retching protesters.
“You’re accused of murder, Wayne,” Cross said, voice tinny through the intercom. “A riot’s under way. Twenty thousand people will hit this place when the fence fails. I’ll have to open fire, and a lot of them will die. Innocent people, Wayne, the kind you don’t want to kill.”
“Forget it,” Covington snapped. “Trent’s dying on schedule.”
Cross slammed his hand on the bulletproof glass. “Get on the goddamn loudspeaker and tell the crowd this is over. It’s the only way I can save them. And you.”
“He’s right, Governor,” Emily said. “Time to end this.”
“Yeah, Wayne-o,” Trent hooted. “End this.”
Marty’s head was throbbing. But not enough to keep him from noticing that chief witness Leonard Hill was sliding behind Emily as Covington argued with Cross. That was weird. Civilians in high-stress situations almost always froze in place. When they did move, it was jerky, hurried, panicked. This Hill fellow crept smooth as silk.
He moved himself to the second row.
Danny Monroe smiled up at the mountain as medics labored to stanch the flow from the bullet stitch. His granddaughter was right all along. This wasn’t Golgotha. It was Heaven.
11:54 a.m.
“Gas isn’t working fast enough. Fire water cannons,” Annie ordered the Fire Department.
An ocean’s worth of high-pressure water blasted the protesters. Thousands flew like tenpins. The rest rammed the chain links en masse. Not to resist, but to escape. “Fence is starting to buckle,” Annie told Branch.
11:55 a.m.
The executioners hovered over the buttons. Trent cursed Covington’s wife, children, friends, and manhood, then started in on Emily. Cross cajoled and threatened from the other side. Covington threatened back. Marty started for the viewing window. Covington’s bodyguards escorted the witnesses back to the refreshment area. Hill kept creeping. The executioners said they were ready. Emily fidgeted, impatient to leave before the lightning hit.
“It’s time to go, Governor,” she said, tapping her watch.
“Not till Trent is dead,” he replied.
“That wasn’t the deal.”
“I changed it.”
She walked to the door, pushed the handle. Locked.
“Only the chief executioner can open it,” Covington said. “And he’s busy.”
“This has gone on long enough,” Emily said, angry now. “We’re leaving.”
“We’re staying, Detective. I’m going to spit in Trent’s face when it begins to smoke.”
More cursing from the chair.
11:57 a.m.
“This is an official court order,” Cross said, waving the fresh fax from the Illinois Supreme Court. Hill moved past Emily. Marty relaxed a fraction. “Cancel this execution immediately, or I’ll do it for you.”