Free The Second Shooter by Chuck Hustmyre Page B

are you doing?" Donahue shouted. "Those are my agents down there."
    Blackstone kicked him in the balls.
    The FBI agent dropped to his knees and clutched his groin with both hands. His pistol went clattering across the deck. Donahue eyed the gun and reached for it. Blackstone was impressed. The man has more backbone than I thought.
    But that didn't change the outcome. Blackstone kicked the Glock out the open doorway, then rolled up into a low crouch in front of the FBI agent and pulled the man's face to within inches of his own. Donahue's eyes were wide with pain and Blackstone could almost smell the fear on him. "If you touch me again, you'll be the next thing that gets kicked out that door. Is that clear?"
    Donahue sank to the deck.
    Blackstone scuttled back to door with his M-4 and scanned the ground for targets. In the circle of yellow flickering light cast by the burning car he could see that the van was gone.

    ***

    Favreau raced the van south down the George Washington Parkway, parallel to the Potomac River. They were approaching the exit for the Chain Bridge. Just ahead of them, a sedan and a pickup truck cruised side by side, blocking both lanes. Favreau swung the steering wheel to the right and passed them on the shoulder. From the passenger seat Jake saw the speedometer fluttering at ninety. He turned to glance through the rear windows. The helicopter was back there. Tracking them. "They're still with us."
    Stacy sat in back behind Jake. She was shaken up. "They tried to kill us. They actually tried to kill us."
    Favreau adjusted the sideview mirror so he could see the helicopter. "And they're about to try again."
    "Take the bridge," Jake said. "We can lose them in the city."
    "No," Stacy said, a sudden new crispness in her voice. "Not the bridge. Take the new tunnel."
    "Good idea," Favreau said.
    "We can't hide in the tunnel," Jake said. "There's no shoulder."
    Favreau smiled. "We're not going to hide."

    ***

    Blackstone sat in the left-hand doorway and keyed his microphone. "Put them on the port side before they get to the bridge."
    "Roger that," the pilot said through the headset.
    After bracing himself against the forward edge of the door and compressing into a solid shooting position, Blackstone wedged the extended stock of the M-4 into his shoulder and looked over the top of the weapon, scanning the road ahead as the helicopter gained on its quarry.
    When the aircraft drew abreast of the fleeing van, Blackstone pressed his cheek onto the stock and peered through the rear leans of the ACOG. The Advanced Combat Optics Gunsight had a glowing reticle surmounted by a red arrow zeroed for a hundred yards and black horizontal stadia lines to compensate for bullet drop at distances out to eight hundred yards. Blackstone lined up the apex of the red arrow with the roof of the racing van, just to the right of the driver's seat. The distance to the target was close enough to a hundred yards so that any variance wouldn't affect the flat-shooting .223-caliber rounds. He took a deep breath, let half of it out, then relaxed as his index finger squeezed out the slack in the trigger. He smiled. "Goodnight, asshole."
    The gunsight jerked hard right, the barrel banging against the door frame. Knuckles hit him high on the left cheek. Not a hard punch but enough to stun him, although more from surprise than pain, and it knocked him off balance, almost pitching him headlong out the door.
    When Blackstone regained his balance enough to turn around, he found Donahue standing in front of him, one hand wrapped in the M-4's nylon sling and the other hand balled into a fist. Blackstone clung tight to the rifle, which was what had actually saved him from falling out of the helicopter. If the dumbass FBI agent had simply let go of the rifle, Blackstone would have tumbled out. Instead, he had regained his balance and was now able to lurch to his feet.
    Donahue latched onto the rifle with his other hand and tried to twist it away from