Free Terror in D.C. by Randy Wayne White

someone called in a suspicious-activity report? Were they working on a tip from the feds?
    No way of knowing.
    And Hawker didn’t get much time to think about it.
    Sensing the vigilante’s lapse in concentration, the man he held kicked backward savagely, his heel clipping Hawker’s groin. Hawker clamped his knees together and twisted away involuntarily. The terrorist shook free, then hit Hawker a slapping, panicky blow to the face. He could have drawn the little .38 Police Special he carried and finished the vigilante, but he ran instead, stumbling awkwardly into a sprint.
    Groaning, Hawker got to his feet and gave chase. The terrorist was neither a fighter nor a runner. Hawker caught him before he reached the corner of the house, tackling him from behind. The terrorist slapped at his belt, pulled out his weapon, and Hawker turned his face away just as the little revolver exploded.
    The powder discharge burned his face … the noise made his ears ring … but the slug missed him.
    Hawker didn’t give him a chance to shoot again. He thrust the seven-and-a-half-inch blade of the Randall knife into the soft area under the man’s chin, shoved until the point of the knife hit the back of his skull, then twisted.
    The terrorist’s muscles contracted violently, twitching like a bug on the end of a needle.
    Hawker withdrew the knife, wiped it on the grass. He half-jogged and half-limped back to the bomb, which hung beneath a back window of the house, his stomach still rolling from the kick to the groin.
    The bomb was about the size of a desktop radio, encased in metal and painted some dark color. Hawker pulled a tiny flashlight from his knapsack and studied the bomb carefully without touching it.
    Then, from within the house, he heard a woman scream, then the wild, sleepy wail of a child. A man yelled something unintelligible, and there was a quick burst of automatic rifle fire.
    Hawker switched off the light and jammed it back into the bag.
    Shit!
    There was no time to study the bomb now. He could see the situation taking shape: the cops had interrupted the terrorists, and had died for their trouble. But the dead policemen had undoubtedly called in their location, and probably had reported the license number of the delivery truck as well. When they failed to report in, more cops would be dispatched.
    The terrorists would know this, and they would also know there was no escape for them.
    So now they had broken into the house and taken hostages. They would hope to bargain their way out, or at least have the chance to get plenty of free air time on the national news to plead whatever Mideastern cause with which they were associated.
    Hawker knew what would happen when their plea for amnesty was refused.
    They would begin killing people inside—if they hadn’t already killed them all.
    The bomb would have to wait—not that he could do anything to defuse it. Back at the police academy he had had one short course on bomb disposal, but that had been woefully incomplete. He could deal with the simple, homemade bombs. But this thing looked far too complex for an amateur to go rummaging about in it.
    A woman screamed again from the other side of the house.
    Hawker ran toward the far window where a light was now on. He knew he had to get to the terrorists, and get to them before they began thinking clearly. If he could hit them before they had a chance to get organized, he might be able to turn their attention to him and make them forget about the hostages.
    Later, he could worry about how to escape the police.
    Right now, though, he was the only chance that the Americans inside had.
    Hawker poked his nose up over the windowsill. He had a thin field of vision through the slit beneath the shade. He saw a boy of about nine and a girl of about seven cringing in the corner as a woman in a sheer nightgown came tripping into the room. She was followed by a man with dark olive skin and the standard black