State of Siege - Tom Clancy [93]
Colonel August would not have the darkness to cover his move into the chamber. Even if he could kill the lights for a second or two, that would give the terrorists a heads-up. He preferred surprise. Unfortunately, with the lights on, the enemy would know that he was just one man. They would see him come into the chamber, just as they'd seen the United Nations security team enter. If they acted quickly, the bottleneck could be broken. If that happened, August would still have several ad vantages. He had been trained as a soldier, not as a security guard. The seats in the Security Council would offer him cover. Thanks to the long, open staircases, the terrorists would find it difficult to sneak up on him, especially if he kept moving low through the upper tiers. And if the terrorists tried to use hostages as a shield, the Striker leader had two other advantages. One was his eye. Brett August was one of the deadliest shots in the combined special forces, and he had the medals to prove it. Only Mike Rodgers had won more. The other advantage was that August wouldn't be afraid to fire. If he had to risk killing a hostage to take out a terrorist, he was prepared to do that. As Mike Rodgers had said earlier, if they didn't act decisively and soon, the hostages were going to die anyway.
The garden stretched southward for several blocks. It was actually a small, treefilled park anchored by a towering sculpture of Saint George slaying the dragon. The statue, a gift of the former Soviet Union, was made from pieces of Soviet SS-20 and American Pershing nuclear missiles that had been destroyed under the terms of the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty of 1987. Like the UN itself, the statue was a public relations gesture: a loud, bold lie saluting peace. The Soviets knew damn well that peace didn't work unless you had the SS-20'S and Pershing missiles to back it up. Or a goad tactic like the bottleneck, he thought. That was a Russian monur equals t he could respect.
Large, gray rats were moving furtively among the rosebushes. Rats weigood scouts that way. If they were out, it meant there probably wasn't anyone up ahead The animals scattered as August moved by.
The Colonel crouched lower as he neared the end of the park. Beyond the greenery was an open courtyard roughly seventy feet across that led to the main lobby of the General Assembly Building. There were still too many bushes and trees for him to see it clearly.
August was carrying one of the two Berettas that Rodgers had given him. The other handgun was in his right pants pocket. The colonel had posed as a tourist on his recent mission to Spain, a disguise that had taught him to wear pants with pockets deep enough to carry a concealed weapon. He was also still carrying the radio, just in case he needed it to help him get inside. Otherwise, August would have shut it off and left it behind. A communication or a burst of static at the wrong time could give his position away. Ironically, that was the very thing he might need to get inside the building. Pausing when he was about two hundred and fifty feet from