Next to him, Father Dom D’Angelo shrugged. “I offered to drive.”

“You drive a piece of shit.” He flashed a smile. “No offense.”

Dom laughed. “The diocese looks askance at priests who drive sports cars.”

“Surely God wants his representatives in better wheels than a Kia,” Jonathan said. “I think I read somewhere that Satan drives a Kia.” The car in front moved six feet, and Jonathan eased forward to keep up. “Isn’t rush hour supposed to go the other way?”

“I have a theory that rush hours just are,” Dom said. “There’s no why or rationale to them. Monday Night Football doesn’t help.”

The Washington Redskins were scheduled to do battle with the Dallas Cowboys tonight at FedEx Field, and Jonathan had scored a couple of club-level seats. A lifelong ’Skins fan-despite their shameful failures in recent years-Jonathan remained forever hopeful that a winning season was possible. Clearly that wasn’t going to happen this year, but games against the Cowboys were like Super Bowls unto themselves. A win against them could counter the humiliation of a four-and-twelve season.

Well, almost.

“If I had to sit in this traffic every day, I think I’d-”

Sharp, staccato hammering drew his attention to his left. The instant he heard it, Jonathan recognized it as automatic-weapons fire. Close range, 5.56-millimeter ammunition-the same NATO round used in every U.S. theater of operation since the 1970s. He reacted reflexively, cupping Dom’s neck at the spot where it joined his skull and pushing him toward the floor. “Down!” he shouted.

Dom said something in protest, but Jonathan didn’t care. He scanned the horizon for an escape route for the BMW, established that there weren’t any, then slapped the transmission into neutral and pulled the parking brake.

To his left, on the opposite span of the bridge, he saw a man die. He saw the spray of powdered glass, followed an instant later by the spray of pulverized brain matter. Then it happened again to a car adjacent to the first one.