Capitol Betrayal (18 page)

Gunfire rang out again, but it came from farther away this time. As long as Seamus kept moving, he could stay ahead of his assassin. A moving target was much more challenging to catch.

It wasn’t Bemis firing. He was certain about that. The shots came from the wrong direction, plus Bemis just didn’t seem the assassin type. Quisling and technical advisor, sure. Sharpshooter, no. In a situation such as this, Beamis would be useless.

Seamus raced down a branch of the mall. Even if the shooter was following him from above, he would have a hard time getting a bead on him over here. Seamus ducked into the nearby Macy’s.

He hated the smell of the perfume counter that greeted him at the door. It was nothing against their selection; he just had yet to encounter a perfume that didn’t make him wish women would simply let themselves smell the way they smelled. But he would have to tough it out. If that killer wanted a piece of him, he would have to leave his safe perch and come out into the open.

Seamus found a safe place behind the jewelry counter and waited. He didn’t have to wait long.

Two minutes later the sniper entered the store.

No doubt Seamus’s many years of experience were helpful when it came to spotting gunmen. It also helped that there were so few people in the mall. But he felt confident that he would know this clown was trouble anytime, anyplace, even if he had met him during a game of blindman’s buff. Some people just smelled like trouble, and that was a smell Seamus received loud and clear, even when he was inundated with artificial musk and clove and a thousand other laboratory-concocted aromas.

The killer wore a black Adidas warm-up suit with black-and-white sneakers. It was the pimps, then the gang members, who had first adopted this form of casual wear for their everyday enterprises. Now it had apparently infiltrated the terrorist world. He looked scruffy and nervous. Seamus didn’t need a close-up of that bulge under his zip-up jacket to know that it wasn’t a potbelly.

His first instinct was to jump out into the middle of the walkway and start shooting, but his experience told him that wasn’t the right play. The guy might still get the drop on him, if he was quick enough, and there were still employees manning the counters who might be hurt in any cross fire. If possible, Seamus needed to take this man down without an exchange of bullets. Slowly he stepped back and waited patiently for the shooter to come to him.

As soon as the man had passed him, Seamus swiveled back into the walkway behind him. He brought the butt of his gun down hard on the back of the man’s head. The gunman hurtled forward and crashed into a glass jewelry display counter.

Glass shattered, flying in all directions. Seamus heard several cries behind him.

“Get out of here!” he shouted. “And stay down!”

He hoped the sales personnel would listen and obey. He didn’t have time to check. The assailant was already scrambling to his feet, trying to crawl out of the debris. Reaching inside his warm-up jacket, he pulled out a gun with a long nose. Seamus recognized the compressed-air silencer. The high-speed ammo it fired would do a hell of a job on his stomach.

He wasn’t about to give the punk the chance. Running forward, he kicked the gun out of the man’s hand before he could fire. Then Seamus brought his shoe down hard on the man’s gut, like he was stomping a particularly virulent spider. The man cried out, his face reddened, and his head crashed back on the floor amid the shattered glass and blood.

Seamus bent over him, but the man suddenly lurched forward, a shard of glass clutched in his hand. Seamus scooted backward. The jagged blade missed him by less than an inch.

That dirty son of a bitch. Well, fine. If that’s the way he wants to play it…

Seamus picked up a nearby glass bottle of perfume and hurled it at lightning speed. It shattered against the assassin’s forehead.

Blood erupted. Head wounds were the worst. On top of that, the pungent alcohol-based mix dripped into the wound and the man’s eyes. He screamed and clutched at his face, desperate to remove what could not be removed.

Seamus crouched down and grabbed him by the collar. He slapped his hands away. “Maybe now you’re ready for a little chat?”

The man whimpered, babbling incoherently. Temporarily blinded, he was undoubtedly wondering if he would ever see again.

“If you tell me what I want to know, the pain might not get any worse. Though I’m not promising anything.”

The man spoke through sobs and clenched teeth. “I want… immunity…”

“You’ve been watching too many cop shows on TV. Immunity is not a option. I don’t have that power and I don’t have time to get it. Your choices are pain or no pain. And you have five seconds to decide.”

There was no immediate response, which really pissed Seamus off. He realized he had a short fuse, but given what he had been through today, who could blame him?

He pressed his finger into the wound on the man’s forehead.

The man screamed. “I’ll talk! I will! I’ll talk!”

“Thank you,” Seamus said, smiling. “I appreciate a positive attitude. Now tell me where the operations base is. Don’t hold anything back or—”

Seamus was cut off by a sharp blow to the back of his skull. He lost his balance and fell forward, tumbling into the broken glass.

His head ached, and he had trouble seeing clearly, but he rolled over onto his back, trying to react, trying to salvage himself before it was too late…

He looked up.

Harold Bemis was hovering over him, clutching a metal jewelry case.

Guess the geek wasn’t quite as harmless as I thought, Seamus realized dazedly.

“Why the heck couldn’t you just stay in the car with Arlo?” Bemis said in a nasal, high-pitched voice. “Now we’re going to have to kill you.”

Christina sat in her office and stewed. She was embarrassed at herself and her lack of productivity, but she just couldn’t help it.

She was worried about her husband.

She had canceled the interviews with the three candidates for the associate’s position. With missiles flying through the skies, the couldn’t focus on business. Besides, she didn’t like deciding on these business matters without Ben. Even if he was currently “of counsel,” he was still her partner, in every possible way, and she preferred working with him to working without him.

And the fact that he wasn’t here just reminded her that she didn’t know specifically where he was or what kind of danger he might be facing. Ben was a good man, smart as they came, in an intellectual sort of way. Not necessarily in a self-preservational sort of way. When things got sticky, he needed her there. She had a different kind of smarts: seat-of-the-pants, save-your-neck street smarts. She filled his gaps. That’s why the relationship worked so well, in her opinion. That, plus the fact that he was the most terrific man she had ever known.

Thank goodness he had managed to make that call to her. At least she knew he was alive. But the call had raised almost as many concerns as it assuaged. She would never really feel safe until this crisis—whatever it was—was over and she and Ben had their arms wrapped around each other again, preferably in bed. Only then would the story come to an end.

She heard a knock on the office door.

Jones poked his head through the opening. “Anything I can do for you?”

“No, thanks. I’m inconsolable.”

“Make a decision on the associate?”

“No, I can’t. Toss a coin.”

“Tempting, but I think I’ll wait for you to pick.” He paused. “That guy at LexiCo is still calling.”

“Take a message.”

He frowned. “In my role as office manager, client relations come within my purview, and I think—”

“Stow it, Jones.”

“Ooookay.” He thought a moment. “Look, I’ve been monitoring the news. So far, no one knows anything.”

“Like who blew up the Jefferson Memorial?”

“If CNN knows, they’re not talking.”

“Then they don’t know. Is there a pending threat? Are there going to be more explosions?”

“Beats me. But the general consensus seems to be that the danger is not over.”

She pressed her lips together.

“I’m sure Ben’s fine,” Jones hastened to add.

“I’m sure he is, too. But I still want to see him.”

“I know.” Jones shuffled his feet on the carpet a minute. “I’m going out. Anything you want?”

“I want my husband!”

He nodded. “I’ll let you know if I hear anything.” He closed the door behind him.

Great. Now she felt guilty, too. She hadn’t meant to be sharp with Jones. She wasn’t fit for human companionship right now.

It just wasn’t right. It wasn’t fair. She and Ben hadn’t even been married that long. She had waited so long for this! To think that she might lose him just when—

Just when she had a message she wanted to give him. She glanced at her watch. She would give it another hour. Tops. Try to get some work done. And if nothing happened by then…

Then she would make something happen.

The president requested a short recess before the next witness was called, and Admiral Cartwright granted it—with a strong emphasis on the word
short
. Kyler and Ben stepped into the small adjoining room where the president had received his initial briefing from the Secret Service agents.

“Ben,” the president said, “I appreciate all you’re trying to do for me. But this trial isn’t off to a good start.”

“I know,” Ben said, “and I’m sorry. Swinburne turned out to be a much sharper prosecutor than I expected. Has he been to law school?”

“No, he came straight out of the oil industry. But I think he has all the DVDs of the old
Perry Mason
series.”

“Well, that explains it.”

“There’s something you need to know about that jury you’ve got.” President Kyler leaned forward and spoke confidentially. “I know you’re probably thinking we have the edge, since I appointed them. You’re probably thinking they’ll be loyal, indebted, or at least self-interested enough to keep me in office. But the truth is I just barely won this thing, as you know. If Florida had gone the other way, I’d be toast.

I had such a thin mandate, I had to make compromises when I selected my cabinet. Try to appeal to all interested parties.”

“And how does this relate to the current trial?”

“What I’m saying, Ben, is that at least half the people in the cabinet, I don’t really know or like all that much. And the feeling is mutual.”

Well, that was just peachy. “Any other secrets you’d like to let me in on?”

“Yeah.” Anytime his client broke eye contact, Ben knew it was going to be bad. This time proved no exception. “The truth is—I haven’t been feeling… quite myself.”

“What do you mean?”

“I don’t know exactly. I just don’t feel quite… right.”

“Are you telling me you have a problem?”

“I don’t know what it is.”

“Let’s cut to the chase, Mr. President. Should you step down?”

“No! No!” He waved his hands in the air. Ben had never seen the man look weaker. Was he doing the right thing here, trying to keep him in office? Or should he step aside and let the Swinburne locomotive take the presidency? “You can’t do that. I mean—you shouldn’t. You can’t. You know what Swinburne would do.”

“Pull our troops out of Kuraq.”

“Exactly.”

“And that would be bad.”

“We cannot do that!” the president insisted. Ben wasn’t sure if this was a show of strength or desperation. “We can’t abandon our troops. And especially not the men and women who went down in that helicopter.”

Ben stared into the man’s eyes, wondering what was going on in there. He felt more confused than ever.

“Mr. President, please just answer this one question for me. I’ve seen you experience these… episodes. Twice now. How do you explain them?”

The president shook his head helplessly. “I can’t.”

Ben winced. “Do you remember them?”

“Yes. No. I mean—sort of. It’s… hazy.”

“Do you feel as if you lose control?”

“No. I mean—I feel like I’m in control, but afterward… it’s like being drunk. Have you ever been drunk, Ben?”

“Can I plead the Fifth?”

“It doesn’t matter. I’m not incompetent. And I’m not crazy.”

Ben swallowed. “Mr. President, forgive me for saying so, but it sounds to me as if there is… something going on inside your brain. Something not right.”

“I’ve been under enormous stress. Did you not hear what the doctor said? The question is whether I’m competent to govern. I don’t have to be perfect. Just competent.”

Ben supposed that was true enough.

“And I am competent. More than that. I’m ready and able to work. And I won’t sell this country out when the going gets tough, like Swinburne wants to do. Not on my watch.”

Ben nodded. He wasn’t sure what was going on with the president. But, at least for the moment, he seemed capable, if not a tower of strength. And he shouldn’t be displaced just because his ambitious vice president differed with him on a matter of foreign policy.

And he had done that favor for Christina. Ben would never forget that.

“All right, then,” Ben said. “I’m sure they’re getting agitated out there. Let’s go back. And I’ll try to do a better job with the next witness than I did with the last.”

Ben reentered the main room, followed by his client, the president of the United States. Now that, he thought, was a line he’d never expected to see on his résumé.

As he made his way back to his station at the table, he passed close to the secretary of defense, Albert Rybicki. He felt something brush up against his hand.

He looked down quickly.

Rybicki had just passed him a note.

What was this, grade school? Was note passing really necessary? But when he thought about it for a moment, he realized that, trapped down here in this pressure cooker with everyone else, it would be very difficult to have a private conversation—and impossible to do it without the others knowing.