Джеймс Паттерсон - The 13-Minute Murder

Then he would fire another burst along the floor of the stage. Senator Pierce might get hit, or she might not. At that point, his colleagues—some of them people he’d known for years—would already be pulling both the women offstage and to the ambulances waiting in the back.

They’d also be shooting at him, but he was prepared for that. He would fire randomly into the crowd. He had a description all ready of a man of Middle Eastern descent as the shooter. Everyone would start looking for the suspect.

And no one would seriously believe Morrison had been involved. He was, after all, a Secret Service agent.

He and Howard had already picked out a patsy, a local college student who spent too much time on jihadi websites in between playing video games. They would hide the H&K in his dorm room and send in an anonymous tip to the police.

If the kid got killed while resisting arrest—well, so much the better. Damocles had friends in the FBI and the police department as well.

Morrison had been worried for a while today. First Scott had his attack of conscience, and then it looked like that smartass Beck was going to cause some real problems.

But it all worked out. And he was about to have a multibillion-dollar defense contractor and the future president of the United States deeply in his debt.

Howard’s voice suddenly began speaking through his radio earpiece.

“Morrison. The senator just entered the building. You good?”

Morrison smiled.

“Yeah,” he said. “I’m perfect.”

Chapter 32

In the limo, Susan watched Howard carefully.

The agent pressed a button on his console and spoke into his mike. “Morrison. The senator just entered the building. You good?”

“Yeah,” came the reply. “I’m perfect.”

“All right,” Howard said. “We’re almost there. Just a couple more minutes.”

He looked at a digital clock in the console. The debate was due to start at 9:00 p.m. The clock read 8:56.

Howard pressed another button on the console and switched channels again. Now the feed from the Secret Service’s radios came over the limo’s speakers.

“This is Howard,” he said. “Senator Pierce is in the lobby, on her way to the stage. We’re cutting it a little close. Do we have an ETA on Minerva?”

Minerva. Like most people in DC, Susan knew that President Martin’s Secret Service code-name was Minerva, after the ancient goddess of wisdom—the Washington Post had done a whole feature on it.

Howard was checking to see when she would arrive. Susan realized that he and Morrison and all the other Damocles operatives would all know, down to the second, where to find their target.

“Minerva is two minutes out,” an agent replied over the radio. “Onstage in five.”

“Roger that,” Howard said.

Howard watched the screens carefully, then glanced over at Susan.

“Might want to stick your fingers in your ears, sweetheart,” he said. “We’re about to have a very big bang.”

Chapter 33

Senator Pierce made her way across the crowded lobby, smiling and shaking hands. Beck watched her carefully.

No one paid any attention to him. Their eyes were all on the senator.

Beck didn’t know what to do. He was completely out of ideas.

And he was sweating, and his head was killing him.

Senator Pierce moved forward, her protective detail clearing the way respectfully and carefully. It was more stagecraft. Nobody here would do anything against her. They were all vetted beforehand to get a seat at the debate.

Beck was the only truly dangerous man in the room.

Pierce drew even with Beck in the crowd now. She turned and saw him. They locked eyes. And Pierce gave him a radiant politician’s smile. She looked happy.

Because she was going to get away with it. Beck could see that, almost written on her face.

She was barely five feet away from him. If the trigger in his pocket actually worked, he’d be tempted to squeeze it.

He reached into his pocket, and found not the trigger, but the handcuffs that Howard had used on him that morning. It seemed a million years ago to him now.

Useless. Just like him.

Beck was still sweating. His head throbbed, and his pulse pounded behind his ears.

He took a deep breath. This would be the absolute worst time for one of his episodes. But all this stress, the sudden spike in his blood pressure, the adrenaline. All of that, on top of his exhaustion and the punishment he’d already taken today…it would make sense if his body couldn’t take any more, if the pressure inside his skull was too great.

It would make sense.

Beck began gasping for air.

The people closest to him in the crowd looked at him.

“You okay?” a young man who looked barely out of high school asked him. He looked like a kid wearing his dad’s jacket and tie.

“I’m fine,” Beck choked out, and bent over, hyperventilating now.

Other people began to notice. Including Howard, who spoke through the radio.

“What’s going on, Beck?” he said, a warning in his tone. “You’d better pull it together.”

Beck didn’t answer, just kept breathing hard.

“Sir, are you all right?” someone else asked. “Do you need help?”

“Someone get a doctor. Is anyone here a doctor?”

Beck would have laughed at that if he could.

“I’m fine,” he said again. It came out in a wheeze. Beck sounded weak even to his own ears.

Howard’s voice spoke in the radio again. “What the hell are you doing?”

“Can’t breathe,” he said. He stumbled to one side and bumped into several people. “My head— ”

Now people were beginning to grab for him, trying to keep him upright. Pierce was stuck in the crowd as everyone froze in place, wondering what was going on.

Now Pierce’s protective detail was moving away from her, and toward Beck.

“We need a doctor over here!” someone shouted. “Call 911!”

“Get yourself together, Beck,” Howard snapped. “Do I have to remind you—”

Whatever he was going to say next was lost in the shouts of the crowd as Beck fell forward and lay facedown on the carpet.

Chapter 34

“Get up, Beck! Get up!” Howard screamed into his mike.

“That won’t work,” Susan told him. “You can’t bully a cancer patient into getting up. He needs medical attention.”

Howard turned to her and snarled, “Shut up or I will shut you up.”

He turned back to the console, his eyes searching the screens, listening to the multiple radio channels, where chaos reigned.

But for all that data, he still had no idea what was happening right in front of his eyes.

“What’s going on?” the driver asked from the front seat. “Should I call Morrison?”

“Shut the hell up and let me think!” Howard shouted back. He was unraveling right in front of Susan’s eyes.

The sound of a 911 dispatcher suddenly broke through one of the speakers: “We’ve got a call for a paramedic at the Georgetown University debate. Is the Secret Service aware of the problem? Do they require assistance?”

Howard pressed a button on his console and switched channels. Then, in a surprisingly calm voice, he said, “Metro Dispatch, this is Secret Service. We are aware of the problem and have a medical unit onsite. We have no need for assistance.”

“Are you sure?” the dispatcher asked. “We have a unit on the way.”

In a slightly tighter voice, Howard answered, “We have it under control, Metro Dispatch. Please let us do our job, and you do yours.”

There was a pause. Then: “Copy that, Secret Service. Call if you need help.”

The dispatcher broke the connection.

“You have to get him help,” Susan said. “He needs an ambulance. He could be bleeding into his brain, he could be going into cardiac arrest—”