Joel Rosenberg - The Kremlin Conspiracy

Marcus said nothing. He just stood there and locked eyes with his stepfather, holding the shotgun low, at his hip, aimed at the man’s chest. DuHaime was soaked in sweat. His hair, what was left of it, was askew. His eyes were bloodshot and glaring with hatred but also confusion. He scanned the room, looking for his wife and not finding her. For a moment, it seemed he was going to come at Marcus, but Marcus did not move, did not flinch. Nor did he fire. He simply stood his ground and waited.

Then DuHaime heard Marjorie crying in the bathroom. The moment he did, his mouth broke out in a twisted smile. He glanced behind him and began to back up, away from Marcus and toward the bathroom door.

“This isn’t between you and me,” he growled. “This’s about your mother and me, and you’d best stay out of it.”

Marcus remained motionless. But calmly and clearly, he told his stepfather to put down the ax, back out of the room, and leave the house, and no one would get hurt. The man just laughed. Marcus repeated the instructions and explained precisely what was going to happen if his stepfather did not put down the ax and leave the room and the house immediately. But his words had no effect. The man did not comply. His stepfather was swaying now, side to side. He was laughing. He raised the ax, mumbled something incomprehensible, and lunged at Marcus.

Marcus didn’t hesitate. He pulled the trigger, not once but twice.

Two shotgun blasts echoed through the neighborhood.

Then all was quiet.

Elena screamed as she burst out of the Matthews’ house, tears streaming down her face, and ran toward Marcus’s front door. She was stopped by one of the police officers who had just pulled up. A half-dozen squad cars filled the street, along with a SWAT vehicle and two ambulances. The chief of police was ordering his men to set up a perimeter around the house. Then he ordered all the neighbors back into their homes.

Frantic to see if Marcus was okay, Elena insisted she be allowed into the house. The chief refused. Multiple gunshots had just been fired, and it was not clear by whom. Nor was it clear what might happen next. There was an active shooter in the house. The crime scene needed to be secured, and there was no way he was going to allow anyone into that house, no matter what her relation to the people inside.

Mrs. Matthews came up behind Elena. She gently put her arm around the trembling young woman and coaxed her back into her house. She locked the door again, then put a sweater and a thick blanket around Elena. She made a pot of tea and brought a small tray of things to eat, but Elena had no appetite. Rather, she parked herself in the living room, staring out a bay window, riveted on the drama unfolding before her.

Soon SWAT team members in full battle gear entered the front and the back doors of Marcus’s mother’s house, guns drawn. Elena tensed, terrified at what might happen next. Minutes later more uniformed officers entered the front door, followed by men in plain clothes. Detectives, Elena thought. Some time later, a team of paramedics entered with a stretcher.

Mrs. Matthews turned on the television and flipped back and forth between the local channels whose news crews were broadcasting live from the scene. One station reported that two hostages had been held inside the house until a police sharpshooter had taken out the alleged perpetrator. A different station cited a source in the police department and claimed someone in the home had committed suicide. A national cable news station said one person had been shot and killed. Another claimed two people had been shot and one was dead while the second was severely wounded. Elena wasn’t sure what to believe, but it was surreal to see photos of Marcus’s family on the news.

One of the networks eventually showed a photo of Roger DuHaime. Elena knew Marcus’s stepfather was an alcoholic. Marcus had begged his mother not to marry him. She’d done it anyway, and it had been a disaster. The man had abused her emotionally and physically, leading to not one but two restraining orders. Both had been lifted. Marcus had pleaded with his mother to leave him, pleaded with his sisters to get her out of the state. The man was dangerous. He needed help. He certainly needed to be kept away from their family. But no one had listened, and now here they were.

Elena had never met Marcus’s real father, but she’d heard all about him. Captain Lars Ryker had been shot down by a surface-to-air missile on January 16, 1991, while flying an F-16C Fighting Falcon on a combat mission in southern Iraq during Operation Desert Storm. Marcus had been just eleven years old.

Night fell. The streetlamps came on. The police aimed floodlights at the house. Down the street, Elena could see the lights from all the TV cameras. Suddenly the front door opened and a stretcher emerged—one, not two—and on it was a body covered in a bloody sheet. Elena gasped. As the stretcher was loaded into the back of a waiting ambulance, Elena’s hands began to shake. Her lips began to quiver. She was trying not to jump to any conclusions, but she’d had enough of all the speculations. She had to know the truth, however brutal.

She jumped up from the couch and headed for the door. Mrs. Matthews tried to stop her, but Elena kept running. She crossed the freshly cut grass toward Marcus’s house just as the front door opened again.

Elena stopped dead in her tracks. Two officers were coming out the door and down the driveway.

Marcus was with them, his hands cuffed behind his back.

The steel doors slammed shut.

It was now 2:46 in the morning. Marcus Johannes Ryker had been read his legal rights by local sheriff’s deputies. He’d been strip-searched. Interrogated. Booked. Photographed. Fingerprinted. And given an orange jumpsuit to wear. Now he found himself incarcerated in the El Paso County Criminal Justice Center.

Some fifteen hundred inmates were housed in this complex. Some were waiting to be charged with a crime. Most were awaiting their court dates or their sentence and transfer to state or federal prisons for the long haul. Marcus wondered what his cellmate was in for. The guy was over six and a half feet tall and must have weighed more than 250 pounds. Marcus took him for Samoan in origin, though he couldn’t be sure. The man said nothing as Marcus entered the cell. He just lay motionless on the bottom bunk as Marcus climbed up to the top bunk.

Marcus wasn’t too worried. He was not a small man himself, despite his relative youth. At six foot one, he clocked in at 175 pounds and had been a star left guard on his high school football team all four years. He was in excellent physical shape and had never lost a fight. He hoped there wouldn’t be any trouble tonight, but he was prepared to hold his own if it came to that.

The cell block was as quiet as it was dark. Most of the inmates were asleep. Marcus lay on his back and stared at the ceiling just a few inches from his face. Soon enough he could hear the man on the lower bunk snoring.

He looked around. The space was simple enough. The concrete-block walls were painted a light green. The metal-frame bunk bed was bolted to the floor and the left wall. The mattress was thin. The pillow was small. The blanket was scratchy and too small to cover his entire body. Next to the bunk there was a metal toilet bowl. Beside it was a small stainless steel sink. The cell smelled like body odor and disinfectant. He could hear lots of men snoring. He could also hear guards making their rounds on a precise rotation, their boots clomping along the freshly mopped halls, keys jangling at their sides.