Eric Lustbader - First Daughter

Jack understood that Brady had wanted to die last night: he'd tried to shoot himself with Jack's Glock, he'd brushed Jack's hands away when Jack tried to save him from his fall. Might it be that this was why Brady had kept Jack alive that night, because he suspected this moment in his future would come, that he wanted someone worthy to finish him off? Truth to tell, I've run you like a rat in a maze. Every time you got to another point in the maze, I moved your cheese. Jack had not only successfully negotiated the maze, but he'd also survived the horned viper's attack, the fusillade of bullets coming through the apartment door.

So Brady knew he was going to die last night, and yet he was looking to his lasting legacy. What might that be? Not his clandestine work for the government. A lasting legacy involves notoriety-a very public display. And he had very deliberately invoked the president. Why had he done that?

Another three-dimensional puzzle was forming in Jack's head as his brain made connections with the speed of light. Brady's MO was misdirection; he'd used it time and again. What if there was a second reason for him talking about Emma being his disciple, besides wanting to enrage Jack? Emma was never meant to be his Myra Hindley. What if-?

You'll never stop it.

Jack stood up so fast, he nearly overturned the table. The sound of its legs banging back on the floor was like a thunderclap in his mind. As he ran out of the library, he checked his watch. As usual, he'd lost himself in thought and reading. It was far later than he'd realized. The inauguration was about to begin and, with it, Ian Brady's lasting legacy.

ALLI, IT'S time to go," Nina said gently.

Sam opened the door, stepped out into the wan January sunshine. Alli could hear him whispering into his mike, listening intently to security updates. When Sam nodded, Nina urged her charge forward, and Alli emerged from the plush cocoon of the limo into the seething crowd of politicians, foreign dignitaries, celebrities, the talking heads of worldwide media outlets, religious leaders, including Reverend Taske, head of the Renaissance Mission Congress, her father's special guest, military personnel in full-dress uniforms, Secret Service details crisscrossing the area with the concentration of marines landing in enemy territory.

Alli took all this in as if she were watching a film. Ever since she'd heard the first bars of Arcade Fire's "Neon Bible," she'd felt as if she were back in her dream with Ronnie Kray whispering in her ear. She felt detached and at the same time marvelously clearheaded. She had one mission to accomplish; everything else fell away as if off a steep cliff, vanishing from view. Her life was simple; all that was required of her was to remove the vial she somehow knew was basted into the lining of her coat and, at the proper moment, open it. What could be simpler? Her mind hummed along on the track Kray had set for it, using a combination of persuasion, fear, and a drug cocktail that included an efficacious dose of the horned viper's venom to metabolize the chemicals out of her system so quickly, it would be undetectable.

She was nearing her parents now. Her mother kissed her; her father smiled through her. The fanfare was playing, the Speaker of the House was preparing to take the podium for the Call to Order. Among the columns of the Capitol building hung three huge American flags. Above them, the dome glittered in sunlight.

Jack, snaking his way through the crowd, used his credentials at various Secret Service checkpoints. Approaching the dais was like negotiating the nine circles of hell-the closer he got, the slower his progress. The last bars of the fanfare faded, and the Speaker of the House took the podium for the Call to Order. Jack passed the final checkpoint and was admitted to the short flight of folding stairs up to the dais. He saw Reverend Taske, Secretary Paull, the National Security Advisor, the outgoing president. He looked past them for Alli, saw her between her mother and her father. She had a kind of faraway look on her face he'd seen a number of times before, and now all the tiny bits of strange behavior that he had observed, that had taken up residence in his brain, fell into place: her behavior when he'd taken her to see Chris Armitage, her dream. And afterwards: Nothing feels right, she'd said to him. I'm afraid… Please help me. What had Brady done to her? Had he hypnotized her, drugged her? Perhaps both. In any event, he'd turned her into a time bomb. The fuse had been lit, and now, as he saw her reach into the lining of her coat, he made a beeline for her.

He saw Sam, who turned at the movement Jack made across the dais. Sam's eyes met Jack's, and he smiled until he saw Jack pointing. The vial was out, Alli's hand was curled around it. Sam saw it at the same moment Jack did. With a practiced move so smooth as to be virtually undetectable, he wrested the vial out of her hand, put his free arm around her, held her firmly against his chest.

And that was it, Jack thought, as he moved at a more leisurely pace toward them. Ian Brady's legacy had turned to ashes. Whatever substance he'd instructed Alli to release remained safely in its vial. The Speaker of the House finished the Call to Order, and the Reverend Dr. Fred Grimes began his fervent invocation and benediction.

"Let us pray. Blessed are you, O Lord, our God. Yours, O God, is the greatness and the power and the glory and the majesty and the splendor; for everything in heaven and earth is yours. Yours, O Lord, is the kingdom; you are exalted as head over all."

A stir began behind him. He turned in time to see Hugh Garner and three of his minions mounting the dais, heading directly for him. Clearly, Brady's body had been found. No doubt the pig-eyed manager of Brady's apartment complex had ID'd Jack.

"Wealth and honor come from you; you are the ruler of all things. In your hands are strength and power to exalt and to give strength to all."

Jack, zigzagging farther into the crowd on the dais, kept his eye out for Nina. She'd give him some help, provide cover for him while he slipped away. She should have been on the other side of Alli. There was still part of the last Rubik's Cube missing.

"As President Lincoln once said, 'We have grown in numbers, wealth, and power as no other nation has ever grown. But we have forgotten God. It behooves us, then, to humble ourselves before the offended power, to confess our national sins, and to pray for clemency and forgiveness.'»

At last, he caught a glimpse of Nina, moved toward her. She was standing on the other side of Edward Carson. He risked a glance behind him. Garner, in a classic pincer move, had ordered his two agents to the other side of the dais in order to intercept Jack while he closed from behind.

"O Lord, as we come together on this historic and solemn occasion to inaugurate once again a president and vice president, teach us afresh that power, wisdom, and salvation come only from your hand."

As Brady himself would understand better than most, what Jack needed now was a bit of misdirection. He tried to get Nina's attention, but her gaze seemed fixed on Edward Carson. Beneath the reverend's words, he could hear the commotion closing in behind him as Garner pushed through the dignitaries packing the dais. The missing piece of the last Rubik's Cube was this: Why had it been so easy to stop Alli? No one's lasting legacy-let alone Ian Brady's-would hinge on the actions of a coerced twenty-year-old.

Then, in his head, he heard Emma's voice as clearly as if she'd been alive and standing beside him. He said that he already had his Myra Hindley . That was before Brady had abducted Alli. So if he wasn't grooming Emma to be Myra Hindley and she wasn't to be Alli, who was his accomplice, whom would he trust to carry out his legacy after his death?