Lewis Perdue - Perfect killer

I followed Flowers to the door leading to Camilla's room. He opened the door, then turned back to me.

"I'm afraid she also looks worse than last week." He turned and I followed him into the room.

As always, Camilla's bed was inclined toward the window. We detected no cognitive control over her eyes, but knowing how much she loved the ocean, I wanted to make sure, if there was any spark in her brain connecting her to this world, she could spend her time as pleasantly as possible.

Research showed we had no way of proving she lacked consciousness, only that we could not detect it. So I paid for the best DVDs and music and for people to come and read to her. I don't know whether it did any good for her, but it did a little for me.

When I approached the bed, my heart fell. Camilla had shrunk from the woman I'd visited less than a week before. Her skin trended toward gray and I became acutely aware of the additional IV rack with the antibiotic drip.

"I'm sorry," Flowers said as he read my face.

I moved to Camilla's side and held a cool, dry hand so inordinately small in mine. Behind me, the door clicked discreetly as Flowers quietly excused himself.

Camilla's eyes held steady at the ocean as I held her hand. Then careful not to disturb the network of tubes and monitor leads, I put my head near hers and looked out the window, trying to see what she saw. I recalled a time when our thoughts and emotions and imaginations synchronized with a rare coherence that kept our two lives utterly in step. I looked away from the ocean and into her eyes. They did not change, did not find my own gaze, did not look away from a distant vision I knew extended beyond any horizon visible to me. My heart told me she was not aware of me that she was no longer there, that she was no longer Camilla.

But I wasn't sure.

I bent over and kissed her on the cheek.

"I love you," I whispered. "I love you."

Jasmine left me with my thoughts as I collected her from the sitting room. Flowers said he would e-mail me the files of Camilla's EEGs so I might have a look at the odd patterns.

I thought little of Jasmine or Flowers as we retraced our path south along Pacific Coast Highway and I let the weight of sadness fill me. Experience had taught me that surrender to the pain reminded me of the futility of human ambition. When measured against eternity, wealth, power, fame, status, all passed away in a blink amounting to nothing. The pain always scrubbed away ambition, then faded, leaving me to wonder what enduring thing I should dedicate my life to.

These moments brought images of God, souls, the human spirit, love, the endurance of consciousness beyond the death of the human body-the evanescent territory beyond science and proof, provinces of faith beyond human certainty. I never reached a bankable conclusion, but yielding to the process eventually left me with a peaceful sense of well-being.

Calm had finally begun to sift into my heart when, right past the big slide area south of Malibu, pulled over to let two CHP motorcycle officers and a sheriff's car pass with their sirens and lights at full attack. I drove on and made the left-hand turnoff to Topanga Canyon, where Chris Nellis lived. "I have a bad feeling."

Jasmine sat silent as I continued northeast. We crested a gentle rise. In the distance, police vehicles and an ambulance crowded in front of a small A-frame house. Closer, CHP worked traffic control.

"Oh, hell."

"What?" Jasmine asked.

I accelerated slowly down the hill toward the CHiPs.

"That's Chris Nellis's house."

At the traffic control point, I showed my sheriff's reserve ID to the CHP officers and they informed me then that Chris Nellis had been killed, shot multiple times, apparently by a sniper. They waved me on through, but I turned around instead. "You have got to get out of here," I told Jasmine as we drove back to PCH.

"Take me back to the hotel. I'll pack and get the next flight to Jackson."

I thought about this as I made the left at the beach, suddenly convinced someone was watching us, certain now my phone call to Chris was what had killed him.

Suddenly I realized there could be a tail among any number of vehicles in the surrounding traffic, that my truck might even have a tracker. I shook my head at Jasmine and put my index finger over my lips. "Good idea." I shook my head.

We drove in silence for another minute. I turned into a beachside parking lot, watching for a tail.

"But before you go, you need to experience the beach at least once."

Jasmine gave me a questioning look, but followed me out of the truck.

At the water's edge we walked the firm, moist sand, and I told her my suspicions.

"No time for you to go back to the hotel. They'll be expecting you to do that. I'm taking you straight to the airport."

"But my clothes, my-"

"Give me your key. I'll take care of it, pay the bill. Ship your stuff back"

"Are you sure…"

"You may be in as much danger as your mother. Get on the first plane out of terminal one. It doesn't matter where… Phoenix, Sacramento-wherever. Just so you're gone faster than they can track you. Work your way home on whatever flights you can get."

We walked through the sand toward a concrete bench beneath twin palm trees, then made a U-turn back to my truck.

"I'll get there myself by tomorrow," I promised.

"But your practice, your work."

"Unless you and I can get to the bottom of this, those won't be worth a damn… not to mention your life and mine."

Once the largest building in the world, the Pentagon hunkers down in a former Virginia swamp always in sight of Arlington National Cemetery, a constant reminder, too seldom heeded.

As he always did, Lieutenant General Dan Gabriel paused at the top of the north Pentagon steps, looked toward Arlington's graves, and said a silent prayer of thanks to the men and women buried there and around the world. Then he pushed his way through the heavy brass-and-glass doors into the lobby.

The sergeant at the duty desk snapped to attention when he spotted the three stars on Gabriel's shoulders.

"Sir!" The noncom issued a swift, precise salute. Gabriel returned the sergeant's salute with a great deal less formality. Despite his rank, Dan Gabriel no longer had an office here and needed to show his identification and sign in with his intended destination. Three-star generals didn't simply just drop in for a visit. This created a flurry of phone calls, consultations, and the appearance of little beads of sweat on the sergeant's upper lip and forehead. Gabriel noted the man's campaign ribbons from Vietnam, Afghanistan, and the Middle East and realized this decorated vet was a lot more comfortable facing incoming RPGs than an unannounced general.

"No sweat, Sarge," Gabriel said. "I'm not in a hurry."

The sergeant gave him a look of disbelief. Generals were always in a very important hurry.

Less than five minutes later, Gabriel made his way into the claustrophobically cramped, linoleum-tiled corridor of the Pentagon's outer ring, heading for Laura LaHaye's office.

As he made his familiar way toward LaHaye's office, linoleum floors, metal and plastic furnishings, and walls covered with GI-issue paint gradually gave way to hardwood paneling, thick carpet, and expensive furnishings for people of rank and importance who believed others should bleed instead of them. A corrosive atmosphere of personal power and ambition corrupted these corridors and reviled those who came to serve their country and not themselves.

Gabriel's refusal to accommodate this political snake pit had propelled him into what many viewed as career suicide when he headed to West Point. But their opinions held no water; he knew that living up to the ambitions and expectations of others led only to misery.