Gregg Hurwitz - The Kill Clause

“I give a shit, because if it happens and we didn’t plan it, that’s bad news. There’s a reason we voted against a communique”-an angry eye toward Rayner-“not that we’d want to claim this mess anyway. The bomb squad matching the two explosives is going to bring the heat, and we don’t have room for missteps.”

Tim leaned back in his chair, weathering the Mastersons’ aggressive stares. “Let me make something else clear, since you two seem so eager to run and gun: You don’t have what it takes to lead this kind of operation.”

Robert and Mitchell coughed out identical snickers. “Mitch blasted the door,” Robert said. “I was the number-one man through.”

“And I was the one who jumped in and saved your ass when you missed three shots, tripped down the stairs, and got tossed like a Nerf ball by Debuffier.”

The muscles of Robert’s face had tightened, compressing his cheeks into sinewy ovals.

“I run the show operationally,” Tim said. “My rules. Those were the conditions. And since it’s clear none of you have given any thought to defining our operational rules, how’s this: You have none. I’m the sole operator on a kill mission. You will not be on-site when a hit goes down. That’s just how it is.”

“Let’s talk about this,” Rayner said. “You’re not solely in charge here.”

“I’m not negotiating these terms. They stand, or I walk.”

Rayner’s lips tightened, his nostrils flaring with indignation-the spoiled prince used to getting his way. “If you walk, you’ll never get to review Kindell’s case. You’ll never know what happened to Virginia.”

Ananberg looked over at him, shocked. “For Christ’s sake, William.”

Tim felt his face grow hot. “If you think for a minute that I’d stay here and participate in a venture of this severity to get my hands on a file-even a file that could help solve my daughter’s death-then you’ve underestimated me. I will not be blackmailed.”

But Rayner was already backpedaling into his polished-gentleman persona. He hadn’t dropped his guard before, but the picture beneath it was as nasty as Tim had imagined. “I didn’t mean to imply anything of the sort, Mr. Rackley, and I apologize for my phrasing. What I mean is, we all have aims we’re seeking to forward here, and let’s keep our eyes on the ball.” He cast a wary glance at the Mastersons. “Now, how would you like to handle matters operationally so you’re comfortable?”

Tim took a moment, letting the pins and needles leave his face. He met Mitchell’s eyes. “I still may need you. And you.” He nodded at the Stork, as if the Stork gave a damn. “For surveillance, logistics, backup. But I handle target neutralization alone.”

Mitchell’s hands flared wide and settled in his lap. “Fine.”

Ananberg’s eyes tracked over one chair. “Robert?”

Robert ran a knuckle across his nose, studying the table. Finally he nodded, glaring at Tim. “Affirmative, sir.”

“Excellent.” Rayner clapped his hands and held them together, like a delighted Dickensian orphan at Christmas. “Now, let’s get back to the media recap.”

“Fuck the media recap,” Robert growled.

The Stork clasped his hands and raised them. “Here, here.”

Rayner looked like the teacher’s yes boy who’d just had his test tubes stomped by the class bully. “But the sociological impact is certainly relevant to-”

“Bill,” Ananberg said. “Get the next case binder.”

Rayner huffily pulled his son’s crestfallen image off the wall and punched buttons on the safe, issuing a steady stream of words under his breath.

“Wait,” Mitchell said. “Are we voting without Franklin?”

“Of course,” Rayner said. “The binders don’t leave this room.”

Robert said, “Then conference him in.”

“He could be overheard talking in his room,” Ananberg said. “And we don’t know if those phone lines are secure.”

“He gets exhausted pretty quickly,” Rayner said. “I’m not sure if he has the focus or stamina right now to pay these deliberations the meticulous attention they demand.”

“I say we wait for him to recover,” Tim said.

Rayner faced them, his hands trembling slightly. “I spoke to his doctor at length today. His prognosis… I’m not sure that waiting for hisrecovery is the wisest idea.”

Robert blanched. “Oh.”

Mitchell got busy scratching his forehead.

Shock turned to sadness before Tim could get a handle on it. It took him a moment to regain his composure, then he nodded at Rayner to move ahead.

Rayner grabbed a binder and tossed it on the table. “Terrill Bowrick of the Warren Shooters.”

On October 30, 2002, three seniors at Earl Warren High had gotten into a sixth-period altercation with the starting lineup of the school basketball team. They’d retreated to their vehicles and returned with ordnance. While Terrill Bowrick stood guard at the door, his two coperpetrators had entered the school gymnasium, where they’d fired ninety-seven rounds in less than two minutes, killing eleven students and wounding eight.

The coach’s five-year-old daughter, Lizzy Bowman, who’d been watching practice from the bleachers, had caught a stray bullet through her left eye. Greeting Angelenos on their doorsteps Halloween morning was a front-page photo of her father on both knees, clutching her limp body-a reverse Pieta for the new millennium. Tim remembered vividly how the coach’s jersey had borne a blood imprint of his daughter’s face, a crimson half mask. Tim had set down the paper, dropped Ginny off at school, then sat in his car in the parking lot for five minutes before walking to his daughter’s classroom so he could see her again through the window before leaving her.

The two gunmen, lean stepbrothers bound by a perverse codependence, had claimed there had been no premeditation. Their father was a pawnbroker-they’d been transporting the weapons between two of his stores, just happened to have dueling SKSs and four mags in the trunk when they’d lost their cool. Second-degree murder at worst, their defense lawyer claimed, maybe even a push for temporary insanity. A foolish argument, but good enough to get past your average foolish jury.

The prosecutor, unable to play the brothers off against each other and faced with wrathful media and a community hell-bent on vengeance, had realized he could roll Bowrick with a grant of immunity. Bowrick, a second-time senior who’d just stumbled across the threshold of his eighteenth birthday and thus was sweating heavy, could testify that they’d planned the shooting in the preceding weeks, thus establishing premed and giving the prosecution an express train to murder in the first. The stepbrothers, also not Oppenheimers in the classroom, were legal adults as well.

The prosecutor slid the immunity grant past the media by pointing out that Bowrick was the least culpable co-conspirator and that his participation had been the least egregious. He slid it past his division chief by making clear that Bowrick, a twig of a kid with a lame arm and a limp, could play to jury sympathy and that all the evidence to prove up the premed was circumstantial. By providing independent corroboration, Bowrick could shore up the case.

After Bowrick testified, the brothers were convicted and fast-tracked for capital punishment. Bowrick walked with a plea to a lesser charge-accessory after the fact-and was granted a deal for probation and a thousand hours of community service, no time served.

“So that’s what a school shooting buys you these days.”

Mitchell joined in Tim’s disgust. “About the same sentence you’d get for spray-painting graffiti on your neighbor’s shiny new Volvo.”

“Let’s bear in mind that he was only an aider and abetter,” Robert said. His eyes, glassy and loose-focused, betrayed the slightest identification with Bowrick, the outsider.