David Baldacci - Split Second

As the meet-and-greet went on, she watched Agent King do all the right things, his gaze constantly moving. The Secret Service drilled that practice into you. Once, the Service had competed with other federal law enforcement agencies to see which of them was best at telling when someone was lying. The Service had won hands-down. To Michelle the reason was obvious. An agent on protection detail spent most of his or her time trying to divine the innermost thoughts and motives of people solely from their exteriors.

And then the moment came. King seemed riveted by something to his right. So enthralled was Michelle at speculating on what he could have been looking at that she didn't see Ramsey pull his weapon and fire. She jumped when the sound came and realized that, like King, her attention had also wandered. She rewound the tape and watched Ramsey slip his hand into his coat pocket, partially hiding the movement behind a Ritter sign he was holding with his other hand. You couldn't see the gun clearly until Ramsey pointed it at the candidate and fired. King recoiled, presumably as the bullet exited Ritter and hit him in the hand. As Ritter collapsed, the crowd burst into complete hysteria. The cameraman filming the video had apparently dropped to his knees, and Michelle saw torsos and legs running helter-skelter. Other agents and security personnel were pushed back against the sides of the room by the mad rush of frightened people. It only took seconds and seemed like forever to her. And then the cameraman must have stood again, because Sean King returned to the screen.

Blood streaming down his hand, King had his gun out, pointed directly at Ramsey, who still held his own weapon. It is a normal human reaction to flinch, panic and fall to the ground, immobile, when a shot is fired. Training at the Service was designed to override this instinct. When an unknown fired a shot, you moved! Yougrabbed the protectee and got the hell out of there as fast as you could, often physically carrying the person in the process. King did not do that, principally because, Michelle assumed, he had a man in front of him holding a gun.

King fired once, twice, calmly it seemed; he didn't say a word that Michelle could tell. And then as Ramsey fell, King simply stood there, looking down at the dead candidate as other agents finally dashed forward and grabbed Ritter and, their training still working, rushed off with him, leaving King behind to face the music.

Michelle would have given anything to know what the man was thinking right at that moment.

She rewound the tape and watched it again. The bang came as Ramsey fired. But there had been a sound before that. She rewound the tape again and listened intently. There it was, like a beep or a clang , or a ding. That was it. A ding ! It was coming from the direction where King was staring. And she seemed to hear a slight hush or whooshing sound.

She thought rapidly. A ding in a hotel almost always meant that an elevator car had arrived. And the whooshing sound could have been the elevator doors opening. The diagram of the room where Ritter was shot showed a bank of elevators. If an elevator door had opened, had it revealed anything to Sean King? And if so, why hadn't he said? And why hadn't anyone else seen something? Lastly, why hadn't anyone picked up on what she had just noted after having watched the tape a couple of times? But why was she so interested in Sean King and his plight from eight years ago? And yet she was interested. After days of tedium she wanted to do something. She needed action. Impulsively Michelle packed her bag and checked out of the hotel.

Like Michelle Maxwell, King had also risen early and was also out on the water. He was, however, in a kayak, not a scull, and was going considerably slower than Michelle. The lake was ripple-free at this hour, and the quietest it would be all day. This was the perfect place to think, and he needed to do a lot of that. Yet it wasn't to be.

He heard his name being called and looked up. She was standing on the rear deck of his house, calling out to him and holding up a cup of what he assumed was coffee. Joan was wearing the pajamas he kept in the guest bedroom. He took his time paddling back in and then walked slowly up to the house where she met him at the back door.

She smiled. "Apparently you were the first up, but no coffee was on. That's okay, I live to provide suitable backup."

He accepted the coffee from her and sat at the table after she insisted on making him breakfast. He watched her prancing barefoot around his kitchen in the pajamas, apparently playing the role of the happy vixen housewife with aplomb. He remembered that Joan, though one of the toughest agents the Service had ever produced, could be as feminine as any woman, and in private moments she could be downright sexually explosive.

"Still prefer scrambled?"

"That's fine," he answered.

"Bagel, no butter?"

"Yep."

"God, you're so predictable."

I guess so, he thought. He ventured a question of his own. "Any news on Jennings's death, or am I not cleared for it?"

She stopped cracking eggs. "That's FBI territory, you know that."

"Agencies talk to each other."

"Not any more than they used to, really, and that was never a lot."

"So you know nothing." He said this in an accusatory manner.

She didn't answer, and instead scrambled the eggs, toasted the bagel and presented the meal complete with silverware, napkin and more coffee. She sat across from him and sipped orange juice while he ate.

"Not having anything?" he asked.

"I'm watching my figure. Apparently I'm the only one here doing that."

Was it his imagination, or did her foot graze his leg underneath the table?

"What did you expect? After eight years we just jump back into the sack?"

She tipped her head back and laughed. "In an occasional fantasy, yes."

"You're crazy, you know that? I mean certifiable." He was not joking.

"And I had such a normal childhood. Maybe I'm just a sucker for a man in shades packing heat."

Okay, that time it was clear. Her foot had touched his leg. He was sure of that because it was still there and currently heading toward certain private areas of his person.

She leaned forward. Her gaze was not soulful; it was predatory. Clearly she wanted him, here, now, on the kitchen table in the middle of his "predictable scrambled eggs." She stood and slid off the pajama bottoms, revealing flimsy white panties. Next she slowly anddeliberately undid the pajama top as though challenging him to stop her at each button. He didn't. He just watched as the pajama top opened. She wore no bra. Joan dropped the pajama top in his lap and with one hand swept the dishes off the table and onto the floor.

"It's been way too long, Sean. So let's just do something about it." She climbed up on the table in front of him and lay on her back, her thighs spread. Joan smiled as he stood, towering over her in her glorious, pandering near-nakedness.

"You going mainstream on me?" he asked.

"What do you mean?"

He glanced at the light fixture on the ceiling. "You didn't go for the three-pointer with your underwear."

"Oh, but the day's still young, Mr. King."

Her smile disappeared as King picked up the pajama top and laid it delicately over her private parts.

"I'm going to get dressed. I'd appreciate if you'd clean up this mess."

As he walked away, he heard her laughing. By the time he got to the top of the stairs, she called out, "You've finally grown up, Sean, I'm so impressed." He shook his head and wondered what insane asylum she had escaped from.

"Thanks for breakfast," he called back.

As King was coming back downstairs after showering and dressing, there was a knock at the door. He glanced out the window and was surprised to see a police car, a U.S. Marshals van and a black SUV. He answered the door.