David Baldacci - Split Second

"Good-bye, Agent Maxwell. I wish you all the best."

"I'm sorry our first meeting had to be this way."

"First and hopefully last."

"Oh, one more thing. Although it was never covered in the official report, I'm sure you've already considered the possibility that the person on the elevator was used to distract you while Ramsey pulled his gun and fired."

King said nothing.

"You know, it's interesting," said Michelle as she looked around.

"You seem to find a lot interesting," he said curtly.

"This place," she said, pointing at the high ceilings, the glistening beams, the polished floors, everything neat and tidy. "It's beautiful. Perfectly beautiful."

"You're certainly not the first person to say so."

"Yes," she went on as though she hadn't heard him. "It's beautiful, and it should be cozy and warm." She turned and looked at him. "But it's not. It's very utilitarian, actually, isn't it? Items placed just so, almost like they were staged, staged by someone who feltthe need to control it all and in doing so took all the soul out of it, or at least didn't put any of his own soul into it." She wrapped her arms around herself. "Yes, very cold." She looked away from him.

"I like it that way," he said tersely.

She glanced at him sharply. "Do you, Sean? Well, I bet you didn't used to."

He watched her long legs and energetic pace quickly cover the distance down to the dock. She put her scull in the water and very soon was merely a speck on the surface of the lake. It was only then that he slammed the door shut. As he was walking by the table, he saw it, stuck under her coffee cup. It was her Secret Service business card. On the back she had written in her home and cell phone numbers. His first impulse was to throw it away. Yet he didn't. He held on to it as he watched the speck grow smaller and smaller until she rounded a bend and Michelle Maxwell disappeared completely from view.

John Bruno was lying on a small cot staring at the ceiling, a twenty-five-watt bulb his only illumination. The light would stay on for an hour and then go off; then it would come on for ten minutes and then be extinguished; there was never any pattern. It was maddening and debilitating and designed to break down his spirit. It had done its job well.

Bruno was dressed in a drab gray jumpsuit and had many days' growth of beard on his face, for what sane jailer would provide a prisoner with a razor? Bathing was done by towel and bucket that appeared and disappeared while he was asleep; erratically timed meals were passed through a slot in the door. He'd never seen his captors and had no idea where he might be or how he'd gotten here. When he'd tried to talk to the unseen presence providing the food through the slot, he got no reply and had finally given up.

His food, he'd discovered, was often drugged and would send him into deep sleep or provoke occasional hallucinations. Yet if he didn't eat, he'd perish, so he ate. He was never allowed to leave his cell, and his exercise was restricted to ten paces across and ten paces back. He did push-ups and sit-ups on the cold floor to keep his strength. He had no idea if he was under surveillance, and it little mattered if he was. He'd contemplated early on some method of escape but had concluded escape was impossible. And to think it had all started with Mildred Martin, or rather an impersonator, inthat funeral home. For the hundredth time he silently cursed himself for not following Michelle Maxwell's advice. And then, being the egomaniac he was, he cursed Maxwell for not being more forceful, for not insisting on accompanying him into that room.

How long he'd been here he didn't know. They'd taken all his personal belongings including his watch while he was unconscious. Why he'd been kidnapped he couldn't fathom. Whether it had to do with his candidacy or his former career as a prosecutor he didn't know. It had never occurred to him that it might be neither. He'd harbored hopes early on for a quick rescue, but he could no longer realistically keep that belief. The people who'd taken him clearly knew what they were doing. He'd fallen back on the slender hope of a miracle, and yet as the hours and days passed, that hope had begun to dim. He thought of his wife and children and his presidential campaign and was resigned that his life might end here, his body perhaps never found. He remained puzzled, though, about why they were keeping him alive.

He rolled over on his stomach, unable to face even the meager light anymore.

The person who sat in another cell at the end of the corridor had been here far longer than John Bruno. The despair in the eyes and the slouch in the body signaled there was no hope left. Eat, sit, sleep, and probably die at some point. That was the bleak future. The person shivered and wrapped a blanket closer around.

In another part of the large underground space a man was engaged in some interesting activities. In contrast to the despair of the prisoners, his energy level and hopes were very high indeed.

Round after round was fired into a human silhouette that hung on a target a good hundred feet away in the soundproofed room. Every shot was placed in the kill zone. He was certainly a marksman of enviable skill.

The man pressed a button, and the target flew down themotorized line toward him. He put up a fresh target and hit a button, and it flew to the farthest point available on the shooting range. He loaded a fresh magazine in his pistol, put on his eye and ear protectors, took aim and fired off fourteen rounds in less than twenty-five seconds. When the target was brought back this time, he finally smiled. Not one shot had gone astray-"throwing a round" in law enforcement parlance. He put his weapon away and left the shooting range.

The next room he entered was smaller than the shooting room and very different in configuration. Floor-to-ceiling shelves housed all manner of detonators, wiring for explosives, and other equipment used by those intent on blowing up something as efficiently and effectively as possible. In the center of the room was a large worktable, where he sat and began massaging wires, transistors, timers, detonators and C-4 plastic explosives into multiple devices designed for massive destruction. He brought to this task the same attention to detail that had been present at the shooting range.

He hummed while he worked.

An hour later he went to yet another room that was set up completely unlike the first two. To the observer who could see only the interior of this space and not the ones housing guns, explosives and human chattel, there was nothing sinister or malign here. It was an artist's studio that lacked nothing for the creation of art in practically any medium, except for natural light. That was impossible in a place so many meters below ground. Yet the artificial light here was acceptable.

Neatly hanging on one wall were shelves holding heavy coats and boots, special helmets, thick gloves, red bubble lights, axes, oxygen tanks and other like equipment. The gear wouldn't be needed for a while yet, but it was good to be prepared. Rushing now could mean disaster. Patience was required. And yet he looked forward to the moment when it would all come together, when he could finally say that success was his. Yes, patience.

He settled himself down at a worktable and for the next two hours labored with deep concentration, painting, cutting, erecting and fine-tuning a series of works that would never grace the inside of a museum or, for that matter, any personal collection. Yet they were as important to him as the most distinguished masterpieces of any era. In a very substantial way all this work was his masterpiece, and like many of the old masters' works, it had been years in the making.