David Baldacci: Split Second

Dickers nodded and called out, "John, it's Fred. We really need to get going. We're way off schedule." He knocked on the door. "John? Do you hear me?"

Again Michelle's stomach muscles tightened. Something wasn't right here. She motioned Dickers away from the door and knocked again. "Mr. Bruno, why did you lock the door, sir?" No answer. A bead of sweat broke on Michelle's forehead. She hesitated for an instant, thinking rapidly, and then suddenly yelled though the door, "Sir, your wife is on the phone. There's been a serious accident involving one of your kids."

The response was chilling.

"Just a minute!"

She barked at the other agents with her, "Take it down. Take it down!"

They put their shoulders to the door, once and then twice, and then it gave way and they swarmed into the room.

A room that was empty except for a dead man.

A funeral procession had started off. There were only about a dozen cars in the column as it headed out along the tree-lined drive. Before the last car disappeared down the road, Michelle and her team had burst out the front door of the funeral home and spread out in all directions.

"Lock this whole area down," she shouted at the agents stationed by Bruno's motorcade. They raced to carry out her orders. She spoke into her walkie-talkie. "I need reinforcements. From where I don't care, just get them. Now! And get the FBI on the horn." Her gaze fixed on the rear end of the last car in the funeral procession. Heads would roll over this. Her head would roll. Right now, though, all she wanted was to get John Bruno back, preferably living.

She saw reporters and photographers pouring out of the media trucks. Despite the nice photo op it would have made and Fred Dickers's entreaties that he should allow it, Bruno had shown some backbone and refused their request to come inside the funeral home. They hadn't taken the news well. Now they were erupting with full journalistic force as they sensed a story of far greater magnitude than a candidate's visit to pay his last respects to an old friend.

Before they could get to her, Michelle grabbed the arm of a uniformed officer who had come running up, apparently awaiting instructions.

"Are you security here?" she asked.

He nodded, his eyes wide, his face pale; he looked like he might either faint or wet his trousers.

She pointed down the road. "Whose funeral procession is that?"

"Harvey Killebrew's; they're taking him to Memorial Gardens."

"I want you to stop it."

The man looked dumbly at her. "Stop it?"

"Somebody has been kidnapped. And that"-she pointed at the procession-"would be a great way to get him out of the area, don't you think?"

"Okay," he said slowly. "Yeah."

"Then I want you to search every vehicle, in particular the hearse. Got it?"

"The hearse? But, ma'am, Harvey's in there."

Michelle looked at his uniform. He was a rent-a-cop, but she didn't have the luxury of being picky. She eyed his name tag and said in a very quiet tone, "Officer Simmons? Officer Simmons, how long have you been… uh, in the security business?"

"About a month, ma'am. But I'm weapon-certified. Been hunting since I was eight years old. Shoot the wings off a mosquito."

"That's great." A month. He actually looked greener than that. "Okay, Simmons, listen carefully. My thinking is that the person is probably unconscious. And a hearse would be a great way to transport an unconscious person, don't you agree?" He nodded, apparently finally getting her point. Her face turned to a scowl and her voice to the crack of a pistol. "Now move your ass and stop that procession and search those vehicles."

Simmons went off at a dead run. Michelle ordered several of her men to follow him to oversee and help with the operation and instructed other agents to begin a thorough search of the funeral home. It was just possible that Bruno was hidden somewhere inside. She then pushed her way through the reporters and photographers and set up her command center inside the funeral home. From there she got back on the horn, consulted local maps and coordinatedmore efforts, establishing a one-mile perimeter with the funeral home as its center. Then she made the call she didn't want to make but had to. She phoned her superiors and said the words that would forever remain attached to her name and wrecked career at the Secret Service.

"This is Agent Michelle Maxwell, detail leader for John Bruno. I'm reporting that we-that I've lost the protectee. Apparently John Bruno has been kidnapped. The search is ongoing, and local law enforcement and the FBI have been contacted." She could feel the ax already descending upon her neck.

She joined her team of men who were tearing the funeral home apart from top to bottom looking for Bruno. Doing all of this without disturbing the crime scene was problematic at best. They couldn't interfere with the investigation to follow, but they had to search for the missing candidate.

Inside the viewing room where Bruno had disappeared, Michelle looked at one of the agents who'd scoped the room out before the candidate entered it. "How the hell could this have happened?" she demanded.

He was a veteran with the Service, a good agent. He shook his head in disbelief. "The place was clean, Mick. Clean."

Michelle often went by "Mick" at work. It made her seem more like one of the boys, which she'd grudgingly conceded was not such a bad thing.

"Did you check out the widow, question her?"

He looked at her skeptically. "What, give an old woman the third degree with her husband lying in a coffin five feet away? We looked in her purse, but I didn't think a body cavity search was really appropriate." He added, "We had two minutes to do it. You tell me anyone who could have done a proper job in two minutes."

Michelle stiffened as the meaning of the man's words became clear. Everyone would be looking to cover his butt and federal pension over this one. Stupid now when you looked at it: giving themonly two minutes. She checked the doorknob. It had been rigged to lock when closed.

A coffin five feet away? She looked over at the copper-colored box. The funeral director was called for. He was paler now than even a mortician should be. Michelle asked him if the body was indeed that of Bill Martin. Yes, the man said.

"And you're sure the woman in here was Martin's widow."

"What woman would that be?" he asked.

"There was a woman dressed all in black, with a veil, sitting in this room."

"I don't know if it was Mrs. Martin or not. I didn't see her come in."

"I'll need Mrs. Martin's phone number. And nobody who works here can leave-not until the FBI has arrived and completed its investigation. Understood?"

If possible, the man grew even paler. "The FBI?"

Michelle dismissed him, and then her gaze fell on the coffin and the floor in front of it. She bent down to pick up some rose petals that had fallen there. As she did so, she was eye level with the skirting that ran around the coffin. She reached over the flowers and carefully drew aside the fabric, exposing wood paneling. Michelle tapped on the wood. It was hollow. Using gloves, she and another agent lifted out one of the wood sections, revealing a space that could easily have concealed someone. Michelle could only shake her head. She'd blown this all around.

One of her men came up to her with a device in a plastic bag. "Some sort of digital recorder," he reported.

"That's how they generated Bruno's voice?" she said.

"Must have gotten a snippet of him from somewhere and used it to keep us at bay while they made their getaway. They must have thought the phrase ‘Just a minute' would handle most queries from us. You tripped them up with your remark about Bruno's kids. There must be a wireless bug around here somewhere too."