Patterson, James - Womans Murder Club 3 - 3rd Degree

In his hands he held a portable phone.

“I'm not going out there,” he said.

“I'm not, either.” She shook her head.

“You really are a brave little girl.” Mal smiled.

She watched him punch in a four-digit number. A second later she heard a ring. It came from the suitcase.

Then a second ring.

A third...

“Remember” - Mal took a breath - “no juice, no boost. Right, Michelle?”

Womans Murder Club 3 - 3rd Degree

Chapter 98

WHEN THE HOUSE BLEW we were crouched behind the cover of a black-and-white, barely a hundred feet away.

There were bold orange flashes as the windows exploded. Then the house seemed to lift off its foundation, a fiery cloud ripping the whole thing apart through the roof.

“Get down!” Molinari yelled. “Everybody down!”

The blast hurled us backward. I took Cindy, who'd been standing next to me, down to the ground, shielding her from the force of the blast and the shower of debris.

We lay there as the searing gust lifted over us. A few cries of “Holy shit” and “Are you all right?”

Slowly, we got back up. “Oh, God... ,” Cindy groaned.

Where a second ago a white clapboard house had been standing, now there was only smoke, fire, and a crater of blown-out walls.

“Michelle,” Cindy muttered. “Come on, Michelle.”

We watched the fire rise as the wind whipped the flames. No one came out. No one could have lived through such a blast.

Sirens started up. Frantic radio transmissions filled the air. I heard cops shouting into walkie-talkies: “We have a major explosion at seven twenty-two Seventh Street....”

“Maybe she wasn't in there.” Cindy shook her head, still staring at the devastated house.

I put my arm around her. “They killed Jill, Cindy.”

Later, after the fire crews had doused the blaze to smoking cinders and the EMS teams were going around tagging the charred remains, I sifted through the debris myself.

Was it over now? Was the threat gone? How many were in there? I didn't know. It looked like four or five. Hardaway was probably dead. Was Charles Danko in there, too? August Spies?

Claire had arrived. She was kneeling over the covered bodies, but the parts were burned almost beyond recognition.

“I'm looking for a white male,” I told her, “about fifty.”

“Best I can tell, there seem to be four of them,” she said. “The black male who was shot in the driveway. Three others inside. Two of them female, Lindsay.”

Joe Molinari came over to me. He'd been giving Washing-ton an update on what had just happened. “You okay?” he asked.

“It's not over,” I said, nodding at the tagged mounds.

“Danko?” He shrugged. “The medical people will have to tell us that. In any case, his network is gone, his cell. The device, too. What can he do now?”

Amid the wreckage, I spotted something - a barrette. There was something almost funny about it. I reached down and picked it up.

“Voice of the people be heard,” I said to Molinari, holding out the barrette.

There was a peace symbol on it.

Womans Murder Club 3 - 3rd Degree

Chapter 99

CHARLES DANKO was wandering the streets of San Fran-cisco aimlessly and thinking about what had just happened in Berkeley, where his friends had died for the cause, died as martyrs just like William had a long time ago.

I could kill a lot of people right now. Right here.

He knew he could go on a rampage and they wouldn't catch him for several hours, maybe longer if he got his head screwed on straight, if he thought this through - if he was a careful killer.

You're dead, slick young business creep in your expensive-looking black-on-black ensemble.

You're dead, too, blond fashionista.

You. And you. You! You! You four frolicking asshole buddies!

God, it would be so easy to let his rage out now.

The police, the FBI, they were pathetic at their job of “protecting” the people.

They had everything wrong, didn't they?

They didn't understand that this could be about justice and revenge. The two concepts were perfectly compatible; they could go hand in hand. He was following in his brother William's footsteps, honoring his fallen brother's inspired dream, and at the same time he was avenging William. Two causes were better than one. Twice the motivation; twice the anger.

The faces he was passing, the expensive clothes, the absurd shops, were all starting to blur before his eyes - all of them were guilty. The whole country was.

They didn't get it, though. Not yet.

The war was right here in their streets of gold - the war was here to stay.

No one could stop it anymore.

There would always be more soldiers.

After all, that's what he was, just a soldier.

He stopped at a pay phone and made two calls.

The first, to another soldier.

The second, to his mentor, the person who had thought of everything, including how to use him.

Charles Danko had made his decision: tomorrow was a go for terror.

Nothing had changed.

Womans Murder Club 3 - 3rd Degree

Chapter 100

THE NEXT DAY, the G-8 meetings were scheduled to begin as originally planned. The hard-liners, the tough guys in Washington, wanted it that way. So be it.

The proceedings were set for that night, with a reception in the Rodin Gallery at the Palace of the Legion of Honor overlooking the Golden Gate Bridge.

It would be hosted by Eldridge Neal, one of the most admired African Americans in the country, the current vice president. Every available uniform was assigned to security detail at the venues and along the routes. Every ID would be triple-checked, every trash can and air vent sniffed by explosive-detecting dogs.

But Danko was still out there.

And Carl Danko was still the only link to his son I had.

I drove back to Sacramento while the rest of the depart-ment prepared for the G-8 festivities. Carl Danko seemed surprised to see me again. “Thought you'd be accepting some kind of Medal of Honor today. The killing of young kids seems to be a habit with you people. So, why are you here?”

“Your son,” I told him.

“My son is dead.”

But Danko sighed and let me in. I followed him back to

his den. A fire was burning there. He knelt down and stoked the flames, then sat down in an easy chair. "Like I told you before, the time to talk about William was

thirty years ago.“ ”Not Billy,“ I said. ”Charles.“ Danko seemed to hesitate. ”I told the federal boys -“ ”We know,“ I interrupted him mid-sentence. ”We know

his record, Mr. Danko. We know he isn't dead."

The old man snarled, “You people won't stop, will you? First William, now Charlie. Go take your medals, Lieutenant. You caught your killers. What makes you think you can come in here and tell me Charlie is alive?”

“George Bengosian,” I answered.

“Who?”

"George Bengosian. The second victim. He knew Billy

back at Berkeley. More than knew him, Mr. Danko. He was the one who turned your son in.“ Danko shifted in his easy chair. ”What's that supposed to mean?"

“And Frank Seymour? He was killed in the Rincon Center blast the other day. Seymour was the lead agent on the Hope Street raid that killed your son. Charles is out there. He's killing innocent people, Mr. Danko. I think he's gone mad. I think you do, too.”

The old man took a deep breath. He stared into the fire, then got up and went over to a desk. He took out a pack of letters from a bottom drawer. Tossed them in front of me on the coffee table.

“I didn't lie. My son has been dead to me. I've seen him once, five minutes on a Seattle street corner, in the past thirty years. Few years ago, these began to arrive. Once a year, around my birthday.”