Suicide Bomb

by Bobby Nash

  As soon as she said the word, Daniele Lucas realized she had made a mistake. The mood of the room changed suddenly, the temperature dropping considerably. Normally, she would never discuss a patient’s history like that, but she and Jacks had talked openly about the loss of her child in front of her partner. She simply assumed that her mother had also been aware, that the situation was one mother and daughter had discussed and worked through together.

  It took only an instant to realize such was not the case.

  “Oh, God,” Dr. Lucas said, facing Jacks, tears welling up in her big dark eyes. “I’m sorry. I thought she knew.”

  “It’s okay, Dani,” Jacks said, cocking her head toward the door. “You should…”

  Dr. Lucas offered another apology to Mavis Jackson before heading up. She gave Jacks a small wave just before the door latched closed.

  The two women sat in silence for what felt an eternity.

  “Mom…”

  “A miscarriage?” Mavis Jackson growled, getting to her feet and heading across the room. She was a contrast of emotions. Rage, hurt, and frustration washed off of her in waves.

  Jacks could swear she felt the heat of those emotions slapping her in the face.

  Despite herself, the tears started.

  “How could you keep this from me, Catherine?”

  “How could I tell you?”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  Jacks sat up, wiped her eyes, and looked her mother straight in the eye.

  “I know that finding out you’re pregnant then losing the baby almost immediately after is not my fault. It happens. Act of God, right? Not my fault. Everyone told me so. Dani, Mel, they told me it wasn’t my fault. The counselor I saw agreed with them. Everyone who knew about this told me that there was no one to blame.”

  “They were right,” Mavis said, now standing next to the bed.

  “The truth of the matter is, what they said didn’t matter. You see, there was this voice in the back of my head that kept reminding me how wrong they were. Oh, yeah. This voice told me how dangerous my job is, told me that I could never juggle my dangerous job catching killers and a family, and told me that no matter what anyone else thought, that miscarriage was absolutely my fault.”

  “Oh, honey.”

  “That voice, Mom… was yours.”

  Shock covered Mavis Jackson’s face.

  “I would never… how could you think I...” She stammered over the words, unable to put her frustration into words until she finally settled on… “Why?”

  “All my life, Mom, you’ve told me I should be more like Elanya. My job was never good enough. You’ve disapproved of every man I’ve ever expressed an interest in. You would have hated the baby’s father. Hell, I’m not so sure I really liked him all that much. Every memory I have of us, Mom, involves you letting me know I’m not good enough. You do the same thing to Charisma now. Why do you think she runs away to my place so often?”

  “I would never…”

  “Mom, I got all A’s on my report card. Should have been A Pluses. Mom, I got into college? Harvard? No. Then why are you celebrating? Mom, I made detective. That’s not captain, though, is it? Do any of these things ring a bell?”

  “I just want you to aspire to be better, to be the best you can.”

  “All you did was make me think I was never good enough.”

  “That was never my intention, Catherine. You have to know that.”

  “I do. At least on some level. After a while, it was easier to just not tell you things.”

  “Not even something as important as this?”

  “Especially something as important as this,” Jacks said. “I tried to tell you, more than once. I tried, but I chickened out each time. I was afraid of the reaction I would get.”

  “You should never be afraid of me, Catherine. I love you.”

  Mavis sat on the edge of the hospital bed and took her daughter’s hand in her own and squeezed.

  “And I love you too, Mom.”

  At that moment, Catherine Jackson’s mother did the last thing she would have expected. She leaned over and hugged her daughter tight. That was all it took for the floodgates to open.

  Jacks cried on her mother’s shoulder until she fell asleep, something she had not done since she was a kid.

  Thirty-eight

  Washington DC

  Friday

  Jacks had no idea how long she had been asleep.

  Not surprisingly, she dreamt of her mother and of a baby that could have been. Having that long-overdue talk with her mother had been the hardest thing she had done in ages. Tackling killers had been easy by comparison, but it was necessary. The wall that had existed between them was no more. She hoped they could grow closer, but she also realized that another trait they shared was a marked stubborn streak. Healing this rift was going to take time and work, but she was determined to make it work.

  She still hurt all over. She was wondering how long it would take to get back to normal.

  The downside of laying in a bed around the clock was that eventually, your body assumed that meant it was time for bed and you dozed off. Jacks had learned to live on five to six hours of sleep a night. She knew more rest was needed, but between her job and family, there simply were not enough hours in the day to accommodate the demands on her time and get eight hours of sleep.

  Being in the hospital had allowed her to make up for lost sleep.

  Yet, somehow, she remained tired.

  “’morning, sleepy head,” a familiar voice said from somewhere nearby.

  “Hi, there,” she said softly, her mouth dry. She tried to smile, but couldn’t tell if her lips moved or not. As difficult as it was opening her eyes, she guessed the lips were not cooperating either.

  Once she could focus, she saw him. Daniel Benson flashed his patented thousand-dollar smile her way as he turned from the window’s bright glare and walked over to stand next to her bed. He reached down and gingerly took her hand in his.

  “I hear you had an exciting weekend,” he joked.

  “One for the ages,” she said. “Or so they tell me.”

  He smiled.

  “Where am I?”

  “Hospital.”

  Jacks sat up and looked around the room. It was fairly empty. Daniel was the only other person in the room. There were a few flowers and balloons declaring messages of sympathy and wishes for speedy recoveries along with various devices blinking colored lights and beeping off rhythm. This time, the movement didn’t set off a series of flashbulbs exploding behind her eyes.

  She shaded her poor peepers against the sunlight pouring through the windows like white hot lava.

  “What day is it?”

  “Friday?”

  She looked at him as though he were speaking gibberish.

  Daniel shook his head.

  “Well that was a helluva nap,” she said. “I slept through Thursday. I didn’t think I was ever going to get in a good night’s sleep.”

  “Feel rested?”

  “Not really,” she said and sneered, then leaned back against the pillow.

  “I heard you went through the wringer.”

  “My partner leans toward hyperbole. It wasn’t that bad.”

  He chuckled. “I heard that from your mother.”

  Jacks felt the blood run from her face.

  “You talked to my mother. Oh, God. That’s even worse.”

  “Don’t be so hard on her. Your mother seems to be a lovely woman,” Daniel said. “She loves you, y’know? I hear that’s not a bad thing.”

  “Oh, believe me, I know. That woman is going to love me straight into insanity.”

  Daniel laughed.

  “Speaking of, I’m surprised she’s not here.”

  “Your family ran down to grab some breakfast. I told them I’d keep you company until they got back. I think that was the only reason she agreed to go. She didn’t want to leave you alone.”

  “Story of my life,” Jack
s deadpanned.

  “Be nice.”

  “Sorry,” Jacks said then flashed a mischievous grin. “However shall we fill all of this coveted alone time, Mr. Benson?”

  “I’m sure we’ll think of something,” Daniel said, leaning in to kiss her.

  There was a knock at the door.

  “Timing is everything,” Jacks said around a laugh.

  “Come in, mother,” she said loudly.

  “I think you have me confused with someone else,” William James Montgomery said as he entered the hospital room. Three Secret Service Agents accompanied him. Two stayed in the hall, but the third joined him in the room. It was Agent Patterson.

  Jacks sat up in the bed, grimacing.

  “At ease, Detective.”

  “Yes, Mr. President. Sam.”

  Agent Patterson nodded a greeting.

  Daniel stepped forward and offered his hand. “Daniel Benson. It’s an honor to meet you, Mr. President.”

  “My pleasure,” Montgomery said before turning back to Jacks. “I just wanted to stop by and see how you were feeling. The doctors tell me that they have purged your body of the toxins and were able to stop the post-hypnotic suggestion The Controller implanted.”

  “Thank God. I did not relish having to stay away from my family indefinitely, though I do admit, the idea did sound appealing for a minute or two.”

  Montgomery laughed in his grandfatherly way.

  He patted her hand.

  “I have met your mother, yes,” he said playfully.

  “I’m sorry,” Jacks said then laughed.

  “The White House owes you a debt of gratitude or your service and sacrifice, Detective Jackson. You ever need anything, I’m a phone call away.”

  He slipped a business card into her hand and shook it.

  “Thank you, Mr. President.”

  He gave them both another grandfatherly smile before heading for the door.

  “I will meet you back at the barn, Mr. President,” Patterson said as she opened the door for her boss.

  Jacks heard him say, “take your time, agent,” before the door closed again.

  “How you feeling?” she asked the patient.

  “Like I’ve been run over by a Mack truck,” Jacks deadpanned. “Have you met Daniel? Sam Patterson… Daniel Benson.”

  They exchanged pleasantries, but Jacks tuned them out as she repositioned herself in the bed, trying to find a comfortable position. She was not having much luck.

  “You get The Controller locked up?” Jacks asked once the Secret Service Agent’s attention turned once again her direction.

  “Yeah. For a guy who liked to brag about his accomplishments, he’s clammed up now that he’s in custody. We’ll break him.” She shrugged. “Even if we don’t, we’ve already got enough on him to send him away a long time.”

  “It would be nice to get him on all counts though,” Jacks said. “Close those cases.”

  She looked off into space, lost in thought.

  “What’s bothering you, Jacks?”

  “Just trying to reconcile everything. I know how he got to me, but Greg Gulley wasn’t connected. I mean, yeah, he was part of the original project, but everyone thought that was dismantled. How did he get access to a CIA analyst? Or, better yet, how did he get to your boss? I don’t know him well, but it can’t be easy to get tainted mail to the deputy director of the Secret Service, can it?”

  “No,” Sam said, seeing where she was going with this. “All mail is scanned and processed. After that anthrax scare a few years back, we don’t take any chances.”

  “So the odds of mail with powder on it getting through your security are, what?”

  “Not good, I can tell you that. Even if the powder was an unknown, if our detectors picked up the dust, the package would have been flagged. Maybe his house?”

  “Maybe, but same thing, I bet McHenry isn’t listed.”

  “Are you saying that James McHenry from the Secret Service is involved in this mess?” Daniel said, trying hard to reconcile the words with their meaning. “That guy’s as tough as they come. Word on The Hill is that he’s a tough old bastard.”

  “That doesn’t leave this room, counselor,” Jacks said, a finger pointed his way. “Not a word.”

  “Also, not an inaccurate character assessment,” Patterson added softly.

  “Not a word. Scout’s honor,” he said and held up his hands in surrender. He knew better than to try and argue with Catherine Jackson, no matter her condition.

  “Probably not,” Patterson said, pacing back and forth from one end of the room to the other. “Are you saying you think Gulley wasn’t working alone? You think he had a partner?”

  “I don’t know what I think,” Jacks said. “All I know is I can’t make all of these puzzle pieces fit together. A partner makes sense, doesn’t it?”

  “It has to be someone with access,” Patterson said. “CIA, Secret Service, the White House, Metro PD, who else am I missing?”

  “No way Greg Gulley has access to all of them,” Jacks said, perking up. She was never more alive than when pieces of an investigation began falling into place. “We’re missing something.”

  “What?”

  “Not what. Who?”

  “Okay, who?”

  “I don’t know,” Jacks said.

  Samantha Patterson stopped pacing and leaned against the foot of the bed, her toes tapping out a rhythm on the pale linoleum.

  “We both know someone who does,” she said.

  “Greg Gulley,” Jacks said.

  “Your partner and I are scheduled to take another crack at him a little later today.”

  Jacks gave her a look.

  “Want to come along?” Patterson asked.

  Jacks’ legs were already dangling over the side of the hospital bed.

  “I thought you’d never ask,” she said.

  Daniel rushed to her side.

  “Oh, no,” he said. “Where do you think you’re going? Are you crazy? After all you’ve been through, you want to run right back into the ire that burned you?”

  “The guy with the matches has the answers we need,” she said. “Besides, I have to know. I have to stand in front of him and look him in the eye. It’s the only way to make sure, Daniel. This is the only way I will ever truly know if we’ve beaten his programming.”

  “And what if he can still control you? Did you even think of that?”

  “That’s why I’m there, Mr. Benson,” Patterson said.

  “I can’t stop you, can I?” Daniel asked.

  Jacks shook her head and instantly regretted it.

  “No,” she added.

  “Then I guess I’m coming with you,” he said.

  She shot him a smile.

  He returned the smile.

  “You’re not the only one around here who can do something stupid,” he said. “Let me get you a wheelchair.”

  Two minutes later, when her sister came into the room to check on her, she was startled to find the patient gone.

  “Nurse!” she shouted, but it was too late.

  Jacks and her friends had already left the building.

  Thirty-nine

  Washington DC

  Tuesday

  Catherine Jackson felt invigorated.

  If only slightly. She still hurt all over from her ordeal and a car ride, even though she wasn’t the one behind the wheel, seemed ill advised. Yet, there she sat, seatbelt fastened, and hands gripping the door and center console when spasms of pain ratcheted up her spine.

  Samantha Patterson noticed her friend’s discomfort, but kept quiet on the subject. She had already asked once if Jacks was feeling up to doing this and the response was direct and explicit, so she decided not to ask again. If Detective Jackson needed to stop or be relieved, she would say something, though Samantha wasn’t going to hold her breath waiting.

  Daniel Benson sat in the back seat, which she guessed was uncomfortable with his long legs cramped up behind the seat.
He had refused to let Jacks leave the hospital without him and she didn’t really argue the point. It wasn’t something her reputation would allow her to say aloud, but she was thrilled that he cared enough to go with her. He knew Jacks well enough to know that telling her not to go would be the absolutely worst thing he could do.

  “So, run it through one more time,” Jacks said. She had been working the problem in her mind and not liking the outcome she kept getting.

  “Greg Gulley is the guy who called himself The Controller. He had access to the original project notes and he continued working the problem off book after the project was officially shut down by our current President of the United States.”

  “Right.”

  “Gulley had access to his victims through their mail and computer or telephone.”

  “Right,” Patterson said. “He dusted the mail with powerful drugs that were absorbed into the skin. On their own, something containing all the drugs were pretty much harmless, but once you mixed multiple compounds together, the victim, the one who touched mail dosed with each, became susceptible to outside influence.”

  “They were easily coerced,” Benson added.

  “Essentially, yes. The Controller used unwitting pawns as weapons,” Jacks said, still working it all out in her head. “He would infect someone, let’s say the janitor working the nightshift and give that guy a command like, “kill the guy in office five one three” and the janitor would do it. Afterward, the program instructed the assassin to kill his or herself.”

  “First rule of assassination,” Patterson explained. “Kill the assassin.”

  “The only problem is, Gulley didn’t have access to everyone.”

  “I don’t follow?” Benson said.

  “How did he get to McHenry?”

  “McHenry?”

  “Deputy Director James McHenry. He’s from Division, inside the Secret Service. This guy’s identity is highly classified outside of the service. He’s rarely unaccompanied by agents assigned to his protection detail. This guy is untouchable. His mail is screened, X-Rayed, tested ten ways from Sunday. There is no way Greg Gulley has that kind of access so that begs the question…”

  “How was he infected?” they said in unison.