by J. D. Tyler
You had to respect the hell out of a woman like that.
“You know, if I didn’t have a girlfriend, I’d propose,” he said, handing her the rolled up towel Sara offered. “Bite on this and hang on.”
She screamed anyway. But the wounds were as clean as he could make them for now. They needed stitches, badly, but he had nothing for sutures.
“All right, Marshall,” he drawled again, handing her some of the tissue he’d taken from Madeline Arrsworthy’s bag. “Retta’s gonna help you sit up and she’s going to tie some strips of tablecloth around you like you two were playing crazy dress-up day.” He motioned Retta over to do just that.
“She your lady?”
“Yep. Best woman ever,” he said as Retta helped the CEO sit up. “She’s also got ice for your face.”
“There’s aspirin in my purse,” Cheryl said.
“No, aspirin thins the blood, you don’t have any to spare.”
“Thanks, Doc,” she said. “Nice bedside manner.”
“Blame my dad,” he said, and heard her laugh, curse and cough as he moved to the next.
They were working fast, bandaging wounds, assessing conditions. He was quickly segregating people into categories.
Walking wounded, but still functional, he sent to Call-Me-Pete Rouse for assignment. Mostly that involved stacking tables and holding the doors when people tried to break in, which continued to happen.
The second category was serious, but going to live if they got help soon. Those were up on the stage and down below it. Sylvia, Madeline, and Cheryl were going to make it if they got help soon. Madeline was in and out, so he put Cheryl and another of the semi-healthy from the ballroom to sit with her. Declan Mulrooney, the guy with the dinner knife in his chest, was CEO of some huge company out of Ireland. Mulrooney was also hanging on, despite the cutlery. Evidently, he’d been one of the ones to rush the stage. How he’d done that with a knife already in his chest, Edward had no idea.
But he hoped like hell the man made it. That was one serious, kick-ass Irishman, and Edward wanted to shake his hand.
Three victims, down on the floor, were going to be close calls if help didn’t come soon. He was pretty sure one had a lacerated kidney from a deep wound in the back. They had the glass shard out, but a surgeon was going to have to be sure they’d gotten all the bits and pieces of the cheap glass, and deal with whatever internal injuries the guy had. They had the wound packed with ice and towels. So far, the guy was hanging on.
There were, unfortunately, more draped bodies –-sometimes in twos and threes covered by one tablecloth-– than there were survivors. He’d stopped counting the dead at fifty-five. He really didn’t need to know the numbers. He knew it was over a hundred and that was bad enough.
“That Decker guy’s coming around,” Rouse said as he strode up. “Can you come up there with me, see if we can prevent him doing what the other guy did?”
“Don’t know if I can. If he has poison in a tooth cap or in a pouch under his tongue, then he can get to it quicker than we can. Also, hate to say it, but I’m not risking him biting me and poisoning me.”
“We have to know what they’re planning,” Rouse insisted.
“Mayhem. General mass murder,” Edward said sharply. “What more do you need to know?”
“I need to know if they’re gonna blow this place to fucking Kingdom Come,” Rouse said, his voice no more than a whisper. “Nobody comes in to a hotel like this on a night like this, without an agenda. That one,” Rouse waved to the sheet-covered, poison-killed, fake waiter, “was going on about something Red. An organization. I’ve talked to any security personnel still alive or able to talk. We have people from CIA, Treasury, private security firms, and the Bureau.”
Edward shook his head over the sheer number of cop-types in the room. It was a miracle any of them had survived, given how they’d been pinpointed before the whole thing blew up.
“They came up with Red Zealots, but that’s Israeli and these guys look home grown,” Rouse continued. “The other thing someone mentioned is Comrade Red, a communist terrorist cell, but again, these guys don’t look Russian or Ukrainian.”
“Takes all kinds,” Edward muttered. “But not likely, you’re right.”
He thought for a moment. “What about Red Mantle?”
“What’s that?” Rouse said sharply.
“Hang on, let me think.” Edward looked around the ballroom, trying to remember, trying not to see the carnage.
Stand Together. A gala for women’s achievements. Celebrating a woman being elected president. Women as targets –-prominent women from all walks of life-– women who had power.
“Edward?”
“Red Mantle. They tried to recruit a bunch of our guys at Millner Communications. Our people tend to report that kind of stuff because if they do it, join it, promote it, they lose their jobs. Most people like working for Millner, so they report. Red Mantle’s home grown. Mostly just a cult, though.”
“Maybe they’ve escalated,” Rouse said grimly. “Let’s go.”
The two men got to the stage just as Decker opened his eyes. For a moment, he looked confused, and then scanned the room. His smile, when he saw the slaughter, was so satisfied that Edward wanted to punch him. Decker’s eyes swept over the stage and his smile got wider.
Evidently he’d seen that the women he’d tried to capture were all injured, and some were dead. Two of the three of the women who were members of the Joint Chiefs were dead. Their husbands were as well.
General Mitchum had been hit in the chest with a bullet. Although she’d been standing earlier, she’d soon collapsed and died. Her body, off to the side on stage, was one of the still, tablecloth-draped forms. Petra Neunswanger, Vice Admiral of the Coast Guard might live, if help came soon. She was losing blood, and might lose her right arm even if she survived. She’d taken four rounds in the bicep. He had on the tightest tourniquet he could fashion, but...
“We have succeeded,” he said, his voice ringing out into the room.
Edward knew he might be right. Gunfire still came in bursts from the outer halls, and, as yet, no sirens could be heard.
Decker spoke again. “My men?”
“Dead,” Rouse said flatly. “What’s your mission, Decker? How have you succeeded?”
“Wouldn’t you like to know?” He said on a laugh, scanning the stage again. “We’ve done what we came for.”
“Hey,” Rouse said. “You might as well tell me why I’m going to die. I’d like to know. So, what’s the mission?”
“Oh, so sure of yourself Mr. FBI,” Decker said. “Yeah, I know who you are, Agent Rouse. I know the whole guest list, right down to Mr. Suck-Up-To-The-Bitches Millner here, who’s such a pansy he ran away from home before he even turned twenty, and now that he’s back, his company couldn’t function without his mama.”
Edward smiled easily, trying to match Rouse’s laid back approach. It was difficult given that he wanted to rip the man’s throat out.
“No, it couldn’t make it without Charlotte,” he replied, thinking that his mother would laugh at that. “She’s one of the finest assets Millner Communications has. And since my company is a division of Millner, we make sure the women in our company know they’re respected for their minds, their integrity, and their brilliance.”
Decker laughed, then coughed, but no convulsions seemed imminent. “Yeah, yeah, yeah. Your bitch mother spreads her legs for anything she can find that’s younger than your dad,” he said, taunting Edward.
“Why, you son of a bitch,” Rouse said, and shot Edward a look.
Edward warned him with a look that said, Don’t rise to the bait, Call-Me-Pete. Don’t.
Knowing the kind of man Decker was, Edward kept his smile easy, even as his gut burned.
“Well, proves she’s a powerful woman, right?” Edward said, with a smile. “Men do it all the time, and no one gives a shit. They go for younger women, have mistresses. Why not women? Dad doesn’t care, why sho
uld I?”
Decker snarled, “You’re a pussy, that’s why, letting your women run you the way they do. You’ll burn in hell for letting her get away with that.”
“Yeah, we’re all gonna burn in hell just for being here at the Stand Together Gala, I guess. So, what’s the mission, Decker?” Rouse persisted. “Why did you want to kill all these women?”
“They are an object lesson. So are you, you fuck,” Decker said. “And we will succeed. We already have.”
He lay back at that point, closing his eyes, refusing to say another word.
“No,” Rouse said softly, laughing. “You haven’t succeeded at anything other than killing some people. That happens every day,” he said callously. “But here? Tonight? No joy for you. See?”
Decker’s eyes popped open, but he sneered. Rouse turned to the ballroom and called, “Stand up, everybody.”
One by one, people on the floor began to rise. Some helped others to stand, but more and more people stood up. Edward couldn’t believe it. Then he noticed that some were helping the dead to rise, making it look like more of them had survived.
“Sure, they’re hurt, but you didn’t get as many as you thought, now did you?”
Decker looked pissed, but refocused on Rouse. “Doesn’t mean anything, now. The others have their orders.” He smiled.
“They all survived, Decker, just ask Doc here. All the other Joint Chiefs. We have them sequestered under the stage. Their husbands died, but they can remarry,” Rouse said, with a flip of his hand, as if that were some small thing.
“You lie!” Decker protested. “I killed that bitch Mitchum myself,” he snarled. “I saw her go down.”
“Yeah, but Doc here saved her,” Rouse lied easily. He jerked a thumb toward Edward. “He’s not much to look at, but he’s pretty good with a pressure bandage and some sewing thread,” Rouse taunted.
Edward grimaced. He wished like hell he had sewing thread.
“She should make it. JR said ambulances are on the way,” Edward added, hoping for something, anything that would clue them into the balance of the plan. Decker was taking this all too calmly.
At that, Decker focused on Edward. “Yeah?” Now he smiled.
And Edward did not like that smile.
“That’s real good news, Doc.” This time, Decker visibly bit down on something, and within seconds, his body convulsed and he died of the same poison his colleague had used.
“Fuck,” Rouse said. “Okay everyone, you can sit down now. Thanks for your help.”
People sat or semi-collapsed all over the room. Others rushed to support them, still more lay the dead back down, re-covering them with the tablecloths which had hidden their earthly remains.
Edward forced himself not to focus on the bloodbath that was the ballroom. While he’d been moving amongst the wounded, helping, shifting from one to another, focused on the tasks, he could put it away. Now, the smells of blood and death sickened him.
“What’s his agenda?” Rouse pounded a fist into his hand. “What the hell else?”
“Kingdom come,” Edward said, remembering what Rouse had said earlier. “Pete, what if they’ve got explosives?”
“None in here, not that we found. What’s the target? What’s the point? Why here?”
“Would it have been checked by the Secret Service?” Edward said, gripping Rouse’s arm, making him focus. “He got really smug when I said the ambulances were on the way.”
“No, I don’t think the Service would have checked this place. There’s gotta be a reason,” he said, perseverating on the cause and effect of the actions of the terrorists.
“Is there a Secret Service person here?” Edward asked, adding, “Still alive?”
“Samson, the one who took your place on the door. He’s Secret Service.”
“Samson!” Edward shouted, a snap of command in his voice.
“What?”
“Need you up here!”
The man limped to the stage and stared helplessly at the distance between the floor and the stage. “Can’t get up there,” he finally said, gesturing to his arm. He had it tucked into the front of his bloody tuxedo shirt. Edward had splinted it with heavy rolled cardboard from the liquor boxes behind the bar. Another compound fracture. Not as bad as the other agent’s leg, but still serious.
The sound of the grating bones reverberated in his mind. His stomach pitched and he could feel sweat rising on the back of his neck.
The man on deck wept as Edward set his arm.
“Just hang in there, man.” He’d patted the now-set arm and the man’s eyes had rolled into his head and he’d died. The injury Edward hadn’t seen, thanks to all the debris, had claimed his life. The compound fracture meant nothing.
But I just set his arm...
Then, as now, the thought echoed in his mind.
“What’cha got, Navy?” O’Keefe said, standing next to Samson. There was just enough of an edge to the question that Edward realized he’d wandered again.
“Questions,” Edward said, struggling to refocus. “Let’s go down on the floor,” he said to Rouse, “so Samson doesn’t have to crane his neck.”
They dismounted and the four men moved toward the service doors.
“All quiet?” Rouse asked the men leaning on the tables.
“A hell of a lot of screams,” one of them said, looking green.
Rouse nodded. “Hang in there.”
He turned to Samson. “Would the Secret Service have swept this building? No big-deal-people were supposed to be here, right?”
“The Joint Chiefs are a pretty big deal,” Samson said, but shook his head. “But they have their own people. Not Secret Service. I’m only here because I’m on restricted duty because of an injury,” Samson grimaced, glancing at his arm. “Guess that’s going to be a lot longer duty now.”
“But you’re here, at a gala,” Rouse said, a question in his tone.
“Yeah. Off-duty. I came with a friend who’s one of the organizers. Big fan of the DJ too, so...” he trailed off.
“Anyway. What gets swept is above my paygrade,” he said. “But they usually sweep anything holding a gala. Pro forma. But that would have been a couple of days out on a deal like this. Only so many sweeper teams, right? So if they did sweep it, it was three, maybe four days ago, then they moved to the really key points to sweep day-befores and day-ofs and station sweeps if POTUS or FGOTUS or VPOTUS and company were to be there.”
“FGOTUS?”
“First Gentleman of the United States. Best they could come up with.”
Samson was looking white around the lips, so Edward dragged up a chair. “Sit,” he said. And when the man looked a little belligerent, he said, “Doctor’s orders.”
“Yeah, yeah,” Samson groused, but sat. He picked up where he’d left off. “Joint Chiefs were here, like I said. Two expected, two not, but none of the serious bigwigs were expected, otherwise there would have been serious presence.”
It took Edward a minute to realize he meant security presence. He repressed a smirk. He’d considered the security presence pretty high, all things considered.
Shows what you know, Probie.
“POTUS and FGOTUS should be at, or headed to, the big donor-to-the-party affair at the Kennedy Center at this point,” Samson continued, oblivious to Edward’s wandering thoughts. “VPOTUS is with them. He and his wife went to a couple of other events, then they were to link up, ride together.”
“Unofficial stops?”
“They make ‘em,” Samson said with a grimace. “Every new POTUS does. Obama went to a restaurant, Damien’s on 16th is there now. I heard Reagan stopped at some woman’s house on Capitol Hill. She’d only donated like five thousand to his campaign, but his point was taking care of the small donors –-the real people-- he said.”
“Yeah, but would they have stopped here?”
There was a shout for Rouse from one of the guys at the service doors, and Rouse ran over to them. There was some shouting throu
gh the doors, another round of gunfire in the outer halls. After a few moments, Rouse turned back toward the room.
“That was a spook named Greg,” Rouse said, and Edward saw O’Keefe wince. “He’s on the job with the Bureau. He said he has help from another agency person. They’re only two of them, but he said they’d taken out a few of the baddies. Corridors are still hot with gunfire, so not an option to try and get wounded out yet. Greg’s going for the roof, trying to get word out.”
Not much two more people could do in the ballroom, even if they’d trusted them enough to let them in. If they made the roof and got help, all the better. There were nods all around, even from Samson.
Samson shook his head, then looked like he regretted it. He rubbed his temple, but continued. “Back to the point. Doubt this would have been an unscheduled stop. Women were obviously big donors, and big supporters give that it was a woman running, but the women in this organization were, forgive me, small potatoes.” He rubbed at his head again.
“Samson,” Edward said, with immediate concern. “You need to lie down. Consider yourself off duty.”
Edward took his arm, helped him out of the chair. “Right over here,” he said, leading the man to a clear spot in front of the stage near some of the other wounded.
“Retta!”
“Here!” she said, popping to the edge of the stage. “I was just checking on Sylvia.”
“Any change?”
“She’s awake, sort of. Disoriented.”
“Awake’s good, for now. I need you to get Cheryl Parkerston’s aspirin.”
She looked puzzled, but disappeared.
“Samson,” Edward said. “When did the headache start?”
Samson looked surprised, but answered. “Just a little while ago. After you set the arm.”
Edward nodded.
“Here,” Retta said, tossing him the bottle. He plucked three pills from the bottle and tossed it back.
“Thanks.” To Samson, he said. “I’m going to get you something to take these with. Then I want you to sit here with your feet up and take it easy. I’m worried about blood clots,” he said, when Samson protested. “They can kill you as quickly as a bullet, so just do it.”