by Eric Beetner
I cranked the engine on the Vespa and looked at the digital clock on the panel. 8:45. I immediately thought back to what I witnessed of Sam bargaining with Calder and Rizzo. Part of the deal was to eliminate my entire office. Shit, I wanted to say.
If I was her that would be the first place I’d start. And hey, what a coincidence, I am her!
The DEA opened for business at 9 a.m., but some people arrived by eight-thirty. I was at least twenty minutes away. If Sam planned on taking out anyone in the office, I hoped like hell she put it on tomorrow’s agenda.
I slammed my eyes back shut and scanned the frequency. Please, please let this be the moment when I realize everything the night before had been a fever dream after I crawled away from the burning wreckage of my car. My head clear again I could return to my life and go meet Lucas at his non-burned-down house and dive into all the wedding planning I’d been putting off.
Nope.
Grainy pictures popped across the black screen of my closed eyelids like watching a stolen cable feed. A familiar wall, familiar greenery, a familiar sign. She was walking. Walking in to my place of work. No one would question her, no one would suspect a thing.
And she promised to kill them all.
I steered the scooter away from my overnight parking spot, nearly slamming into the garbage truck as it plunked down the empty dumpster with an H-bomb crash.
God, I wanted to speed. I wanted to jump medians and go the wrong way down one way streets. Instead I stayed at 35 mph in crosstown traffic watching the blue digital numbers climb up, up, up as the clock neared nine o’clock.
I could pull over and call, but what would I say? “Hello, am I there yet?” or “Whatever you do, don’t let me in until I get there.”
I could call in a bomb threat. Government agencies take those incredibly seriously. Of course, a fake threat would be a lie and I couldn’t lie. Fuck me, I wanted to scream.
I lucked out with the light across La Salle Street which saved me a good two or three minutes. I pulled into the parking lot at 9:03.
At the gate I realized I didn’t have my parking card. That would be melted into the cup holder of my car back at Calder and Rizzo’s place. I backed up and had to ride almost a full lap of the block to find street parking. The good girl in me wouldn’t be so rude as to stuff the scooter between two meters and walk away. No, instead I made a note of the parking hours and street sweeping days. I had two hours of legal parking time at which point I could be involved in a life and death struggle with my evil twin and my damaged brain would make me stand up and walk outside to move my car to the opposite side of the street. I felt like a robot with a prime directive.
I removed my helmet and shuddered to think what my hair looked like. I felt in may pocket and dug out a hair band, pulling my auburn rat’s next into a bouncy ponytail.
Speeding was verboten but running was allowed. I sprinted around the block, trying hard to raise a view through Sam’s eyes without closing mine. I guess being so close did the trick. Weird double images plastered over my view of the street like movies projected on plastic wrap.
I saw her view of a hallway. She stood still, waiting for something or someone. I didn’t immediately recognize the space. It wasn’t my office or even my floor.
As I turned into the plaza and past the fountain it hit me. She was in the basement. There wasn’t much down there. There was the armory though.
I burst through the doors and slowed, trying to catch my breath. I knew by stepping into the lobby my movements were being recorded by no less than six angles of video. I also knew she had been captured on the same tape only a few minutes before. Good luck explaining that to the team after this was all over.
I lost the feed of Sam’s view when my brain turned its focus to where I was. I approached the security desk and vaguely recognized the man behind it. He wasn’t anyone I was on a first name basis with and that would make my task harder.
“Hi,” I said between deep sucking breaths. “I must have left my I.D. card upstairs.”
“I’m sorry I can’t let you in without I.D.,” he said, sticking to the books. My goody-goody brain would have liked that in a man.
A hundred little white lies buzzed in my head like mosquitoes, and yet I couldn’t spit a single one out. I stood there with my mouth gaping open and shut, fish-like as I tried to get my tongue to form the words of a serviceable tale to tell the jerk with one hand on the rule book.
He must have gotten tired of waiting for me. “I’m sorry ma’am. No admittance without swiping your card.” He pointed to a small sign that said the same thing.
“I think if you check you’ll find I’m already swiped in.”
“Ma’am?”
“I should already be swiped in. Can you check please?” Not a lie. A very dangerous truth.
He knew me. He had to. I’d seen him enough times and unless Sam figured out some way to sneak in, he’d seen her parading around in here with my face all over her not ten minutes before.
“I’ll check.”
“Thanks. Please hurry, though.”
While he punched passwords into his computer I tuned in to Sam’s frequency again. It wasn’t good.
She walked forward. Adam, the gun locker attendant, unlocked the steel cage where he worked signing in and out guns and other arms for training or assignments. We weren’t a military base in terms of our stockpile, but enough to do some serious damage if one were so inclined. And she was twenty million dollars worth of inclined.
“Hurry please,” I reminded the security guard. I shut my eyes to better watch the view but I heard his keystrokes slow down out of spite for the way I kept trying to hurry him along like an impatient Park Avenue trophy wife.
Adam turned as she reached him. He managed to get out a pleasant, “Oh, hi Samanth—” before she hit him in the chest and pushed them both inside the cage.
I wanted to jump security and head for the elevator, sprint through the metal detector and go save Adam, but of course my new fucking behavior limitations wouldn’t allow it. I had to sit by and wait while some spiteful part timer slowpoked another man to death.
Sam reached out with both arms and put one hand under Adam’s chin, another at his temple, and twisted. The bones in his neck snapped, sounding like static. His body went instantly limp and she let him fall to the ground. She turned and we got a full view of an impressive row of handguns mounted on the wall, each on its own peg with a serial number below. She took a gun in each hand like those stupid Chinese action movies Lucas liked to watch.
I crumpled and put my head down on the security desk. Adam was a sweet man who didn’t deserve to die.
“Okay, I see that you’re swiped in,” security said. “Next time though—”
“I need to fill out the form and then I can go up. Do you have it?” How the hell did I know about the form? What regulations binder did I read that in? And why the hell did I read the entire thing, lodging arcane rules in the back of my brain like a tic tac lost behind a desk for years until my office gets painted and suddenly there it is?
My fingers drummed impatiently while I waited for him to find the form. How do I explain my urgency and not have him throw me in the holding cell I know is right off the main lobby? I decided to save my speech for director Cranner. If only I could get to him before she does.
I’m through the metal detector without a hitch and on to the elevator to the fourth floor. I tune back in to see what she’s up to and I see the long barrels of two assault rifles bobbing in front of her as she charged up a set of stairs. I had a little time, but how much?
The elevator, like everything in my life right then, moved slower than shit. I watched the numbers light up and listened. Ding—ding—ding—BANG.
The elevator opened and the volume turned up on the shooting. I couldn’t tell where it came from. Somewhere in the bullpen. Three rows of desks, eight to a row. Last year they took down the cubicle walls to encourage “a
n open exchange of ideas and information.” After homeland security got spanked for not telling each other vital information we all had to suffer.
Not that the padded cardboard walls of a cubicle would have done much against an assault rifle.
I heard screams, both male and female. Dutiful little agents—they always were an on-time bunch.
The reception desk sat empty in front of me. I only hoped Rachel made it out or was still stuck in traffic. I saw movement beyond the half wall behind Rachel’s desk. A female agent, I knew her by Greene—all government agencies are big on using last names—came sprinting out from the bullpen. She held her hand up over her head the way you see hostages fleeing the scene once the cops decide it’s shootout time.
I didn’t know what to do, I almost waved, but she never saw me. A quick volley of shots from the assault rifle and Greene’s head went red. A half dozen bullets ripped into her skull and painted the potted plant next to reception. I didn’t see Sam and with the range on that gun she could still be fifty yards deep into the offices, but I wasn’t going to hang around to see.
I ducked left and made for director Cranner’s office. I serpentined down the hall as I moved farther away from the shooting. It surprised me, actually, my body was allowed to throw open the door without knocking. Must have been the, “open door policy” he talked about. This had to be the first time the policy was ever used.
He wasn’t there. Like an idiot I looked behind the door. Nope. Empty. I started to panic. Of the ten thousand or so thoughts blasting through my brain not unlike the rounds moving through Sam’s rifle, one stuck. Yes, she had the drop on them but she was firing into a room of highly trained agents, each one with a firearm on their hip. What happens if someone kicks into counter-terrorism mode and shoots back, killing her. We didn’t know what would happen when she faced me down and I didn’t know what would happen then.
A toilet flushed. I’d forgotten Cranner had a private bathroom in his office. He came out still working on his belt.
“What the hell is going on out here?”
“Sir, this is going to be hard to explain.”
“Is that gunfire?”
The bursts had slowed down, so had the screams.
“Sir, we are under attack by an agent of Calder and Rizzo.”
Cranner opened his top desk drawer and pulled out a revolver to make Clint Eastwood drool. “How they hell did he get in here?”
“It’s a she, sir.”
“What?” Cranner, a stout man in his early fifties, wasn’t one for pussyfooting around. He used the expression often in meetings. “Stop pussyfootin’ around and shoot straight,” he’d say. He always liked me because he was from Texas too. His drawl put my citified country twang to shame.
“There’s been some sort of…incident.”
Cranner punched a button on his desk and a grid of nine video monitors sprang to life. I kind of wished I’d been able to finish my explanation first, but this would help. The images on the screens were grim. The bullpen was a war zone. Shattered coffee mugs, overturned chairs, lifeless legs draped over fallen computer monitors told me everyone in the room was dead.
Rachel, the sweet Michigan girl at reception darted out from under her desk. She sprinted for the elevators but I heard the loud crack of a 9-mm pistol. Rachel fell, a wide spray of blood spitting from a fresh chest wound. A well placed round. We were markswomen, Sam and I. And at close range like that, Rachel was better off. A single kill shot tore open her heart from behind. She’d be dead before she hit the carpet.
Cranner got his first look at the assailant. Sam stepped forward into view with the pistol out in front of her. The two assault rifles had been discarded. I saw the second handgun tucked in her waistband.
The tiny image, high angle and haze of gun smoke in the air meant Cranner didn’t immediately recognize her face. Plus, it’s crazy to think the same person in your office telling you about the shooter is the shooter.
She stepped forward until she stood almost directly under the camera, the top of her head all we could see. She loomed over the fallen Rachel and fired again, straight down. A head shot. I didn’t have to see it to know.
“I’m gonna end this,” Cranner said and raised his gun, Wyatt Earp style, in his hand and made for the door. That man was born a hundred fifty years too late.
“Director Cranner, there’s something you should know.”
He stopped at the doorway and turned to face me. I froze. I didn’t know what to say or how to say it quick enough to satisfy him.
“It’s not me out there.” He looked puzzled. I repeated, “It’s not me.”
He turned to go hunting and bumped into Moskin, another female agent who shook like a terrified cartoon mouse. Bravo to the ladies for apparently being the only ones to get away. I knew it meant the men were in there trying to shoot it out, medals and memoirs on their minds.
Moskin wasn’t a field agent, all this gunfire would be a stranger to her. And I had no idea she could move so fast on those pudgy legs.
“Moskin, get inside,” Cranner said and gave her a shove into the office while he barricaded the door with his girth.
Moskin tumbled forward, struggling to get her feet under her in those work-appropriate low rise heels. When she straightened up, saving herself from a face-plant on the floor, she saw me. Her eyes went wide, obviously she thought she was seeing Sam. Or thought she was me when Sam was shooting up the place. Either way, Moskin jammed it into reverse.
A mumbling whimper came out of her as she scrambled back like a dog on a linoleum floor. I put my hands out in the universal, “I mean you no harm” motion, but she was already deep in the throes of PTSD, even before the Post-Trauma ever started.
In the doorway Cranner took a wide stance, brandished his gun in a two-handed grip and awaited his prey to make the mistake of turning down his hallway.
Moskin reversed right into him. His stance blown, Cranner flailed. Once again Moskin’s heels teetered. A shot erupted from down the hall. Blood spat from Moskin’s shoulder. She fell into Cranner’s arms just as he regained his balance.
Framed by the doorway, they looked like actors in a melodramatic play. She tilted her head up to Cranner’s face, looking at him like she was ready to give up. He held up her sagging body, ready and willing to deliver a stage cliché like, “Don’t you die on me.”
A second bullet took care of that. Moskin’s body convulsed as another slug burrowed deep in her chest. Her head fell away from her shared gaze with Cranner and I could see her body go deadweight in his arms. And with her there, he couldn’t raise his gun.
I surged forward, reaching out and grabbing on to Cranner’s arm, his light grey sport coat sprinkled with blood. I pulled hard as I motored backward into his office. Smartly, he dropped Moskin and managed to get a hand on the doorknob as I pulled him back.
I saw something else. I saw him see her.
The door slammed like another gunshot and he shook me off. He turned to me and his face registered his disbelief. He went to his bank of monitors and zeroed in on the lower left hand screen, the camera in the hallway right outside his door.
Sam looked at the camera and smiled before she shot out the doorknob.
“Whelan, what the hell—” he started to ask. When the door blew he raised his gun and let loose. She was smart and stayed outside the door, anticipating this move.
“Don’t shoot her,” I said. I wasn’t sure if my half brain thought killing was wrong or if I was afraid if he killed her, I would die.
Four shots from his revolver decimated the doorframe. Sam reached a hand around the corner and quickly followed it with a microsecond dip of her head to sight her shot. Bang! And the hand holding his gun grew a hole in it.
Clint Eastwood’s gun hit the floor.
Sam slid into the room. I backed up. I spotted the open bathroom door behind his desk and slipped inside, slamming the door and locking it, as if that would do any damn
good.
I slid down the wall and shut my eyes tight. Without even trying, and honestly I didn’t want to see, as soon as my eyes closed I saw through her eyes.
She moved quickly over to Cranner who hunched over, clutching at his hand with its fresh stigmata. He didn’t scream. He bit through the pain, Texas-style.
I could tell she knew I was watching. Don’t ask me how, but I knew. She raised the gun to his forehead. He looked her in the eye, and by extension, me.
“Why, Samantha? Why are you…?” he trailed off.
She took the gun down away from his head. I’m not dumb enough to think of this as good news. She took hold of his tie in one hand, wrapping the Republican red around her fist. The images coming through were clearer than ever. I tried opening my eyes to stop the show but it remained, pasted over my view of the plain white bathroom walls and underside of the sink.
She reached down onto his desk, turning her head with every motion so I could get a good look at everything she did. She lifted Cranner’s glass plaque for the 2006 Field Director of the year award. We all went to the award dinner. His wife cried. Oh, Christ, his wife. Why was I powerless to stop my other half from doing this?
She smashed the curved glass award on the desk and the remaining jagged piece in her hand resembled a shark’s tooth. I watched projections on the inside of my own eyeballs as she lifted him by her fist wrapped in his tie and then stabbed him in the throat with the glass. She punched forward until it dug in and then ripped out to the right with a twist, tearing the intricate biology of his neck to shreds.
The way blood arced up past our view I knew some spray landed on her face. I felt phantom heat radiate through my cheek and I knew I felt Cranner’s hot blood.
I locked my eyes shut again, trying like hell to escape the pictures. Nothing worked. I watched as she held him up in her hands. I felt my own muscles strain with his weight. Finally she let him go and he fell, bouncing off the desk and sinking to a heap on the floor.