The Coalition: A Novel of Suspense

by Samuel Marquis

  “There’s been a shooting. We’re sealing off the area.”

  “Oh my God, how terrible.”

  “Have you seen anyone suspicious?”

  “No, I’m supposed to meet my husband in a few minutes. We’re visiting from Boston.” Her face turned fretful. “Do you think it’s safe with a...with a gunman on the loose?”

  Suddenly, his radio crackled again.

  “It’s me, Agent Weiss! Two guys are about to come out the front door...I can see them through the glass! They’re...they’re wearing uniforms...maintenance workers or something! What should I do?”

  The rookie was clearly agitated. Shit, this could be it—I’d better get my ass over there. “Just calm down, Wedge! Stop and hold ’em—I’ll be right there!”

  “Okay, but—”

  “Just hang tight! I’m on my way!” He turned back toward the woman, who looked at him with a combination of dumb puzzlement and fear. He couldn’t waste any more time with her; he had to get to the front entrance, and fast.

  His voice was now clipped. “You’ll be fine, ma’am. Find your husband—I gotta go!”

  He dashed off.

  Skyler gave a little smile of triumph, continued two blocks away to a parking lot, calmly took apart her stroller, and stuffed it in her rental car with the rest of her belongings.

  Then she drove to Colorado Springs.

  CHAPTER 8

  BENJAMIN BRADFORD LOCKE pulled his Cadillac Seville into the parking lot of the American Patriots headquarters, took his designated spot bearing his gold-embossed nameplate, and quietly turned off the ignition. Stepping from the plush vehicle, he hit the door-lock button and sniffed contentedly at the salubrious late fall air. The ornate spires of St. Mary’s Catholic Cathedral loomed majestically to the northwest, like sharply faceted emeralds against the pastel dusk. Beyond the church, Pikes Peak and other rugged granitic massifs stretched toward the heavens, reminding him of one of the major reasons he had moved to Colorado thirty years ago. The mountains tugged at his soul and made him feel closer to God.

  He started for the front entrance. Colorado Springs was pleasantly serene on this late Sunday afternoon. Across the street, an elderly woman with a purse was getting into her car, but there was no one else around. Locke waved to her and smiled. She waved back and slid her plump derrière into the driver’s seat. He continued on to the front door of American Patriots—or AMP (pronounced A-M-P with each letter sounded out individually like F-B-I)—as the reputable, charitable, not-for-profit Christian organization was known in abbreviated form by its countless loyal members and the national media.

  Out of nowhere, he heard the sound of running footsteps. Looking up in startlement, he saw a sudden blur of movement across the street: the elderly woman was under attack. A dusky-faced man with a ragged beard and disheveled street clothes had pried open the driver’s side door and was engaged in a tug-of-war with the poor woman over her purse.

  “Stop that at once!” yelled Locke.

  The thief paused a moment to look at him, appraising the threat from across the wide street. He quickly decided that the distance between them was too great and jerked harder on the purse, struggling to tear it from the surprisingly tenacious woman’s arms.

  Locke looked around. The street was deserted. It was no use calling out for help—he would have to stop the thief on his own.

  Resolute as a guided missile, he dashed across the street to help the woman, who was screaming at the top of her lungs and clinging to her purse as if it held her entire life savings.

  “Help! Help me!”

  Locke hit the far curb just as the man ripped the purse from her hand. The feisty woman, who had been dragged several feet from her car, tumbled to the asphalt parking lot as the thief jerked himself free from her talon-like clasp and darted down the sidewalk. But Locke had been anticipating the thief’s next move and the American Patriots’ director and former Crimson Tide defensive end, still spry on his feet at sixty-two, was in position.

  It was a classic clothesline tackle. One instant the thief was blazing down the sidewalk like a locomotive, purse in hand and ecstatic at his good fortune; the next he was down on the pavement flat on his back, the purse separated from his hand like a fumbled pigskin.

  His head hit the pavement with a sickening thud and he lay totally still.

  Locke made sure he was down for the count and no longer posed a threat before helping the woman to her feet, picking up her purse, and handing it back to her.

  “Here you go, ma’am. It’s all over—you’re safe now.”

  “I can’t believe that just happened. Thank you…thank you for coming to my aid.”

  “It was the least I could do.”

  He inspected the woman from head to toe to make sure she hadn’t been injured then surveyed the thief again lying on the pavement. The bedraggled man—who was probably only thirty but looked a decade older—was still out cold. Locke hoped he hadn’t hurt the poor fellow, even if he was a thief.

  “I don’t think he’ll be stealing from anyone again anytime soon,” he said to the woman.

  “Thanks to you he won’t.” Her expression abruptly changed. “Oh my God, it’s you! You’re Benjamin Locke!”

  He smiled bashfully. “Yes, ma’am.”

  “I don’t believe this—I was just saved by Benjamin Locke? This is such an honor!”

  “It was nothing really. I’m just glad I could help.”

  The woman hugged him. “Bless you, Mr. Locke. Bless your precious heart. You are an inspiration to millions of people!”

  Locke felt mildly embarrassed. “Thank you, ma’am.”

  “I can’t wait to tell my friends and family that I was saved by Benjamin Locke!”

  “Actually, I’d prefer it if we could keep what just happened between ourselves.”

  She looked at him with puzzlement. “Keep it to ourselves? But what about that dangerous thug? He robbed me. Why we’ve got to get him off the streets. He must go to jail for what he’s done.”

  “I understand how you feel, ma’am. But I would prefer it if you would let me handle the matter in my own way.”

  She eyed him curiously.

  “I believe there’s a way we can solve this matter that is best for everyone. Here let me help you to your car.”

  Her momentary confusion gave way to complete trust. “If you say so, Mr. Locke. By the way can I have your autograph? I’m an American Patriots member you know?”

  “I didn’t know that, but I am glad to hear it.” He escorted her to her car and signed his autograph on the cover of an Air Force football game day program she handed him from the front seat.

  She clutched it to her chest like an anniversary present. “I’ll treasure this for the rest of my life! This has been such an honor!”

  “I’m just glad you’re all right.”

  She glanced down at the thief lying still on the sidewalk. “What will happen to him?”

  “Don’t worry, justice will be served. I promise.”

  She smiled at him with absolute faith and trust. “Whatever you say, Mr. Locke. I know you’ll do the right thing. You are a saint.”

  “What is your name, ma’am?”

  “Why it’s Elizabeth Gardner,” replied the elderly woman coquettishly.

  “Well, Mrs. Gardner, I’m sorry that all this happened.”

  “Oh no, this has been the greatest day of my life. Just getting the chance to meet you in person means the world to me!”

  He couldn’t help but feel a little sorry for her. After all, she had just been mugged on the street and here she was fawning over him as if he was Brad Pitt. “That’s awfully kind of you to say, Mrs. Gardner. Good day to you.”

  “No, good day to you, Mr. Locke. And thank you again for everything!”

  She smiled ebulliently, as if touched by an angel, and drove off. Locke politely waved goodbye and stepped over to the thief in the tattered clothes, who was just coming to. The man looked up in terror through his ta
ngled thatch of beard and started to back away like a crocodile along the sidewalk.

  Locke held up his hands to show he posed no threat. “I am the last person on earth you should be afraid of, son. I want to give you a second chance.”

  The man licked his cracked lips and stared incomprehensibly at him, as if he didn’t believe such kindness was possible in the world, especially for someone like him.

  “Are you without a home?”

  Squinting warily, the man gave a barely perceptible nod.

  “That is not an excuse for what you did. You have sinned against your fellow man here today. But what I want to know is whether you want a genuine shot at redemption?”

  Now the thief looked around nervously, as if calculating his chances of escape.

  “You can’t run away forever. So I’m going to ask you again. Do you want a second chance?”

  The dirty vagabond licked his lips nervously.

  “It’s a simple question. I am offering you a chance to atone for your sin, to live and prosper as a contributing member of society instead of living on the streets and stealing and begging from others to survive. The question is do you truly want a second chance in this life?”

  The man pulled nervously at his ratty beard, thinking it over. Locke saw how deeply torn and filled with self-doubt the poor fellow was. But he could not help the man if the man would not meet him halfway.

  “I know what it’s like to be without hope and to think that no one cares for you in this world. But there are people like me who do care. And God Almighty cares. Do you know who I am?”

  The man shook his head.

  Good, it’s better this way. “I want to offer you a job—a good-paying job.” He pointed across the street to the historic, Empire-era, ten-story brick building with the massive pine trees in neat, tidy, carefully-raked planters. “Do you know what that office building is?”

  Again, the thief shook his head.

  “It belongs to American Patriots. We are a not-for-profit organization dedicated to helping American families. I want you to join our flock and help you get back on your feet. I think you can do it. Do you want to give it a try?”

  The man looked across the street at the imposing building. After a moment tears came to his eyes. “I…I’d like a second chance.”

  “I think you deserve it, my son. And so does the Heavenly Father. He is rooting for you right now just as I am.”

  The man stroked his beard thoughtfully, the emotion welling up to the surface. “Do you…really…really think I can do it?”

  “I know you can. You can do anything you put your mind to. You show up tomorrow at eight a.m. to the third floor—and you will have a second chance. The job will pay twenty dollars an hour and we will train you and assist you with housing. We will help you get back on your feet and bring out the best in yourself.”

  The thief rose up from the pavement and shook off the dust, a touch of newfound pride on his haggard, bearded face. “I’m going to do it. I’ll be there—8 a.m.”

  “What is your name, my son?”

  “Brown…Peter Brown. But my friends call me Pedro.”

  “Well, Pedro, this job will not solve all your problems. But it will give you a fresh start.”

  The thief’s lips quivered ever so slightly. “That’s all any man can ask for,” he said with feeling.

  CHAPTER 9

  “WHATCHA GOT FOR ME, SPECIAL AGENT? Tell me you haven’t been playing fiddle while Rome burns to the ground,” growled Henry Copernicus Sharp, assistant special agent in charge of the FBI’s Denver field office. He stepped away from the silver Lexus he had just navigated down from Steamboat Springs. Now, three hours after the shooting, the pedestrians had cleared out of the plaza, leaving behind only Secret Service and FBI investigators and the police. A stone’s throw away at the speakers’ platform, crime scene technicians worked methodically behind the yellow tape as the last streaks of sunlight faded over the snow-capped mountains to the west.

  Before responding to his boss, Special Agent Kenneth Patton pulled up his collar, not so much to fend off the stiffening breeze as to protect himself from Henry Sharp, whose ability to intimidate was legendary throughout the Rocky Mountain Region’s FBI field and resident offices. Patton and the other young agents in the Denver office referred to him as ‘Wyatt Earp’, behind his back of course, on account of his irritating I’m-God’s-Fucking-Gift-To-Law-Enforcement and Everything-Has-To-Be-100%-By-The-Book personae.

  “We’ve shut down the whole downtown and have a dozen units in the field,” responded Patton to his boss’s querulous inquiry. “A Service crime scene search team’s working the speakers’ platform. DPD’s handling all the checkpoints. And Joint Bureau, Service, and DPD squads are canvassing witnesses.”

  “Tell me you have something on our shooter.”

  “We know where the shot came from.”

  “Are you going to tell me or do I have to guess?”

  He pointed to the towering office building a half mile away. “Fiftieth floor of the Union Plaza Building. We’ve got an ERT up there right now.”

  “I take it you got brass?”

  “No, no casings. But there’s a hole in one of the office windows the size of a soccer ball. The line of sight’s clear and the preliminary trajectory and blood spatter analysis point to the shot being fired from up there.”

  “Who’s on the fiftieth floor?”

  “The floor is leased by Front Range Investment Advisors.”

  “So the shooter cut through the window?”

  “Used some kind of special cutting tool and glass-dissolving chemicals. We’re still searching the building to make sure he’s not hiding out somewhere.”

  “Who are you liaising with from the Secret Service?”

  “Agent Taylor, Frederick Taylor. He’s the lead investigator attached to the personal protection detail. We’ll be talking with him in a minute.”

  They were stopped by two cops at a checkpoint. Flashing their FBI creds, they walked over to the yellow tape and stared at the speakers’ platform. Six Service crime scene investigators labored in silence: a photographer, a computer mapper, two ballistics extraction techs, and, in the grass nearby, two magnetometer sweepers. Patton grimaced at the sight of the heavy bloodstains on the platform. He glanced at Sharp, thinking he would probably be having the same reaction. But all he saw was a look of cold analytical detachment.

  “Pick up any suspects?”

  “The Service is holding eight men for questioning. Two maintenance workers who were in the building at the time of the shooting—and six others.”

  “What about the person who works in the office? You talk to him or her?”

  “Name’s Lee Wadsworth Brock, investment manager. Seems like a regular business guy.” He quickly told him about the hair samples and campaign buttons he’d found in the office. Sharp responded with a grunt, then, with no visible change of expression, asked, “What about eyewitnesses?”

  “We’ve tracked down six employees who were inside at the time of the shooting, but they didn’t see anything. We’re still completing the floor-by-floor search and canvassing witnesses.”

  Sharp gave a nod and stared off in silence at the technicians. The Montana native looked more like a cowboy than a senior FBI agent. His face was tan and angular, his frame lean and rangy, and he had a full mustache that ran out parallel to his upper lip and was tapered on both ends, like a gunfighter in an old tinny daguerreotype. Yeah, Wyatt Earp all right, only without the Boss of the Plains hat and Colt .45 Peacemaker.

  “All right, here’s how it’s going to work, Special Agent. The attorney general’s spoken with both directors. They’ve decided the Bureau’s going to be the lead on the case, with the Secret Service in a supporting role.”

  “Is Washington calling the shots?”

  “No, it happened here and we have the staff to run it, so it’ll be handled out of Denver. We’ll be getting support from other field offices though as the need arises.”


  “Who’s going to be the case agent?”

  There was a moment’s hesitation, a narrowing of the eyes. “Will’s giving it to you.”

  He felt a little twitch pass across his face. The message was clear: His boss Wyatt Earp didn’t think he should be given the case, but his boss’s boss—Will Nicholson, the special agent in charge of the Denver field office—very much did. In fact, the SAC was giving him the opportunity of a lifetime and Patton decided right then and there that he would damn well take advantage of it. Will Nicholson’s message too was clear: Catch the governor’s killer, Ken, and the Domestic Terrorism desk is yours!

  In fact, Patton had already applied for the DT supervisor’s job. But he was unlikely to land it without having won another big case. He had put away Stump Jurgens, the mosque-burning white supremacist, but that was six months ago. He was also facing stiff competition from more experienced agents at HQ and other field offices. Will Nicholson and one of the Denver office’s two assistant special agents in charge were big supporters, which normally would have given him the inside track over his rivals. The problem was, Henry Sharp didn’t like him and he was the ASAC whose opinion counted most, since the Domestic Terrorism squad fell under his authority. Plus, as stellar as Patton’s performance had been over the years, he had logged only a decade with the agency and didn’t have an advanced law degree, as many of those competing against him did.

  Unfortunately, the career board that approved promotions would take all these things into account. The negatives might be enough to offset his outstanding record and favorable recommendations. But if he caught the man who had assassinated William Kieger, that would put him over the top. He would be the next supervisor of the DT desk if he brought in the president-elect’s killer—dead or alive.