by David Grace
He started the engine and made ready to flee the neighborhood as soon as he triggered the bomb sewn into Kathryn’s coat.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
When she reached the street Kathryn instantly knew where she was. There was her father’s house only a hundred yards away! A policeman was standing at the front door! She was safe!
Tim Voss was the first to spot her racing down the street still a couple of houses away. By the time he activated his radio she was almost even with the surveillance van and was running toward him at top speed.
“I’ve got a female heading for my position!” Voss shouted into his mike and then Kathryn entered the pool of lights set up in front of Hopper’s home.
“Help me!” she screamed.
“It’s Kathryn Hopper!” Voss shouted almost as loudly and ran toward her. Inside, Justice Hopper heard his daughter’s cry and then Voss’s message. He would recognize her voice anywhere.
“Kathryn!” he shouted and ran for the door. “Kathy!”
In the bouncing picture on Donald’s iPad the Secret Service guard and the woman almost collided at the curb. For Kane time seemed to stand still and all the pieces that were spinning inside his head suddenly snapped together.
“No!” Greg shouted. Kane raced after Hopper and tackled him as he was reaching for doorknob.
“What are you doing?” Hopper shouted then hit the floor screaming, “Let me go! Let me go!”
Kane struggled to his feet and dragged the Justice back down the hall where Dohenny stared at them both in shock. Greg practically threw Hopper into the Secret Service agent’s arms. “Keep him here!” he ordered and ran back to the front of the house. Outside Kathryn was hugging Tim Voss and sobbing, “I’m Kathryn Hopper. Help me! Help me!”
The picture on Donald’s monitor had gone black when Kathryn embraced the guard. Now, hunched over the iPad he listened to the woman’s cries and waited for Voss to lead her inside for her climactic reunion with the Justice.
“You’re safe now, Ms. Hopper. It’s all right. You’re safe,” Voss told her and turned just as the door flew open. For a second Voss froze and then Kane was on them. Barely slowing down he grabbed Kathryn’s collar and dragged her toward the middle of the street.
“What are you doing?” Kathryn screamed. Kane ignored her as he fumbled with the overcoat’s buttons, tearing them loose one after the other. On Donald’s monitor the picture was a jumbled mess. The woman was spinning around, the camera wobbling and pointing in half a dozen directions. Donald caught a glimpse of the uniformed guard looking toward the lens and then disappearing off the screen.
“I want to see my father!” Kathryn shouted. As the last button tore away she slipped free of the coat and lurched toward the house. For half a second Kane found himself holding the empty garment then dropped it and ran after her.
“Shit!” Donald cursed and pressed the “Talk” button. The explosion threw Kane five feet forward and plastered Kathryn and Voss against the front door. Black, greasy smoke boiled from the shattered asphalt and the team in the van ducked as debris peppered its sheet-metal sides.
Ears ringing, blood dripping from his nose, Kane struggled to his feet and stumbled over to Hopper’s daughter just as Dohenny, gun drawn, threw open the reinforced front door.
“Booby trapped,” Kane shouted, his hearing gone. “Search her for any other bombs.” It was like talking in a dream. Dohenny led Kathryn back into the street and forced her to remove her shoes and then her jumpsuit, finally covering her naked body with his coat. Kathryn cried hysterically but crying was better than dead. Shaking, shivering, wrapped in Dohenny’s arms, she was finally allowed inside. Shell shocked, Kane and Voss and the two agents from the van watched the smoke curl up into the night sky.
A block away Donald eased out of the Wedemeyer’s driveway and idled cautiously down the street. He was booked onto a redeye leaving BWI in an hour and a half and he cursed every foot of the drive there thinking about all the hard work and planning that had suddenly gone so wrong.
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
Dohenny stood like a man in the eye of a hurricane helplessly watching chaos swirl all around him. His best witness, Kathryn Hopper, was hysterical and even if she weren’t she couldn’t be questioned because the explosion had destroyed her hearing. If and when it would come back he had no idea. He wanted to summon the closest ambulance but couldn’t, fearing that a fake unit staffed by more assassins might be parked around the corner poised for just such an opportunity. Instead he had to wait for a medical team that had been vetted by the Secret Service which meant that for the moment all he could do was treat everyone with basic first aid.
Kane was deaf and sporting a bruised face and skinned elbows and knees but was otherwise unhurt. Voss had been slammed backwards against the front door and probably had a concussion. Hopper’s daughter’s face was covered in blood and Dohenny guessed that her nose was broken. Luckily the booby-trapped coat had been lying on the ground when it went off and it had directed most of its blast more or less straight up. Dozens of ten-penny nails studded the limbs of the curb-side sycamore like porcupine quills.
Within minutes the D.C. police blocked off the street and a wall of uniforms surrounded the house. The ambulance finally arrived but the paramedics were thoroughly searched and their IDs confirmed before they were allowed inside. When they left with Kathryn Hopper a few minutes later Dohenny put armed men in the bus while Voss and Kane followed behind in a D.C. cruiser.
Dohenny refused to allow Justice Hopper to leave the residence, at one point threatening to have him physically restrained. Maybe that was part of the killer’s plan – get the Justice running off to the hospital after his daughter and ambush him there. At this point anything was possible and Dohenny had no intention of letting Hopper outside the ring of armed men who now surrounded him.
Dohenny had already given Millingham a quick briefing and a new safe house was being prepared. Within the hour a new protection team would take Hopper to the secret location under heavy guard. What a fucking mess!
It took about forty-five minutes for Kane’s hearing to return and he spent the time writing up a statement on a clipboard he borrowed from the admitting nurse. He had planned on giving it to whatever Secret Service agent showed up to debrief him but to his surprise his first visitor was not one of Dohenny’s people but Allison Varner.
“You look like hell,” she said, trying to smile but not doing a very good job of it. Kane didn’t know what to say to that so he said nothing. “Are you OK?” she asked a moment later and stroked his torn-up palm.
“It’s just a couple of bumps and scrapes.”
“They told Uncle Arthur that it was a bomb of some kind.” It wasn’t exactly a question but it was close enough.
“They, he . . . whoever grabbed her, dressed Hopper’s daughter in a bomb-vest, well, a bomb-coat, then let her escape, figuring that she’d run straight to her father and the blast would get them both.”
“Oh my God! That’s barbaric. How did you know?”
For a second Kane wondered if she meant him, personally, or all of them as a group, then decided it didn’t matter.
“Just basic police work,” he said with a shrug then winced as every muscle in this body throbbed in time with his beating heart.
“Do you have a concussion?” Allison asked in worried tone.
“No, I’m just banged up, that’s all.”
“But they’re going to check you in, to be sure.”
“I’m only staying long enough to give them my statement then I’m going home.” Kane held up the clipboard then grimaced at a sudden, shooting pain.
“You’re a mess,” Allison said taking a mental inventory of his oozing scrapes and torn clothes. “Where’s your car?”
“I don’t know. Back at Hopper’s place I suppose.”
Allison stood then leaned forward and gently pulled Kane to his feet. “Come on.”
“I have to be–”
“You ca
n talk to them tomorrow.”
“But–”
“Do you know anything that can help them catch the man who did this?”
“No,” Kane admitted.
“Then it can wait.”
I didn’t see this coming, Kane thought and decided that some kind of maternal instinct must have kicked in. Allison looked as if she intended to half carry him like a football player being helped off the field. He waved her back and limped toward the door on his own, though he did let her hold his hand.
She brought him to her home, a two-bedroom condo not far from the Watergate and peeled off his clothes while the bathtub filled with steaming water.
“It looks like all the good stuff’s OK,” Kane said when his jockeys came down. Allison gave him a “Don’t be a juvenile” look and helped him into the bath. Kane made little ohh, ahhh, ohhh sounds as jolts from his strained muscles competed with the delicious wave of heat flowing over his skin.
He closed his eyes for a few seconds then looked up and wanted to say Take off your clothes and join me but instead of desire her face showed only the concerned expression of a mother for an injured child, That’s the face of a care giver, Kane thought, the look she probably gave her husband a thousand times during his grim crawl toward death. Greg closed his eyes and let the heat soak into his flesh. Later she handed him a pair of men’s pajamas and let him slide into bed next to her. Why does she still have her dead husband’s clothes? Kane asked himself though he already knew the answer. He’s not dead to her and she’s not ready to let him go.
“Don’t get any ideas,” Allison said just before turning out the light. “You’re only here because I don’t know what else to do with you. Your clothes are all bloody and your car’s halfway across town.”
“And besides, I’m a hero,” Kane said, smiling.
“Oh, really?”
“Who do you think ripped the suicide coat off the Judge’s daughter?” Kane answered, pleased with himself.
“What! You pulled a bomb off her just before it exploded?”
“All in a day’s work,” Greg said, closing his eyes and thus missing the terrified look that washed over Allison’s face. After a few seconds of silence he opened them and saw her terrified expression slowly draining away, replaced by something akin to cold fury. Allison snapped off the light and, back toward him, curled herself into a ball.
I guess I’m not getting laid tonight, Kane thought then went cold when, almost silently, she began to cry. Kane tried not to hear her tears but that only enhanced his senses making every whimper and sob as sharp as the sound of breaking glass. Finally, her crying stilled but from the little shivers that rippled through the bed he knew that she was still awake. Eventually the darkness closed in on him and his mind slipped back into well-worn paths – Danny was getting close to finding Farber’s address. When they grabbed him could they make him talk? What had he done with Jason? His nephew was dead, of that Kane had no doubt, but like a soldier vanished in some foreign land, Jason’s body still needed to be brought home. And who is Farber working for? Still Ryan Munroe? Was Brownstein’s killing really about drugs or was it something worse? Kane’s brain burned through plans and options, ideas and schemes until, finally, consciousness slipped away.
* * *
Like a light being triggered in a darkened room Kane found himself suddenly back in Tommy’s bar. In the shadows Sadie limped to the table where Big Jesse, Little Jesse, Denny and Phil were draining the last swallows from their mugs. On the other side of the room billiard balls made a ringing CLACK as Tweaker’s break sent them scattering over the felt. Across the table from him Tommy raised his beer.
“Tommy,” Greg said, “we’re close, real close to finding out what happened to Jason.” Kane smiled encouragingly but Tommy only frowned.
“And then what?”
“And then we’ll make the bastard who killed him pay.”
Tommy gave Greg a disappointed tilt of his head. “Will that make your life better?”
“He’s your son. Don’t you care about getting justice for him?”
“Are you doing it for Jason or for yourself?” Tommy asked.
Evil needs to be punished Greg wanted to scream but Tommy’s placid expression smothered the thought. Tommy paused then took a swallow of beer.
“If you catch this man, will you finally be happy?” Tommy asked.
“I’ll be happier,” Greg said and lifted his bottle in a little salute.
“And what will you do after that?”
“Then I’m going to find Farber’s boss and stop whatever scheme he’s running.”
“And then will you be happy?” Tommy asked in a soft voice.
“Life isn’t necessarily about being happy,” Greg snapped.
“You still aren’t listening to me, Greg.”
“What are you talking about?”
“A young man is on a horse, galloping down the road,” Tommy said. “As he nears the bend a traveler at the side of the road turns toward him and shouts, ‘Where are you going in such a hurry?’ and the young man shouts back, ‘I don’t know. Ask the horse.’“
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“It means that you need to get off the horse.”
“Jesus, talking to you is like dealing with some fucking fortune teller. Can’t you just tell me something straight out instead of all this mumbo jumbo?”
“Do you remember when you got out of the hospital and they made you go to that anger-management therapist?”
“How could I forget twenty hours of concentrated bullshit?” Kane slugged down the last of his beer and waved the empty bottle in Sadie’s direction.
“Do you remember the little book they gave you to read?”
“That Buddhist crap? Again, how could I forget? ‘Practice mindfulness. Maintain a spirit of peace. Follow your breathing, in and out.’ Jesus!”
A look of infinite sadness filled Tommy’s eyes.
“That’s not what the book said. That’s what you wrote on the wall you built around yourself to avoid understanding what it said because you knew that if you could avoid listening to the book’s message then you wouldn’t have to change.”
“Who are you and what have you done with my brother?” Kane asked with a sour grin. “Jesus, tell me something that makes some sense. Where’s Farber? Where’s Munroe? Why did they disappear Brownstein? What are they planning? Tell me what I want to know.”
Tommy frowned then got a faraway look in his eyes. “All right, Greg. I’ll tell you something important, something you won’t let yourself know but something that you need to know if you’re going to survive.”
Finally, Kane thought and felt his hand gripping the bottle so tightly that he thought that the glass might break.
“The thing is, Greg, you’re not really alive. You’re a walking corpse. Every minute of your life you’re consumed by your past and terrified of your future, and in between those two you’re drowning in your frustration and your rage. You’re a zombie, Greg, and anger and fear and regret have squeezed all of the real life out of you. You spend half your day imagining that if you can just run fast enough you’ll be able to find happiness tomorrow and the rest of it convinced that if you struggle hard enough you’ll be able to reach back in time and somehow fix everything that you think went wrong, and between wallowing in the past and dreaming about the future you’ve left no room to be alive today.
“But here’s the good news. You can be reborn, Greg, you can live again, but only if you accept it that yesterday is gone and tomorrow doesn’t exist and that all of your life is lived only in the here and now.”
Kane stared dumbly across the table. He had hoped for some real answers, ‘Go here’ ‘Do this’ ‘Do that’ and instead all he’d gotten was the same hippy-dippy jibber-jabber that the so-called therapist had babbled at him two years ago.
“I don’t understand a word you’ve said,” Kane told Tommy, hopelessly disappointed.
“I know,” Tommy repli
ed in a voice of limitless sadness. “That’s what’s breaking my heart.”
“Tommy–”
“Let the anger go, Greg, please. If you don’t, no one can save you.”
How the hell am I supposed to do that? Kane wanted to scream but before he could get the words out Tommy and Sadie and the bar and everything else disappeared.
Greg’s eyes popped open and he found himself staring into the shadows above Allison’s bed. Beside him he heard her breathing softly. What kind of a welcome will I get when she wakes up and finds me next to her? he wondered. Will she still be upset? Will she be up for a little fooling around? Will– then Kane stopped himself and a strange thought entered his mind. You’re alive, it whispered, in a soft bed, next to a beautiful woman who cares, at least a little, about you. Don’t worry about tomorrow. Tomorrow doesn’t exist. It’s a myth, a fantasy, an illusion. Be happy in this instant. Enjoy the now.
His questions forgotten, Kane allowed a smile to slip across his face, closed his eyes and slept.
CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
To call the media coverage of the attack on Justice Hopper a firestorm would have been an understatement. As Carl Feeney watched the drama play out on Fox News he felt as if something soft and diseased had died in his stomach and the rot was spreading inch by inch through the rest of his body. Hopper’s daughter kidnapped, fitted with some kind of a suicide vest and sent off to blow up the Judge in his own home sounded like something from an Al Qaida terror manual. And on top of that it hadn’t worked. Hopper was still alive.
The TV showed endless videos of police blockades at both ends of his street. The Attorney General announced that the daughter had been sent off to some secret location surrounded by half a dozen armed bodyguards. The more he thought about it the more Feeney doubted that Hopper was even living at his home any more. The government probably had him stashed in some safe house and would be delivering him to the Supreme Court every day in an armored car.