by John Lutz
“Wow,” she said when he was finished. “It must’ve been hell.”
“Delilah,” said a chiding voice. It was that of a slender, dark-haired young woman, who was sitting down in an armchair and drawing the child to her.
“What?” said Delilah. “You mean hell counts too?”
The woman nodded.
Delilah raised her hands. There was a rubber band around her left wrist. She pulled it out and let it snap back. It had to sting. “That’s to remind me to watch my language. For my kid’s sake,” she explained.
He smiled. He was warming to Delilah. Her interest in his wounded hand touched him. Of course, he was aware that charming strangers was merely a trick celebrities were good at, just as Harper was good at finding parking spaces in midtown. Still, he found himself liking Delilah.
Enough to want to save her life.
She returned to the chair she’d been sitting in and waved him to one on the opposite side of the coffee table. Another woman sat down on the love seat near the fireplace. She was brunette and plump. Her face had a calm, alert expression. Harper recognized her from pictures as Nancy Kinsolving, Delilah’s oldest friend and most trusted advisor. Bobs, the big security man, had also come into the room. He didn’t sit down. Instead he paced noisily behind Harper’s chair.
He said, “Delilah, if you really want to hear this man out, okay. But I think we oughta wait till Agent Wilson gets here.”
“Agent Wilson?” said Harper.
Bobs came around the chair to look down at him. “That’s who I talked to at the FBI. She’s on her way out here by helicopter now.” He turned back to Delilah. “She wants to explain to us why everything this guy says is bullshit.”
“Bobs, watch your language,” said Delilah, looking at her daughter in the nurse’s lap.
Bobs shut his eyes and struggled with his temper. “Sorry.”
Harper said, “You might as well hear me out. It won’t take me long to make my case.”
It better not take him long, he thought. Once Frances Wilson got here he wouldn’t be doing any more talking. She’d see to that.
He leaned forward and told the rock star as briefly and forcefully as he could that the Bureau was wrong. Anthony Markman was still alive and even now preparing to strike his final victim. Harper summarized the reasoning that had led Addleman and him to conclude that the victim was Delilah.
While he spoke, Bobs paced heavily behind him, moving with precise, measured steps, like a large animal in a small cage, giving occasional grunts of disbelief or amusement. Nancy Kinsolving gazed steadily at her friend.
The star listened with lowered eyes. For a full minute after Harper finished she continued to look at the floor. Then she looked up at him.
One eyebrow rose, the upper lip curled, and suddenly she looked like Delilah. Her face was full of disdain, bravado, sexual challenge. Until now she’d been speaking softly, with a singer’s crisp enunciation. But this time she spoke in the taunting, raucous voice that had been heard from concert stages all over the world.
“So—trying to scare me, huh?”
Harper held her eye and nodded.
Bracing her feet on the edge of the coffee table, she slumped in her chair, so deeply that she was looking at him from between her bony knees. “What’s your advice, then? What do I have to do to be safe from this guy?”
“Harper wants you to hole up here, of course,” said Bobs. “Never leave the estate. Hide out from a man the FBI knows is dead.”
“Shit,” said Delilah. Then she frowned and snapped her rubber band.
Harper said, “Even that wouldn’t be enough. We have no way of knowing when and where he’ll strike. A public appearance might seem to offer him the best chance, but he got his last two victims when they were in private, seemingly secure areas. The only way for you to be safe is to get far away from Washington, D.C. I advise you to go straight home.”
“Back to LA,” said Delilah. Her lip curled again. “This is really depressing. You know why I came here in the first place?”
“I’ve heard a lot of theories.”
“I was house-hunting. I want Fatima to grow up in the country. Someplace where there are clear streams and horses. And nobody’s in show business. You know, someplace normal. Normal. And this sh—, this happens. Nancy, what do I do?”
“I have no way of knowing if he’s right about the Bomber, but I’ll tell you one thing.” Kinsolving pointed her finger at Harper. Her eyes were hard with dislike. “When that man goes back to Washington and tells the reporters about this meeting, we’ll get some very bad press.”
“I won’t be talking to reporters,” said Harper.
No one paid any attention to him. Delilah put her feet down and straightened up. “Bad press? Why? ’Cause some nut is out to kill me? They gonna make that out to be my fault, like they do everything else?”
“I won’t be talking to reporters,” Harper repeated.
“Aw, cut the shit, Harper. Everybody who talks to me talks to reporters afterward.” She snapped her rubber band and leaned back in the chair.
“And another thing,” Nancy said, “Those politicians and media types who said they’d throw parties or luncheons in your honor—they’re all going to back out as soon as word gets around.”
Delilah gave another of her stage expressions, a girlish moue of disappointment. “Even Senator Standling? But he said he was willing to defy the Christian Coalition to invite me to his home.”
“The Christian Coalition doesn’t blow people up,” said Harper.
Delilah’s expression sobered. “You really think this Markman guy is alive? And out to get me? You’re sure?”
Harper nodded. Behind him, Bobs muttered irritably.
“I keep telling you, it doesn’t matter if he’s right or not, we have to leave before the story surfaces.” Nancy leaned toward Delilah. “Otherwise the media will be saying it’s not true you’ve been fulfilled by motherhood. That you’ll still do anything to grab a headline, even at the risk of making your child an orphan.”
Delilah looked at Fatima, dozing in the nurse’s lap. She smiled.
“All right, Harper. You win.”
Harper let out the breath he hadn’t realized he’d been holding.
Nancy reached for the phone on the end table. “I’ll make the arrangements. You want to go first thing tomorrow morning?”
“No. The afternoon. There is one thing I gotta do.”
Nancy frowned, thinking. “Constant Light?”
“Yeah.”
Harper looked questioningly at Nancy, who explained, “It’s a hospital for war orphans. Delilah’s their main patron. She’s scheduled for a tour and a fund-raising luncheon tomorrow.”
Harper turned to Delilah. “I advise you not to go.”
“Yeah, well, you can just blow me, Harper.” She paused to snap her rubber band. She was going to have a very sore wrist by the end of the evening. “I don’t have to look at houses. I don’t mind missing out on a bunch of Georgetown cocktail parties. But those kids have been expecting me for months. I’m not going to stand them up.”
Harper said, “It’s your life we’re talking about. The Bomber is just as likely to be targeting you at this hospital as he is at any other time during your visit.”
“And if this leaks we’ll get raked over the coals on the morning news shows, even if you leave in the afternoon.” Nancy had the phone in her lap but hadn’t lifted the receiver. “Remember your responsibilities, they’ll all be saying. Remember your child.”
Delilah’s face was drawn. “I do. But I also gotta remember the children who aren’t as lucky as mine.”
“But—”
The star held up her hand, palm out. “Look, when the hospital asked me to sit on their board and I agreed, I wasn’t doing it for the publicity. You know that, Nancy. I was thinking about those children. It cheers them up to have me visit. I can see it in their eyes. There’s more to the job than hitting up my friends for contribution
s. I’m going to visit those kids tomorrow.”
She looked at each of them in turn. No one said anything. Delilah rose from her chair. “Then it’s settled. Everybody up.”
Bobs stepped forward. Nancy stood. So did Harper, confused. They formed a circle and their hands met in the middle. Now he remembered. Laura had told him that Delilah always led her dancers in a prayer before they went onstage. He decided to go along with it, even though he hadn’t taken part in a ritual like this since the basketball final in his senior year at high school. They’d lost that game, if he remembered right.
“Oh Lord, I know you want me to do this,” she said. “I’m plenty scared but I’m hoping you’ll watch over me, and you won’t let me or anyone else get hurt, okay? Amen.”
There was a pause as they lowered their hands. The buffeting roar of an approaching jet helicopter could be clearly heard. Frances Wilson was arriving. Not that it mattered; he doubted he’d be able to change Delilah’s mind, even if he had more time.
He’d done his best. He’d have to live with the star’s visit to the hospital.
And hope she could do the same.
42
Harper reported the evening’s events to Addleman from a prone position.
It was long after midnight by the time he’d made it back to the hotel. He was exhausted. It seemed years ago, rather than this morning, that he and Addleman had arrived at National Airport. Things hadn’t gone well since.
So when Harper finally stumbled into the suite, he’d gone straight to his bedroom, where he took off his shoes and jacket and flopped on the bed. He didn’t even bother to switch on a light before he began relating the events of the evening while Addleman sat in a chair by the door and heard him out.
Harper told it straight through, finishing with the scene with Frances Wilson. He tried to make her insults and threats sound funnier than they had been in actuality. But Addleman wasn’t laughing. In fact Harper had the sense that he wasn’t even listening anymore.
He propped himself up on an elbow. Addleman was sitting there hunched and still, almost as if be were simply another shadow in the dim room. In the faint light, Harper couldn’t see his face.
“It’s the hospital, Will.”
“What?”
“Markman’s planning to blow up that hospital tomorrow. He wants the children to die with Delilah.”
“You can’t be sure of that,” Harper said, though his own thoughts had run in the same direction. “Maybe we’re just thinking that way because the hospital’s the one obligation Delilah has vowed to meet.”
“No, it isn’t that. It’s the obvious target for Markman. This is the culmination, the coming together of his childhood trauma and his obsession with celebrities. He identifies Delilah with his mother, who used him sexually. The way he sees it, she’s using the children in that hospital. People admire her for helping to rescue and heal these children, and Markman can’t stand that. He’s going to ‘prove’ that she’s false and selfish like his own mother. He’s going to kill those children—and make sure Delilah will be blamed for their deaths.”
That all sounded reasonable to Harper except for the last part. “Why should she be blamed?” he asked.
Addleman hesitated, then said, “Because of you, Will. You warned her tonight. But she chose to ignore you. Sure, she thought she was being brave and generous. But after tomorrow, after the disaster, people will say that by going to the hospital despite knowing the risk, she endangered the children along with herself. The bomber hates her. He doesn’t just want her dead. He’s going to make sure no one mourns her. He’ll make her infamous. And you’ve made that possible, Will.”
Harper’s mind reeled with shock and outrage. He lurched to his feet and began to pace across the carpet in stocking feet. “That’s crazy, Harold. Markman couldn’t know in advance that lawyer would come to see us, that we’d stumble onto who the next target was, that the Bureau would cut us loose. The guy can’t see into the future.”
“No. But he can plan for contingencies, and better than any bomber or any other kind of criminal I’ve profiled. Remember, Will, when you went to his house in St. Louis? That could’ve been a disaster for him. He could’ve panicked. But he didn’t. He figured out a plan that put you to good use. He’s still a step ahead of us. He’s still using you. You’re his Cassandra. Your role is to predict what’s going to happen and not be believed.”
Addleman sighed and leaned back in his chair. He looked as wasted as Harper felt.
Harper pressed his hands to his temples as he continued to pace. Had they come so far only to fall in the end? And this was worse than failure. He’d become Markman’s unwilling accessory. His pawn.
He spoke loudly and raggedly, “There’s nothing more I can do! She’s determined to go to the hospital. Anyway, I can’t talk to her again. Frances Wilson saw to that.”
“Then you’ll have to go to the hospital tomorrow.”
“Frances made it clear that I’d be arrested if I tried to get near Delilah again. And there’ll be security people all over the place.”
“Not enough to protect her.”
“There’s nothing I can do.”
“Helpless,” Addleman said in a tired, hoarse voice. “Like Cassandra.”
Harper sank back down on the bed. He sighed heavily.
“I’ll go to the hospital,” he said.
43
The Constant Light Children’s Hospital was located across the river, in suburban Virginia. Delilah’s visit was scheduled to begin at 10:30 A.M., and Harper didn’t want to arrive much earlier than that. There was no point. He wasn’t going to waste time arguing with officials and staffers. Frances Wilson would have given them solid bureaucratic reasons why they shouldn’t listen to that nutcase and loose cannon Will Harper. Only Delilah herself, whose life was on the line, would have any inclination to believe him. His only chance was to get to her.
He turned off a busy suburban street onto an access road that looped around a parking garage to the main entrance of the hospital. It would have been a difficult area to lock down completely, and the cops hadn’t tried to do so. Harper noted a heavy security presence, but people were coming and going freely.
He slid his rental car into a space below a sign that said RESERVED FOR R. PATEL, M.D. Looking across the drive, he could see that the hospital’s reception committee was already standing on the front steps. There was the usual crowd of well-wishers and gawkers, being held back by yellow sawhorses and local police and private security people. On the other side of the steps a group of reporters and photographers were milling around casually. Just another day on the celebrity beat; nobody seemed to expect any trouble.
Harper scanned every face in the crowd, but he didn’t really expect Markman to be this close to the scene. He wasn’t a man to take unnecessary risks. He would have found some remote vantage point from which he could watch what was going on. Or maybe he wasn’t even here. He could have set the timer and planted the bomb hours ago. Maybe he was in some hotel room, watching TV and waiting.
Harper glanced at his watch. Delilah was late, but he expected her to arrive soon. He began to roll his head, to hunch and relax his shoulders—all the tension-easing tricks he’d learned on the Bomb Squad.
You had to learn how to wait. That was what the old pros had told him, when he’d first arrived at the Rodman’s Neck Range of the NYPD as a recruit. In your whole career, the amount of time you’d spend actually disarming bombs could be measured in minutes. But you would spend hours, days, even weeks, waiting to go out on a job. If you didn’t learn how to wait, nervousness would sap your powers of concentration and wear down your confidence. You wouldn’t be ready when the call came.
So Harper had learned how to wait. And he’d survived longer on the Squad than most. He’d almost made it to retirement. Almost.
The crowd was stirring now. The cops were striding around purposefully, yammering to each other on their portable radios. The microwave dish atop a TV
van began its ascent. The reporters were snuffing out their cigarettes and throwing away their coffee cups. The photographers were moving up to the barriers, jostling each other for position.
Harper turned to look down the access road. He could see a police car approaching with flashing lights. Behind it was Delilah’s limousine. They were driving very slowly.
Harper got out of the car and began walking slowly toward the entrance to the hospital, intending to arrive just as the limo did.
He was still a dozen paces away when he saw a young black uniformed cop turn, glance at him, then give him a second look. The kid was on the ball, Harper thought. He’d been listening when word had come down from the FBI to be on the lookout for Harper. He quickened his pace. The kid got the attention of another uniform and pointed at Harper. The two moved to intercept him, closing in to cut off his angle of escape.
Harper knew that if he started running, they would too. So he just kept walking through the crowd that grew thicker the closer he got to the hospital entrance. He began to weave around people, hoping the cops would lose sight of him.
They didn’t. He was still half a dozen steps from the barriers when they closed in.
“William Harper?” the young black cop said. It was an official voice, but friendly, as if his next words might be to ask Harper for his autograph.
“No, not me,” Harper replied with a smile, trying to step past him.
But the older cop blocked his way. “Mr. Harper, you have to leave this area immediately, or you’ll be placed under arrest.”
“Isn’t that a bit harsh?” Harper asked.
The young cop shrugged. “You know how it works, Mr. Harper. Orders.”
“Yeah, orders.”
Looking between the two cops and over the heads of the crowd, Harper could see the limousine drawing to a halt at the hospital entrance. This was his best chance; he wouldn’t get a better one.
“I’ll stand right here, but I want to talk to your sergeant,” he said.
In unison, the two cops shook their heads. Negotiations seemed to have reached an impasse.