Split Second skamm-1

by David Baldacci

  “Lock this whole area down,” she shouted at the agents stationed by Bruno’s motorcade. They raced to carry out her orders. She spoke into her walkie-talkie. “I need reinforcements. From where I don’t care, just get them. Now! And get the FBI on the horn.” Her gaze fixed on the rear end of the last car in the funeral procession. Heads would roll over this. Her head would roll. Right now, though, all she wanted was to get John Bruno back, preferably living.

  She saw reporters and photographers pouring out of the media trucks. Despite the nice photo op it would have made and Fred Dickers’s entreaties that he should allow it, Bruno had shown some backbone and refused their request to come inside the funeral home. They hadn’t taken the news well. Now they were erupting with full journalistic force as they sensed a story of far greater magnitude than a candidate’s visit to pay his last respects to an old friend.

  Before they could get to her, Michelle grabbed the arm of a uniformed officer who had come running up, apparently awaiting instructions.

  “Are you security here?” she asked.

  He nodded, his eyes wide, his face pale; he looked like he might either faint or wet his trousers.

  She pointed down the road. “Whose funeral procession is that?”

  “Harvey Killebrew’s; they’re taking him to Memorial Gardens.”

  “I want you to stop it.”

  The man looked dumbly at her. “Stop it?”

  “Somebody has been kidnapped. And that”—she pointed at the procession—“would be a great way to get him out of the area, don’t you think?”

  “Okay,” he said slowly. “Yeah.”

  “Then I want you to search every vehicle, in particular the hearse. Got it?”

  “The hearse? But, ma’am, Harvey’s in there.”

  Michelle looked at his uniform. He was a rent-a-cop, but she didn’t have the luxury of being picky. She eyed his name tag and said in a very quiet tone, “Officer Simmons? Officer Simmons, how long have you been… uh, in the security business?”

  “About a month, ma’am. But I’m weapon-certified. Been hunting since I was eight years old. Shoot the wings off a mosquito.”

  “That’s great.” A month. He actually looked greener than that. “Okay, Simmons, listen carefully. My thinking is that the person is probably unconscious. And a hearse would be a great way to transport an unconscious person, don’t you agree?” He nodded, apparently finally getting her point. Her face turned to a scowl and her voice to the crack of a pistol. “Now move your ass and stop that procession and search those vehicles.”

  Simmons went off at a dead run. Michelle ordered several of her men to follow him to oversee and help with the operation and instructed other agents to begin a thorough search of the funeral home. It was just possible that Bruno was hidden somewhere inside. She then pushed her way through the reporters and photographers and set up her command center inside the funeral home. From there she got back on the horn, consulted local maps and coordinated more efforts, establishing a one-mile perimeter with the funeral home as its center. Then she made the call she didn’t want to make but had to. She phoned her superiors and said the words that would forever remain attached to her name and wrecked career at the Secret Service.

  “This is Agent Michelle Maxwell, detail leader for John Bruno. I’m reporting that we—that I’ve lost the protectee. Apparently John Bruno has been kidnapped. The search is ongoing, and local law enforcement and the FBI have been contacted.” She could feel the ax already descending upon her neck.

  She joined her team of men who were tearing the funeral home apart from top to bottom looking for Bruno. Doing all of this without disturbing the crime scene was problematic at best. They couldn’t interfere with the investigation to follow, but they had to search for the missing candidate.

  Inside the viewing room where Bruno had disappeared, Michelle looked at one of the agents who’d scoped the room out before the candidate entered it. “How the hell could this have happened?” she demanded.

  He was a veteran with the Service, a good agent. He shook his head in disbelief. “The place was clean, Mick. Clean.”

  Michelle often went by “Mick” at work. It made her seem more like one of the boys, which she’d grudgingly conceded was not such a bad thing.

  “Did you check out the widow, question her?”

  He looked at her skeptically. “What, give an old woman the third degree with her husband lying in a coffin five feet away? We looked in her purse, but I didn’t think a body cavity search was really appropriate.” He added, “We had two minutes to do it. You tell me anyone who could have done a proper job in two minutes.”

  Michelle stiffened as the meaning of the man’s words became clear. Everyone would be looking to cover his butt and federal pension over this one. Stupid now when you looked at it: giving them only two minutes. She checked the doorknob. It had been rigged to lock when closed.

  A coffin five feet away? She looked over at the copper-colored box. The funeral director was called for. He was paler now than even a mortician should be. Michelle asked him if the body was indeed that of Bill Martin. Yes, the man said.

  “And you’re sure the woman in here was Martin’s widow.”

  “What woman would that be?” he asked.

  “There was a woman dressed all in black, with a veil, sitting in this room.”

  “I don’t know if it was Mrs. Martin or not. I didn’t see her come in.”

  “I’ll need Mrs. Martin’s phone number. And nobody who works here can leave—not until the FBI has arrived and completed its investigation. Understood?”

  If possible, the man grew even paler. “The FBI?”

  Michelle dismissed him, and then her gaze fell on the coffin and the floor in front of it. She bent down to pick up some rose petals that had fallen there. As she did so, she was eye level with the skirting that ran around the coffin. She reached over the flowers and carefully drew aside the fabric, exposing wood paneling. Michelle tapped on the wood. It was hollow. Using gloves, she and another agent lifted out one of the wood sections, revealing a space that could easily have concealed someone. Michelle could only shake her head. She’d blown this all around.

  One of her men came up to her with a device in a plastic bag. “Some sort of digital recorder,” he reported.

  “That’s how they generated Bruno’s voice?” she said.

  “Must have gotten a snippet of him from somewhere and used it to keep us at bay while they made their getaway. They must have thought the phrase ‘Just a minute’ would handle most queries from us. You tripped them up with your remark about Bruno’s kids. There must be a wireless bug around here somewhere too.”

  Michelle read his thoughts. “Because they’d have to be able to hear us to make the recorded voice answer when I called out.”

  “Right.” He pointed at the far wall where a section of the upholstered wall covering had been pulled back. “There’s a door there. A passageway runs behind that wall.”

  “So there’s their exit.” She handed him the plastic bag. “Put it back exactly where you got it. I don’t need a lesson from the FBI on maintaining the integrity of a crime scene.”

  “There must have been a struggle. I’m surprised we didn’t hear anything,” said the agent.

  “How could we, with that death music bellowing everywhere?” she snapped.

  She and the agent went down the passageway. The empty coffin on a rolling table had been left at a doorway here that opened onto the back of the building. They returned to the viewing room, and the funeral home director was called back in and shown the hidden doorway.

  He looked perplexed. “I didn’t even know that was there.”

  “What?” Michelle said incredulously.

  “We’ve only been operating this business for a couple of years. That’s when the only funeral home in the area went out of business. We couldn’t use that building because it had been condemned. This place was a lot of things before it was a funeral home. The current
owners did minimal improvements. In fact, these viewing rooms went fairly unchanged. I had no idea there was a door or passageway there.”

  “Well, somebody certainly did,” she said bluntly. “There’s a door at the end of that hall that opens to the rear of the building. Are you telling me you didn’t know about that either?”

  He said, “That part of the facility is used for storage and is accessed by entrances inside the building.”

  “Did you see any vehicle parked out there earlier?”

  “No, but then I don’t go around there.”

  “Anybody else see anything?”

  “I’ll have to check.”

  “No, I’ll check.”

  “I can assure you this is a very respectable establishment.”

  “You have secret hallways and exit doors you know nothing about. Aren’t you worried about security?”

  He looked at her blankly and then shook his head. “This isn’t some big city. There’s never any serious crime.”

  “Well, that streak was just broken. Do you have Mrs. Martin’s phone number?”

  He handed it over and she was called. There was no answer.

  Alone for now, Michelle stood in the middle of the room. All those years of work, all that time proving she could do the job—it was all down the drain. She didn’t even have the consolation of having hurled her body in front of a would-be assassin’s bullet. Michelle Maxwell was now part of history. And she knew she was also history with the Secret Service. Her career was over.

  4

  The funeral procession was stopped and each car was searched, as was the hearse. It was Harvey Killebrew, devoted father, grandfather and husband, lying in there when they opened the casket. Virtually all the mourners were elderly and obviously frightened by all the men with guns, and there didn’t seem to be a kidnapper within the bunch, but still the agents directed all the cars and the hearse back to the funeral home.

  Rent-a-Cop Simmons approached a Secret Service agent who was climbing into his sedan to lead the caravan back to the funeral home. “What next, sir?”

  “Okay, what I need is this road watched. Anyone trying to come out, you stop. Anyone coming in, you stop and check for appropriate credentials. We’ll get you some relief as soon as we can. Until then, here is where you’ll be. Got it?”

  Simmons looked very nervous. “This is really big, isn’t it?”

  “Sonny, this is the biggest thing you’ll ever have happen in your entire life. Let’s just hope it turns out okay. But I kind of doubt that.”

  Another agent, Neal Richards, ran up and said, “I’ll stay, Charlie. Probably not a good idea to leave him here all by himself.”

  Charlie glanced at his colleague and said, “Sure you don’t want to come back and join the party, Neal?”

  Richards smiled grimly and said, “I don’t want to be within a mile of Michelle Maxwell right now. I’ll stay with the kid.”

  Richards climbed into the vehicle next to Simmons, who maneuvered his van so that it blocked the road. They watched as the caravan of agents and mourners passed out of sight, and scanned the countryside in all directions. There was no sign of anyone. Simmons kept his hand firmly on the butt of his gun, his black leather glove crinkling as he squeezed the pistol grip. He reached over and turned up the volume on his police scanner and then looked nervously at the veteran agent.

  He said in a loud voice, “I know you probably can’t tell me, but what the hell happened back there?”

  Richards didn’t bother to look at him. “You’re right, I can’t tell you.”

  Simmons said, “I grew up here, know every inch of the place. If I was trying to get somebody outta here, there’s a dirt lane about a half mile down the road. You cut through there and go out the other side, you’re five miles away before you even know it.”

  Richards now glanced at him and said slowly, “Is that right?” He leaned toward Simmons and reached inside his coat pocket. The next moment Secret Service agent Neal Richards was lying face-down on the seat, a small red hole in the center of his back, the stick of gum he had pulled from his pocket still clenched in his hand. Simmons looked in the back of the van, where the woman was taking the suppressor off her small-caliber pistol. She had been secreted in a small area under the van floor’s false bottom. The chatter from the police scanner had covered the slight noise she made coming out. She said, “Low-caliber dumdum, wanted to keep it in the body. Less mess.”

  Simmons smiled. “Like the man said, this is really big.” He pulled out the dead agent’s wireless mic and power pack and threw them deep into the woods. He drove off in the opposite direction of the funeral home. Eight hundred yards down the road he turned onto a weed-covered dirt lane. They pushed Agent Richards’s body out there in an overgrown ravine adjacent to the road. Simmons had been telling the agent the truth: this road was the perfect escape route. Another hundred yards and two bends in the road brought them to an abandoned barn, its roof starting to fall in, its doors open. He drove directly into the space, got out and shut the barn doors. Parked inside was a white pickup truck.

  The woman emerged from the back of the van. She looked nothing like an elderly widow now. She was young, blond-haired, slender yet muscular and agile, dressed in jeans and a white tank shirt. She had used many names over her brief life and currently went by “Tasha.” As dangerous as Simmons was, Tasha was even more lethal. She had that essential trait of a polished killer: she possessed no conscience.

  Simmons took off his uniform, revealing jeans and a T-shirt. Next he pulled out a makeup kit from the rear of the van and removed the wig, matching sideburns and eyebrows and other parts of his facial disguise. He had been hidden in the hollow platform under Bill Martin’s casket; after helping to carry John Bruno out, he assumed the role of “Officer Simmons.”

  From the van they lifted a large box containing Bruno. The box was marked as containing communication equipment in case anyone had bothered to look. A large tool case was situated against the back of the white pickup’s rear window. They took Bruno and placed him inside the tool case and locked it. There were vents in the sides and top of the case, and its interior had been padded.

  Next they loaded bales of hay that were stacked in a corner of the barn into the bed of the truck; that mostly concealed the tool case. They jumped into the cab of the truck, donned John Deere caps and pulled out of the barn, taking another weed-infested dirt road back to the main drag about two miles farther down.

  They passed a stream of police cars, black sedans and SUVs heading, no doubt, to the crime scene. One young cop even smiled at the pretty woman in the passenger side of the truck cab as he sped by. Tasha gave him a flirty look and waved back. The pair drove on with their kidnapped presidential candidate safely unconscious in the back.

  Two miles ahead of them was the elderly man who’d sat by the entrance to the funeral home when John Bruno and his entourage passed by. His whittling done, he’d escaped Maxwell’s lockdown by a few minutes. He drove alone in his ancient, muffler-rattling Buick Impala. He’d just received the news from his colleagues. Bruno was safely tucked away, and the only casualty had been one Secret Service agent unlucky enough to pair up with a man he undoubtedly believed was harmless.

  After all this time and work, it had finally begun. He could only smile.

  5

  The red Ford Explorer pulled to a stop near a large cedar log structure shrouded in deep woods. The place was intricately constructed and far closer to a lodge in scale than a single-family cabin, though only one person lived there. The man got out and stretched his limbs. It was still early, and the sun had just begun its ascent.

  Sean King went up the wide hand-hewn timber steps and unlocked the door to his home. He stopped in the spacious kitchen to make coffee. As it percolated, he looked around the interior, appraising each mitered corner, the placement of each log, the proportion of window space to wall. He’d pretty much built the place himself over a four-year period while he lived in a small tr
ailer on the perimeter of the fifteen-acre spread about thirty-five miles west of Charlottesville in the Blue Ridge Mountains.

  The interior was furnished with leather chairs and overstuffed couches, wooden tables, Oriental rugs, copper lighting fixtures, plain bookshelves filled with an eclectic assortment of volumes, oil and pastel paintings, mostly done by local artists, and other items one collects or inherits in the course of a lifetime. And at forty-four years old King had lived at least two lives thus far. He had no desire to reinvent himself yet again.

  He went upstairs, made his way along the catwalk that ran the length of the house, and entered his bedroom. Like the rest of the place, it was very organized, things neatly arranged and not an inch of wasted space.

  He stripped off his police deputy’s uniform and climbed into the shower and let the sweat of a night’s work wash away. He shaved, washed his hair and let the hot water loosen up the surgical scar on his middle finger. He had long ago learned to live with this small souvenir of his days as a Secret Service agent.

  If he were with the Service now, instead of living in a beautiful log house in the middle of lovely central Virginia, he’d probably be packed into a town house in some stultifying cookie-cutter bedroom community outside the Washington Beltway and still married to his ex-wife. He also wouldn’t be getting ready to go to his thriving law practice. He certainly wouldn’t be a volunteer deputy police officer one night a week for his rural community. He’d be about to hop on another plane, watch politicians smile, kiss babies and lie, waiting patiently for the moment when someone tried to kill his guy. What a gig that was, and it included all the frequent flier miles and Tums he wanted!

  He changed into a suit and tie, combed his hair, drank his coffee in the sunroom off the kitchen and read the newspaper. The front page was dominated by reports of the kidnapping of John Bruno and the subsequent FBI investigation. King read the main story and related articles carefully, absorbing all relevant details. He clicked on the TV, found the all-news channel and watched as the newsperson reported on the death of Neal Richards, veteran Secret Service agent. He’d left behind a wife and four kids.