Split Second skamm-1

by David Baldacci

  “Once an investigator, always an investigator, I guess.”

  “I’m just glad I was home to greet you. I wouldn’t have wanted you to wander around. I’ve had people doing that here lately, and I don’t really care for it.”

  She lowered her cup. “I’ve been doing some wandering lately.”

  “Really? Good for you.”

  “Went down to North Carolina, a little place called Bowlington. I believe you’ve heard of it.” He put down his cup too. “The Fairmount’s still standing but it’s closed up.”

  He said, “In my opinion they should just shoot it and put it out of its misery.”

  “I’ve always wondered about something. Maybe you can enlighten me?”

  “I’ll sure do what I can,” King said sarcastically. “I mean I don’t have much else to occupy my time, so by all means, let me help you out.”

  She ignored his tone. “The agent configuration with Ritter. You had low manpower, which I guess I understand. But the way you guys were laid out was a disaster. You were the only agent within ten feet of the man.”

  King took a sip of coffee and studied his hands.

  “I know this is a huge imposition,” Michelle said apologetically. “I just show up and start asking questions. Just tell me to leave and I will.”

  Finally King shrugged. “What the hell. You’re getting a taste of what it’s like with the Bruno kidnapping. That sort of makes us blood brothers, in a way.”

  “In a way.”

  “Meaning what?” he said testily. “That I screwed up more than you and you don’t want to be lumped with me?”

  “Actually I think I messed up a lot more than you did. I was detail leader. I let a protectee out of my sight. I didn’t have anyone shooting. I didn’t have to kill anyone while pandemonium was breaking out all around me. You lost your focus for a few seconds. Unforgivable in a Secret Service agent, probably, but I blew it all along the way. I think you shouldn’t want to be lumped with me.”

  King’s expression softened and his voice grew calmer. “We had barely half the usual complement of agents. That was partly Ritter’s choice and partly the government. He was not well liked, and everyone knew he had no chance to win.”

  “But wouldn’t Ritter want as much security as possible?”

  “He didn’t trust us,” said King simply. “We were representatives of the administration, insiders. Even though he was a member of Congress, he was an outsider. Way outside with a screwball platform and radical supporters. He even thought we were spying on him, I swear to God. Consequently they kept us in the dark on everything. Changing schedules at the last minute without consulting us, it drove the detail leader, Bob Scott, crazy.”

  “I actually can relate. But that wasn’t really reflected in the official record.”

  “Why would it be? They had their responsible parties. End of story.”

  “But that doesn’t fully explain why the security layout was so poor that day.”

  “Ritter seemed to get along with me. Why, I don’t know. Our politics were certainly not the same. But I was respectful, we joked some and I think to the degree he trusted any of us, he trusted me the most. Consequently, when I was on duty, I always covered his back. Other than that, he didn’t like agents around him. He was convinced that the people loved him. That no one would want to hurt him. That false sense of security probably came from his days as a preacher. His campaign manager, guy named Sidney Morse—now, he was supersharp, and he didn’t like that setup very much. He was a lot more realistic about things. He knew that there were people out there who might take a pop at his guy. Morse always wanted at least one agent right next to Ritter. But the rest of the guys were always strewn around the perimeter, way in the background.”

  “And pretty much useless when the shot was fired and the crowd panicked.”

  “You’ve seen the tape, I take it.”

  “Yes. Now, the layout of the agents wasn’t your fault. I would have thought the detail leader would have pushed harder on that.”

  “Bob Scott was ex-army, fought in Vietnam, even was a POW. He was a good guy, but for my money he tended to pick the wrong battles to fight. He had a lot going on in his personal life at the time. His wife had filed for divorce a couple months before Ritter was killed. He wanted out of protection to go back into investigation. I think he regretted ever leaving the military. He fit in better in a uniform than a suit. Sometimes he’d even salute people and he always used military time, while as you know, the Service used the standard clock. He just preferred that life.”

  “Whatever happened to him?”

  “Resigned from the Service. I took most of the heat, but as you found out, the buck stops with the detail leader. He’d pulled his time, so his pension was secure. I lost track of him. It’s not like the guy would be sending me Christmas cards.” He paused and then said, “He was also a bit of a barrel sucker.”

  “Gun-happy? Not so unusual for a former soldier. Most law enforcement agencies have their share of those.”

  “It was a little unhealthy with Bob. He was a real Second Amendment poster boy.”

  “Was he at the hotel when it happened?”

  “Yes. Sometimes he’d go ahead with the advance team to the next city, but he decided to stay put in Bowlington. I’m not sure why. It was a real one-horse town.”

  “I saw Sidney Morse on the video; he was right by Ritter.”

  “Always was. Ritter had a bad habit of losing track of time, and Morse kept him on a tight leash.”

  “I heard Morse was quite a force.”

  “He was. When the campaign started, a guy named Doug Denby was Ritter’s chief of staff and also his de facto campaign manager. When the campaign started gaining momentum, Ritter needed someone full-time who was really seasoned. Morse fit that bill. The whole campaign was energized when he showed up. He was a fat guy with a motor that never quit, really flamboyant and theatrical. Always munching candy bars with his left hand and talking on a cell phone with his right, barking orders, working the media. I don’t think he ever slept. Denby played second fiddle to Sidney Morse. Hell, I think even Ritter was intimidated by him.”

  “How did Morse and Bob Scott get along?”

  “They didn’t see eye-to-eye on everything, but that was okay. Like I said, Bob was going through a rough divorce, and Morse had a younger brother—Peter, I think his name was—who was involved in some bad stuff that was really stressing Sidney out too. So he and Scott had some common ground there. They got along pretty well. Now, Morse and Doug Denby didn’t really get along. Doug was the issues guy, sort of an old-school southerner with views that maybe would have been in the mainstream fifty years ago. Morse was the flash, the guy from the West Coast, the showman, getting Ritter in the public eye, on all the talk shows, putting on quite a production. Real quickly the flash became more important than the issues on the campaign trail. Ritter couldn’t win anyway, but he was a big ham, not so unusual for a TV preacher. So the more his face and name got out, the better he liked it. From what I could tell, the main strategy was to shake up the big boys—and they sure did that, thanks to Morse—and work deals with them later on. It got so that Ritter just did what Morse told him to do.”

  “I’m sure Denby didn’t take that very well. What ever happened to him?”

  “Who knows? Where do old chiefs of staff go? Anybody’s guess.”

  “I take it since you had morning duty, you probably went to bed early the night before?”

  King stared at her for a long moment. “After I was off duty, I hit the gym in the hotel with a couple of guys from my shift, had an early supper, and, yeah, I went to bed. Why are you interested in all this, Agent Maxwell?”

  “Please, call me Michelle. I saw you on TV after Jennings was killed. I had heard of you at the Service. After what happened to me, I had an impulse to learn more about what happened to you. I felt a connection.”

  “Some connection.”

  “Who were the other agents assign
ed to Ritter?”

  He looked sharply at her. “Why?”

  She looked at him with an innocent expression. “Well, maybe I know some of them. I could go and talk to them. See how they dealt with what happened.”

  “I’m sure it’s printed in some report somewhere. Go look it up.”

  “It would save me time if you’d just tell me.”

  “Yeah, it would, wouldn’t it?”

  “Okay, was Joan Dillinger one of the members of the protection detail?”

  At this King rose and went over to the window, peering out for a few moments. When he looked back, he was scowling. “Are you wired? Either strip and show me you’re not or you can just jump back in your scull and row your ass right out of my life.”

  “I’m not wired. But I will strip if you really think it’s necessary. Or I could go jump in the lake. Electronics and water don’t really go well together,” she added pleasantly.

  “What do you want from me?”

  “I’d like an answer to my question. Was Joan assigned to the detail?”

  “Yes! But on a different shift from mine.”

  “Was she at the hotel that day?”

  “It seems to me that you already know the answer, so why are you asking?”

  “I’ll take that as a yes.”

  “Take it any way you want.”

  “Did you two spend the night together?”

  “Next question and make it a good one, because it’ll be your last.”

  “Okay, right before the shot was fired, who was on the elevator when it opened?”

  “Don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “Sure you do. I heard the ding of an elevator right before Ramsey fired his shot. It distracted you. Those elevators were supposed to have been closed off. Whoever or whatever was on that elevator when it opened took your complete attention. That’s why Ramsey could get his shot off and you never saw it. I’ve made some inquiries at the Service about it. People reviewing the video heard a sound too. It wasn’t in the official record but I made some phone calls yesterday. They questioned you about it. You said you heard something but saw nothing. You explained it away as possibly a malfunction with the elevator. And they didn’t push any further because they already had their responsible party. But I’m convinced you were looking at something. Or more to the point, someone.”

  In response King opened the door onto the rear deck and motioned her out.

  She rose and put down her coffee cup. “Well, at least I got to ask my questions. Even if I didn’t get them all answered.”

  As she was passing by him, she stopped. “You’re right. You and I are now forever linked in history as two bad agents who screwed up. I’m not used to that. I’ve excelled at everything I’ve ever done. I’m betting you’re the same way.”

  “Good-bye, Agent Maxwell. I wish you all the best.”

  “I’m sorry our first meeting had to be this way.”

  “First and hopefully last.”

  “Oh, one more thing. Although it was never covered in the official report, I’m sure you’ve already considered the possibility that the person on the elevator was used to distract you while Ramsey pulled his gun and fired.”

  King said nothing.

  “You know, it’s interesting,” said Michelle as she looked around.

  “You seem to find a lot interesting,” he said curtly.

  “This place,” she said, pointing at the high ceilings, the glistening beams, the polished floors, everything neat and tidy. “It’s beautiful. Perfectly beautiful.”

  “You’re certainly not the first person to say so.”

  “Yes,” she went on as though she hadn’t heard him. “It’s beautiful, and it should be cozy and warm.” She turned and looked at him. “But it’s not. It’s very utilitarian, actually, isn’t it? Items placed just so, almost like they were staged, staged by someone who felt the need to control it all and in doing so took all the soul out of it, or at least didn’t put any of his own soul into it.” She wrapped her arms around herself. “Yes, very cold.” She looked away from him.

  “I like it that way,” he said tersely.

  She glanced at him sharply. “Do you, Sean? Well, I bet you didn’t used to.”

  He watched her long legs and energetic pace quickly cover the distance down to the dock. She put her scull in the water and very soon was merely a speck on the surface of the lake. It was only then that he slammed the door shut. As he was walking by the table, he saw it, stuck under her coffee cup. It was her Secret Service business card. On the back she had written in her home and cell phone numbers. His first impulse was to throw it away. Yet he didn’t. He held on to it as he watched the speck grow smaller and smaller until she rounded a bend and Michelle Maxwell disappeared completely from view.

  23

  John Bruno was lying on a small cot staring at the ceiling, a twenty-five-watt bulb his only illumination. The light would stay on for an hour and then go off; then it would come on for ten minutes and then be extinguished; there was never any pattern. It was maddening and debilitating and designed to break down his spirit. It had done its job well.

  Bruno was dressed in a drab gray jumpsuit and had many days’ growth of beard on his face, for what sane jailer would provide a prisoner with a razor? Bathing was done by towel and bucket that appeared and disappeared while he was asleep; erratically timed meals were passed through a slot in the door. He’d never seen his captors and had no idea where he might be or how he’d gotten here. When he’d tried to talk to the unseen presence providing the food through the slot, he got no reply and had finally given up.

  His food, he’d discovered, was often drugged and would send him into deep sleep or provoke occasional hallucinations. Yet if he didn’t eat, he’d perish, so he ate. He was never allowed to leave his cell, and his exercise was restricted to ten paces across and ten paces back. He did push-ups and sit-ups on the cold floor to keep his strength. He had no idea if he was under surveillance, and it little mattered if he was. He’d contemplated early on some method of escape but had concluded escape was impossible. And to think it had all started with Mildred Martin, or rather an impersonator, in that funeral home. For the hundredth time he silently cursed himself for not following Michelle Maxwell’s advice. And then, being the egomaniac he was, he cursed Maxwell for not being more forceful, for not insisting on accompanying him into that room.

  How long he’d been here he didn’t know. They’d taken all his personal belongings including his watch while he was unconscious. Why he’d been kidnapped he couldn’t fathom. Whether it had to do with his candidacy or his former career as a prosecutor he didn’t know. It had never occurred to him that it might be neither. He’d harbored hopes early on for a quick rescue, but he could no longer realistically keep that belief. The people who’d taken him clearly knew what they were doing. He’d fallen back on the slender hope of a miracle, and yet as the hours and days passed, that hope had begun to dim. He thought of his wife and children and his presidential campaign and was resigned that his life might end here, his body perhaps never found. He remained puzzled, though, about why they were keeping him alive.

  He rolled over on his stomach, unable to face even the meager light anymore.

  The person who sat in another cell at the end of the corridor had been here far longer than John Bruno. The despair in the eyes and the slouch in the body signaled there was no hope left. Eat, sit, sleep, and probably die at some point. That was the bleak future. The person shivered and wrapped a blanket closer around.

  In another part of the large underground space a man was engaged in some interesting activities. In contrast to the despair of the prisoners, his energy level and hopes were very high indeed.

  Round after round was fired into a human silhouette that hung on a target a good hundred feet away in the soundproofed room. Every shot was placed in the kill zone. He was certainly a marksman of enviable skill.

  The man pressed a button, and the target flew do
wn the motorized line toward him. He put up a fresh target and hit a button, and it flew to the farthest point available on the shooting range. He loaded a fresh magazine in his pistol, put on his eye and ear protectors, took aim and fired off fourteen rounds in less than twenty-five seconds. When the target was brought back this time, he finally smiled. Not one shot had gone astray—“throwing a round” in law enforcement parlance. He put his weapon away and left the shooting range.

  The next room he entered was smaller than the shooting room and very different in configuration. Floor-to-ceiling shelves housed all manner of detonators, wiring for explosives, and other equipment used by those intent on blowing up something as efficiently and effectively as possible. In the center of the room was a large worktable, where he sat and began massaging wires, transistors, timers, detonators and C-4 plastic explosives into multiple devices designed for massive destruction. He brought to this task the same attention to detail that had been present at the shooting range.

  He hummed while he worked.

  An hour later he went to yet another room that was set up completely unlike the first two. To the observer who could see only the interior of this space and not the ones housing guns, explosives and human chattel, there was nothing sinister or malign here. It was an artist’s studio that lacked nothing for the creation of art in practically any medium, except for natural light. That was impossible in a place so many meters below ground. Yet the artificial light here was acceptable.

  Neatly hanging on one wall were shelves holding heavy coats and boots, special helmets, thick gloves, red bubble lights, axes, oxygen tanks and other like equipment. The gear wouldn’t be needed for a while yet, but it was good to be prepared. Rushing now could mean disaster. Patience was required. And yet he looked forward to the moment when it would all come together, when he could finally say that success was his. Yes, patience.