This assignment would be no big deal. But Goodwill was a perfectionist in this kind of work. At first, it had been to stay alive and invisible in the wake of a murder. Now he took pride in his skill.
He saw his mark appear. Excellent!
John Porter. Hair slicked back—just rushed from the shower? His eyes stared at the heels of the officer in front of him. Porter looked ragged, even though he was wearing a Pierre Cardin. Where had he gotten the costly apparel? One last gift from his arch-enemy, Erma Alred, the red head who planned on frying him with her testimony? Didn’t matter. He’d be all set for burial when the cops caught up with his corpse. Porter’s head bobbed, tired, slightly bowed. Was it really him?
The ex-graduate student looked up and in the direction of the sun. Hasn’t seen that for a few days, has he, Goodwill thought. Even through the forced smirk, it was definitely John Porter. He disappeared behind the back of the bus.
Swiveling the mini spy-glass to the right, Goodwill lined the cross hairs on his point man lumbering satisfied to his police car. The bus driver boarded as the other officers loaded Porter through the rear door of the larger vehicle.
Red Rover opened the door to his car and slid inside as Goodwill smiled. He watched as the inside man lifted the microphone to his standard 800 megahertz radio and spoke while adjusting his rearview mirror to see the bus driver. The point man was getting a lot of money for this. Red Rover smiled while he spoke, as if Golb sat in the car there with him, then he put the radio down and picked up his cellular.
Goodwill put down his half-green/half-white apple and lifted his phone before it rang. “Hello Sunshine!” said Red Rover with a melody. “All’s set. Porter’s on the bus.”
“Were we not leaving two hours ago?” Goodwill said in a calm voice. “What was the delay.”
“…I think we were waiting for Porter to get dressed. Maybe the judge called and—”
“Never mind. Cut the radio,” said Goodwill.
“…Done.”
“Let’s go,” Goodwill said, starting his car. Like a caged lion, the Mustang roared before going into gear. He put his foot against the accelerator, pulled the wheel to the left, and felt his back sink into the seat. The car darted into traffic before the authorities could move their vehicles to the gate. Goodwill would make his way to the freeway and toward the Federal courthouse an hour away, allowing the bus to slowly overtake him—an old FBI trick; People who were being tailed never suspected the cars ahead of them.
Goodwill stayed on the freeway for more than thirty minutes before allowing the bus to pass him. He sped up and slowed again into sight repeatedly, but otherwise kept his distance and phone silence.
John Denver finished three in a row on Easy Listening K102 FM when Goodwill let Red Rover ease on by. Sliding on his leather racing gloves, the assassin watched the wheels of the point man’s automobile with amazement and child-like fascination, but forced no eye contact with the overexcited cop inside.
As Sting began “Shape of My Heart” from his 1993 album Ten Summoner’s Tales with a skillfully plucked guitar in a lonely dance, Goodwill watched the bus through the side of his left eye until it sped past his car.
When the singer put words to the music, Goodwill hit the gas again casually, forcing himself up to the side of the patrol car before the end of the first verse.
As the second stanza played with the tune, Goodwill lifted his copy of Natural Contagions and took the weapon snugly in his gloved hand. Though Goodwill preferred the peace and cleanliness of a 22 pistol when assassinating a mark, today’s weapon was a superb instrument of choice: a Colt Delta Elite loaded with hollow point 10 mm 180 grain Black Talons. At this distance, it was precise and powerful enough to stab through thick rubber spinning at seventy miles an hour. The bullets could blow holes in metal walls and tear through bus seats. A fearsome, ugly tool, streamlined black with pristine care and beautifully stocked with enough shells to do the job five times. It would do well. And the silencer was already screwed into the barrel. The extension was really unnecessary, but would add to the confusion.
He rolled down the window with confidence, only faintly aware of his rising heart rate. A casual glance informed him of Red Rover’s hands tightening on the steering wheel. But at sixty-five miles an hour…
Goodwill smiled at Red Rover. Then he stuck the nose of the 10 mm out the window and pulled the trigger.
No sound came from the gun. But the squad car’s right front tire exploded rubber and immediately swerved directly into traffic.
Goodwill’s mustang slowed as the police car swung in front of him.
Red Rover overcorrected, pulling his car to the left.
As the point man spun for the shoulder, and Golb slowed to fifty-five with the rest of the traffic, Goodwill drove along side of the bus.
He pulled the trigger twice.
Both right wheels of the bus shattered into rubber shrapnel. Opposed to Goodwill’s expectations, the vehicle lurched immediately for the left shoulder as if about to topple onto its right side. But it hit the center divide just after Red Rover and magically stayed upright.
Goodwill yanked his Mustang to the left side of the freeway. As dumbfounded commuters passed by at forty-five miles per hour, the Mustang slammed into reverse and sped backward toward the bus. With a smile, he imagined Golb shouting into his dead radio, “Eleven ninety-nine! Eleven ninety-nine!” uselessly attempting to tell the outer world he needed dire assistance.
No one would stop to help; they’d all be in shock and out of sight before considering it. Everyone else would see the police car behind the small bus. But if anyone had noticed the first officer out of control, they might quickly phone the authorities with their trusty portables. That meant one thing: viable time would soon be gone.
Goodwill pulled his parking brake without looking forward. He eyed Golb, or his replacement, only to see him with his head down, unmoving against the steering wheel. That could mean anything.
Goodwill jumped out of the rumbling Mustang while Sting moved through the chorus of “Shape of My Heart” for the second time.
The long-barreled pistol hung at Goodwill’s side as Red Rover came around the rear of the bus.
“Stupid fool!” said the cop holding a head wound that Goodwill couldn’t care less about. “Who you trying to kill!?!”
Goodwill lifted his gun at the bus as he came to the skinny door on its right side. The door was slightly opened, which meant the driver must have hit it, and he obviously hadn’t done so intentionally. Goodwill expected Golb to be ready with an aimed Colt in his shaking hands.
“You told me you’d done this sort of thing before!” said Red Rover, coming closer. “I could have a concussion! I’m bleeding!”
Looking through the glass with a glance before instantly pulling away, Goodwill made sure a bullet didn’t wait with his name on it. But Golb—it was Golb—hadn’t moved, and his right arm hung limp over the dash, his hand bent painfully around and upward. He might already be dead.
“You listening to me…Sunshine?!” said the dirty cop. “Or am I just too elementary school for you?! Hey!!!”
Goodwill didn’t look at the slowing traffic, where someone might see enough to feel inspired to call in for sure. He had less than thirty seconds.
He didn’t bother looking at Red Rover.
But as he pushed at the concave-bending door with the tip of his silencer, Goodwill heard the hammer of a pistol clicking in Red Rover’s swaying hands.
Oh, the drivers were getting a show now, weren’t they! Some adventurous citizen was likely to turn his car on Goodwill if they could see his own gun from a far enough distance. But what were the chances of that? Goodwill imagined everyone’s fingers going to their cellular phones now. If not to summon extra cop cars, then at least to inform their friends! They’d probably wonder if they’d see all this on America’s Most Wanted this Saturday.
But no time!
Goodwill saw the microphone from the radio hanging limply
by the accelerator.
At least Porter was trapped.
“I’m talking to you, Sunshine! And you’ll listen because I still am an officer and can take you down right now!!!”
Goodwill smiled and lowered his weapon. The grin faded as his eyes turned cold on Red Rover. “Put that away. We have work to—”
Red Rover let his gun sag to his side as he pointed at his head. “This isn’t a war wound you know! I expect compensation for—”
Beside the forty-mile-an-hour traffic, Goodwill’s Colt Delta Elite made almost no sound as it jolted twice in his quick hand.
Red Rover fell, silenced forever.
No time.
Goodwill pushed himself into the bus as traffic slowed to thirty-five—it was amazing no one collided!
He balanced his pistol at breast level and kept his sharp eyes on Golb, who still didn’t move. Rising into the bus, he looked back at the empty seats. Porter was either out-cold, dead already, or playing hide and seek. But then, what else could the poor boy do?
With his eyes turned down the length of the short bus, Goodwill pushed his fingers just under the corner of Golb’s jaw. He barely felt a pulse. The man would live; no need to kill him. His story would be obscured by shock and unconsciousness. Golb might not have even seen the Mustang.
“John Porter!” said Goodwill finally to the hollow bus. “This gun can shoot clean through these seats so you might as well show yourself. If I wanted to kill you, there is nothing you could do about it. Better come quietly.”
The words were true. But then, Goodwill had every intention of murdering John D. Porter. And the assassin would be back in his Mustang before Sting was finished.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
11:49 a.m. PST
Porter had already been in the courtroom for far too long. He baked in the hot lights from above while sweat rolled along his backbone and into the gray slacks of his suit, which Clusser had been kind enough to bring him.
Pushing an index finger and a thumb beneath his glasses to rub his eyes, the judge looked just as comfortable as Porter.
The courtroom was modern and shining as if just built. The dark wood still held its unweathered original lacquer. The ceiling was so high it took effort to realize it was even there. The odor of perspiration and roses hung on the air.
Porter’s hands trembled before him, so he smashed them together and glued them to the tabletop. For some reason, his head continued to bob downward as the debate continued. He had to force his chin into the air repeatedly. This would only make him look guilty, no doubt, and that was the last thing he wanted.
His bullet wounds ached only slightly, though he’d been taking Tylenol for some time now. Porter had refused the Vicodin the doctor ordered because he knew it would hinder the workings of his mind. Desiring to be fully attentive with regard to everything, Porter decided to live with the greater discomfort so any further attempt to kill him would fail.
He expected the attempt, unless his enemies thought it best he rot in prison. Surely a Customs crime such as this would not put him away for life, even if he was found guilty.
But his mind wondered anyway.
Porter hadn’t quite understood the ride to the courthouse. He remembered being led to the back of a small bus. The door was opened, the driver was a given a thumbs up by the officer holding Porter’s right elbow, then he was led quickly back into the building as the bus pulled away. Clusser’s partner, another FBI agent in a classic suit of dark blue with near-invisible pin stripes, had told Porter from the beginning of the trip that he was to remain silent. They never took the handcuffs off his wrists sitting on his lap—never even bothered to loosen them, though Porter was sure Clusser would have, had Porter been permitted to ask.
On the way to the Federal courthouse, the two agents seemed overly intent on eyeing the mini-bus and wrecked cop car on the left side of the freeway where vehicles were causing a traffic jam. Porter thought he saw the agents stare at each other with deep telepathic eyes at that time. If it wasn’t for the rear view mirror, Clusser, who was driving, never would have told Porter there had been a phone call the night before—an “unrecorded” threat on Porter’s life. The more peculiar part of the experience was the way Clusser smiled into the mirror with that same fake expression he’d always given Porter when they served together in Japan. The unfeeling grin had one meaning: his last words were lies. In Japan, he’d used the performance in jest. But Porter knew Clusser was telling him the call wasn’t real or had been fabricated by someone to save his life.
So why had the bus looked so much like the one Porter was to have boarded, but only had been taken to and from? Porter suspected that the bus, the call, and his private trip to the courthouse in the back of an FBI-mobile had all been instigated by Clusser to save Porter’s life.
It had been a long ride with no more words. But Porter wished he were back in the car now.
A microphone stared at Porter from the table before him.
The jury, sitting like lost statues watching a funeral, didn’t matter at all.
Sitting up in his high-backed chair, the Honorable Judge Carole Panofsky, a heavyset man with a Jewish/New York accent, gazed repeatedly at Porter as though the student were little more than another file in his briefcase. The judge’s opinion was irrelevant also.
How many times had Porter testified to individuals concerning the truthfulness of the Book of Mormon and the restored church of Jesus Christ and they would not hear? The truth wasn’t in question today.
How often had Porter seen the inside of a courtroom with all its holy proceedings? In movies, hundreds. On TV, thousands…probably more.
It was all a game, like most things in life. Play your pieces right and….
The best lawyer would always—
Porter pinched away his swelling pessimism, squeezing his eyes shut. It had been a rough semester—to say the least. Graduation was an issue he might as well never ponder again….But that pain refused to wander.
In this corner, representing the United States Government, stood the Prosecuting Attorney, Ed Comer. Six foot, six inches, Comer smiled with the flat gaze of death. His motions went smoothly, and his voice hardly rippled, even when Porter gave him the run-around.
Well, what else was Porter to do! Tell them he’d found The Book of Mormon written in the original text?!? Unless they translated it no one would be able to tell otherwise! And everyone knew that translators argued endlessly as to the correct meanings in ancient documents. Frankly, Porter didn’t know what he had anymore. KM-3 wasn’t the issue, and no one seemed to know a thing about it. The trial dealt primarily with Porter’s apparent theft of other stolen artifacts, possession of archaeological objects owned rightfully by the government of Guatemala. Porter didn’t believe the Central American country had anything to do with this investigation, but they really were leaving him in the dark.
Answer this question.
What about this?
How do you explain that?
That’s how it went. It was confusing and there was little more so far. No one wanted to know the real facts behind all the commotion. Porter wished they’d just let him talk!
Weighing in at a frightening 112 pounds, dressed in a well-pressed Ralph Lauren Polo suit and never letting go of his Gucci pen, which incidentally was gold-plated, Porter’s Attorney continued to nod and grin at his client, telling him with badly hidden lies that everything was going exactly in the direction he wanted it. John Sowerby was his designation, and he buddied up quickly with the Mormon because of their first names. Bottom line: Porter knew Sowerby would get his pay whether Porter won or lost.
The weight of the trial rested on the words of those called to the stand.
The room stunk worse than when Porter had entered hours ago…before the recesses. But only Porter noticed.
Judge Panofsky, who probably didn’t want this trial to last too long, mumbled to his over-weight court clerk and wrote him words Porter would never read.
“I haven’t even seen that figurine before. And why isn’t my lawyer defending me here?! I told you! I don’t know how it got into my car, but I sure would be interested in getting my hands on those obviously Egyptian objects now,” Porter said.
Comer pulled his slicked head back, a relaxed—almost tired—expression on his face, and looked at the jury and then to the judge. “Interested enough to steal it?”
“I don’t think I have to answer that question. Of course I wouldn’t steal it.”
Comer went to his desk and picked up yet another file as someone coughed like a choking boar in the small audience. Porter was surprised more press hadn’t arrived. Normally they loved to point out crimes committed by members of the LDS church. Maybe the thought that a Mormon might have found and stolen proof that his church really was true had been too unsettling to print; too much like “National Enquirer”, lacking credibility.
“What does the D stand for, Mr. Porter…in your name?” said Comer, perhaps attempting to pull the case into a more comfortable arena.
“Determined,” said Porter.
Comer smiled. “To lie?”
“Are we joking around here? If so, I have a few things I’d like to say.”
The Prosecuting attorney shrugged audibly, glanced at the judge, at the jury, then back at Porter as if everyone could see how ridiculous this trial really was. He tightened his blue eyes. “Your simple unwillingness to cooperate will drown you in this court, Mr. Porter.”
“I’m following legal advice, saying nothing that might sound incriminatory,” said Porter. “Besides, if I told what I really know, it would only make everyone angry.”
Comer grinned again. “What’s that.”
“I’ve been set up for a fall.”
“You’re wrong, Mr. Porter….That only makes us laugh.”
Porter smiled. There was nowhere to go. He would be fried here, in this chair, and Porter knew it. He could put up a fight, but it would only lead to further pain and humiliation before the end. Yet he couldn’t simply sit and take the blows. Not after all that had happened. Without moving, he could feel the simple pulse of his heart in his stomach wound. He listened to the throbbing as his eyes glazed over. Were the doctors sure he was ready to handle a courtroom? Maybe they wanted suspected criminals out of their hospital as much as the jail wanted new prisoners. Clusser was right, Porter didn’t know anything about the legal system.
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