The 13-Minute Murder

by James Patterson

  Beck couldn’t let that happen.

  Pierce was almost out the door when he grabbed her. He got a handful of her suit jacket. His fingers slipped. He snagged her foot. She kicked him, losing one of her expensive shoes.

  But she tripped and fell.

  Beck scrambled after her. She kicked him again, in the face. It hurt.

  They were both wedged in the car door when he got his arm around her throat again. He hauled her to her feet and put the gun at her head once more. She elbowed him viciously in the ribs once, but he managed to hold on.

  When he looked up, once again, he was facing a firing squad. And this time, they had reinforcements.

  It seemed like an entire army battalion had surrounded the limo while he was inside.

  Beck looked around wildly. He saw the same federal agent who’d spoken to him before. She’d apparently taken charge of the whole situation. Again, she looked at him from behind a gun.

  “Let her go!” she screamed.

  Beck shook his head. He needed the truth to come out.

  “I want to talk!” he shouted. “To the president!”

  The agent scowled back at him.

  “That’s going to take a little time. She’s on her way to a secure location now because of this little stunt you pulled.”

  Good, Beck thought. Maybe that will keep her safe from Damocles. But he had to get the whole truth out. That was the only way to make sure this ended.

  Then he realized he was speaking live to an audience of millions. He looked at the cameras, just beyond the police barriers.

  He could tell the whole world what was really happening right here and right now.

  “I want to talk to her on the phone!” Beck shouted. “She needs to know that Senator Pierce and Damocles—”

  That’s when Pierce began shrieking at the top of her lungs, drowning him out.

  “Oh, God, oh, God, don’t let him kill me, please! You have to do something!” She kept screaming as loud as she could.

  Beck tried to bellow to be heard above her, but it was no use.

  No one could hear a thing he said.

  Beck wanted to scream in frustration. He knew he was much more vulnerable. Any second, a sniper could shoot him.

  He was out in the open now.

  An easy target.

  Chapter 47

  Morrison turned on his laser sight. Ordinarily he never needed the damned thing, but this would be a tricky shot even for him.

  He looked over the edge of the roof at the back of Beck’s head.

  He’d found the entrance to the roof and got here as quickly as he could, once he’d heard over the radio that Beck demanded a limo.

  Now he was half-hidden by the air-conditioning unit, his rifle propped on the roof’s edge, trying to get a clear angle on Beck without also killing his boss. With all the chaos down on the street, no one was even looking up at the roof.

  Beck kept bobbing in and out of his line of sight, however.

  It would help a lot if Pierce would just stop screaming, too. Morrison understood that it was meant to keep anyone from hearing Beck. But it was giving him a migraine.

  He tried to focus down the barrel. Pierce kept screaming. Beck kept moving. And there were a half-dozen other armed men and women who might open fire at any moment.

  He reached for his phone in his jacket pocket. All it would take was the tap of a few numbers on the screen. Then the bomb would go off.

  The problem was, that would kill Pierce, too. And he was pretty sure that would mean the end of his meal ticket.

  Morrison clicked his radio back to the secure channel.

  He needed some backup. And Howard was in just as deep as he was, which made him almost trustworthy.

  “Howard.”

  Nothing.

  “Howard, come on, are you there?”

  Still nothing.

  “Dammit, Howard, I know you can hear me—”

  Finally, with a small snap of static, Howard’s voice returned through his earpiece. “Shut up.”

  “What? I’m in position. I need to know—”

  “Shut up, Morrison,” Howard said. “It’s over. Believe me.”

  What? That couldn’t be right. Howard was like a pit bull chomping on a bone. He never gave up.

  “What are you talking about?”

  “The woman. Carpenter. She’s with a reporter now. I’m out.”

  Morrison was not a coward. He’d fought in Iraq. Walked into rooms where people were waiting to kill him. Stood next to presidents and presidential candidates in the middle of thousands of people, knowing that any one of them could be aiming a gun at his head.

  But now he felt his stomach clench and his head spin. Somehow Susan Carpenter had made it to the media.

  They were screwed. Even if no one believed her. Even if she was completely discredited, he was going to be investigated. The clues would start to add up.

  It didn’t take him long to do that math. He was about to become a liability to Damocles. And he knew what the company did with liabilities. He’d done some of that wet work himself.

  “Jesus,” he said quietly. “Howard, what are we going to do?”

  “What’s this ‘we’ shit, Morrison?” came the reply. It sounded like Howard was laughing now. “You never thought I was that bright, but I know when it’s time to cut my losses. Good luck, pal.”

  The channel went dead.

  Morrison was on his own. Even if he got out of here and started running, his life expectancy could be measured in days now. Weeks at the outside.

  Unless he could somehow prove his loyalty. Show the company that he would not talk. No matter what. If he could show them that he still had value.

  He still had his rifle. He could do Damocles a big favor right now by removing the main witness against the company.

  Beck had given him a death sentence.

  Morrison put his eye back to the sight and squinted.

  Maybe he could return the favor.

  Chapter 48

  Beck knew that Pierce was a politician, and that politicians were nothing if not long-winded. But he still couldn’t believe how long she could go on screaming.

  She had been yowling at the top of her lungs nonstop, making it impossible for him to say a single thing. The FBI, the police, even some of the Damocles guards had all tried to speak above her. They were trying to open negotiations, to get Beck to let her go.

  She wouldn’t let them. She was using the last tactic she had left. She wouldn’t allow anyone to talk to Beck, for fear of what he might say.

  But sooner or later, it had to end. Beck hoped he could wait it out. Unfortunately, he really was at the end of his endurance. His head felt like someone was crushing it in a vise, and the pressure only kept ratcheting up. His vision would go blank for seconds at a time, and despite all the guns pointed at him, his attention kept wandering. His body felt like it belonged to someone else. He almost felt like he was floating in the ocean.

  A calm, clinical part of his mind made the diagnosis. Detachment. Exhaustion. Fatigue. Drowsiness. Altered perception.

  Any first-year med student would be able to recognize the signs. He was going to lose consciousness soon. He wondered if they’d still shoot him.

  Or if Morrison or Howard would take the opportunity to trigger the bomb.

  His whole life, he’d believed he could control everything. That if he just worked hard enough, thought quickly enough, he could save people from the demons inside their heads.

  Now he had to face it. This was all out of his control. And he couldn’t save himself.

  Something was different. It took Beck a full second to realize what it was.

  The reporters, the media—there was something different going on behind their lines.

  Most of the cameras were still pointed in his direction. But some had turned. Some were clustered around a reporter at the back of the mob.

  Their lights shone down, and the crowd parted, and he saw her.

/>   Susan.

  Despite everything she’d been through since this morning, she looked magnificent. She was talking to a reporter, and there were a dozen other microphones shoved toward her face.

  Senator Pierce stopped screaming. Beck realized she could see the whole scene unfolding right in front of them, too.

  She was watching all her lies unravel, right before her eyes.

  In the sudden silence, Beck could hear Susan clearly. She was in the middle of a sentence. “Yes, I am saying I watched them kill a police officer—”

  Beck could just imagine what was scrolling on CNN right now:

  SENATOR ACCUSED OF MURDER AND COVER-UP BY MAN HOLDING HER HOSTAGE.

  Beck realized it didn’t matter what happened to him anymore. Susan was safe. It was out of his hands now.

  So he dropped the gun. Raised his hands, as high as he could.

  “I surrender,” he said as loud as he could.

  Pierce looked at him, trying to comprehend what had just happened, the horror only growing on her face. Beck smiled at her.

  “I surrender,” Beck said again. “I will tell you whatever you want to know.”

  The police and the other gunmen began moving forward, cautiously. Beck had put the jacket back on so that they would think he was still wearing the vest. He hoped his ploy was going to work.

  Then Pierce screamed again. But now it was a completely different message coming from her mouth.

  “It wasn’t me!” she said. “It wasn’t me! It was Damocles! They forced me to—”

  Beck was distracted from what she said next. A red dot struck him in the eye, and he blinked and staggered back.

  He realized that it was a laser sight. Someone had just turned him into a target again.

  A microsecond later, he heard the gunshot.

  Chapter 49

  Morrison had Beck lined up perfectly. The senator was clear. One squeeze of his finger, and Beck was going to disappear in a puff of red mist. That would show Damocles. That would prove Morrison was still loyal.

  Then he heard what was coming out of Pierce’s mouth.

  She was spilling everything. The word “Damocles” over and over. All on live, national TV.

  Morrison sighed. He knew, in the back of his head, that Howard had done the right thing. Morrison should have run while he had the chance. There was no way anything he did now would make a difference.

  But it was still worth a shot.

  He pulled the trigger.

  Chapter 50

  Beck felt blood hit his face.

  But he didn’t fall.

  Pierce did.

  She looked stunned. Her mouth was still open, even though blood was pouring out of it now, as she tried to draw breath into lungs that had just been punctured by a bullet.

  People screamed. The police shouted at Beck. Confusion reigned. Nobody knew where the bullet came from.

  Then the red dot struck Beck in the eye again.

  Susan was telling her story again, as clearly as she could with all the interruptions—and then every head in the crowd turned.

  They all heard the gunshot. First from the limo, and then, after a microsecond delay, from their screens that were carrying the live feed.

  For a second, Susan thought her heart would stop.

  “Holy shit,” someone said. “They just shot the senator.”

  Relief flooded into Susan. Her legs went weak. Surely that would be the end of it. Surely this was where the insanity had to stop.

  Then they heard the next shot.

  Morrison looked at Beck, standing like an idiot as Pierce lay there, blood already pooling on the asphalt.

  It didn’t seem right that he should get out of this. That he should be the one to walk away, after screwing up all their plans.

  Morrison thought about waking up in prison every day. Eating that industrial slop. Sleeping on a cot in a concrete room. Watching for the knife in his back.

  Knowing that Beck won.

  Revenge was all Morrison had left, really.

  Might as well take it.

  He pulled the trigger.

  Beck knew what the red dot meant. He thought about running, but he knew he wouldn’t have made it two steps.

  And he was tired. The pain in his head was the only thing he felt anymore. His legs were already failing him. His vision had narrowed to a black tunnel.

  He said, “Susan.”

  He didn’t hear the second gunshot.

  Didn’t feel his body hit the ground.

  Chapter 51

  Morrison smiled to himself as he went down the stairs from the roof.

  Everything around him was pure pandemonium. His badge got him past the cops in the lobby with little more than a glance.

  A dozen yards away, there were paramedics clustered around two bodies. Beck and Pierce. The paramedics had put them on stretchers. A bomb squad tech was standing by. Every eye, every camera, was focused on the drama as the emergency crews worked desperately to save them.

  There was Beck’s girlfriend, held back by a Secret Service agent, sobbing.

  And there was the limo, completely forgotten. Totally unattended.

  Morrison got into the driver’s seat.

  The crowds had cleared, clustered around the latest spectacle, leaving the road open to the exit.

  He started the engine. Pulled forward so quietly he could hear the crunching of gravel under the tires.

  One of the cops gave him a look, but Morrison just flipped his credentials and his badge out the window, and the cop moved on. More important things than a Secret Service agent moving a car out of the way.

  He hit the road. It was empty. All traffic was blocked coming into the university. But not going out.

  Morrison started grinning. He could barely believe it. He was not only going to get away, he was going to do it in style.

  Maybe he wouldn’t get paid, but at least he wasn’t going to die in prison. That would have to be enough.

  There was just one last thing.

  He needed to cover his tracks completely. He needed one last big distraction.

  And if there was any chance that Beck or his girlfriend was going to live—well, Morrison needed to take care of that, too.

  He took out his phone. He entered the code for the vest, and paused before he hit the Send button.

  Morrison wondered, for a moment, if he’d hear the explosion.

  He hit Send.

  He heard a beep from the seat right behind him.

  And then nothing else, ever again.

  SIX MONTHS LATER

  Chapter 52

  Beck opened his eyes.

  The room was dark. He didn’t bother to check the clock. He’d been waking at 3:00 a.m. for a month now. Sometimes he would look at the ceiling until his alarm went off.

  But usually, he got out of bed, like he did now. He’d been on his back long enough in the hospital, after the surgery to remove the bullet that struck him in the upper chest when Morrison shot him.

  Either Morrison was a lousy shot, or Beck slipping into unconsciousness and falling backward the moment the trigger was pulled had caused Morrison to miss. He certainly would have been aiming at his head.

  Beck had been arrested in the ICU. He woke up to find that someone had put another pair of handcuffs on him, locking him to the bed.

  Eventually, however, the police sorted it out. He was hailed as a national hero. Or an assassin who’d gotten away with it, depending on which cable news channel you watched.

  Beck looked out the window of his new condo. Bulletproof glass. One of the upgrades he’d installed when they moved.

  The information on Kevin Scott’s laptop had led to the first indictments within a couple of weeks, and now, the fallout was still coming down all over Washington, DC. At first, it seemed as if the damage would be contained to just Pierce and Morrison—whatever they’d managed to scrape off the sidewalk—and Howard, and a few of their fellow conspirators. Damocles issued a statement th
at blamed everything on a small number of rogue employees, and then the board and executives hid behind their lawyers.

  But it’s never a good idea to take a shot at the president and miss. Damocles was now the subject of no less than five congressional inquiries, not to mention the FBI investigation, the Department of Defense probe, and the ongoing housecleaning in the Secret Service. All the company’s contracts had been suspended. There were new arrests almost daily. High-ranking officials were cutting deals.

  President Martin was grateful, at least. She’d arranged for Beck to be bumped to the head of the line of an FDA trial for a new cancer-fighting treatment. It used genetically altered cells to target inoperable tumors.

  It seemed to be working. His cancer, miraculously, was in remission. His fingers no longer went numb. He was hitting the gym every day to rebuild muscle that had atrophied during his recovery. He had an MRI every week, and his tumor just kept shrinking.

  It looked like he was going to live.

  At least until he testified.

  The first trial, of the former Secret Service agent Howard—he’d been captured before he boarded a flight to Rio—began in a few weeks. Then Beck would appear before a joint House–Senate commission. And he would also go on TV, and tell his story as many times as it took.

  He was putting a target on his head again.

  Beck heard something behind him, and turned to see Susan sitting up, the sheet pulled around her waist.

  “Come back to bed,” she said. “You can’t keep brooding about it.”

  She always seemed to know what he was thinking. It made sense. She’d been his shrink, after all.

  “They’re not going to let me testify,” he said. “Damocles. They’ll try again. At me. And you.”

  “Maybe,” she said. “But we survived before. And we will again.”

  Beck smiled at that. “What makes you so sure?”

  “Experience. Six months ago, you were a terminal case.”