The 13-Minute Murder Read online

  And Damocles’s sniper would never have a chance to kill the president. Pierce’s twisted scheme would fail. On balance, more lives would be saved than lost.

  But it would mean Susan died. Probably in the most horrible way possible. Beck didn’t fool himself about Howard or Morrison. They would do their worst, if only for revenge against him, even if he were dead.

  Beck was willing to die. But he wasn’t sure he could live with sentencing Susan to torture and slow death.

  The line moved forward, one agonizingly slow step at a time. The people around him were smiling like they were heading into a football game. This was the playoffs for political junkies. Pierce had been right about that, at least. She’d made the race more exciting.

  Beck had to decide. Who was going to live, and who was going to die?

  No one should have to make this choice, he thought desperately.

  But here he was.

  He was two places away from the metal detector now. He wondered if it would pick up on the wiring in the vest. Maybe he wouldn’t have to make a choice at all. If they pulled him out of the line and patted him down, would Howard trigger the bomb just to keep him from talking?

  “You’re looking a little nervous there, Doc,” Howard said. “Just take a deep breath and try to enjoy it.” There was a chuckle in Beck’s ear as the agent laughed at his own little joke. Beck truly loathed the man.

  Then Beck was at the metal detector.

  He made his choice.

  Susan, forgive me, he thought.

  He turned to the man in the uniform and opened his mouth to speak.

  Chapter 29

  At that moment, Susan was looking at Agent Howard’s gun.

  She and the agent were parked in the alleyway behind the university’s performing arts center, which was where the debate was being held. Morrison had gone off with Pierce back at campaign headquarters, while Howard had taken Beck and Susan. He didn’t even have to threaten them with the gun—one look at the vest strapped to Beck had been enough to keep them compliant.

  Howard had bundled her inside the car with Beck, and then kept her as a hostage after dropping him off at the front of the building. Since then, he had been running the operation from the rear of the car.

  The interior of the limo was outfitted like the cockpit of a high-tech fighter jet: screens showed multiple angles from security cameras inside and outside the auditorium. Howard’s microphone connected to radios carried by a half-dozen Damocles operatives who were involved in the plot—Susan had heard him giving orders over a secure channel—and he also monitored the Secret Service and police frequencies as well.

  The limo itself was bombproof and bulletproof. Heavy ceramic armor plates were concealed under its panels, and it had a specially designed chassis that could shrug off anything short of a rocket launcher. It was one of the alternate limos used to carry the president and other high-ranking dignitaries. Howard had bragged about it when he put Beck and Susan inside. Like he was a tour guide.

  Now Howard’s gun rested within easy reach of his right hand, on a small tray-table next to the command console.

  Susan stared at it for what felt like a long time. She wondered if she’d be able to shoot him if she had the chance.

  When she looked up, she saw Howard grinning at her, his eyes and nose swollen behind the bandages.

  “Try it,” he said. “It’s been a long day, and I’d love to have an excuse.”

  Susan lifted her hands, and sat back in her seat in the limo as far away from him as she could. She knew better than to antagonize a psychopath. Howard would act on impulse and worry about the consequences later.

  Howard grunted. “Smart. A lot smarter than your boyfriend. Now just sit there and stay quiet.”

  He turned his attention back to the tiny screens. She could see Beck at an odd angle, looking down on his head from above. Susan realized that she must be seeing him through a security camera at the entrance. He looked tense and nervous, but nobody else would really notice. You’d have to know him to realize that expression on his face wasn’t his usual way of looking at the world.

  So Beck was going to make it inside the debate, unless he did something to change that.

  He would try something, however. He wouldn’t take this quietly, and he would not allow anyone to use him as a weapon. Part of it was his need to do the right thing—that Superman complex she was always telling him about—and part of it was just his innate stubbornness. Randall was a fighter. He had to do something, even if it got them both killed.

  She looked at Howard’s briefcase, sitting by his feet. That was where the agent had stashed the laptop after Morrison took it from her, and he’d brought it with them in the limo. She supposed they still wanted to know what was on the hard drive and make sure it was disposed of properly.

  It was dangerous to them. They were afraid of it.

  So Susan made sure she kept her eye on it.

  When Beck made his move, she would make hers.

  They might both get killed, but at least they weren’t going to surrender.

  Chapter 30

  Beck prepared to tell the security guard at the gate about the bomb under his jacket. He took a deep breath, and wondered if there was going to be time for pain, or if it would all happen too fast to feel anything.

  Then he saw the logo on the man’s uniform.

  It was the globe and sword of Damocles.

  The man smiled at Beck and waved him through the metal detector.

  Beck didn’t move.

  The man’s smile froze into something more like a grimace. He stepped forward and put his hand on Beck’s shoulder.

  “Come on now, Doctor,” he said quietly. “You’re holding things up.”

  He guided Beck forward and pushed him through the metal detector with a not-so-gentle shove.

  Beck braced himself for a buzzing noise, for people to notice him, for the code that would blow him—and all these people around him—into pieces.

  The metal detector didn’t make a sound.

  A second later, Beck was through, and in the lobby outside the auditorium before he knew it.

  Damocles had a man at the door. Of course they did. They were an elite security outfit, just the type of company contracted for events like this.

  “See, Doc?” said Howard’s voice. “Told you we’d handle everything. Now all you have to do is wait.”

  Howard was right. They were handling everything. He was surrounded by dignitaries and party officials and young campaign staffers. Not one of them expected to die tonight.

  Beck would have to think harder. He would have to find a better way.

  The doors opened behind him, and Senator Elizabeth Pierce entered the lobby, flanked by her Secret Service detail and her campaign staff.

  Some of the people in the lobby broke out into applause and cheers.

  “You can do it, Liz!” one of them shouted.

  “You’re going to win!”

  “Take her down, Senator!”

  There was laughter and more clapping at that.

  Beck barely heard it.

  It was too late now. He had no more time to think. No more plans. No more last-minute, buzzer-beating, Hail Mary plays.

  Any minute now, the president would arrive as well, and Morrison would trigger the bomb.

  Beck was out of time.

  Chapter 31

  Agent Morrison took his position in the catwalk above the seats and the control booth of the auditorium. The Secret Service had already blocked off access to this section of the building.

  It was, after all, the perfect spot for an assassin.

  Morrison carried an H&K MP5 machine pistol. With its extendable stock, and set to single-shot fire, he could easily put a bullet into the head of President Sharon Martin. He was less than a hundred feet from her podium on the stage, standing above the seats, and backlit by all the lights.

  No one would see him.

  He’d wait until the candidates were
both on the stage, and then he’d hit the button on his phone that would trigger Beck’s vest.

  People would be distracted, looking back at the lobby. That’s when he’d kill the president.

  Then he would fire another burst along the floor of the stage. Senator Pierce might get hit, or she might not. At that point, his colleagues—some of them people he’d known for years—would already be pulling both the women offstage and to the ambulances waiting in the back.

  They’d also be shooting at him, but he was prepared for that. He would fire randomly into the crowd. He had a description all ready of a man of Middle Eastern descent as the shooter. Everyone would start looking for the suspect.

  And no one would seriously believe Morrison had been involved. He was, after all, a Secret Service agent.

  He and Howard had already picked out a patsy, a local college student who spent too much time on jihadi websites in between playing video games. They would hide the H&K in his dorm room and send in an anonymous tip to the police.

  If the kid got killed while resisting arrest—well, so much the better. Damocles had friends in the FBI and the police department as well.

  Morrison had been worried for a while today. First Scott had his attack of conscience, and then it looked like that smartass Beck was going to cause some real problems.

  But it all worked out. And he was about to have a multibillion-dollar defense contractor and the future president of the United States deeply in his debt.

  Howard’s voice suddenly began speaking through his radio earpiece.

  “Morrison. The senator just entered the building. You good?”

  Morrison smiled.

  “Yeah,” he said. “I’m perfect.”

  Chapter 32

  In the limo, Susan watched Howard carefully.

  The agent pressed a button on his console and spoke into his mike. “Morrison. The senator just entered the building. You good?”

  “Yeah,” came the reply. “I’m perfect.”

  “All right,” Howard said. “We’re almost there. Just a couple more minutes.”

  He looked at a digital clock in the console. The debate was due to start at 9:00 p.m. The clock read 8:56.

  Howard pressed another button on the console and switched channels again. Now the feed from the Secret Service’s radios came over the limo’s speakers.

  “This is Howard,” he said. “Senator Pierce is in the lobby, on her way to the stage. We’re cutting it a little close. Do we have an ETA on Minerva?”

  Minerva. Like most people in DC, Susan knew that President Martin’s Secret Service code-name was Minerva, after the ancient goddess of wisdom—the Washington Post had done a whole feature on it.

  Howard was checking to see when she would arrive. Susan realized that he and Morrison and all the other Damocles operatives would all know, down to the second, where to find their target.

  “Minerva is two minutes out,” an agent replied over the radio. “Onstage in five.”

  “Roger that,” Howard said.

  Howard watched the screens carefully, then glanced over at Susan.

  “Might want to stick your fingers in your ears, sweetheart,” he said. “We’re about to have a very big bang.”

  Chapter 33

  Senator Pierce made her way across the crowded lobby, smiling and shaking hands. Beck watched her carefully.

  No one paid any attention to him. Their eyes were all on the senator.

  Beck didn’t know what to do. He was completely out of ideas.

  And he was sweating, and his head was killing him.

  Senator Pierce moved forward, her protective detail clearing the way respectfully and carefully. It was more stagecraft. Nobody here would do anything against her. They were all vetted beforehand to get a seat at the debate.

  Beck was the only truly dangerous man in the room.

  Pierce drew even with Beck in the crowd now. She turned and saw him. They locked eyes. And Pierce gave him a radiant politician’s smile. She looked happy.

  Because she was going to get away with it. Beck could see that, almost written on her face.

  She was barely five feet away from him. If the trigger in his pocket actually worked, he’d be tempted to squeeze it.

  He reached into his pocket, and found not the trigger, but the handcuffs that Howard had used on him that morning. It seemed a million years ago to him now.

  Useless. Just like him.

  Beck was still sweating. His head throbbed, and his pulse pounded behind his ears.

  He took a deep breath. This would be the absolute worst time for one of his episodes. But all this stress, the sudden spike in his blood pressure, the adrenaline. All of that, on top of his exhaustion and the punishment he’d already taken today…it would make sense if his body couldn’t take any more, if the pressure inside his skull was too great.

  It would make sense.

  Beck began gasping for air.

  The people closest to him in the crowd looked at him.

  “You okay?” a young man who looked barely out of high school asked him. He looked like a kid wearing his dad’s jacket and tie.

  “I’m fine,” Beck choked out, and bent over, hyperventilating now.

  Other people began to notice. Including Howard, who spoke through the radio.

  “What’s going on, Beck?” he said, a warning in his tone. “You’d better pull it together.”

  Beck didn’t answer, just kept breathing hard.

  “Sir, are you all right?” someone else asked. “Do you need help?”

  “Someone get a doctor. Is anyone here a doctor?”

  Beck would have laughed at that if he could.

  “I’m fine,” he said again. It came out in a wheeze. Beck sounded weak even to his own ears.

  Howard’s voice spoke in the radio again. “What the hell are you doing?”

  “Can’t breathe,” he said. He stumbled to one side and bumped into several people. “My head—”

  Now people were beginning to grab for him, trying to keep him upright. Pierce was stuck in the crowd as everyone froze in place, wondering what was going on.

  Now Pierce’s protective detail was moving away from her, and toward Beck.

  “We need a doctor over here!” someone shouted. “Call 911!”

  “Get yourself together, Beck,” Howard snapped. “Do I have to remind you—”

  Whatever he was going to say next was lost in the shouts of the crowd as Beck fell forward and lay facedown on the carpet.

  Chapter 34

  “Get up, Beck! Get up!” Howard screamed into his mike.

  “That won’t work,” Susan told him. “You can’t bully a cancer patient into getting up. He needs medical attention.”

  Howard turned to her and snarled, “Shut up or I will shut you up.”

  He turned back to the console, his eyes searching the screens, listening to the multiple radio channels, where chaos reigned.

  But for all that data, he still had no idea what was happening right in front of his eyes.

  “What’s going on?” the driver asked from the front seat. “Should I call Morrison?”

  “Shut the hell up and let me think!” Howard shouted back. He was unraveling right in front of Susan’s eyes.

  The sound of a 911 dispatcher suddenly broke through one of the speakers: “We’ve got a call for a paramedic at the Georgetown University debate. Is the Secret Service aware of the problem? Do they require assistance?”

  Howard pressed a button on his console and switched channels. Then, in a surprisingly calm voice, he said, “Metro Dispatch, this is Secret Service. We are aware of the problem and have a medical unit onsite. We have no need for assistance.”

  “Are you sure?” the dispatcher asked. “We have a unit on the way.”

  In a slightly tighter voice, Howard answered, “We have it under control, Metro Dispatch. Please let us do our job, and you do yours.”

  There was a pause. Then: “Copy that, Secret Service. Call if
you need help.”

  The dispatcher broke the connection.

  “You have to get him help,” Susan said. “He needs an ambulance. He could be bleeding into his brain, he could be going into cardiac arrest—”

  Howard pointed his gun at her and cocked the hammer back.

  “Not. Another. Word,” he said, biting off every syllable. Then he switched the channel on his console again.

  An urgent voice broke through all the other chatter. It was the same Secret Service agent that Howard had spoken to before about President Martin. “Base, what’s going on? You have a man down? Should Minerva abort?”

  Susan understood immediately that the president’s Secret Service agents were asking if it was safe for her to come to the debate.

  Howard clicked onto that channel and answered in the calmest voice possible. “No need for that,” he said. “It looks like a medical issue. All clear here. Minerva is okay to proceed.”

  “Copy that, base. See you in one minute.”

  “See you here,” Howard said. Then he switched back to his other radio channels, stabbing the buttons frantically.

  “Dammit, is there anyone who’s got eyes on Beck?” he barked into his mike.

  “I’m at the door,” a voice said through the speaker. “I can get to him, but it will mean leaving my post—”

  “Then leave your damned post!” Howard shouted. “Move it!”

  Susan knew that if Beck had collapsed, he might well be dying on the floor. Or maybe even already dead. She had no idea how his body was holding up after everything they had been through today. He could already be gone.

  The thought nearly broke her heart. If she stopped to think about it, she knew it would paralyze her.

  So she pushed it aside.

  Randall would want her to live. And more importantly, he would want her to beat these bastards.

  Howard was distracted. He was staring at the screens, watching a uniformed Damocles guard shove his way through the crowd around Beck.

  She leaned all her weight back in her seat in the limo and pulled her knees to her chin.