But something was wrong. Waller’s posture was depressed: his shoulders were drooping and his arms were hanging limply at his sides.
“Jon?” Haviland asked as he puffed toward him.
As Waller turned, Haviland’s first impressions were confirmed: this was not good. It was then that Haviland saw the face of the man lying on the ground. It was then that he again heard the screams of sirens approaching in the distance.
“It’s Harper,” Waller managed.
Haviland crouched down to slap a couple of fingers against Payne’s neck to check for a pulse. Blood was accumulating beneath his head, pooling in a puddle against the curb.
The cop knelt next to Haviland. “I didn’t know the guy was one of us, I’m really sorry.”
Waller bent down and grasped Payne’s hand in his own. “The man says he’s sorry,” Waller said wryly to no one in particular.
The ambulance screeched to a stop in front of Colonial General, a hospital similar in size to Virginia Presbyterian, where Harper Payne’s journey had begun only ten days earlier. The nurses, the doctors, the paramedics... everything and everyone moved quickly. To the untrained eye, the activity appeared to be haphazard and random. But in reality it was harmonious, the medics working off each other like the notes of a classical masterpiece.
For obvious reasons, Payne was being afforded the best medical care in the most secure environment possible. Every person in the room was a member of an elite group of specially selected personnel who had been mobilized from Bethesda Naval Hospital as soon as the call had come in from Fredericksburg. Though they wore necklaces with encoded biometric markings, to the general hospital staff with whom they usually worked they appeared to be normal practicing physicians and nurses. When a crisis involving high-ranking federal officials struck, however, they were summoned by secured communications to one of several predetermined and uniquely equipped locations.
Sworn to secrecy about everything they saw and did, their reports and operative notes were never committed to paper. They answered only to the army chief of staff and the national security adviser. Surprisingly, no checks and balances were afforded their work. Their success or failure was never questioned by nonmilitary personnel.
Outside the bulletproof doors of the secured emergency room, two guards stood sentry. Inside, monitors and machines beeped and hissed. A nasotracheal tube was inserted, a portable X-ray unit was brought in, and a defibrillator was charged and ready. Harried movement, notes of a masterpiece.
Finally, Payne’s vitals were deemed stable and he was rushed off to a private elevator down the hall, where Dr. Vance Taylor, a squat, graying man, was accosted by Waller and Douglas Knox, who had just arrived.
“What’s the story?” Knox asked, grabbing Taylor by the arm.
The surgeon attempted to pull his arm free. “I don’t really have time to talk, Director.”
“We’ll ride with you,” Knox said as he and Waller entered the elevator. The doors snapped closed and the car lifted.
“As best I can tell, he only took one bullet,” Taylor said. “It passed clean through and didn’t strike any vital organs. There’ll be no limitation of function. Biggest risk is infection, and we’ve dosed him with antibiotics.”
“But all that blood, and he was out cold,” Waller said.
“We’ve looked for a second bullet, but I don’t see another entry wound, and the skull X-rays were negative. I’m having him brought downstairs for a CT.”
“Then where’d all the blood come from?” Knox asked.
“This is just a guess, but the force from the gunshot could’ve knocked him backward. If he tripped or fell and struck his head on the curb, it would explain the five-centimeter gash on his scalp and all the blood you saw. The scalp bleeds profusely and always looks like a wound much worse than it actually is.”
A bell rang as the elevator neared their floor.
“So that’s it, then. Just a clean bullet wound and a cut on his head?”
Taylor held up a hand. “I didn’t say that. If he hit his head like I think he might have, he could have a subdural hematoma. If it was more of a glancing blow and merely a laceration, he’ll be fine. The CT will tell us all we need to know.”
The elevator stopped abruptly and the doors slid apart. “In English,” Knox said.
“The blow to the head might have caused some internal bleeding around his brain. If that’s the case, we have to relieve the pressure immediately or we could lose him. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I need to get to radiology.”
Taylor stepped out of the elevator, leaving Waller and Knox standing there, staring at the closing stainless steel doors. Then, Knox turned to Waller, his face contorted into a hideous Halloween mask of anger. “How the hell could you have let this happen?”
Nick Bradley walked into the bar near his motel and ordered a Scotch, straight up. He buried his head in the crook of his elbow and exhaled deeply while the bartender prepared his drink.
When the man placed the glass on the counter in front of him, Bradley lifted his head and then peeled a couple of bills off his money clip. His eye caught an image on the news playing out on the television mounted above the far end of the bar.
“Hey, can you turn that up?” Bradley asked the barkeep.
The man reached below the counter and pointed a remote at the TV. As the volume rose, Bradley could hear the news reporter setting the scene.
“...and it appears as if the government’s case against Anthony Scarponi could be in significant jeopardy, unless their key witness, former FBI agent Harper Payne, makes what would appear to be a miraculous recovery...”
Bradley’s gaze remained locked on the TV as images of the street in Fredericksburg flashed across the screen. An officer-involved shooting team was examining and documenting the scene behind the reporter as she babbled on about the Scarponi case.
“We have Ray Jamison standing by at Colonial General Hospital, where Agent Payne was brought a little over an hour ago.”
Bradley threw another mouthful of Scotch down his throat, the burn bringing his mind back into focus. His placed the glass back on the bar and grabbed for his cell phone, which was now ringing. He answered it with his eyes still fixed on the TV.
His back straightened. “I’ve been trying to reach you, where the hell have you been?” He paused, waiting for the answer. He shook his head, then slid down off his stool. “Did you see the news? This wasn’t supposed to happen.” He listened for a second, then broke in. “No. Absolutely not.” He turned and glanced around, realizing his voice had been a little too loud. “We need to meet,” he said as he pushed through the bar’s front door. “Right now.”
The birthing room was decorated with primary colors, children’s hands of all shapes and sizes splashed across the walls. It was a comfortable environment, with a couch, chairs, and plenty of room to stretch out and relax with your newborn.
Presley Jane Archer, a seven-pound-five-ounce, pink bundle of delight had just been brought back into the room to see her mother after being examined, scored, and foot printed.
Hector DeSantos stood in the doorway as the baby was reunited with Trish, whose attention was so focused on the newborn that she did not even see him standing there. The nurse smiled at him on the way out, then closed the door behind her.
After Archer had gone down in the streets of Fredericksburg, DeSantos went on a hunt, sniffing out his prey in every way he knew how. But he had come up empty. Anthony Scarponi had gotten away. But DeSantos knew that sooner or later—preferably sooner—he would bring justice to the grave of Brian Archer. Zebra 59, his partner’s dying words, meant that DeSantos’s sole focus would be to track down and settle the score with Archer’s killer.
DeSantos had walked through the hospital corridors, fresh with the knowledge that Trish had given birth to a healthy girl, trying to wipe the anger, the depression, the terror, off his face. He had stopped at a restroom and stood in front of the mirror, attempting to smile, attempting to hide what was in his heart. As he had done so many times in the past in so many dire undercover situations when he needed to, he was actor first, commando second.
Now, as he stood in the doorway, his heart pounded fiercely against his chest, not out of fear, but out of sadness because of what he was about to do. He had to take a mother’s most blissful moment and turn it into a nightmare. But there was no other way. He knew that as the hours passed and Trish did not hear from her husband, she would begin to worry, and then ask questions. And the person she would call would be him.
And that’s the way it should be; that’s the way he and Brian had always wanted it.
He forced a smile across his face and held out the modest bouquet of flowers he had picked up in the hospital gift shop on the way up. Pink and yellow roses with a smatter of baby’s breath. How appropriate. Trish looked over and smiled.
Her face was haggard and her complexion pale. It had no doubt been a difficult labor. But then again, in his limited experience with pregnant women, he had never heard of an easy labor. Only ones less difficult than others.
“Where’s Brian?” Trish asked.
“We were called away and were in the middle of a mission when the page came through,” DeSantos said, maintaining the phony smile. “He wanted so much to be here, you know that.”
Trish smiled. “Of course, he wouldn’t have missed this for the world.”
DeSantos felt his stomach seize up on him but he forced himself to hold it in, to choke off the emotions. “So, this is Presley?”
Trish turned the baby around to face DeSantos.
“Say hi to Uncle Hector,” Trish sang.
DeSantos touched the newborn’s soft facial skin with the back of his forefinger and felt a surge of emotion well up in his throat. He fought back tears and summoned the strength to say, “She’s beautiful.”
“I see Brian in her eyes, don’t you?”
DeSantos smiled. “Yup. And her mother’s beautiful face.”
Trish planted a kiss on the baby’s cheek, then said, without looking up, “So when’s Brian coming?”
DeSantos knew the question was going to come; it was just a matter of when. He was going to tell her what he had prepared himself to say in the car, that he was sorry, that Brian had died in the line of duty, that his last thoughts were of mother and daughter, that he, Hector, was to look after them. And that he was going to get the son of a bitch who had killed her husband.
But he knew that as soon as he started to speak, Trish would know. It would click in her mind and that would be it. Brian was dead. That would be all that mattered to her. But to DeSantos... what mattered to him was making sure Anthony Scarponi paid for what he had done.
DeSantos pulled up a chair and set it next to her bedside. “Trish... about Brian.” He looked down, but the tears started to trail down his cheek until he tasted the salt on his lips. He picked his head up, unable to hide it anymore, and saw that she knew.
She shook her head. “God, no, please. No.” A tear ran down her cheek and dripped onto Presley’s knit cap. Trish’s pale face turned beet red and she began to sob, and the baby began to cry, and he leaned over to hug both of them.
The pressroom at Colonial General was crowded with tripod and shoulder-mounted television cameras, reporters, and support personnel from the Washington media corps. A continuous white noise of chatter had poured from the journalists ever since they were herded into the room twenty minutes ago.
With the babbling growing louder and the news people becoming restless, the side door swung open suddenly and two men entered, followed by a contingent of suited security-detail agents. The embroidered name above the vest pocket on the knee-length, white lab coat of the first man read VANCE TAYLOR, M.D. The doctor introduced himself and alluded to the presence of FBI director Knox, then addressed the press corps.
The doctor’s face was long and his shoulders were rolled, as if he had just been through a harrowing experience. He paused, placed both hands on the lectern, which was emblazoned with the hospital logo, and sighed.
“As you know, Special Agent Harper Payne was involved in an accidental shooting in Fredericksburg a little over two hours ago. Unfortunately, despite our best efforts, he suffered a subdural hematoma, which resulted in uncontrolled bleeding in his brain. We attempted to relieve the pressure but were unsuccessful. Agent Payne died on the operating table thirty minutes ago, at nineteen hundred hours.”
A noticeable murmur rose from the reporters.
“Director Knox has a statement and then I’ll answer questions.” Taylor turned to Knox, whose tie was loosened at the collar.
Knox kept his gaze on the lectern as he spoke. “As all of you know, Agent Payne was pivotal to the case we had against the well-publicized assassin Anthony Scarponi. I can only assure you that the FBI will do everything in its power to bring justice to the people of this country, in spite of tonight’s events.” Knox looked up at the stunned faces standing before him. He cocked his head and with a choked voice said, “As for Agent Payne, may his soul rest in peace. I can only say that his courage, fortitude, and service to this country have not and will not go unappreciated. Thank you.”
Hands sprang up from nearly every reporter in the room. Knox turned away, giving them the clear sign that he had no intention of answering their questions. He stepped back and allowed Vance Taylor to take the lectern, then hurried off through the exit.
Nick Bradley sat in his darkened motel room holding his nine-millimeter in one hand and his cell phone in the other. For ten minutes he struggled to find the right words. It would be a fast call, he figured, just long enough to hook Scarponi and keep his attention. He would drop the bomb, then back away.
The television, turned down to a barely perceptible level, droned on about the death of Harper Payne. Another investigative special, more legal analysis, and higher ratings for the networks. All the interest of a high profile trial or political scandal, but in a condensed version. It would draw viewers for a week at most, and then fade from the public’s mind—but for those seven days, the story would dominate the airwaves. Because viewers brought money to the networks’ bottom line, and the bottom line drove the news.