Killer Weekend (26 page)

P
 atrick Cutter watched from behind Elizabeth Shaler, savoring the moment. He saw a room of captivated faces and the unblinking eyes of the five television network news cameras given permission to record.

   Liz Shaler spoke with authority and passion, animating her talk with her beautiful hands. "There is a growing abyss in this country, a divide between haves and have-nots that must finally be addressed. Those of us here today are fortunate to be in the former category, but that also puts us in a position of responsibility to have a critical impact on this country's future. An obligation for improvement. I see a need for moral certitude, yes, but administered with a compassion promised by the present administration but never delivered. It is time we stand up and say, 'If not me, who? If not now, when?' "

   The audience erupted into applause. A good number jumped to their feet. Patrick allowed himself a smile.

   Then he spotted a red-faced and out-of-breath Walt Fleming at the back of the room, and he knew he had trouble.

Walt paused only briefly at the door. Dryer's men were likely on orders to keep him out of this room. He searched for Nagler, for the dog, as he walked away from the doors and toward a corner where he could get a look back at the faces. Much of the crowd rose in applause, blocking his view of the room. Then he spotted his father straight ahead. His father spotted him and shook his head as if to say, "You'll never make it."

W
e stand at a threshold," Shaler said from the dais, "a turning point where we can elect to go back or push forward. The choices have never been more clear. . . ."

   Cutter watched as some heads turned with the sheriff 's quick movement. Here was the very distraction he'd hoped to avoid—Dick O'Brien would hear about this! Shaler, too, took notice of the sheriff, angling her head slightly—looking for a possible sign. Now Dryer's two agents, flanking the stage, picked up on him as well.

   Liz Shaler pressed on: "We will find solutions with friends from both sides of the aisle. But find them, we will! The best days still lie ahead."

   More applause rippled through an increasingly divided crowd.

   "It is no easy task what I propose. But I believe I am up to the challenge. Ladies and gentlemen, citizens of the United States, I come here today to humbly offer you my services, as a fellow, concerned citizen, a former educator, a litigator, and yes: as a woman." She paused and studied the crowd. "I offer you my candidacy for the president of the United States of America."

Walt continued searching the room for sight of Nagler. The crowd jumped to its feet. He saw nothing but frantic waving and excited faces.

   He risked a look back: two of O'Brien's men, closing fast.

   Walt reached Jerry and raised his voice over the thunderous cheering. "It's the blind guy . . . maybe the dog is concealing a piece. This is for real, Dad. You've got to go with me on this."

   Walt met his father's questioning look with absolute conviction and confidence.

   "You were right," Walt said. "They're coming to get me. And they took my piece."

   "I'm with you," Jerry said.

   "Okay. Sorry about this," Walt said. He reached inside his father's sport coat and took his gun.

   As he spun around, there were Nagler and the dog, on the opposite end of the cavernous room.

A
s the audience rose to its feet, Trevalian knelt and once again slipped the jogging bra in front of Callie's snout. As he did so, he spotted the sheriff immediately. Both men knew what was going to happen next.

   Trevalian let go of the guide harness. He said, "Find it!" The dog took off into the thunderous crowd. Shaler stepped away from the lectern and began a series of bows. It was, for her, a beautiful moment.

   He looked behind him: The cameras rolled. He plunged his hand into his coat pocket, his thumb hovering over the remote's button.

L
iz Shaler waved and bowed, her moment of glory upon her. Cameras flashed brightly. A news cameraman tried to part a seam down the standing crowd to get a better shot of the candidate. O'Brien's men hurried to cut this off.

   Then one of the agents shouted, "GUN!" He pointed at Walt.

   His counterpart dove to take down Elizabeth Shaler. But she had had her eye on Walt for the past few seconds. When she saw him with a gun in hand, she knew he'd been right all along. "W . . . A . . . L . . . T!" she screamed.

   Walt took a step toward Nagler just before he heard someone else cry, "GUN!"

   It never occurred to Walt that warning was in response to
his
gun. Somehow Nagler had sewn a gun
inside
the dog as a means to secret the weapon through security—that was the picture in Walt's head. By now Nagler had removed the gun and intended to use it. Obviously, one of Dryer's men had been alert enough to see Nagler reach for it in his coat pocket.

   What threw him off this notion, in those slow split seconds, was Nagler's calm composure, his keeping his hand in his pocket, and his uninterrupted attention out ahead of him—not looking at Shaler, but at something much lower in the room.

   
The dog
. . .

   At that moment, his father's profile entered his peripheral vision, coming in front of him. The man was running—a rare enough sight. He shouted, "Nooooo!" as he threw himself in front of Walt, who recoiled to avoid a collision.

   A loud report of a gun.

   Blood sprayed across Walt's face. His father was spun around by the force of the gunshot. He'd taken a bullet to protect Walt, and the two met eyes briefly as Jerry went down. He coughed out roughly, "Go!"

   Screams and cries as the crowd panicked. Walt checked the stage: Liz Shaler was pinned down by two agents.

   As men and women stampeded toward the exits, he caught one last glimpse of Nagler: The man was still as a statue, his attention locked on the dog.

   And there was the dog, nose to the carpet, as it roamed in illogical loops.

   
Sniffing
. . .

   Another look in Nagler's direction, but he was obscured by the crowd. His father, bleeding at his feet. The dog hot on a scent. And now he knew. . . .

   "BOMB!" he shouted.

T
he dog shied around a fallen chair. Walt danced through a field of people lying on the floor and crawling under the tables. He lunged for the dog, caught a back leg. She snarled, snapped at him, and rolled away. But Walt got a piece of her collar, lost his purchase, and found his fingers wrapped tightly around something firm and thin. The dog yelped and threw Walt off, her legs in the air as she rolled away from him.

   Walt saw a hastily stitched incision running up the dog's abdomen. Saw that he'd been holding a piece of lamp wire that ran from the incision to the dog's collar.

   An image of the discarded box in Nagler's bathroom: ESS FENCE. He completed the crossword:
Wirel
ess Fence. A shock collar; a battery carrying enough voltage to trigger a blasting cap.

   Trevalian's hand inside his coat pocket . . .

   Walt rose and dove again. A woman screamed, and the dog changed directions. Walt fell forward and hooked his fingertips around that wire. He pulled down hard. The dog cried out, twisted its neck, and bit Walt's arm. The wire broke free.

   Walt dropped his father's gun and picked it back up.

   Pandemonium as the two agents dragged Liz Shaler off the stage.

But for Walt there was only Nagler in the room as the man feverishly pressed a remote device that failed to answer.

   A group of fleeing guests obscured his view.

   He glanced over at his father, balled up in pain on the carpet.

   He looked back for Nagler.

   
Gone.

T
revalian's plan had been to escape out the service corridor, but being so close to the main doors, as the stampede of terrified guests approached, he went with the flow, using it as cover.

   He was carried out and past the metal detector. The service corridor would be to his right. He turned in that direction, separating from those headed for the exit. He peeled off the facial hair and ditched the sunglasses, worked his arms out of the sport coat and dropped it into a chair. Now in the bar, he spotted an unmarked door to his right and turned toward it. The bartender shouted, "You can't go there!" But he did go there: through the door and a small room of two sinks and shelving, and from there, directly into the service corridor.

   He headed out the first door marked exit.

   The braying of angry protesters filled the air. They stood in the blinding sunlight behind sawhorse barriers marked sun valley police department. If there had once been cops there to support that line, they'd left at the sound of a gunshot.

   He caught sight of black vehicles speeding off: Shaler and the Secret Service. The protesters charged forward, knocking down the barriers. Trevalian briefly stayed with the group, then broke away, hurrying across a patch of lawn toward his rental car, parked behind the adjacent dormitory.

   He cut across the grass to the shouts of the protesters. "Free trade equals child slaves!"

   He glanced back once instinctively. A man jumped from the loading dock. A blue uniform.

   The sheriff.

I
f Nagler reached the art fair, already crowded with shoppers, Walt knew he'd lose him.

      He considered taking a shot, but the man had wisely put himself between Walt and the fair.

   Lose him to the art fair, or risk hitting an innocent bystander?

   Following the man through a crowded parking lot, Walt ran hard to keep up. To his right, a line of trees blocked the parking lot from the inn. To his left: tennis courts. Straight ahead, the art fair.

   His only hope was to drop the man ahead of the art fair. He angled to his right, through a line of parked cars, a wall of evergreens, and out onto a wide strip of lawn cloistered between the inn and the parking lot. In doing so, he lost sight of the suspect. Nagler had started out of the blocks at an incredible pace, but that was not sustainable at six thousand feet above sea level. Not without weeks of training. Walt paralleled him.

   At the end of the parking lot, also the end of the line of evergreens, was an access road that headed out of the lot to the southeast. It dropped down a hill. A shot taken in that direction presented the least chance of wounding a civilian.

   He'd have one shot, maybe two.

He envisioned each step, each motion.

   He turned and slid on the grass. Lowered his right knee. Bent his left knee for support. Braced his left elbow on his left knee. Hunched forward to sight the weapon. He picked up the target, a running blur, led him slightly, and squeezed the trigger.

T
revalian felt a burning in his right knee and then heard the shot. Too late. His right leg collapsed and he tumbled forward in an  ungainly and painful somersault. His head dulled. He rolled, pulled himself up toward standing. He went down again. Blood every where. His leg on fire. He heard screaming.

   Then the sole of a boot stomped down on his blown knee, and the pain darkened his vision.

   He found himself looking up into the barrel of a gun. The sheriff was out of breath and looking down on him.

A
t 2 p.m. Jerry's eyes opened.

Walt sat in a formed fiberglass chair facing his father's hospital

       bed. Like his nephew before him, Jerry was hooked up to every kind of wire and tube.

   "You're in recovery," Walt said, not sure his father heard him. "They operated on you. Got the bullet. Cleaned you up. Your lung's collapsed and your right shoulder's going to need some physical therapy, but all in all you should be pretty happy that those private security boys can't shoot for shit."

   He thought he saw the twinge of a smile and he realized Jerry had heard him, had understood. Jerry tried to say something, but it came out as more of a dry wheeze. Walt slipped an ice chip between his father's lips. He'd never seen Jerry sick, had never seen him incapacitated. It felt as if this had to be someone else.

   His father croaked out, "The shooter?"

   Walt nodded. "Liz Shaler is fine. I'm fine. No guests were killed."

   His father shut his eyes. A moment later he was asleep.

   "Sheriff?"

   Walt turned to see Special Agent in Charge Adam Dryer's acnescarred face. "Suspect is out of surgery and has been moved to his room."

"Thanks."

   "Doc says no visitors for four to six hours. But we'll get a crack at him later tonight. FYI."

   "I'll be here," Walt said. "I'm going to stick around."

   "Yeah, sure," he said.

   "Hell of a thing your father did."

   "Yes, it was."

   "Maybe saved us all."

   "Maybe so."

   An apology hung between them, but it didn't come.

   "Later," Dryer said. The door hissed shut behind him as he left.

   "What a prick," his father said, one eye creeping open and finding his son.

   Walt laughed, surprised at how good it felt.