Presidential Deal (9 page)

Deal heard a scream a few feet in front of him. A slender Asian woman whom he’d seen earlier, passing what looked like family photographs around the waiting room, stood abruptly, a folding chair upraised for a weapon. She began a rush toward the assassins, and Deal ducked as the firing swung toward her. He heard the wet, thudding sounds above the roar of the weapons and her groaning inrush of breath, and he caught a glimpse of the shredded chair she’d been holding as the force of the slugs flung it past him like something caught in the gust of a hurricane.

More slugs ripped into the curtains behind him, more slammed into the bulk of the cop who had fallen on top of him, and in the mad whirl that his mind had become—thank God for Isabel in Orlando with her mother, thank God for that, at least—Deal knew that it would only be seconds now before these attackers, these impostor cops, were on the stage to find and finish him.

He felt too numb for fear. He was operating on some less human level, seeing and hearing everything in hyper-awareness, but unable, for the moment at least, to feel anything. He was bathed in a warm stickiness that he knew was blood. The floor of the stage about him was covered in it, the curtains draped behind him dripping with it. But though he’d felt the jolting blows of bullets, the impact had come to him through the flesh of those who had fallen around him.
Soon enough, though, Deal. Soon enough
.

Yes, Deal, some voice called. You must close your eyes now. Lie quietly. Sleep until this awful dream is done and you’ll awake and joke with Vernon Driscoll…

…and then he heard a burst of gunfire coming from a different place and in a different rhythm, and flung his head up in time to see one of the phony cops mounting the steps leading to the stage. The man hesitated, giving a backward glance, then flew forward up the stairs, though his feet had nothing to do with the movements. It was the fire that had caught him from behind that was propelling him now, a jig that ended in a face-down sprawl a few feet from where Deal lay.

Through the thick haze that filled the room now, Deal saw that at least three of the Secret Service detail had commandeered a spot in the corner of the ballroom where a service bar had been set up. The agents had taken cover there and were trying to mount a counteroffensive against the attackers.

Deal saw another pair of the bogus cops go down, but then the others swung their weapons toward the agents and began a barrage that sounded like an automatic cannon on a gunship. A bank of glassware stacked head-high in plastic racks disappeared into shimmering vapor and an agent flew backward in a broken dive. The linens of an overturned table were transformed instantly into tattered sails, chunks of vinyl padding from the bar flew up like pudding, but still there were answering pops of fire from the pistols of the agents.

Where are the reinforcements?
Deal thought as he stared out at the assault.
Where is the fucking cavalry?

Deal saw one of the bogus cops lean away from a tangle of fallen chairs he was using for cover, then make a gesture toward the stage. Two more of the killers broke away from the group and began a crablike run toward the platform.
For what conceivable reason
? Deal thought.
What was so damned important up here on this stage
…

…and then he saw movement behind the fallen podium—a glimpse of beige fabric, a hand raised and then dropped again—and he remembered Linda Sheldon.

He glanced again at the two cops—they had very nearly reached the steps of the stage by now—then pushed himself up from the stage, lunging for the automatic that the dead killer before him had dropped. Deal caught the weapon as he rolled, felt the heat of its still-hot stubby barrel on his palm. He came up on his knees, found the trigger guard by feel, prayed there was nothing complicated in its workings. Driscoll had taken him to the target range once, let him fire an Uzi, a Mac-10, an automatic pistol they’d taken from an Arab counterfeiter that didn’t even have a name. It wasn’t necessary to aim such weapons, Driscoll had assured him. All that was necessary was the ability to point, and the will to pull the trigger.

Deal had plenty of will. The first killer was coming up onto the stage when he squeezed off his first burst. He’d aimed a bit low, and most of the slugs traced a line half a dozen feet along the floorboards before he could correct. When he raised the barrel, the man screamed, flying backward off the stage, clutching his shattered leg.

The second man turned back toward the Secret Service agents when he heard the fire. He didn’t realize his mistake until his companion tumbled past him. He turned, trying to swing his weapon toward Deal.

Deal had not bothered to lift his finger from the trigger. He simply swung the barrel of the automatic in what he hoped was the right direction. His first shots struck the gunman’s weapon, sending up a shower of sparks, flinging it off somewhere. The rest carved a path along the man’s upraised arm, his throat, his lower jaw. He went over as though he’d been kicked, and only then did Deal stop firing.

He glanced at the weapon in his hand, as if it were a separate part of himself that had acted. Two men, he thought. He’d snatched up that weapon and managed to make it fire, and now two men lay dead. He might have expected the backlash of fear, or even some grim John Wayne-style satisfaction. But all he felt, in fact, was the curious detachment:
Look what you’ve gone and done, Deal—now get on with it
.

Shouting in what sounded like Spanish came from the spot where the main assault group was stationed, and Deal saw a man gesturing frantically his way. There was a burst of fire, and bullets chewed along the stage surface, spraying him with fragments of wood. Deal flopped down, rolling automatically toward the podium. As he scrambled behind it, more shouted commands came and the firing ceased.

He felt movement at his side and glanced over. She might have lost the bearing she’d possessed a few moments ago, but there was no mistaking who it was. Her knees were tucked up, and she’d pulled herself tightly into a ball, and her chin was trembling now, but her eyes were clear, her lips drawn in a steady line.

“You’re one of the heroes,” she said quietly, staring back at Deal.

Sure, he thought. Reluctant but present. He’d pooh-poohed the honor, protested his worthiness, joked with Roland Wells. Maybe he should go through it all again for the benefit of Linda Sheldon, maybe she’d get a big laugh out of his Jimmy Stewart routine. Tell her how it wasn’t really him with the gun, it was just a mechanical weapon held by an unbidden arm.

“I hope to God you’re right,” is what he told her. Then rose up to fire again.

Chapter 13

Driscoll had the phone tucked under his chin, was dancing on one foot, trying to get his pants pulled up, when he saw the first live video from the scene. It was an aerial shot of Miami International Airport: Don Shula Expressway and a couple of small lakes in the foreground, an undifferentiated sprawl of industry and warehouses in the distance, the grid of runways and hangars in between.

A dark plume of smoke rose from a corner of the airport property and the camera jiggled as the focus tightened down. Flames boiled from the shattered fuselage of a jumbo jet and a nearby hangar and several outlying buildings. Even the tarmac itself seemed to be ablaze. Firefighting units had circled the area and were pumping water onto the flames. There looked to be a sea of Metro green and white cruisers and unmarked units lining the perimeter roads.

“…as we told you moments ago, reports are that all this began with an explosion inside a Globestar Airlines 747,” the announcer’s voice intoned over the clatter of helicopter blades. “The plane was said to be out of service, undergoing routine maintenance work, and no one was aboard when the blast took place. We have reports that at least five maintenance workers and a member of airport security have been seriously injured and have been rushed to Jackson Memorial Hospital, and of course we’ll follow up on that for you.”

If the act itself weren’t troubling enough, Driscoll felt a reasonable certainty he knew the plane in question. He’d seen it the day before while he was on break from a stakeout at Zaragosa unit #12, which sat on the south side of 36th Street, tucked into a little slice of private property abutting the maintenance yards of MIA. He’d been sitting at one of the picnic tables set up in the shade of some tall Australian pines in the back, wearing one of the red and white paper hats that all the other burger flippers wore, finishing a large order of fries, watching the planes take off and land in the distance and thinking that he had never heard of Globestar Airlines, which he had decided was either some cargo carrier or a cover for the CIA. And unless he was mistaken, the shady spot where he’d been sitting was now engulfed by a burning lake of aviation fuel, and nearby Zaragosa #12 was in the process of burning to the ground.

Driscoll got his belt buckled, pulled the phone from his ear, and banged it against his palm a couple of times. Twenty rings at least, a direct line into the office of Dedric Bailey at Special Investigations, and nobody was picking up? What the hell was going on? He’d already tried dialing Hector Zaragosa at his office, but that line was tied up, as it was during the most normal of circumstances, Hector and his minions on the phone steadily, checking the register totals at twenty different restaurants, ordering ground meat and onions by the carload, jabbering endlessly with in-laws.

Aurelio Pincay, ubiquitous news anchor for Channel 7, was back onscreen now, working hard to project the authority that Driscoll thought had always eluded the man. “We want to repeat that this is not a crash, that the plane was undergoing maintenance work in a part of the airport far removed from landings and takeoffs. And to remind you,
Air Force One
is not, I repeat, not at Miami International. The President arrived yesterday at the former Homestead Air Force Base in South Dade, where increased security measures…”

Pincay broke off then, apparently distracted by something he was hearing in his earpiece. He glanced up at the camera apologetically while his co-anchor, a slender blonde woman whose name Driscoll could never remember, stared on as though waiting to be invited to the party. Apparently there was only one earpiece available on the Channel 7 set, or perhaps Pincay had determined he’d be the only one to pass along the breaking news.

“We’re just getting reports in of a disturbance outside the Hyatt Hotel in downtown Miami, where First Lady Linda Sheldon was to present the National Medals of Valor to recipients in a ceremony moved to Miami this year,” Pincay said, holding up a hand as if to forestall questions from his listening audience. “We’re going to switch you live to Gina Lozano, who’s outside the Hyatt in Victory Plaza…”

Pincay disappeared then, and after a few moments of snow and static, the image of a young, smartly dressed Latin woman came up. She was standing near a fountain in the bayside plaza just across the street from the hotel, a troubled expression on her face as pandemonium erupted behind her: clouds of what looked like tear gas, a mounted policeman trying to rein in his rearing horse, glimpses of shrieking crowds in a formless stampede trying to escape the gas that billowed about erratically in the swirling breeze.

“We’re really at a loss as to what happened here, Aurelio. There were a few demonstrators gathered, some shouting as the First Lady arrived, but things calmed down, the crowd orderly for the most part, and we’re not sure what prompted police to turn the gas loose…”

She broke off then as a gust brought the gas drifting over the fountain. There was a muffled shout of warning, perhaps her cameraman, and she turned just as the cloud engulfed her. Driscoll heard her coughing, saw her go down on one knee, heard a thud that must have been her microphone falling to the ground. There was muffled cursing and the video image began to wobble, then flipped over altogether. Driscoll saw a careening shot of the skyscraping Hyatt’s tower, saw a drifting thunderhead up above, caught a glimpse of a riderless, galloping horse, and then there was only a static-laced blur.

In a moment, Aurelio Pincay was back, his jaw slack as he stared at an off-screen monitor that must have been displaying the same images. Driscoll heard murmuring on the set, saw the hand of the slender co-anchor reach into the frame to prod Pincay, who turned to the camera with the look of a man who’d been caught out sleepwalking. His mouth opened, but no sound came out. Something behind the camera caught his eye and Pincay finally nodded. “Right,” he said. “We’re going to go to a break now, folks, and when we come back we’re going to…uh…be right back…”

By this time Driscoll had stamped his feet into his shoes and was running out the kitchen door, the tails of his unbuttoned shirt fluttering behind him. No wonder Dedric Bailey wasn’t answering his phone, he was thinking as he pounded his way across the lawn toward his car. Bombing at the airport, riot at the First Lady’s party, President out on the town with Jorge Alejandro Vas. What next? Famine? Plague? Boils?

Driscoll was into the Ford now, which started, as was its wont, on the first try. He gunned the big engine, spun the Ford in as tight a circle as its wallowing suspension would allow, was approaching Southwest 8th Street in moments. Make a left on 8th, he thought, he’d be on his way west, catch Milam Dairy Road, and on to the airport in fifteen minutes, if he was lucky. Or make a right, he could be downtown in just about ten.

Not really a choice, he thought as he hit the broad boulevard in a screeching power slide, just ahead of a line of approaching traffic. He punched the Ford’s accelerator, burned through a yellow that was climbing toward red. Hector Zaragosa had twenty restaurants, after all, half a dozen more on the drawing board. Last time he’d checked there was only one John Deal.

Frigging medals
, Driscoll thought, fighting a waggle in the wheel as the Ford climbed past eighty.
Get you in trouble every frigging time
.

Chapter 14

When Deal came up from cover for the second time, he saw that a couple of the phony cops had split off from the main group and were scurrying behind tumbled tables and chairs in a cautious flanking movement toward the stage. Another half-dozen maintained their barrage upon the position the Secret Service agents had taken. He wasn’t hearing any returning pistol fire now. Maybe the agents were simply pinned down. Or out of ammunition. Or dead, and in moments the entire group of killers would turn their attention to mopping up this last business onstage, give the contractor with the gun the award of his life.

One of the men advancing toward the stage fired a short burst in his direction, and Deal ducked as the shots flew high, cutting through a banner that had been draped behind the stage: “N
ATIONAL
M
EDAL OF
” dropped in one huge chunk, along with a section of the heavy curtain. “V
ALOR
” hung on, dangling by a single hook. Deal lay on his back staring stupidly at the swaying sign, at the slash of ruined plaster the gunfire had torn. He felt Linda Sheldon’s nails dig into his flesh as she clutched his arm.

Half a dozen men with automatic weapons out there who wanted to kill him, Deal was thinking. He had one weapon, and no extra clip. He wasn’t a betting man, but his father had been, and Deal knew what the call would have been. He closed his eyes momentarily, uttered a silent prayer.
Give my daughter a decent, happy life
, he willed.
Dear Isabel
.

He was ready then. Rise up, one last blast, take one of the bastards out, at least? Or wait for them to reach the stage, maybe take them both before their friends joined the rush?

…and then he noticed the electrical panel. Had been staring at it all along, in fact, ever since the big section of curtain had fallen. Huge, dull-gray master electrical panel—Square D brand, it looked like—set into the portion of the wall that had been bared when the curtain fell in tatters, the sort of electrical panel you’d need to control the lights in a room like this. It took him half a second to change his plan.

He brought his weapon up, squeezed the trigger, saw the pattern of fire rip into the facing of the service door just to the right of the electrical panel, then a correction, still holding the trigger down, bringing the fire up a bit, to the left…and there was a sudden explosion, a fountain of sparking and a quick bloom of flame that leapt out of the electrical panel, extinguishing itself as quickly as it came, and, finally, everything was darkness.

In the momentary silence that followed, Deal heard a strange whirring, clicking noise, and realized he was still holding the trigger down on an empty clip. He tossed the weapon aside and turned to Linda Sheldon.

“Are you all right?” he asked, trying to hold his voice to a whisper.

It took her a moment to respond. “All right?” she echoed. “I’ll never be all right.” Deal thought she sounded more angry than frightened. A good sign.

Excited shouts in Spanish rose from out in the darkened auditorium, a curse as someone stumbled over fallen chairs. A pistol shot sounded, a puny sound given what had come before, but to Deal, it meant that at least one of the agents was still alive. There was an answering roar of automatic fire, and he knew that the killers would hold their positions for a few more moments, at least.

“We’ve got to move,” he told Linda Sheldon.

“Move? Move where?”

“There’s a door at the back of the stage,” he told her. “Just behind the curtains…” There was more gunfire, and Deal heard a cry from a distant corner of the room.

He didn’t want to add anything more, that the door he’d seen might lead into a service closet, that it might be locked, that they might never get far enough to find out.

“Just get on your feet,” he said. “Try to keep your head low. Hold on to me.”

He felt her scrambling to her feet, felt her hand on his shoulder. He took her hand, guided it to the small of his back, tucked her fingers under his belt.

“Just keep your head low and hang on,” he told her.

“I’ll hang on,” she said, her voice grim.

He heard the sound of footsteps, someone coming carefully up the steps of the stage. Deal paused. He bent down, found the heavy automatic he’d dropped.

“Let go,” he whispered. “Just for a second.”

“I don’t want to,” she whispered back.

“Now,” he hissed. He felt her fingers slip away from his belt. He edged them carefully away from the fallen podium, then stopped.

He understood now, knew that there would be no random firing in the dark, and that gave the two of them a certain advantage. He turned, reached into his pocket, found his car keys. He hesitated, then tossed them in the direction of the podium. There was a clatter, and then a beam of light flicked on for a fraction of a second, someone aiming a tiny hand-held light in the direction of the sound.

Deal stepped forward, holding the heavy automatic at port arms, the still-hot barrel in his right hand, the metal tubing that was its stock in his left. He drove the butt down sharply, felt a satisfying crunch as metal met bone. He hit the man again as he went down, then turned, caught Linda Sheldon, and pulled her after him.

“Stay with me,” he told her. “Whatever happens, don’t let go.”

“You don’t have to worry,” she said, her hand clamped again on his belt.

He led her toward what he hoped was the back of the stage, shuffling and stumbling through the debris, stepping over fallen bodies until he felt the folds of the heavy curtain in his hands. He sidestepped along until he found the bare section of wall where the curtain had sheared away, passed the smoldering, stinking ruins of the electrical panel, felt the cool metal door beneath his fingertips.

He found the metal knob, hesitated briefly—
if it’s a closet, we’re history; if it’s locked, same thing
—felt the knob give as he turned, felt a surge of relief as a gust of air surged over them, a breeze full of mustiness and pent-up grease and God knows what, and it didn’t matter, because that draft meant it
was
a service passageway, and he yanked Linda Sheldon through the doorway, and closed it as quietly as he could after them.

“Where are we?” she said. “I can’t see anything.”

“That makes two of us,” Deal said. He ran his hands over the inside of the door quickly, searching for a locking mechanism, but found nothing.

He turned, caught her by the shoulders again, spoke quietly but forcefully. “It’s a service passage,” he told her. “One way will lead to a systems control area, and that’s a dead end. The other way’ll take us out.”

“How do you know all this?” she said.

“My old man built the place,” he said. “We built a bunch of hotels. They all have pretty much the same features.”

There was a pause, and the sounds of more gunfire echoing on the other side of the door. “So which way do we go?”

“That I’m not sure of,” he told her.

“It might have been better if you hadn’t told me that,” she said.

“We could split up,” Deal said. “You go one way, I’ll take the other.”

There was a pause as she considered it. “I don’t think so,” she said finally.

A blast of fire struck the wall then, sending plaster fragments and dust raining down upon them.

“So, cross your fingers,” Deal said. He took her hand, and they began to run.

Or hobble, was a more accurate description
, he thought. The passageway was narrow, its ceiling not quite high enough to stand fully upright. Piping, electrical conduit, and junction boxes jutted out here and there, gouging him painfully every time he tried to pick up the pace. With the door closed behind them, the draft he’d noted at first was gone, but the smells of cooking had intensified. With luck, he was thinking, they were headed toward the kitchen and the central service station. Another fifty feet? A hundred, maybe? How big was a hotel, anyway? It seemed they’d already scooched themselves through a city block’s worth of darkness.

“Maybe they’ll think we’re hiding out there in the ballroom,” Linda said. She sounded as if she was gasping for breath, and Deal allowed them a brief pause.

“Maybe,” he said. He leaned back against the wall, feeling cobwebs brush at the back of his neck. It seemed twenty degrees hotter in the airless passage. “Maybe they gave up. Maybe some help finally showed up…”

He broke off as he felt the draft on his face once again.

“What is it?” she said. Her hand tightened at his belt.

“Somebody just opened the door back there,” he said.

“Are you sure?” she said.

When he didn’t answer, she added, “Maybe it’s help.”

Deal thought he could hear the sounds of footsteps now. “You want to wait here and see?”

“No,” she said quickly, and urged him forward.

He turned, clipping his forehead on something sharp that protruded from the low ceiling. “Duck,” he whispered as he pulled her forward, trying to ignore the pain, the blood that was spilling into his eyes now.

He was dizzy suddenly, and the darkness didn’t help, but the last thing he was going to do was fall. He lay his shoulder against the side of the passage and leaned forward, propelling himself along, and gradually the vertigo began to lessen. A few more strides and he was feeling like he might be able to stand on his own then, and was actually trying to do that very thing when his shoulder and head slammed into something solid, stunning him again, stopping him cold.

She piled right behind him and he heard her sharp intake of breath as his elbow dug sharply into her ribs. Still, she didn’t cry out.

“What now?” she whispered, her mouth at his ear. He could feel the sharp, hot panting of her breath on his cheek. “Why are you stopping?” The sound of hurrying footsteps behind them was unmistakable now.

“Wall,” he said, bright lights still pinging behind his eyes. He took her free hand and patted the surface he’d collided with to underscore the point.

“A wall? You built a
wall
here?” Her tone was accusing, even in the stage whispers they’d been using.

“That’s what contractors do,” he said.

“Goddammit,” she said. “Just goddammit.”

“Yeah,” he said. “I know the feeling.”

“What are we going to do now?” He could hear the hysteria building in her voice, as if it weren’t fair to get this far only to be stymied, stumbled into a dead end like lab rats too dumb to see what was coming, as if it would have been better to die out there in the ballroom with the rest of the heroes…

He had his eyes open now and his thoughts trailed off. Goodbye, sayonara, good night, Mrs. Calabash, his old man had loved that show. Why
had
they built a wall here, anyway? Maybe he’d find his old man in the netherworld, they could have a chat about it…

And then he stopped, realizing what he was seeing. He straightened, blinking to be sure it wasn’t a mistake, some illusion called up out of desperation and too many blows on the head. But even when he’d rubbed away the sweat and the blood and the plaster dust, it was still there, and he wanted to laugh at his foolishness.

A turn, that’s all it was. The passageway made a sharp turn and he’d tried to keep going straight. He knew because he could see it now, an unmistakable glow of light leaking into the passage from some source not twenty feet away.

“Look,” he told her, taking her by the arm. “There’s our way out.”

“Dear God,” she said, almost sobbing, and began to run.

He pushed himself upright and hurried after her, his head still reeling from the blow he’d taken. There was still the small matter of the men in the passage behind them, he thought. But once they got outside, they’d have a chance. Maybe a lock on that door…

…and it
was
a door, he saw as she reached it and pushed it aside and her heels disappeared out into the light. By the time he followed her through, he had formed a plan: he’d send her on for help, he’d stay behind, find something to barricade this opening, trap their pursuers…

…and then he stopped, the sight before him too surprising, too stunning. A storage room, piled high with boxes and crates. A mop hanging from a hook on one wall, a pair of rubber boots and a bucket just beneath. A man in a suit was seated in a broken office chair that tilted crazily with his weight. His arms dangled at his side and his head was thrown back, his expression fixed in permanent wonder. Another man, also wearing a dark suit, stood with his back to Deal, his arms flung over a pile of flour bags that reached almost shoulder high. There was a dark stain spreading out on the topmost bag where the man’s face was pressed.

Linda Sheldon lay crumpled on the floor, one arm upflung, the other at her side. There was a third man in the room, and he was bent over her, his hand at her throat, as if to take a pulse.

This man was wearing a policeman’s uniform and Deal tried to tell himself that that was a good sign, though another part of his brain was sending out panic signals in any number of forms and languages. Yes, yes, yes, he thought, he
should
have known better, even before the man stood and raised the pistol that he was holding so that it pointed squarely into Deal’s face.

“You
are
a loyal one,” the tall man said, almost a smile, a touch of grudging admiration there, and Deal wondered what he might be talking about.

He heard sounds at the mouth of the passageway behind him then, and turned to see, clutching some hope that maybe it was help after all, and before he could resolve to be more cautious the next time he fled from some stifling cave and out into the light, before he could think of anything else at all, the lights went out again.