“I don’t have the gun.”
“Pardon me if I don’t believe you.”
Dana raised her pants cuff slowly. “Where is it?” the man demanded.
“Put up your hands,” Brad said, his voice shaking so badly he could barely get the words out.
“Don’t talk! Kill him!” Dana yelled at Brad, who was holding the ankle gun in both hands, trying to keep it steady.
The blond whirled and fired. A bullet whizzed by Brad’s ear and the glass in the sliding door exploded. Brad closed his eyes and squeezed the trigger again and again until it clicked on an empty chamber. When he opened his eyes there was no one standing in front of him. He looked down and his knees buckled. The blond man was stretched out on the floor, facedown, moaning.
“Oh, my God! I shot him,” Brad said. He dropped the gun and groped for the wall so he wouldn’t collapse.
“Don’t flatter yourself,” Dana said between clenched teeth. “All of your shots missed, which is pretty amazing from less than ten feet. You were a good diversion, though. While he was focused on you, I got my gun back.”
Brad looked disappointed. Dana rolled her eyes. “Will you get this asshole’s gun and call 911, like I told you to do before? And get an ambulance for me and Mrs. Erickson.”
Dana dragged herself into a sitting position and braced her back against the sofa so she could keep an eye on the blond as Brad inched cautiously toward the wounded man.
“I shot him six times, for Christ’s sake,” Dana said. “Just get the gun.”
“Sorry, but I’ve never been in a shoot-out. I’m a little shaken.”
“What you are is an idiot. Didn’t I tell you to get the hell out of here if you heard shots?”
“I am an idiot,” Brad said as he grabbed the wounded man’s gun, “but it worked out okay, didn’t it?”
Dana sighed. “Yeah. I owe you. Now call the ambulance.”
Brad dialed 911 on his cell. He felt light-headed and a little nauseated, but he was able to hold it together while he talked to the dispatcher. As soon as he was through with the call, he knelt down to work on the plastic cuffs that bound Mrs. Erickson.
“Are you okay?” he asked.
Marsha Erickson’s face was a mass of blood, and she had trouble focusing. Brad felt awful. He was certain that his first visit had triggered the chain of events that had led to the beating. When Erickson recognized him her eyes widened.
“You!”
“I’m really sorry about this.”
“What have you done to me?”
“I haven’t done anything. Christopher Farrington sent those men to kill you. You’d be dead if we hadn’t come by.”
“No one would have come here if you hadn’t shown up in the first place.”
“That’s bullshit,” Dana said. “You’re a loose end that Christopher Farrington needed to tie up. He’d have tried to kill you even if Miller had never visited you. If you want to stay alive you’d better think about telling what you know about your daughter and the president.”
Pain was making Dana woozy, and she was having difficulty keeping her gun trained on the blond. She knew she might pass out, which meant that Brad Miller would have to handle the situation. She didn’t have much faith in his ability to do that. If the wounded man was in any condition to fight, he’d eat Brad for lunch.
Then there was the problem of the police. The locals would never believe that the president had sent the men she’d shot. They would consider this a burglary gone bad. If Mrs. Erickson turned on them the police might even arrest her and Brad. Dana decided to take a chance. She fished out her wallet and tossed it to Brad.
“There’s a card in there with the number of Keith Evans, an FBI agent who’s working for the independent counsel. Call him, then give me the phone. If I black out, tell him that we have the man who shot at him from the speedboat. Tell him to get someone down here fast to take over from the local police if he wants witnesses who can tie the president to Charlotte Walsh’s murder.”
Brad dialed the number. Evans answered after three rings. Brad handed Dana the phone. She laid the gun by her side and took it.
“Agent Evans, this is Dana Cutler. Brad Miller, an associate with a Portland law firm, is with me. I just shot two men who were trying to kill Marsha Erickson, a witness who can prove the president was involved in a murder in Oregon when he was governor.”
“That’s not true,” Marsha Erickson yelled.
Dana covered the cell phone. “One more peep and I’ll have my friend tape your mouth shut.”
Dana uncovered the mouthpiece. “I want you to send some agents here fast because the local police are on the way. Brad will tell you the hospital they’re taking me and Marsha Erickson to. Get guards on our rooms and the room where they’re taking the survivor. He’s the guy who shot at us from the speedboat.”
“Where are you?”
Dana gave him the address and how to get to it. Then she had Brad read her Erickson’s home phone number. She repeated it to Evans.
“I’m ready to cooperate,” Dana said. “I want protection for me, Miller, and the witness.”
“Are you okay?” Evans asked. “You sound funny.”
“No, I’m bleeding from a shoulder wound and I might pass out. But I hear sirens and I think I’ll be okay. Now stop talking and get some agents here fast. And make certain that you can trust them, because, at best, the president is going to try and take control. At worst, he’s going to try and kill us all.”
Chapter Thirty-eight
Brad was pacing the fifth-floor corridor of the St. Francis Medical Center waiting to learn how Dana Cutler’s surgery had gone when the elevator doors opened and Susan Tuchman stormed out. Her eyes lasered in on Brad, and he could almost see the red dot marking the spot on his heart where Tuchman was going to shoot her death ray.
“What did I tell you would happen if I caught you mucking around in the Little case?” Tuchman said as she bore down on him.
Brad faced the onslaught with utter calm. Until this moment, Brad’s encounters with Susan Tuchman had either unnerved or depressed him. But the verbal bullets of the furious attorney lacked the power to frighten someone who had just survived a shoot-out featuring live ammunition.
“Did you hear my question, Mr. Miller?” Tuchman asked as she halted inches from him.
“Why are you here?”
“Instead of worrying about why I’m here, you should be worrying about where you’re going to be working tomorrow. So let me put your mind at ease. You don’t have to worry about your tenure at Reed, Briggs anymore. As of this moment, you are no longer our employee. You’re fired.”
“Good,” Brad said coolly. “I don’t think working at your sweatshop is that great.”
Tuchman blinked. This was hardly the reaction she’d expected.
“I’d still like an answer to my question,” Brad persisted. “Why have you suddenly appeared in this hospital in the middle of the night?”
“That is none of your business, Mr. Miller.”
“Did your buddy at Kendall, Barrett tell you to shut down Marsha Erickson?”
“This conversation is over,” Tuchman said as she walked by him.
“Mrs. Erickson would be dead if I’d paid any attention to your unethical order to ignore the possible innocence of a Reed, Briggs client,” Brad yelled after her, but Tuchman paid no attention and kept walking toward the nurses’ station.
Brad wished he had the power to make Tuchman answer, but he didn’t. His job was gone along with his salary and any prestige that being an associate at Reed, Briggs might have conferred. He’d been fired, which could have an impact on his future as an attorney. Brad didn’t care. He had his dignity and his integrity, and truth be told, he was relieved that he would not have to toil fourteen hours a day solving boring problems for unappreciative egomaniacs.