Two of the others stepped forward and one held him while the other got his belt off him. The blond and another guy grabbed him and carried him to the bathroom, trailed by the pair with the belt, which they worked around the shower rod, inches from the ceiling, while the blond and his helper propped Bryson up. The blond wound the belt around Bryson’s neck, not making eye contact. It was as if the man already considered him dead.
That was the terrible part, not the pain, not the certainty that death was coming, but knowing that after a little time had passed, they would call on Beth, to see what he had or hadn’t told her.
As they held him up, Bryson tried to kick, but his legs remained slack and the belt cut more deeply into his neck, shutting off even more of the meager oxygen he was managing to suck in.
The blond let go of him and Bryson’s feet slipped down the outside of the tub until the belt was taut, and he was barely off the floor, the shower rod holding.
Maybe it would give — maybe it would break before anything inside his neck did!
Alone in the bathroom now, he could feel his eyes bulge and his chest burn, as he fought to draw in even a molecule of air without success.
He heard the outer door close. They weren’t even going to stay around to make sure he died! He had to think of something, had to do something. He tried to bend his feet, to touch the floor, but they barely moved. He tried to lift his hands but they were useless things, floating yet heavy.
The burning in his throat grew hotter. Sweat poured out of him like the shower was on, and he struggled to draw a breath of any kind.
Stars exploded in ghastly Fourth of July bursts as his vision darkened. He thought of Beth and begged her forgiveness, as if she could hear a pain-racked apology that would never leave his head. He hadn’t meant for any of this to happen, it was just a job, no, not even that, just him looking into something he had overheard. Something he had overheard that had gotten him killed and probably her, too, without Reeder’s help. Shit! Shit!
He loved her, always had. Now, all he wanted was to hold her one last time.
Beth, I love you, I’m sorry. Christopher, son — always said you were the man... now you are the man...
In the darkness, he felt sensation begin to flow through his limbs, his body, most of it pain, but goddamn, sensation.
The last sensation he felt was the burner phone in his pocket, vibrating.
Two
“If it happens, it happens. . we can’t stop living.”
Joe Reeder hated being called a hero.
The idea that he, or anybody for that matter, realistically fit that designation seemed to him absurd. Heroic actions, yes — Audie Murphy in combat — but a hero? Maybe the kind Murphy played in those ancient cowboy movies. But not in life. In life America’s most decorated soldier of World War II had been a troubled alcoholic, possibly psychotic in his worst moments.
Yet according to the media, and most everybody else he ran into these days, Joe Reeder was a genuine American hero twice over, larger than life and then some. This dated back to his Secret Service days, when he had taken a bullet for President Gregory Bennett, a man whose politics he deplored. Even now — especially in the dead of winter like this — his left shoulder reminded him of that bullet and his actions, nudging his mind to recall the reactions. Deskbound afterward, he’d been unable to stomach the politics and particularly the underhanded tactics of President Bennett and his cronies, and had let his feelings slip.
Mistake.
The Secret Service was necessarily apolitical — though finding a left-of-center agent in those ranks could be a trick — and Reeder had become a pariah in government circles for his indiscretion. That had driven him from the Service and he had, out of necessity, begun his security business, which proved rewarding in several senses. The private sector only knew him as the “hero” who saved President Bennett, and ABC Security — the ABC standing for nothing more than good placement in alphabetical listings — had flourished from day one.
That success multiplied many times over when he was designated a hero a second time.
On that occasion, he’d saved the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court from a potential assassin. The rewards had been great, for his security business at least, but the price for that newfound wealth had been the life of his best friend, FBI agent Gabriel Sloan.
Joseph Reeder, twice a national hero. Twice suffering the ignominy of media fame.
Hero? You can have it.
Reeder was six one and pushing fifty, with regular features that the years had lent some craggy character. His eyes were brown, his hair white and cropped near-military short, his eyebrows white as well. During his years as an agent, he’d had to conceal that premature distinctiveness with hair dye.
Back in his Secret Service life, he’d been nicknamed “Peep” by Gabe and others, a joking acknowledgment of his ability to read people. An expert at kinesics, the study of body language, Reeder had spotted President Bennett’s would-be assassin in the crowd a split second before the shooter fired.
Walking through Arlington National Cemetery before the tourists were let in at 8:00 a.m., Reeder enjoyed the feel and sound of snow crunching under his Rocky-brand oxfords, and didn’t mind the cold on his face or that the weather made his eyes water.
This was the place on earth where he felt the most at home, where peace enveloped him. Right now he was in Section Three, unofficially known as the “hospital section,” where he stopped at the grave of Dr. Walter Reed.
Pulling his ABC Security parka a little tighter, he gazed down at the dark granite headstone, set atop a white granite base displaying the doctor’s last name. A bronze plaque provided information about Reed and concluded with the quote: “He gave to man control over that dreadful scourge — yellow fever.”
He thought about all the stupid media acclaim he’d gotten for being a “hero,” while here rested a man who just might be worthy of the word. Of all those who knew the name Reeder today, how many remembered a doctor named Reed? Yes, there was a hospital in Bethesda, Maryland, that bore the man’s name, but now — the late 2020s — how many knew why the building had been named after a physician dead since 1902?
Dr. Walter Reed. Who had never taken a life, and had in fact saved many. During the building of the Panama Canal, Reed’s team had proven that yellow fever was not passed by way of bedding, towels, and other materials from the stricken, rather the result of a simple mosquito bite. From this rose the fields of epidemiology and biomedicine.
That was heroic work, far outweighing catching a bullet or killing a couple of potential political assassins.
Though he’d been up only a few hours, he found himself yawning. Ever since the night of that suburban shoot-out, he’d gotten only fitful sleep. Getting through the day was no problem. Always something to do — a desk filled with work, staff meetings, client luncheons, even occasional interviews with the more trustworthy members of the media, since being a goddamn hero was keeping his business flush.
But at home, darkness out the windows, with nothing to keep him company but TV and books and a beer or two, Reeder found the nights endless. Today he’d change that. He would go home this afternoon instead of tonight. Maybe take some mild over-the-counter sleep aid. Get to bed early, snare that elusive good night’s sleep. The kind of sleep where dreams don’t come and peaceful rest does.