Art patted the young guy’s shoulder and put his weapon away. The kid had probably left his home to get away from stuff like this. “Dammit!”
Frankie had Thom’s head in her arms, his body braced against her legs. He was still alive. “Talk to me, Tommy. Come on.” The tears were streaming down her face. “Talk to me.”
Art stood over the scene, the memory of what had happened a year before to his previous partner bringing past and present together in a collision of emotions that left him numb.
Frankie looked up, her face asking what to do. Art knew the truthful answer would only add to the anguished feeling of helplessness. “Ambulance is coming. Keep talking to him.”
She did just that, encouraging, almost willing, him to answer, but there was no response. The sirens a minute later announced the arrival of the first Los Angeles Police Department officers. The rescue ambulance of the L.A. City Fire Department rolled up right after them, and, after a quick look at the wounded FBI agent that convinced them there was no time to waste trying to stabilize him on scene, loaded him into the R.A. and, with Frankie in the back, headed straight for Cedars-Sinai Medical Center behind a caravan of police cars clearing the way.
Looking down at the carnage remaining where Thom Danbrook had fallen, Art knew that the heroics surely to be attempted once they reached Cedars would be for naught. It was the most painful admission a cop had to make. One of his own was going to die. Art would never say that, just as he hadn’t to Frankie. The living often needed hope more than the dying. He stared down at the blood until the rhythmic wail of the ambulance faded to nothing.
Nothing. It was all that could be done for Special Agent Thom Danbrook. It was all Art had been able to do for his first partner, more of a mentor, right out of the Academy. You couldn’t bring back the dead.
But you could bring those responsible to justice. That was something, despite the hollowness that the concept of ‘justice’ held when compared to the fate just dealt his brother agent. And to the other victim. Art looked to the body of that man. It was the starting point in a very familiar, and a very distasteful, process. Art Jefferson knew that the investigation of a murder had just begun.
He could not imagine where it would lead.
The gleaming white Gulfstream descended from the blue Colorado sky and touched down on runway one-seven at Falcon Air Force Base, a relatively small site that served primarily as a support facility for the North American Aerospace Defense Command located deep inside Cheyenne Mountain. It slowed and swung right onto the last taxiway, heading north toward the group of men who had awaited its arrival — some eagerly, some otherwise.
“The Devil is strapping on those ice skates about now, the way I see it,” General Henry Granger, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, theorized, capturing the realized likelihood of the historic event. He looked to the man just behind. “What do you think, Paul?”
“Hmmm,” General Paul Walker, commander in chief, NORAD, grunted, eyeing the approaching jet, which bore the marking of his beloved United States Air Force. He felt no such endearment for the human cargo just delivered to Falcon, and only slightly more for the man who had made this all happen.
“Still not on board, General?” National Security Adviser Bud DiContino asked, looking over his shoulder at CINCNORAD.
“I was never invited.”
“Oh, hell, Paul!” Granger protested. He and Walker went all the way back to the class of sixty at Colorado Springs, a lineage also shared by the NSA, who had paraded past the spires of the United States Air Force Academy Chapel that last time two years later. “This is going to make your job easier in the long run.”
“I suppose.” CINCNORAD really didn’t. He was part of this because he had to be.
“You promised to make nice with our Russian friends, remember,” Granger pointed out for good measure, though he knew Walker would not let his personal feelings mingle with his duty.
“I’ll take them home for dinner to meet the Mrs., if it’s necessary,” CINCNORAD assured his boss and friend. “Sufficient, Mr. DiContino?”
Bud let the cynicism slide. “Just make sure they don’t have any reason not to trust us. The only thing making this possible is trust.” And a whole lot of work.
The twin-engine jet, identical to those in use by many of America’s larger corporations, stopped fifty feet short of where Bud and the two Air Force officers stood, its door folding downward less than a minute later. Its two special passengers emerged behind the Air Force captain who had accompanied them on the entire four-leg journey from Moscow.
“Ugly-ass uniforms,” Walker commented, aware that his opinion of the puke-colored Russian dress greens was shared by many in the service. Ivan never could make anything pretty, weapons or battle dress. Function — what there was of that — came before aesthetics in their world. America had learned to make things bad and beautiful. CINCNORAD defied anyone to watch a Strike Eagle unload a stick of thousand-pounders on a target and dispute the claim.
“What’s that about beauty being skin-deep?” Granger wondered jokingly as the two Russians left their escort at the jet and began to approach. “My guess is that you can strip old Vasiliy there down to his unmentionables, and you’d then see the purpose of those dashing dress greens.”
Bud suppressed a laugh. The guests whose visit he had arranged were too close to risk an errant chuckle escaping. “I’ll have the President bust you down to a junior bird, General, if you make me lose it. Straight faces.”
General Walker pasted on a sweet smile as Marshal Vasiliy Kurchatov and his aide neared. “Two weeks, DiContino?”
“Guaranteed,” Bud affirmed from the side of his mouth. “The Japanese will have the new computers up and running at Voyska PVO in ten days, tops. That’s the promise.”
“My last protest,” CINCNORAD began. “I do not like giving access to our strategic systems just because the Russians couldn’t build a BMEWS worth crap. That and pulling our boomers in just pushes it, DiContino.”
“Trust, General Walker. We can’t very well have our missile boats running around during this. The Russians have to be able to see our strategic platforms. We can’t leave the ICBMs and bombers out for all to see and expect them to overlook the subs. Quid pro quo, General. Theirs are in as a gesture during this, and ours have to be, too. You’ll be glad we were able to work this out once the new warning system is up and running over there,” Bud said with certainty. “That last false alarm their computers gave them left them forty seconds from a launch order.” The NSA swiveled his head a bit toward the general. “That kind of fuckup could ruin everybody’s day… Marshal Kurchatov!”
“Ah, my friend!” The huge Russian, as round as the most reverent artist’s depiction of Saint Nick, pulled the NSA into a hug that ended with kisses to both cheeks. The same gesture was given by both Russians to each of their three hosts. “My English is improved, yes?”
“Very good, Marshal Kurchatov.” Bud gestured to his two companions. “You have met General Henry Granger before, at the Force Reduction Conference in Geneva.”
“Yes. Yes.” Kurchatov dipped his head respectfully toward the chairman.
“And this is General Paul Walker, commander in chief—”
“I am very familiar, Mr. DiContino,” Kurchatov interrupted tactfully. “The general and I share a passion.”
“Oh?” Walker probed passively.
“A fine deer hunter you are, I am told. Your exploits have been chronicled in many sporting journals.” The marshal smiled admiringly. “Those have become more available in my country in recent years. A Boone and Crockett record, I believe.”