The bearded man told Kirby, “So we’re good with how this is going to play out-?”
In the split second that his eyes flicked across to Kirby, in the heightened intensity of that instant that consumed everything else just before a kill, I launched myself at him.
No choice. I wasn’t going to just stand there and let them kill me at their leisure before polishing up their storyline and figured if I was going to get a bullet either way, anywhere in my torso would be preferable to my brain.
I had two guns to contend with, and aimed each of my hands at one of them. My right hand locked on his gun, my left hand on my Glock, my torso slamming into him in tandem with my head butting into his skull.
A shot exploded from his gun as he reeled back, my hands still locked on his. The noise jolted us both for a nanosecond, and I had no idea where it landed. We struggled as I tried to knee him, but he blocked it with his own leg and shoved me back, regaining the momentum. I had to keep him close, I couldn’t let him free himself and back away, not even with one gun, so I kept my hands firmly gripped around his and I tried to wrangle my gun out of his hand-
Which is when the second shot burst out, this one from my gun, and then it all went haywire. I managed to twist his wrist enough to loosen his grip on my Glock, and as it fell out, I heard Kirby grunt and thud down to the ground just as a scream of “Stan?” came from somewhere inside the house, a woman’s scream. In that frenzied moment, the distraction was just enough to allow the bearded man to pummel me across the temple with the grip of his own gun.
The blow hit me hard-real hard. I felt my teeth rattle against my jawbone as the blow connected. I struggled to stay on my feet, but I was weakened. We struggled some more, with me trying to muster any strength I had left to keep my grip locked on his gun hand and keep it aimed away from me. Then an alarm started blaring, the house’s alarm, I figured-Stan’s wife, hitting the panic button. It was like a tiny burst of smelling salts to my battered senses, and I used it to counter-attack and tried to headbutt him, only he saw it coming and avoided it. It was a gamble that left me exposed and he made full use of it, pounding me with a hook that connected squarely against my jaw. I blacked out for a second as my legs gave way under me and regained some partial sight just as I hit the ground, my unprotected skull cracking against the hard floor. I was at the edge of consciousness. I could feel the blood seeping out down my forehead from the first blow, and through foggy eyes, I caught sight of Kirby lying on the floor, a few feet away from me. The bullet had hit him through the cheekbone, and from the bloody mess at the back of his head, I could tell that it had gone straight through his brain.
I looked up and saw the bearded man pointing his gun down at me.
Then the woman yelled “Stan!” again.
Sandman heard it too and figured he had only seconds to get out.
His mind moved lightning-fast. He’d wanted Reilly dead, but he couldn’t shoot him with his own gun. He quickly scanned the floor around them looking for Reilly’s Glock, but before he could find it, his eyes locked on the casing from the shell fired from his own gun. The woman yelled ‘Stan’ again, her voice much closer this time. He had a second or two to get out of there if he wasn’t going to have to kill her too, an option he quickly discarded as too messy. He bent down and retrieved the casing. It wasn’t as clean as he wanted it-he didn’t have time to recover the stray bullet-but under the circumstances, it would have to do.
He then ducked through the open garage door and slipped away briskly, heading toward his car.
As the wail of the house alarm egged me back to consciousness, I felt my head. My beanie was soaked through on one side, courtesy of a fast-spreading patch of fresh blood. As I dragged myself onto my knees, the internal door to the house swung open and Kirby’s wife stepped into the garage, a handgun clutched in her hand. She screamed “Stan!” as she saw her husband lying dead on the floor, then looked at me and swung the gun at me, her hands shaking.
“What have you done? Stan! Oh my God, Stan?”
I was still on my knees, getting up slowly, my vision blurred, my head pounding, but I raised both hands as defensively as I could.
“Please, don’t shoot. It’s not what it looks like. Please, listen to me. I’m with the FBI.”
Sobs were heaving through her body as her face contorted and went from confusion and fear into wild rage-and I could see she was about to pull the trigger.
I was now on my feet and I faltered back a step, then another, hesitantly, my hands still way up and wide apart.
“Listen to me-”
She looked completely terrified, but one thing I knew was that an adrenalized shot with no aim at all was potentially far more lethal than a considered shot with a wayward aim.
She fired.
The bullet whizzed past my cheek, so close I was sure it took a few skin cells with it.
I wasn’t going to risk a second one. I turned and ducked as I bolted through the garage door, willing my legs back to life.
I staggered toward my car, but quickly had to stop-a neighbor had stepped out of his house and had a phone in his hand. Then I heard the first police siren-coming from the direction I’d parked my rental. The neighbor must have called 911.
I lurched right and changed tack.
I veered off the street and ducked up the driveway of a neighboring house, cutting through to its back yard. I crashed through some bushes and over a patch of grass, heading across two back gardens toward another house at the end of the street, all the windows of which were dark. Within minutes, there’d be a police chopper in the air above me with a search beam sweeping the neighborhood.
I had to get far from here, fast.
I remembered the apartment buildings behind the Lee Highway and the parking lot for the residents beside them. No gates or fences. By now, most of the residents would be home and not going anywhere until morning.
Left hand clutched to my head in a vain attempt to staunch the bleeding, I swerved around the house, hoping there weren’t any motion sensors on the property.
At the side of the house, I clambered over a fence, crashing to the ground on the other side as my legs gave way. My vision was still blurring from the concussion and there was blood running into my left eye. I rolled down a steep bank, plowing through seemingly endless lines of bushes as I careened downwards over a thick layer of wood chips, finally coming to a stop against a tree.
My recollection had been accurate. I was lying about a hundred yards from the unsecured parking lot beside the low apartment buildings behind the Lee Highway.
More sirens sounded, no more than a quarter mile away. I shook my head, pulled myself upright and staggered like a wounded animal toward the small lot, already scanning the vehicles for one old enough to be hot-wired.
13
Washington, DC
“Sean. Me again. Just a little heads up, baby-the car’s picking us up in ten minutes. Ten. Minutes. You do remember why we’re here, don’t you? That casual pizza evening at your buddy’s pad on Pennsylvania Avenue? At the… where was it, exactly? Oh, yes. I remember now. The White House!” The last three words were more yelled than said. Then, mock-cheerfully: “Call me, sweetie. This better be good. Historically good. Bye.”
She clicked off, stabbing the iPhone so hard to end the call that she almost cracked the screen with her nail.
It was the third message she’d left him.
She stared at herself in the hotel room mirror yet again, scrutinizing every inch of her appearance: the hair, the makeup, the jewelry, every fold of her dress, her shoes, right down to the pedicure on her toes.
Perfect. Immaculate. In her humble opinion.
Just one thing missing: her date for the big night.
It had happened before, sure. Maybe not on such a huge occasion. But he’d done a few no-shows. His job was like that. The unexpected had to be expected sometimes. She knew that.