Air Force One landed early.
With the jet stream working for them, the pilots had made up the forty-seven minutes and more. Marcus couldn’t believe his good fortune. But as the plane taxied to a stop, the special agent in charge came over to his seat and asked him if they could talk in private.
“Is there a problem, sir?” Marcus asked, anxious to get moving.
“I’m afraid there is,” the SAIC said as the rest of the detail grabbed their carry-on bags and headed off the plane.
At first Marcus thought he was being relieved of duty. He’d never seen his supervisor look so somber or hesitate to say whatever was on his mind.
“Look, Marcus, there’s no easy way to say this, so I’ll just say it.”
Marcus steeled himself for whatever was coming.
“There’s been an incident.”
“What do you mean?”
“A shooting, at a 7-Eleven in Southeast.”
“And?”
“Elena was there, as was Lars.”
Marcus froze. “But they’re okay, right? Tell me they’re all right.”
The SAIC shook his head. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I’m afraid they’re not.”
“What do you mean? What happened?”
“There was an off-duty cop in the store at the time. He drew his weapon. There was a gun battle. Elena and Lars were caught in the cross fire.”
Marcus heard the words, but he didn’t believe them. There was no way his wife and son were at a 7-Eleven in Southeast, he explained. They were meeting him at the Kennedy Center. He needed to get there himself. He couldn’t be late.
“Marcus, they’re dead,” the SAIC said. “Both of them. I’m so sorry.”
The SAIC drove.
They raced from Andrews into the city in a government sedan, lights flashing, siren blaring. Marcus couldn’t hear it. All his training was failing him. He couldn’t think clearly, couldn’t count, couldn’t focus, much less speak. This couldn’t be real. It had to be a mistake. It had to be.
Finally the two men pulled up to the crime scene. A dozen police cars and several ambulances clogged the streets. A half-dozen TV news crews were covering the story live, their satellite trucks taking up nearly a city block. A D.C. detective met them and walked them over a sea of shattered glass to the blown-out front door of the convenience store. The body of the young gunman had already been removed, but his outline remained in the coagulating pool of blood.
“You sure you want to do this?” the detective asked before opening the door.
Marcus said nothing. The detective looked to the SAIC and back at Marcus, then led the two men inside.
What Marcus saw was worse than anything he had let himself imagine. Three bodies, each covered in blood-drenched sheets, lay where they had fallen. Bullet casings were everywhere. An empty handbasket, resting on its side, immediately caught his eye. Strewn about the filthy tile smudged with blood and dirt were unopened packages of DayQuil and Extra Strength Tylenol, a bag of Ricola, a three-pack of tissues, a Snickers—Lars’s favorite—and a Dasani water bottle.
Crime scene investigators were still taking photographs, still taking measurements and detailed notes. All the initial interviews with witnesses had already been conducted by the detectives, and the wounded had been taken to the hospital to be treated for shock and various minor injuries. No one was left who had actually been present when the shooting began, no one Marcus could ask for details.
It didn’t matter. Marcus hadn’t come to solve a crime or even observe the aftermath of one. He had come for one simple, if unimaginable, purpose—to identify the bodies of the two people most precious to him in the world. So that’s what he did.
Just a few inches away a woman’s hand, cold and stiff, poked out from beneath a sheet. Marcus instantly recognized the rings. They were Elena’s. He forced himself to kneel beside her body. His hands were shaking. Taking a deep breath, he slowly pulled back the sheet. There was Elena’s face. Her eyes were closed. She looked like she was sleeping. She looked peaceful, so beautiful in her pearl earrings and necklace. Marcus saw blood. Then he pulled the sheet back farther and saw the damage. She’d been hit once in the chest and again in the stomach. His bottom lip quivered. He wanted to look away, but he couldn’t. Marcus felt the SAIC’s hand on his back, steadying him. Neither man said anything. What was there to say?
Marcus leaned down and kissed Elena on her forehead, then pulled the sheet up over her face and turned to the body next to her. Again, he slowly pulled back the sheet. Lars was lying facedown. Marcus could see the holes in the back of his tux. Blood was everywhere.
Slowly, carefully, he turned the boy over. His eyes were still open, and they looked so scared—haunted and alone. At this, Marcus lost it. He immediately shut Lars’s eyes and cradled him in his arms and wept and wept.
44
The memorial service took place on a Thursday.
It really ought to have been cold and drizzling. Yet it was late June in the nation’s capital, and the morning was dazzling, sunny and fresh. The skies were blue and laced with white, wispy clouds. The trees were lush and green, and every garden was in full and vibrant bloom. The humidity was surprisingly, refreshingly low, and there was a light breeze coming from the east as people entered Lincoln Park Baptist Church, just six blocks from the Rykers’ apartment.
A rather large African American woman in her sixties knocked twice and popped her head into Carter Emerson’s office.
“Whenever you’re ready, Pastor,” she said, her eyes somber behind her glasses. “Everyone’s in place.” She caught Carter’s eye and nodded respectfully at Marcus, then backed out of the office and closed the door.
Marcus couldn’t remember the woman’s name. That bothered him. They had met numerous times. She was in Elena’s Bible study. She’d already brought a meal to his home this week. She and her family were pillars of the congregation. Marcus’s ability to observe and recall the minutest of details was something he had always prided himself on, a skill that had served him well as a criminal investigator and federal agent. Yet now even simple things were slipping from his grasp. This morning he had forgotten the PIN for his ATM card. The previous night he’d forgotten the combination to the safe in his closet, not that it mattered. In putting him on indefinite paid leave, his SAIC had taken away both his service weapon and his personal weapon when he’d driven him home from the 7-Eleven that terrible night.
Perhaps Nick Vinetti had been right to insist on driving him to the church that morning. Nick, now deputy chief of mission in Moscow, had flown immediately to Washington when Pete Hwang had called him with the news. Both men had been staying with Marcus for the past few days, making sure he was eating and that he didn’t do himself any harm. Marcus kept telling them he was fine. They didn’t believe him. No one did.
“Let’s pray a moment before we go out,” Carter said.
Nick and Pete nodded and, following the pastor’s lead, bowed their heads. Marcus did not. He just stared at his hands while Emerson talked to God. Right now Marcus was in no mood to pray.
When he heard the amen, Marcus rose and followed Carter out of the office and down the hall, with Nick and Pete tailing them. When they reached the sanctuary, Marcus was stunned. The pastor could and did draw quite an audience week after week, but Marcus had never seen the place packed to the rafters. There had to be more than five hundred people crammed into the pews and portable chairs and standing along the side and back walls, and every seat in the balcony sections was taken. It was a mixed group racially and professionally. Most were members of the church and the community in and around Eastern Market. Still, more than a hundred members of the United States Secret Service, including the director and assistant director, had come to pay their respects as well. Marcus even noticed that Senator Robert Dayton and his wife had come. Next to the senator’s wife was Annie Stewart, the aide who had survived the attack in Kandahar.