36: A Novel (42 page)

As he’d spoken, my head swam.  There was no way anyone else could know that.  I stared for a moment, then slightly lowered the pistol and started to step farther into the hall.

“You have to hurry!  Now!  Quit fucking around and go save Julie!  I know which agents to target, and I’m going to take them out and stop the assassination.”

“Wait,” I said, bringing the weapon back up and on target.  “If I’m here, how can you be here?  And know what you know?  It just happened a few hours ago, and I would have had to return to real time between then and now, and I haven’t!”

“We have to stop this, and you have to trust me.  Save Julie!  You need to go.  There’s no time!”

I didn’t know what to believe.  How was it possible for him to know what he knew if he wasn’t me?  But how could it be me?  There wasn’t a
me
in the future to be sent back.  I was still here.

Still, how did he know the intimate details of a private conversation between Julie and me.  We’d been alone.  Unless someone was listening.  Could the room be bugged?  Had they tracked us somehow and slipped a microphone inside while we were scouting the restaurant? 

“Monica,” I said.

“What?”

“Tell me about Monica.”

He stared at me for a beat.  In the beam of the flashlight, I could see him hesitate.  Confused.  Trying to come up with a response.  I pulled the trigger.

The suppressed pistol spat out a round that punched through his forehead.  His head snapped back an instant before his body crumpled to the floor.  Stepping forward, breathing hard, I approached cautiously.

If I was wrong, I’d just fucked myself.  Killed my future self.  But if this had been me, he would have instantly known what I meant when I spoke Monica’s name.  There wouldn’t have been any confusion or hesitation.

Reaching the corpse, I looked down at the face.  My face.  With a neat, red hole in it.  My lifeless eyes staring up at nothing.  Leaning down, I ran my hands over his clothing, retrieving a wallet and a badge case. 

I had a pretty good idea who this was, and when I flipped through the two items it was confirmed.  The wallet held a Texas commercial driver’s license in the name of JR Whitman.  But the badge case identified the same person as FBI Special Agent Michael Bering.  I’d just killed the undercover agent my new face had been copied from.

He had to be one of Johnson’s boys.  In on the conspiracy.  And if he was here, they knew too much.  Had to have the hotel room bugged.  There was no other way he knew the things Julie and I had said to each other.  If he was here, Johnson might not be far behind.  Maybe that was the one truthful thing he’d said.

Shoving his wallet in my back pocket and the FBI ID into my jacket, I rushed back into the first office suite.  Ripping the blinds down, I looked for a way to open the window, but it was a solid, fixed pane of glass. 

Pausing in thought, I ran back out, grabbed the arm of the man I’d killed and dragged the body into the office.  Looking down at my face, another thought occurred to me and I leaned back and aimed the pistol.  When I had it lined up at a sharp angle, I pulled the trigger.

The bullet entered on the side of his left cheek bone, tearing across and obliterating the nose and leaving a gaping hole when it exited through the right eye socket.  Maybe I was being paranoid, but I didn’t like the idea of leaving my face lying around at a crime scene.  Now his own mother wouldn’t recognize the ragged mass of pulp. 

Stepping back a few feet, I raised the rifle to my shoulder.  Aiming at the window, and the building across the street.  Flipping the fire selector to full auto with my thumb, I pulled and held the trigger.

The M4 was loud in the enclosed space, quickly spitting out all thirty rounds in the magazine.  The glass shattered and I could see puffs of dust where the bullets blasted small craters into the stone façade of my target building.  I changed mags and fired another thirty rounds out into the night.

Dropping the expended magazine, I loaded a fresh one and bent over the corpse.  Put the rifle’s pistol grip in its hand and bent the index finger onto the trigger.  With my finger over his, I squeezed and fired a long burst into the walls and ceiling of the room. 

Releasing my grip on the dead man’s hand, his arm flopped to the floor and the rifle clattered next to it.  Now, when the forensics team checked his hand for burned powder, gun shot residue, they’d find exactly what they were looking for.  Confirmation he was the one doing the shooting.

I could already hear sirens and voices shouting from outside as I pounded down the hall.  Unscrewing the suppressor from the end of the pistol as I ran, I slipped it into my jacket and pulled out the FBI ID case.  I didn’t think I could get out of the area before cops and Secret Service converged, but I had a perfectly good FBI badge and ID, with my face on it.

Reaching the back door, I burst through and skidded to a stop when several flashlights blinded me.  Voices were screaming, telling me to stop and get on the ground.  Fortunately, I’d had the foresight to stick the pistol in my waistband so they didn’t see a suspect waving a weapon around and immediately open fire.

“FBI!”  I shouted, extending my arm and holding the ID high in the air.  “One shooter down inside, but there’s another in the area.  Did you see him?”

“On the ground!”  A voice commanded from behind one of the lights.

“I’m FBI you fucking idiot,” I screamed back, waving the badge case.  “Did you see the other shooter or not?”

It was quiet for a beat.

“Keep your hands in sight!”

A shadow moved in front of one of the lights and carefully approached.  A man, dressed in black body armor, Kevlar helmet and goggles, cautiously walked up and took the badge case from my hand.  He clicked on a small light and examined it for several seconds, looking up to compare my face.  Tilting it to the side, he checked for a holographic image that all but ensured it was genuine, then handed it back.

“He’s legit,” he shouted and all but one of the lights went dark.

“Secret Service,” he said as three men rushed past me into the building, rifles at their shoulders.  “What are you doing here?  And how did you get past our seal?”

“Been tracking a couple of white supremacists for a few days.  Followed them here.  Seal was already off when I went in.  They must have picked it before I arrived.  Got one of them, but the other ran when the shooting started.  You should have seen him.”

I was making it up as I went along.  Pulling the story out of my ass.  But it was a good one.  Explained the gunfire, and placed a second shooter loose somewhere in the area.

The man raised his hand and activated a small radio.

“Emergency scrub Ramrod!  Repeat.  Emergency scrub Ramrod!”

“What’s that?”  I asked, already knowing the answer.

“POTUS was scheduled to have dinner at a restaurant just down the block,” he said, looking up when the three agents who had gone into the building appeared at the door.

“One down, boss,” one of them reported.  “M4 next to his hand.  Shot in the head.”

“Me,” I said, confessing to shooting the man.  “Now I need to find this other asshole.  Could use help.  My backup is still five minutes away.”

He nodded, placing another call on the radio before bringing his team into a tight circle.  I kept pulling ideas out of thin air, coming up with a description of a man who didn’t exist.  Maintaining the persona of a federal agent taking control of a situation, I sent them off in three different directions.  I took the fourth, which just happened to be the way back to the hotel.

One of the agents was detailed to remain at the building, securing the scene.  He moved through the door, taking up station in the lobby.  The rest of us split up, heading in our assigned directions. 

50

I moved through the alley as more and more sirens sounded all around the area.  Initially, I’d planned to remove the FBI jacket and try to blend in, but rethought that idea.  There were about to be a few hundred cops and federal agents descend on a several block area of the city. 

And thanks to my story, every single one of them would be looking for a white male about the same age as me.  Since every pair of eyes would zero in on adult males with white skin, I decided to maintain the role of an FBI agent participating in the search.  And it was a good thing I did.

As I emerged from the end of the alley, a DC Metro police car swerved to the curb in front of me, spotlight momentarily freezing me.  They saw the jacket and ID I held up, waved at me and roared away.  Turning, I set off for the hotel at a fast walk. 

All up and down the street, police cars were pulling to a stop, roof lights flashing.  The cops driving them jumped out and began checking each pedestrian that was in their immediate area.  I mimed what they were doing as I walked, carefully looking at each person I passed.

Halfway to the hotel, I came to a sudden stop when I recognized a face that shouldn’t be there.

“What are you doing here,” I asked, stepping close to Ray.

Alarm bells were going off in my head.  What the hell was he doing here?  Was he in on it too?  Had I made a mistake talking to him and trusting him?  Had he been sent along as backup, to kill me?

My hand moved to the pistol, but his shot out and gripped my shoulder.  He pressed with his thumb, my arm immediately going numb and failing to respond to the command from my brain to draw the weapon.

“Relax,” he said.  “Carpenter sent me.  I’m here trying to intercept Johnson.  He killed the director and got off the rig.”

“Get your fucking hand off me,” I said, trying to twist away.

He pressed harder and a bolt of white hot lightning shot through my shoulder and into the back of my head.  I gasped in pain, reaching for the pistol with my other hand.  Ray shifted his grip to my neck and pushed on another spot.  Now I was completely paralyzed, unable to do anything other than stand there and breathe.

“I’m not your enemy,” he said in a calm voice.  “I’m here for Johnson.  Carpenter tracked him after he fled the rig.  He’s here in DC.  In this area, but I haven’t been able to locate him.”

“I know where he is,” I said, surprised I was able to speak.

“Where?”

“My hotel room.  He’s going to kill the woman I’m with.”

“Then let’s go get the cocksucker,” Ray said, releasing his hold.

All feeling instantly returned, as well as control over my body.

“You’ve got to teach me how to do that,” I said, deciding to accept him at face value.

I resumed my fast walk to the hotel and Ray fell in beside me.  More police screamed by, slowing to check us out before continuing on when I raised the ID.

“What did you do?”  he asked.

“Stopped the assassination,” I said.  “They’re looking for a white supremacist who’s supposed to be running around with a rifle.  Best I could do.”

“What assassination?”  He asked.

I came to a stop in the middle of the sidewalk before realizing that in his timeline the attack hadn’t happened yet.  And wouldn’t.

“The reason I’m back here,” I said, walking again.  “Too long to explain.”

Ray nodded and we covered the rest of the distance to the hotel in silence.  At the entrance, I pushed through a small crowd of guests and employees who had gathered outside to see what was going on down the block.  Several of them stared at the FBI jacket, but I ignored them and walked into the lobby.

Running to the elevator, I held my ID out and told a small group of businessmen to wait for the next car.  We stepped inside and I pushed the button for the twelfth floor.  As soon as the doors slid shut, I drew my pistol and screwed the silencer back on.  Ray produced a suppressed pistol from beneath his shirt, dropping an extra long magazine to check the load.  Satisfied, he slapped it home and looked at me.

“We drop him on sight,” he said.

“No argument here.”

We stepped to either side as the elevator arrived at 12.  It dinged, and the doors slid open.  Our pistols were already up, each of us aiming at an angle into the hall, the sides of the elevator protecting our bodies in case anyone started shooting at us.  The hall was empty.

Ray nodded and I stepped through first.  He followed, flowing around the corner and covering our backs.  I led the way down the hall, stopping short of the door to the room Julie was in. 

“Just like we practiced,” he mumbled near my ear.

I had stopped on the handle side of the door.  If it suddenly opened, the person inside the room wouldn’t be able to see me without sticking their head all the way through the opening and looking to the side.

Fumbling in my pocket, I found the room key.  Extending my arm, I slowly inserted it into the slot on the lock and pulled it back out.  There was a soft beep, the tiny LED changed to green and a click sounded as the bolt released.  Turning the handle, I rolled around the jam and slammed the door open with my shoulder.

I came in fast, dropping low as I entered, pistol in both hands extended in front of my body.  Scanning left, like Ray had taught me.  He came in on my heels and broke to the right.  The living area was empty and both bedroom doors were closed.

Ray glanced at me and raised his eyebrow in a question.  I pointed at the door to the room I’d put the unconscious man in and we padded across the thick carpeting and stacked up to the side.  We repeated the entry we’d performed at the main door and I came to an abrupt halt when I saw the body on the bed.

It was Cummins, right where I’d left him.  But there hadn’t been blood staining the white pillow the last time I’d checked on him.  And there hadn’t been a bullet hole in the back of his head.

Ray was signing for me to provide cover while he cleared the bathroom, but I ran out of the room.  Ran straight to the other bedroom door, turning the knob and bursting through.  I dropped the pistol and dashed forward, falling to my knees at the edge of the bed.

Julie lay on her back, blood stained hair fanned across a pillow.  Her face was swollen and bruised from a beating.  Her big, blue eyes stared lifelessly at the ceiling.