Gospel (66 page)

And David knew that, finally, his time was up.

They were about to make their entrance.

And what an entrance it was.

Dick Ryan entered first, his ruddy southern complexion a sunburned red under the white overhead lights. He was quickly followed by two Secret Service Agents, including Dan Kovacs, who entered before folding left and allowing the next two ‘intruders' to reveal themselves.

They came side by side – the President supporting his liege at the elbow, a pale younger man with a familiar face and a slight limp, his second-in-command, his dead man walking . . .
Thomas Wills Bradshaw
.

The wave of shock that shot through the room caused a current of reaction so strong and so vast that it seemed to reverberate off the walls, sparking everything from gasps to screams, to chants of miracles and losses of consciousness. At least two people in the back row fainted, while
others broke out in tears, finally removing their hands from open mouths to instinctively reach out as if needing to check the vision before them was real.

Judge Donovan rose from his seat, his spotted Irish skin now a uniform crimson. Antonio Ramirez also stood from his witness chair, only to stagger and fall back down in a lifeless bundle of defeat. The press were already calling his name – ‘
Mr Vice President, Mr Vice President
,' while leaping from their delegated seats over banisters and boundaries determined to witness this apparition for themselves.

And then the President finally moved forward, the crowd parting to allow them through as the Red Sea did for Moses all those centuries ago.

When he reached the front of the room Tom Bradshaw looked up at Judge Donovan. ‘Forgive me for being late, Your Honour, but I believe I can be of some assistance with your deliberations in this matter.'

He said this with a smile, that same, familiar, comforting smile, as if sensing the people around him needed some proof that the Vice President,
their
Vice President, was still the man they remembered him to be.

Donovan sat speechless as the Vice President, then whispering to his famous supporter that he was able to walk unassisted, did two very deliberate and prophetic things. First, he walked slowly towards the defence table, nodding at Arthur and Sara, before taking David's hand and shaking it with fervour.

Then he shuffled right, to the fourth person at the defence table who, realising this unexpected visitor was incapable of manoeuvring his way around the large cedar desk, proceeded to walk around the table to come face to face with his friend.

‘I'm sorry,' said Bradshaw, his voice almost a whisper, before holding his arms wide and inviting the Professor into his embrace.

‘No need, my friend,' replied Montgomery.

And there they stood, holding each other, Montgomery shaking with sobs that were absorbed by the man he was so wrongly accused of murdering. They remained there in silence for minutes with flash bulbs, not permitted inside a Federal courtroom, somehow materialising to catch this miracle in full frame, until Bradshaw finally released himself and nodded as if indicating there was one last thing he had to do.

The crowd watched as he made his way . . . step, shuffle . . . step shuffle . . . slowly, deliberately, across to the other side of the courtroom. He stopped briefly in front of the witness stand to turn his neck and stare directly into the eyes of the man who had ‘killed' him, before turning abruptly back as if dismissing the ‘failed' murderer in his midst.

Finally, their eyes met and the entire room perched on that knife edge that only exists between past and future when something historical is about to occur.

‘Melissa,' he said, and David felt a chill of anticipation spread through his entire body.

Melissa Bryant Bradshaw, now standing with the rest of the crowd, her face the colour of the snow, stood stock-still, as if waiting for the executioner's blade to fall.

‘Melissa,' he said again. ‘I have missed you so much.'

And then Tom Bradshaw raised his arms again, inviting his killer into his embrace before saying, for all the room to hear, ‘I love you, Melissa,' he said. ‘I love you more than life itself. And I cannot bear to be away from you a single minute longer.'

30 April

‘H
ey,' he said, her entrance catching him by surprise. ‘Not like you to forget something. What's this, my super-organised wife missing a detail or two – or is it that you could not bear to be away from me a single minute longer?'

She returned his smile then and used her French-manicured finger to beckon him forward. ‘The latter,' she smiled. ‘Come here. And turn around. Your bow tie is crooked. Seriously, Tom, you would have thought that after all these years you would be able to tie your own . . .'

‘You know I'm all thumbs when it comes to that sort of thing,' he said, turning his back to her. ‘Besides, why should I have to tie the damned thing when I have you to . . . Ouch . . . what was that?' he said, pulling away from her instinctively.

‘What was what, darling?'

‘That sting,' he said, using his right hand to reach back towards his left shoulder. ‘It felt like something bit me.'

‘Perhaps a mosquito,' she suggested. He was facing her now and he saw something, some new sense of determination in her face which, truth be told, unnerved him, just a little.

‘No,' he said, staring directly into the cool deep pools of her icy blue eyes. ‘It was more like a small stab or a . . .'

‘What's this then?' she smiled. ‘The future President of the USA afraid of a small insect?'

‘No . . . I . . .' He smiled again, before walking towards the mini-fridge to get another Evian. He opened the door and pulled out the water, unscrewing the cap and downing half of the bottle . . . quickly. And then he set it back, on the door shelf. But something still felt wrong. Something felt . . .

And then it hit him.

Smack.

Just like that.

He would never be able to recall what came first – the sense of realisation or the rapidly expanding wave of nothingness that began to claim his body. He felt himself not so much slipping, but shooting down a bottom less hole of powerlessness, his brain still intact as his body gave way beneath him.

He fell to the floor.

‘I'm sorry, Tom, but we don't have much time.' She moved across the room to bend over him, looking at her Cartier watch as she used the other hand to smooth her dress before crouching, knees together, above him.

He went to speak but . . . COULDN'T. His tongue was fat and thick and immobile. And now, worse still, the basic human instinct to inhale seemed beyond him. And in that moment he realised what she had done – she had taken away his ability to walk, talk . . . BREATHE.

But why? There was something . . . something she had said – about the CIA and the FBI, about Panama and Philadelphia . . .

But it was too late. He could not think. He could not BREATHE! She had rendered him useless and now, was looking down upon him, watching him as he . . .

And then she did something completely unexpected.

She kissed him.

Not gently or passionately, but powerfully releasing a strong puff of air into his paralysed lungs.

This did not make sense. She was administering mouth to mouth resuscitation. She had sentenced him to death and yet was . . .

‘Confusing, isn't it,' she said between breaths. ‘Don't worry, darling. It will all be made clear very soon. You see the anaesthetic I just gave you is a killer – but not the drug that must go on record. I am afraid this is just the forerunner for the real thing. You see, I have to keep your blood circulating so that the next surprise can metabolise and be named as the official cause of death . . . But don't worry, the second drug is much more sanitary. In fact it should send you back to that place you used to know and love so well. Think of it as a surprise reunion with an old friend.' She took a deep breath and exhaled into his open mouth again.

‘This is no fun, granted,' she went on, taking another quick glance at her diamond-studded timepiece. ‘And believe me we did consider other options. But in the end there was no other way. You know I have never been one to compromise, Tom. That is one of the reasons you fell in love with me in the first place, is it not?'

She filled her lungs again, and tilted her head slightly, kissing him once more and flooding his useless chest with air.

‘That's it then,' she said. ‘8.02. Time for me to go. But don't worry. Someone else will be here soon to put you out of your misery.'

She stood to leave then, as he struggled to hold on to her final breath.

And then, he looked up at her, high above him, a hazy vision in white, backlit by the tiny overhead lights which framed her image like stars. She was truly beautiful, he thought, like some angelic mutation. The woman for whom he would have given his life – which in effect he . . .

‘I'm sorry, Tom,' she said at last, before, as if in some conciliatory gesture, bending to ‘kiss' him one last time. ‘You have played your part well, and for that and everything else, I thank you.

‘Goodbye Tom,' she said at last. ‘It has been a pleasure.'

Seconds later, just as he heard her leave the room with a fatal ‘click', another person entered, and in that moment he thought – he hoped, he PRAYED, that someone had arrived to . . .

The new intruder said nothing, NOTHING. He did not call out, scream, shout, yell, shriek for medical assistance. He simply walked across the room towards him, his footfalls reverberating faintly under the carpeted floor beneath him and dashing his hopes in one simple sentence.

‘Are you ready to die, Mr Vice President?' asked Ramirez. ‘I hope so.
I don't know how much your wife has told you, but in the very least, I can promise you this second “stage” should be more to your liking.'

Ramirez picked him up like a useless rag doll, and carried him quickly to the bedroom, placing him straight on the left hand side of the bed. And then, ever so slightly, Tom Bradshaw felt a wave of delicious relief – possibility, HOPE, as his lungs expanded, ever so slightly, allowing a precious puff of air to be drawn from the world of the living and down his trachea and into his lungs.

It was wearing off! The drug was . . .

‘In case you are wondering,' said Ramirez as he began to fold the Vice President's sleeve upwards. ‘Your dearly beloved gave you enough air to assure your circulation was continuous. That means you get to feel the pleasure of the OxyContin flowing through your . . .'

And Bradshaw knew he saw it then, the rise of his hungry chest accompanied seconds later by the first indication of panic on his assassin's face.

‘We must hurry, Mr Vice President,' he said. ‘But not to worry, I am almost there, in fact . . .'

And then he felt it, that wonderful, horrible rush that he had loved and despised all at the same time. That sickening wave of euphoria that was so familiar and yet so new, like an old lover returned, dressed up as a princess and smelling like death.

‘Not long now, Bradshaw,' he said. ‘So I suggest you sit back and enjoy the ride. The Professor will be up shortly and all will be as intended.'

‘It's not . . . OVER,' Bradshaw managed, literally spitting out the words as his lungs contracted to a new depth of depression.

‘You're right, of course,' said Ramirez with a smile. ‘In fact, this is just the beginning. Not for you, but you have more than done your bit. If it is any compensation, I promise you your wife will reach greatness in your wake. Because you see, you were always just a stepping stone to her intended purpose, a vital but now unnecessary link in the chain.

‘So farewell, Mr Bradshaw, and take comfort in knowing that I will be by her side, admiring her, supporting her, every single step of the way.'

One day after the hearing

J
ohn was dead. At least according to a joint statement released by the President of the United States and CIA Director Richard Ryan on the evening of what had turned out to be one of the most shocking and infinitely memorable days in US judicial history.

 

John – real name Victor Escobar – was killed in a shoot out with rival Panama drug lord Raul Diego Diaz exactly one week ago today in a ‘gangland style offensive' executed by Diaz's men.

Early CIA investigations suggest Escobar's murder was the result of a pre-arranged ‘contract' between Diaz and a senior US law enforcement identity.

The law enforcement identity in question, FBI Washington Field Office Assistant Director in Charge Antonio Ramirez, has been arrested and charged with a series of crimes relating to the death of Escobar and others connected to the covert US drug operation known as GIV.

It is believed Escobar, who was the major supplier of drugs to the GIV operation, became dispensable when the drug operation,
which targeted influential members of Congress and their relatives, was shut down and progressed to a second phase.

The second phase, according to preliminary investigations, involved the extortion of said members of Congress with Assistant Director Ramirez, GIV code name Matthew, planning to blackmail the high profile government officials for his own financial personal gain.

So in the end it was all about the money.

The statement progressed to say the CIA had evidence the ADIC orchestrated the murders of the three deceased Gospel members, Robert Doyle, Travis Toovey and Victor Escobar to prevent the originally agreed upon ‘four way split' from coming into effect.

In other words, the guy got greedy and wanted all the spoils for himself.

It fit.

Like a glove.

It looked like a rough cut of those fairy-tale ‘Kennedy' documentaries from the sixties. America's first family laughing at an extended weekend gathering at Cape Cod; toothy smiles, steaming cocoa, cable knit jumpers and front pleat pants, the women in head scarves and dark sunglasses with neat designer knits wrapped tightly on their lithe bodies as they warded off the late fall chill.