MIND FIELDS (33 page)

Hap Wilson pulled out his pistol and swung toward Richard Kincade in the same motion.  In a split second, he saw that Kincade did not have a weapon and followed Kincade’s pointing arm toward Harold Bradley.

In less than one second, three shots had been fired.  The second shot had come from the pistol of Bradley, who looked down in horror as the nanobots released his mind just long enough for him to realize what he had done.  The third shot, a blink of the eye later, came from Agent Hap Wilson, and ended the brief misery of Mr. Harold Bradley. 

The first shot had been fired by Agent Dennis McLaughlin, who had not summed up the situation as rapidly as Hap Wilson had.  Denny looked at Bradley, lying on the ground, then over at Hap, and finally back toward the limp body of Detective Richard Kincade, who Denny had felled with a single shot to the chest.  Nausea overtook him as he realized that he had just shot the man who had saved the life of the President of the United States.

It all happened so fast that President Forsyth never turned around.  He was still looking squarely at Stanton Cole, who now lay face down on the green, blood seeping into the ground by his side.  The second shot, the one from Bradley’s pistol had whizzed by the president and hit Stanton Cole as he was lining up his putt.  Hap rushed to the president and whisked him into the shielded back seat of the golf cart.  The agents who had been scouring the woods for Kincade had come running out when the shots were fired.  Hap directed Crowley to take control of the scene.  He motioned Denny into the cart and they sped back toward the clubhouse. 

President Huntley Forsyth was the winner, and only man of the threesome left standing on this beautiful day at Windsong Meadows.

___ 

Forty-five minutes after the fatal shot was fired, the president was safely back at the White House, paramedics were attending unnecessarily to the corpses of Harold Bradley and Senator Stanton Cole, and Hap Wilson’s boss, Special Agent Jacques Fleurian, was on the scene.

“But really, sir, I must insist,” one of the paramedics pleaded.  “It’s protocol.”

“Hell’s bells,” sniped Richie Kincade.  “I’m fine, kid.  I’m fine.  Richie had wrangled his way out of the bulletproof vest he had donned for the occasion.  “Just a little bruise, see?” He opened his shirt and let out a poorly muted yelp as he tried to sit up.  “Well, maybe a big bruise.  Give me a hand, kid, would ya?”  He held his left hand out to the young paramedic, who hesitated and looked around for anyone who might be able to convince his patient to lie still.

“No use, kid.  Your buddies are all busy trying to save the dead guys.  Now let me off the ground, would ya?”

The young man hesitantly relented and helped Kincade to his feet.  They were both too busy to notice Special Agent Fleurian approaching. 

“Puttering around in the wrong place at the wrong time again, eh Dick?” he said to Kincade with an unmistakable air of disdain.

Richie gently pushed the young paramedic aside, revealing a man about his own age, in the requisite G-man garb: black suit, black tie, white shirt and classically U.S. Government issue sunglasses with a black plastic frame. Richie squinted briefly, more out of pain from his freshly bruised chest than to focus through the glare of the sunlight.  That voice was unmistakable, visual confirmation merely a formality.

“Don’t call me
Dick,
Jocko.” 

Fleurian sneered.  “Tell you what.  I won’t call you Dick if you don’t call me Jocko.”

Richie nodded. “You got a deal, Jock.”

“Jacques,” he snarled through clenched teeth, enunciating the proper French pronunciation of his name.

“Oh, well excuse me,
Monsieur
.  I guess my French is a little rusty.”

Special Agent Fleurian was losing his patience.  “Don’t be such an asshole …
Dick
.”

Kincade smiled.  “Just having a little fun with you.  Figured I could use the sympathy thing to get in a few jabs.  I did just get shot, you know.” He winced as he tapped the spot on his chest were the bullet had struck the vest.

“I don’t do sympathy, Kincade.  You should know that.”  Fleurian glared at him.

“Geez, who’s the asshole now?”  Richie burst out laughing, then grabbed at his chest.  “God, don’t make me laugh, man.”

Fleurian looked at him warily.  “You haven’t changed a bit, Richie.”

“Ah, if that were only true,” Richie said, shaking the slight roll of fat around his belly with his right hand.” 

“Could be worse,” Fleurian said, smoothing his hand along his receding hairline.

Richie chuckled again, and this time Fleurian joined in.  A much relieved young paramedic left the two of them to reminisce.

Over the years, Richie and Jacques had run into each other from time to time even though their lives had gone in drastically different directions. Kincade was put off by Fleurian’s superior attitude, especially given past circumstances, but he eventually learned to see past it.  With experience comes wisdom, and as time passed he came to realize that it had just been a rookie mistake Fleurian made those many years ago, no malevolence intended, and the years had proven Fleurian to be very adept at his job.

For his part, Fleurian had been furious at Richie for almost ruining his career, but he eventually came to understand that Kincade’s intentions were not personal.

Deep down inside, the two men harbored a mutual admiration.  They were both damn good at what they did.  The friction between them was only skin deep now; they both knew it, but neither wanted to admit it.

“I thought you were just crazy, Richie.  You know, about the mad scientists’ plot against the president.”

“But you knew better, right Jacques?”

“Oh, yeah.  I
knew
you were crazy.”

Kincade just shook his head.

“Seriously though, Richie. I did think you had gone off the deep end on this one,” he glanced back at the corpses being carted off into the ambulances, “but obviously, I was wrong.  I think we’d better have a talk as soon as you’re up to it.”  He could see the pain in Richie’s eyes.  Fleurian signaled to the young paramedic to come back over, then turned back toward Richie, grabbing his arm to help steady him. “Do what the young man says, huh?  Get on the stretcher and go get yourself checked out.”  He reached into his pocket and grabbed a business card, handing it to Kincade.  “Gimme a call as soon as you’re up to it.  I know have been a little slow on the uptake, but I’m ready to listen now.”

Kincade nodded, relieved to be helped onto the stretcher by the young paramedic and his old classmate.  The pain was catching up with him as the adrenaline rush, sparked by the events of the day, began to wear off.  He slipped the card in his pocket and laid back, eyes closed.

Fleurian stood over him and nodded to the paramedics to cart him off to the ambulance.  He watched them drive off, then rejoined his men, who were finishing up their inspection of the crime scene.  The bodies were long gone.

“Let’s go, boys.”

Windsong Meadows was desolate that afternoon, save for the reporters buzzing like bees around the locked gates of the main entrance, struggling to suck the last bit of sap out of the enigmatic story that had unfolded on the third green.

Chapter twenty five

Two weeks later —

  “And on the continuing investigation into the assassination attempt on President Huntley Forsyth at the Windsong Meadows Golf Club two weeks ago, speculation continues to mount about the motives that former Chief of Staff Harold Bradley may have had for trying to kill the president.  The FBI is pursuing all leads, but continues to maintain a complete blackout of the press, claiming national security reasons.  For his part, the president maintains that Mr. Bradley was clearly affected by his recent head injury, and asks that the American people refrain from condemning the former chief of staff until all the facts are in.”

  Richard Kincade was watching the Internet news update on the computer as he ate his sandwich.  “You’re a hell of a friend, Mr. President.  That SOB aimed a gun at your head and pulled the trigger, and all you can say is that it wasn’t his fault.”

Kincade was itching to go to the press and let them know what had really happened, but Fleurian had warned him to stay quiet.  He didn’t want anyone mucking up the investigation, and certainly did not want to have to deal with the media circus that Kincade’s story about little mind-control robots would create.  Richie decided that he’d stepped on enough toes for a while and agreed to stay quiet...for now.  Besides, he still had no hard evidence to tie BNI or the NSA in to the murder.  He decided to take the chief up on his offer and return to work in exchange for keeping a low profile while Fleurian’s investigation proceeded.

“In business, the Dow Jones Industrial average is up one-hundred and thirty-two points at this hour, led by biotech giant BNI.”  Kincade glared at the screen.  “The stock is up ten percent on news that the Senate has just approved a five-hundred million dollar research grant, to be used in the development of nanobots, miniature robots that cure human disease from inside the body.”

“Son of a bitch,” Kincade muttered.  “As if the bastards don’t have enough money already.”

The phone rang, and the message “incoming call” flashed up on the monitor.

“Computer, mute volume and display caller on screen.”  He missed having Daisy around to help out at home, but she was happy to be reinstalled back in Richie’s computer at the station, where she had a lot more memory and processor power to do her work. 

“Message is audio only,” the computer said dryly.

“Answer call.”

“Line open,” the computer said.

“Hello?”

“Detective Kincade?”

“Hey, how you doing, Doc.”  He recognized Sandi’s voice.  She had been staying at her aunt’s home in Aspen at Richie’s advice.  She knew too much about BNI’s operations for the NSA to ignore, or at least they would presume so.  He had convinced her that her life was still in danger and she should continue to “stay dead.”

“Well, it’s getting pretty cold out here, but I’m doing OK.  Did you see the news today?”

“Yeah.  Just watching it, as a matter of fact.  Why?”

“The BNI grant.  You know who heads the committee that determines where those grants are awarded?”

“No idea.”

  “It’s the Chairman of the Subcommittee on Nanotechnology.”

  “Fascinating, Doc.  I was just thinking to myself, ‘I hope someone calls me up and tells me who is in charge of doling out government grants for biotech research.’”

  His facetious tone was unmistakable even through the phone line.  “You haven’t changed a bit, Detective Kincade.”

  “And that’s a bad thing?”

  “Not at all,” she laughed, “but your sarcasm is a little frustrating sometimes.”

  “Sorry.  Go on.  I suppose you had a point, right?”

  “Right.  The former chairman of that committee, Stanton Cole, was not a big proponent of human nanobot research, especially the research being done by the private sector.  He felt that big business should fund their own research.”

  “Damned right.”

  “Yeah, well anyway, that five-hundred million dollar grant to BNI would never have been approved if Cole were still in charge of that committee.  I’ll give you two guesses who took his place after he was shot, who controls that committee now.”

  “I’ll be damned,” he said, starting to realize where she was going with this.  “I don’t suppose it would be a promising young senator by the name of Russell Stetson, now would it?”

  “Bingo.  And you only needed one guess.”

  “Hell, you don’t suppose...”

  “I sure do.”

___

  “Gentlemen,” Russell Stetson raised his glass, “to a job well done.”

  The private dining room at Flanagan’s assured anonymity, as usual.  Anderson and O’Grady raised their glasses.  Trace McKnight had begged his uncle to include him in the meeting as well, but O’Grady preferred that Anderson continue to believe that Trace was Sean Lightbourne, family friend of the O’Grady’s, rather than the NSA agent that he really was.

  “So what’s your plan for getting Forsyth out of the way?  I assume you still want me as your next president.”  He grinned broadly.

  “That goes without saying, Russ,” O’Grady said.  “I believe that tomorrow morning’s Washington Post will be running a story about the investigation into Cole’s murder. It seems that an unknown source has given some evidence to a young reporter named Molly Woodward regarding the little known fact that Mr. Forsyth had written some wonderful letters to Mr. Cole’s granddaughter, a twenty-three year old law student who had interned at the White House.  The content of those letters was, shall we say, disturbing to the morality of Senator Cole.  Mr. Bradley became aware that the senator was about to go public with these scandalous letters and decided to stop Mr. Cole from ruining the president’s reputation.  Mr. Bradley’s unfortunate lack of judgment in carrying out such a public assassination was due, of course, to his recent brain injury.”

  “Wow,” JT said.  “The president was having an affair with Cole’s granddaughter?”

  “Well,” O’Grady snickered, “no, not really, but by the time anyone realizes that, our boy Russ here will be the next President of the United States.”

  “You’re the master,” Stetson said, raising his glass once again.

  “All in a day’s work, gentlemen.  All in a day’s work.”

  The meeting adjourned, and O’Grady placed a call to the BABS-5 facility in Arizona from his cell phone.

  “How did it go, Uncle Jimmy?” Trace McKnight was out at BABS-5 running some routine checks on the Phase Three Project.

  “You missed a hell of a lunch.”

  “Damn.  I love their crabcakes.  Sure can’t get a decent one out here.”

  “I suppose not.  Listen, there’s just one more loose end to tie up.”

  “Kincade?”

  “Yeah.  You know what to do.  Get your ass back here as soon as you can.  I want this taken care of, and I don’t trust anyone else to do it.”

  “I’ll give you a call when it’s done.”