The Hearing (35 page)

“Max!”

Iverson took a step toward the TV monitor showing the Trade Commission’s rear door. “What is it?”

“Hang on.”

The agent at the monitor rewound a tape, studying the monitor, fingers poised to hit the stop and replay buttons.

An image flashed backwards. The agent reversed tape. On the monitor, two men burst from the Trade Commission door, took two
quick steps, and disappeared from the image.

“They came out running.”

Iverson said, “So would you. They say anything?”

“They were screaming at each other, just before they hit the back door, when they were still upstairs. I heard ‘ten minutes.’
And then the other one said something I couldn’t get.”

Iverson glanced at a clock over the monitor.

One thirty-five. If they gave themselves ten minutes, that’s one forty-five. Plenty of time.

Iverson called the limousine.

A girl answered. Wrong number. He said, “I’m sorry,” and was about to hang up and call again. Then he said, “Excuse me. Is
this the number for Judge Parham?”

That sounded stupid. Like Parham lives in a car.

“This is his daughter. May I help you?”

“Samantha?”

“Yes. Who’s calling, please?”

“Where is Judge Parham?”

“Who is this, please?”

“It’s Special Agent Iverson of the FBI. Where is the judge?”

“I don’t know. He left for a moment. If you’d like to leave a number I’ll have him call you when he returns.”

About to get blown up, and she sounds like an answering machine.

“Where did he leave for?”

“I don’t know. I think he just wanted to look around.”

Parham gets bored and goes for a stroll in the garden? Car bombs don’t hold his attention?

“Would you tell him to call me immediately? Would you do that?”

“Sure. Special Agent Iverson. How do you spell that?”

“I … V … Never mind. Just tell him to call the command truck. Carl’s number.”

“Okay. Thank you.”

Iverson hung up and yelled, “Where’s Falco?”

No one answered.

A voice boomed from a speaker: “In the truck!” An agent at Baker post.

Iverson yelled, “Go!”

“Two subjects exiting the area, a hundred yards from the Trade Commission, Daine Street, and they are
moving
, southwest, running like hell.”

Iverson said, “Buckley?”

Three consoles down the row, an agent wearing a telephone headset talked into his mouthpiece. “Captain, this is Buckley in
the truck. Two Latin males on Daine Street, running southwest, two blocks from the Trade Commission. Please detain?”

Iverson shouted, “Baker post! The three subjects on the lawn?”

“Still there. No activity.”

“If you—”

“Now they’re moving. Number two walking fast toward Blossom. Number one still at the tree. Female approaching number one.”

Buckley, still on the phone, shouted, “PD has two Latin males in custody on Daine Street!”

“Come back! Come back!” Aguilera stopped screaming at Carl and turned angrily to Helen. “Get him!” He yanked desperately at
the handcuffs. “Make him come back!”

Helen stood, taking care to stay out of kicking range of Aguilera’s feet.

“Is it going to go off?”

“It’s a bomb, you stupid bitch. Get him back here, get these cuffs off. Run! Go!”

Go
was just what Helen wanted to do. If the wild behavior of Aguilera was any indication, the bomb was ready to explode in seconds.
But Carl was still here—or at least headed for the house—and so were Gus and Samantha, not to mention Aguilera.

“Get these cuffs off!”

Aguilera was raving now.

“I can’t. I don’t have the key.”

The soft, unhurried tone of her voice astonished her. With a steady authority that seemed not her own, she said, “I don’t
have the keys. All you can do is wait for Carl.”

Aguilera screamed at the Trade Commission windows, shaking his cuffs, flailing his legs to get the attention of anyone inside.

But all movement on the other side of the windows had stopped.

“They’ve gone! The bastard cowards have gone! Come back! Bastards!”

He dropped to his knees beside the tree. His cheek pressing hard against the bark, he hugged the trunk as if fearful it would
fly from the earth.

Helen heard an explosion. Aguilera looked up and froze.

She said, “What was that?”

“I hope he’s dead.”

“What was it?”

“You’re friend’s been shot.”

Helen ran for the house.

Samantha heard an explosion, muffled by the thickness of the garage walls, and thought for sure the bomb had gone off. Obedient
to the instructions of numerous flight attendants, she put her head between her knees and waited for something terrible to
happen. The sound faded, silence returned, and in the continuing stillness she raised her head. She was still alive.

What had happened? Maybe the bomb had gone off, but it wasn’t as powerful as everyone had thought. Or maybe the explosion
was a gunshot. Maybe Gus had been shot.

She didn’t know what to do. She had promised Gus not to leave the limo, and she knew she should stay where she was. If everything
was okay someone would come to get her. If not—well, she’d still better stay where she was.

After five minutes, fear and curiosity were getting the best of her. How long should she sit here, waiting for she didn’t
know what? Where was Gus? What if he’d been killed? She didn’t want to think about that. She picked up the tele
phone, but the only number she remembered was the hotel they’d stayed at in Saint-Tropez.

She opened the limo door and had one foot on the floor of the garage when she heard a voice scream her name.

“Samantha!”

The garage door flew open and before she could think, Carl had her by the hand, pushing her back into the limo. Gus, covered
with dirt and mud, ran around the limo and jumped in behind the wheel.

Samantha said, “What happened? Did the bomb go off? I thought you’d been shot.”

Carl yelled “Stay in the limo!”, slammed Samantha’s door, and ran from the garage.

Gus said, “It’s okay, Samantha. No one’s hurt.”

Iverson, watching the clock, called the limo again. One thirty-seven. Eight minutes to go. Maybe the judge was back, hadn’t
called.

Parham answered, out of breath.

“Judge Parham? This is Special Agent Iverson in the command truck.” He’d never spoken to Parham before.

“What is it?”

“We don’t have much time, sir. Colombian agents in the Trade Commission have left the building. We figure you’ve got about
seven minutes before the bomb goes. We’d like you to drive out. If you—”

“Drive out?”

The phone was losing power.

“Yes, sir. We’d like you to open the garage doors.”

“Excuse me. You’re breaking up. I can’t hear you.”

“The garage doors. We want you to open the doors and drive out. You should—Can you hear me?”

“Just barely.”

“When you get to the street, make a left. We’re removing all police barriers as far as the traffic circle. Drive as fast as
possible. Can you hear me?”

“You’re coming and going. It’s very faint.”

“Open the garage doors and drive out. You’ve got about six minutes. Do you hear me?”

Iverson waited. There was no answer.

“Do you hear me?”

He listened, shook his head, and hung up.

When Michelle, shoved against the wall of the command truck by the crush of agents, engineers, and technicians, heard Iverson
tell Gus on the phone, “You’ve got about six minutes,” she slipped quickly out into the night air.

Earlier that night she’d walked into the Winnebago and seen Terry’s orange coveralls neatly folded on the conference table.
She hurried back there now. The coveralls were still there. She put her hand on them, and the thoughts came faster and faster.
Had Gus heard Iverson, did he know he was supposed to drive out? They had time to drive out, to get away—if they knew, if
they’d heard Iverson, if someone told them.

By now there’d be five minutes left. Plenty of time, if she rushed. She could get to Blossom, running, in a minute. Get down
to the garage, the limo, tell Gus to drive out, and come out with them.

She heard a noise and turned.

“Oh, hi, Mrs. Parham.”

“Hi, Terry.”

Their eyes met.

Terry said, “Those are my coveralls.”

“I know.”

“They wouldn’t fit.”

“Terry, I—I don’t have very long.”

“About four minutes would be my guess.”

“Please.”

Terry turned. “I wasn’t here.”

Michelle grabbed the coveralls, sat on the floor, and yanked until she had them on. The cuffs, unrolled, barely reached her
ankles. But she was in them, and the ATF-EOD initials were flat and visible on her back.

She pulled up the hood, tucked in her hair, and jogged to the police barrier blocking the street to Blossom.

As she passed the cops, maneuvering around the barrier, she waved a hand and kept going, praying they wouldn’t call her back.

Five steps past the barrier, she knew she’d made it.

She speeded up, running as fast as she could in the tight coveralls, sprinting for Blossom. She was still a block away, out
of breath, when a woman came charging toward her. The woman—short blonde hair, gold bracelets jangling—stopped, struggling
for air. “Come … Run …” She took Michelle’s arm, fighting, not letting go, pulling her back toward the command truck.

Samantha said, “What did he say? He called before, while you were out. Where were you?”

“We’re getting out of here, Samantha.”

Gus hunted in the dark of the front seat for the garage door opener. He flipped on the dash light. A dim glow. He
found the opener on top of the dash. He extinguished the dash light and pushed the red button.

Nothing happened.

Samantha leaned over from the back seat.

Gus pressed the button again.

The garage door lurched upward, then jolted to a stop three feet from the floor.

Gus pressed the button.

Another lurch, in the other direction. The door banged closed.

He pressed the button.

The door clanged open two feet—and stopped.

Samantha said, “Try it again.”

This time the door jammed about three feet from the top. Gus wasn’t sure the limo could make it under the door, and he didn’t
have time to get out and measure.

“Can we make it through there, Samantha?”

She stared out from the back seat, squinting.

“I don’t know. What do you think?”

“I think we don’t have a choice. Get down on the floor. Flat as you can.”

Gus gripped the ignition key, still in the lock, and turned.

The starter groaned. Groaned again. Stopped.

He turned the key back to the off position.

Samantha lifted her head. “It’s not starting.”

Carl left Gus and Samantha in the garage and raced back to the street, looking for Helen. He almost knocked her down. “Where
the hell are you going?”

“Looking for you.”

He grabbed her arm. “Run!”

“Where are the judge and Samantha?”

“Leaving in the limo. Run!”

“What about Aguilera?”

“Run!”

Carl sprinted fifty feet with Helen, then slowed, dropped a step behind, and headed back for the lawn. Aguilera stood by the
tree, still as a statue, looking at him, watching him approach.

Gus gripped the ignition key and, as if the determination in his fingers could make a difference, gave it a hard, decisive
snap into the start position.

Groan. Grind.

He pumped the accelerator.

The engine roared.

He flipped on the headlights. The garage door was too low.

He yelled, “Get flat and brace yourself. We’re gonna hit the door.”

He put the shift in neutral, raced the engine, gripped the wheel, slid down in the seat belt until he could barely see over
the dash, and slipped the shift into first.

He shot forward with the impact, felt the seat belt tighten across his body, and heard a metal-against-metal crash that sounded
like the end of the world. A blast of glass pellets struck his face and chest.

The car had made it through the door and stopped in the turning circle. The windshield was gone, glass pellets like hailstones
blanketed the hood, dash, and front seat. The chrome around the top of the windshield was bent back and the front half of
the roof was crushed to the level of the window tops.

He yelled, “Are you okay?”

“Are we out? Can I get up?”

“Stay down!”

He pulled himself up straight, got the limo heading toward the driveway, and hit the accelerator. He skidded into a left turn
and roared up the block, glass pellets flying at him across the hood.

Red police lights flashed three blocks ahead.

Gus tore through the intersection, gaining speed, made the next intersection, and headed for a wooden police barricade. Two
cops dragged it out of his path and dived for the curb. Gus flashed by them, hit the brakes, spun the wheel, and tried to
aim the limousine into the traffic circle at the end of the street.

The limo rammed the curb, lifted, rotated a quarter turn, hurtled over the grass, and came down on the hood of an empty police
cruiser.

For a moment, suddenly silent and motionless in the flashing red glow of police lights, the limo perched on the cruiser. A
cop aimed a flashlight into the front seat. All Gus could see was glass pellets and blood—on his lap, his hands, his arms,
the steering wheel.

The cop holding the light screamed “Ambulance!” and put out his hand for the door handle.

Reaching into his pocket for a cuff key, Carl raced for the tree. Still ten yards away, with the key in his fingers, Carl
saw Aguilera’s face, the tree, the grass, the front of the Trade Commission, go suddenly white as burning phosphorus. Something
hit him from behind and his body smashed facedown onto the earth, flattening beneath a rolling weight of wind and fire.

A blinding white flash filled the night sky. A giant fist punched the side of the limo. Something clutched the roof, lifted
the car, shook it, and slammed it down. The roar of a thousand oceans filled Gus’s ears.