Page 76 of Cross Down
He comes closer, smiles at Deacon, then looks at me.
I take a wild guess.
I say, “Nice to make your acquaintance, Gul Hazara.”
Chapter
85
FBI agent Ned Mahoneyopens his eyes; his ears are ringing. He sits up, sees the Plexiglas shield shattered on the tile floor.
His left foot is warm.
He glances down, sees his pants legs have been shredded, and there’s blood just above his left ankle.
Cops and EMTs are racing in, and there’s the smell of smoke and gunpowder, and despite his ringing ears, he hears someone yell, “She’s alive! No shit, she’s still alive!”
Ned struggles to stand. When he puts weight on his injured foot, he has to bite his lip to keep from crying out. It hurts like hell and he knows it’s only going to get worse, but there’s no time to waste. He limps toward the crumpled figure on the floor as the EMTs arrive. A cop says, “Looks like her vest didn’t fully go off, but man, she took a hit.”
Ned pushes through the growing knot of EMTs and cops. The woman is flat on her back, her abdomen torn and bloody, her slacks and coat torn to shreds. Her eyes are open and so is her mouth, and Ned kneels down next to her. The woman’s face is going gray.
Ned yells, “Who sent you here? Who are you? Why are you here?”
Her eyes are unfocused and he shakes her shoulder. An EMT says, “Jesus, man, leave her be,” but he ignores him and yells again, “Who sent you here?”
The woman finally looks at Ned and smiles, blood coming out of her mouth.
“America did…”
Her eyes close.
Twenty minutes later, his lower shin wrapped with a temporary bandage, Ned is in the front seat of a DC Metro Police cruiser with its engine running. Behind the wheel is Captain Susan Jones, the woman who earlier donated her bullet-resistant vest to him. She looks both exhausted and angry when she says to Ned, “You’re one lucky bastard.”
“Lucky, yes,” Ned answers, trying to ignore the red-hot throbbing of his left shin. “As to the noun you used, I’m honestly not. I can show you the proof when this is over.”
She says, “Ifthis is ever over, you mean.” Susan sighs. “Yeah, let’s talk about luck. We were lucky that crazy bitch was discovered before she could try to set off that suicide vest. And lucky again that it malfunctioned and wounded only a few bystanders. Including one bystander that shouldn’t have been there, meaning you. How are you feeling?”
“Outstanding,” Ned says. “Uh-oh, we got visitors. Winny is here.”
Standing by a flagpole and talking to two police sergeants is a tall and determined-looking Black woman in a black wool coat. Three male aides in fine suits are standing near her.
Susan says, “The Honorable Winifred Crocker, mayor of Washington, DC? How come you’re on a first-name basis with her?”
Ned says, “We were in the same FBI Academy class, and both of us were at the Boston field office before she entered DC politics. Fair warning, it looks like she’s on her way over.”
“Then let’s get to work,” Jones says. “Before she starts knocking on my door.”
In her left hand she holds the blood-smeared Ohio driver’s license of Lucille Palmer, the now-deceased suicide bomber. In her right hand is her cell phone, and she punches in the phone number for Walter Palmer, Lucille’s husband.
Ned watches. How many times has he had to do this, call and break the news of a loved one’s death to some father or mother, husband or wife, shattering them and bringing down an avalanche of grief?
The phone rings and rings and rings.Answer, damn it, answer,he thinks.
Mayor Crocker is quickly walking over to the cruiser.
“Hello?” comes a male voice from Susan’s phone.
“Good morning,” Susan says in a brisk professional voice. “Is Walter Palmer there?”
