The Event

by McBride, Michael

  A moment of indecision.

  He wore a trench coat. Narrow shoulders. Thin ankles. She still couldn’t see his face or any other identifiable features.

  He looked around. Made sure no one was watching. Glanced up at the camera he knew was there.

  She saw his face. Black around his eyes, on his cheeks, his chin. White stripe down his nose, around his mouth. Wolverine? Badger. His age remained indeterminate, but his mannerisms were those of a young man. A teenager. A boy. A boy who climbed up the hood of the minivan. Scaled the windshield. Slipped. Tried again. Surmounted it. Stood on the roof. Looked up at the camera. The makeup on his cheeks reflected the sun. Or were they tears? He held out his arms. Not with the determination of the goat on the subway, but with the trepidation of a child who knew that he was about to die.

  A twitch of his wrist.

  A blinding flash of light.

  An afterimage of the framework of cars being hurled away from the blast.

  The view shook.

  Turned black.

  Dissociated into static.

  Ended.

  Lawton stared at the black square for a long moment with the smell of smoke all around her. Her own cheeks were wet with tears. Tears of sadness. Of anger. Frustration. Futility.

  She had the presence of mind to send the video file to her Assistant Special Agent in Charge and her own department before rising to her feet. She shoved the phone into her jacket pocket and wiped the tears from her eyes with her forearm. Stared one last time at the smoke swirling into a vortex at the behest of the news choppers. Then started to run.

  She ran as fast as she could. Ran blindly. Shouldered through agents and officers, through people who fell before her or who knocked her down. Only to fight to her feet and run again. She ran in a fugue without any consideration for the world around her. All she could see was the expression on Lloyd’s face. The contempt. The elitism. The smugness. And how she imagined it would look, framed by shattered glass, when she shot him and hurled him through the broken window and watched his ragdoll form plummet twelve stories to the sidewalk.

  She had the vaguest impression of the ornate lobby and of the doors flying past as she careened up the stairs, using the rails to propel herself upward. She no longer felt the burning in her legs or her lungs. The only thing she felt was a fiery rage that pulsed through her bloodstream. And the cold butt of the Glock in her fist.

  She burst from the stairwell. Blew past an abandoned reception desk. Through a row of glass-walled offices where no brokers manned their phones. She already had her gun drawn when she found where they had all gathered in the corridor outside of Lloyd’s office. She pushed her way through women with tears streaking their makeup and hands over their mouths, past men wide-eyed in shock. Past a secretary she was certain she had seen here before. Past Heatherton, on his knees in the doorway, sobbing like a child. He looked up at her through the tears with an expression of sheer and unadulterated hatred, but she just stepped past him and entered the office. Sighted her pistol on the man seated in the chair behind the desk.

  It was only then that she saw the cracks in the window radiating outward from the point of impact. The spatters of blood and bone and gray matter on the glass. The smoldering revolver in Lloyd’s right hand and the blank expression on what little remained of his face below the crater he had blown through the crown of his own head. A puff of smoke twirled out from between his lips.

  Lawton screamed with an expulsion of emotions she could no more define than contain and fell to her knees in front of a crowd of spectators and the unseeing haze of the man she only wished had waited five minutes longer to kill himself so she could have killed him instead.

  Thirteen

  Financial District

  Lower Manhattan

  New York, New York

  September 29th

  12:07 p.m.

  One hundred and eighty-seven minutes post-event.

  Lawton took a sharp left. The Crown Vic skidded sideways through the intersection of Pearl and Maiden Lane. Another half block and she took it up over the curb, nearly tearing out the undercarriage with the scream of shearing metal. The right front wheel buckled inward, which was the only reason she didn’t put the bumper through the front window of a Chipotle, but there was no time to care. As it was, they were probably too late and he was long gone. She couldn’t believe this one had been staring her right in the face the entire time and she’d been too blind to see it. Or perhaps it was her guilt that made it impossible to see.

  She had her Glock in a two-handed grip before she even hit the revolving front doors and went through in a shooter’s stance. If by some slim chance he was still here, he couldn’t afford to let her live and she couldn’t afford to shoot him dead. He needed to be taken in alive and it was only fitting that she be the one to do it. The last five years had been building up to this moment. It almost felt like it was her destiny to meet him face-to-face.

  The building at 100 Maiden Lane must have been on a different power grid than the one on Wall Street. The lobby was on backup power. The lights were dim and only sporadically lit, save for the red emergency lights over the designated exits. A chandelier had fallen and shattered in the middle of the marble foyer. Chairs rested on their backs and sides. The front desk was unmanned. It must have been a scene of mass panic when all of the residents tried to flee at once, clogging the exits, shoving through one another and trampling those who fell before the mob. She expected better from the kind of people who could afford to live in a building like this one, but apparently civility was truly dead. Little did they know they’d have been better off locking themselves in their closets than braving the streets. She wondered how many of them died when the invisible toxic cloud rolled down the street.

  She passed the darkened elevator corridor and checked the stairs through the inset window before going through, low and fast. The sound of the door ricocheting from the wall behind it echoed up the stairwell like a gunshot. She rounded the bottom flight and sighted upward into the darkness and listened for the sound of footsteps to betray his presence. She could barely hear a blasted thing over her own mechanical respirations and the pounding of her pulse in her ears.

  The scuffing of boots behind her and Badgett was at her side. She held a finger to her lips in one final impotent gesture before the door closed, sealing them in the stairwell in the wan crimson glow from the bulb above the landing to each level.

  The apartment was on the fourth floor. Easy in, easy out. A fancy building like this and the higher you went, the more it cost. And there was only so much he could afford to pay under his own name, at least not without drawing undue attention to himself. Even this was pushing it, but he couldn’t live any farther away if he intended to pull off his master plan.

  Lawton leaned into the wall to her right and aimed at the level above. She went up one flight after another as quickly and quietly as she could. Cleared each landing beneath the eerie red glow before rounding it and creeping up to the next. She stopped at the door to the fourth floor, her pistol aligned with it, and waited for Badgett to catch up so he could open it for her. As soon as he did, she cleared the corridor with a sweep of her Glock and followed it into the darkness. Doors passed to either side, behind which men and women had gone about their ordinary existences without recognizing the monster lurking in their midst. The man who might have smiled at them during shared elevator rides or with whom they might have conversed at the mailboxes. The man whose whole life was a lie and who knew the day would come when he would potentially expose each and every one of them to a gruesome and agonizing death. The man who for the last seven years had lived behind the door to apartment 408, a mere inch and a half of wood away from where Lawton stood right now with her pistol aimed right at the peephole.

  One hundred and ninety-four minutes post event.

  This was her moment of greatest exposure. He had to know the event had stretched their forces far too thin and anyone who figured out his deception w
ouldn’t be able to arrive in sufficient numbers. If he was in there, then he was undoubtedly hiding behind a barricade of his own furniture, waiting for them to kick open the door so he could take them down in the bottleneck of his foyer when they burst through.

  Badgett recognized as much, too. She could barely see his face in the dark hallway, but what little she could see was more than enough to tell her that he was way out of his depth here. Even more than she was. Theirs were white collar specialties that seldom led them into contact with legitimately dangerous men, let alone situations like this, where the suspect could have his finger on the trigger of a shotgun, just waiting for them to test the knob so he could blow a hole straight through the door and both of them behind it.

  Lawton readjusted her grip on her firearm and nodded to Badgett. He scurried in front of the door and crouched low against the wall, within reach of the knob. He closed his fist around it and looked up at her. Gave it a slight twist. Unlocked. Either the suspect was already gone or they were walking into a firing range. Returned the knob to its neutral position. She nodded to start the silent countdown.

  Swallowed hard and blinked the sweat from her eyes.

  Three.

  Her heartbeat. Loud in her ears.

  Two.

  Time slowed to a crawl.

  One.

  He twisted a split-second before her foot struck the door. She took two steps. Dropped to one knee. Braced herself to absorb the impact from the door bouncing back against her shoulder. For a spray of fiery steel to tear through the air above her head.

  She rose and cautiously advanced into the dark, tiled entryway. Narrow walls. A gilded mirror. Framed paintings. There was no barricade in the main room. Only a chair and a couch turned to face a flatscreen TV mounted on the wall above the stereo and surround sound system. A hallway to her left. To her right, a kitchen filled with stainless steel appliances on the other side of a half-wall. The beveled rails cast slanted shadows onto the cupboards.

  She went left. Her heart thumping in her ears. Hands damp inside the gloves. A doorway to her right. Bathroom. Glass shower stall. Still a few beads of water on the glass. A CBRNE suit hanging from the towel rack. Federal issue. How long had he been planning this?

  She had the urge to wrench off her own helmet and cast it aside. She couldn’t hear a thing over her tinny breaths and all she could smell or taste was her own sweat. The only sense upon which she could rely was sight and it grew darker with each step she took toward what had to be the master bedroom. The door wasn’t quite all the way closed. Through the crack she could see only darkness.

  She thought about what Badgett had told her on the way here as she closed the distance. About how the suspect had earned his master’s degree in finance from Harvard at the same time as Anthony Hargrove. How they had both served as interns for Webster & Lloyd before being welcomed on full-time after graduation.

  She raised her weapon. Sighted it on the gap. Pressed her back against the wall to her left. Made herself small. Pushed the door inward. An inch. Two. Waited for a shot that never came. Pushed it all the way open. Crossed the threshold, leading with her Glock.

  He’d only stayed at Webster & Lloyd for a year and a half. There was some discrepancy surrounding the reasons for his departure. Whether or not he left of his own accord was irrelevant now. The only thing that mattered was bringing him in alive, and inflicting the maximum amount of pain she could in the process. For all of the suffering he’d caused. All of the death. For deceiving her from the moment they first met.

  The blinds were drawn. The tops of the dressers cleared. The bed made. There was a duffle bag on top of it. Stuffed. She froze at the sight of it. Tightened her finger on the trigger.

  “He’s still here,” she whispered.

  A walk-in closet to her left. The door opened upon fathomless blackness.

  She heard Hargrove’s voice in her head as she approached it.

  Keep him away from me! Don’t you see? He’s going to kill me!

  She passed through the doorway. Her mouth dry. Light. She needed light. Ahead of her, the impression of a row of suits on hangers. The distinct sensation that she wasn’t alone.

  I didn’t understand. Not then. They never fucking explained to me how this worked!

  She stopped and stood perfectly still. Held her breath. The wall to her right ended. If she turned the corner to face the full depth of the closet, she’d be at his mercy. Vulnerable. She imagined him standing back there. Waiting for her to stick her head around the wall so he could blow it clean off her shoulders.

  This wasn’t supposed to happen. They promised. They fucking promised!

  A clattering sound behind her as Badgett opened the blinds. The gray light flooded past her. Cast her elongated shadow across the suit jackets suspended from hangers. Across the row of formal jackets worn by the Trading Officials who supervised the floor of the NYSE. Her heart pounded so hard her vision shuddered in time.

  This was it.

  He’d be crouching against the far back wall. Sighting his weapon just above waist level. Expecting her to come around high and fast or low, possibly in a roll. Either way, he had her dead to rights, while she couldn’t afford to fire blindly. She needed an extremity shot. Shoulder or leg. Anything in between and he might never stand trial. The problem was that he knew everything she had been trained to do in this situation. She needed to do what he least expected her to do, what she knew she couldn’t do.

  Can’t you see what he’s doing? He has to kill me!

  She stepped back. Aimed her Glock right at the wall. Shoulder high. Angled it to pass right through the corner to strike the rear wall above where he presumably crouched. Just enough of a surprise to buy her the seconds she would need.

  Pulled the trigger.

  The report was deafening in the confines. She dove into the closet. Sighted down the shape in the back corner. Fired again. Tumbled beneath the row of suits. Rolled onto the polished shoes.

  She’d seen him in the strobe of the discharge. Seen him kneeling there. Not crouching as she’d expected or standing as she’d feared, but somewhere in between. Watched him tumble sideways, away from the crimson starburst on the wall behind him. Watched the flap of scalp and bone fall away from his head as the shotgun clattered to the floor. Watched the second shot take him in the left side of the chest and hurl him into the corner.

  She’d hit him in the head with her first shot. Done the one thing she could least afford to do.

  He’d been trying to outthink her even as she tried to outthink him, but hadn’t anticipated the shot through the wall.

  Lawton closed her eyes and buried her face in the carpet. Pounded her fists against her own head. Sobbed. Crawled over to where the dead man was crumpled against the back wall.

  Looked into the face of the man whose professional fate had been a continual source of guilt for the last five years. The man who she felt as though she had let down. The man she had failed.

  Into the face of her former partner.

  Wes Adams.

  She rocked back and cried out in anguish.

  Two hundred minutes post-event.

  “You didn’t have any other option,” Badgett said from behind her. He gave her a gentle squeeze on the shoulder. “I’ll call it in.”

  Fourteen

  Central Park

  New York, New York

  March 17th

  Six Months Ago

  “I feel like I’m losing my mind,” Lawton said. “No matter how hard I try, I can’t seem to make all of the pieces fit together.”

  She leaned back on the bench and stared out across The Pond. From the right vantage point it was often easy to forget that this oasis was surrounded on all sides by one of the busiest metropolises in the entire world. She often came here just to think about what it must have been like for the first settlers who arrived on this island and how truly beautiful it must have been before buildings covered every square inch and a cloud of exhaust filled the air. T
he other people around her appeared oblivious to everything outside of themselves as they jogged past in spandex with expressions nearly as vacuous as those on the faces of the dogs pattering along beside them. Lawton felt overdressed in her turtleneck sweater and jeans. In fact, she always felt somehow separate from those around her.

  “You want my help or do you just want me to listen?” Adams asked.

  She didn’t know why she’d called her former partner, nor why he’d agreed to meet her. He’d lost everything because of this case and surely the last thing he needed was to be reminded of it. How he had found the strength to move on was beyond her, especially considering he couldn’t possibly walk past his own reflection without being reminded of the way events had played out in Hargrove’s office. Not only had a fluke shot by the broker nearly taken off his entire lower jaw, he had been unable to continue working the job he’d loved thanks to the same bullet, which had thrown off his aim by roughly six inches and caused him to hit an innocent victim. Worse, the hostage they had been dispatched to save. It had been the fear of lawsuit that caused their Special Agent in Charge to pull him from the field, and his confinement to a desk had broken Adams’s spirit. Or maybe he’d just never been able to recover from the event. Had their roles been reversed, Lawton wasn’t entirely certain she could have kept the barrel of her pistol out of her mouth.

  Fitting how we sought out those whose lives were a shambles in order to gain perspective on our own.“I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have called you out here like this. I wasn’t thinking.”

  She rose from the bench, but made no move to leave. She had no idea which direction to go. She was completely and utterly lost on so many levels.

  “Would you just sit down and relax already? Christ, Renee. It’s not like we weren’t friends, too. I’m a big boy now. I can handle talking about what happened without turning into a blubbering mess, you know. Surprisingly enough…” He gestured to the scar tissue covering the entire lower half of his face and his misshapen jaw. “It does still come up from time to time.”