by Ted Dekker
“No.”
As far as David could see, the denial wasn’t a lie. But that meant nothing; he couldn’t see into the mind.
“Do you know my father?” the man asked.
“No, I don’t.”
The man hesitated a moment, then turned to his right and began to walk away.
“They’ve lied to you,” David said. “It’s all a lie.”
The man stopped and turned back.
He knew it! David pushed forward while he had the advantage. “Tell me where I can find you. I’ll send a boy to talk to you. He’s my son. No one else, you have my word.”
The man stood still, considering. Then he pulled his hand out of his pocket and dropped something on the ground. Without a word or a glance, he jogged across the street and into the alley.
David hoisted his leg over the short wall and struggled over. It was a matchbook, he could see that now. He ran to the matches and picked them up.
Peking Grand Hotel. Chinatown.
Hands trembling, lips mumbling in prayer, David pulled out his cell phone and made the call.
21
Carl unlocked the hotel room door, stepped in, and eased the door closed.
“Thank goodness you made it! Is everything okay? You’re late.”
He felt lost but refused to show it. “I’m here, aren’t I?”
A wide smile split Kelly’s face. She hurried over to him, threw her arms around his neck, and kissed him on the lips.
Her enthusiasm washed over him, and the desperation that had plagued him for the last hour faded.
“We did it, Carl.” She kissed him again, and this time he kissed her back. It was a great moment, wasn’t it? They’d completed their first mission together. Kelly had never been so happy when he’d success-fully executed an exercise, but now, in the field, her joy was practically spilling over.
It was a very good day to be alive.
Carl suddenly wanted to see their work. “Is it on the news?”
“Are you kidding? They’ve been playing it nonstop. A perfect hit, Carl. Agotha will be so proud.”
“I don’t care about Agotha,” he said. He clarified his statement when she raised her brow. “Not like I care for you.”
“She’s your mother,” Kelly said. “I’m your lover.”
He winked at her. Imagine that, he actually winked at her. He wasn’t used to being so forward with her, preferring instead to let her take the lead. She was, after all, his handler as well.
But he was emboldened by his tremendous success. “One day we should get married,” he said.
Her eyes lit up. “And run off to Nevada?”
“Why not? We’re lovers. Isn’t that what lovers do? Run off?”
They stared at each other.
“You want to see it?” Kelly plopped down on the bed and faced the television.
Carl sat next to her and watched the muted images. A reporter was speaking below a large graphic that read “President Stenton Shot.” At the bottom was a disclaimer that the images were graphic.
He stared as the footage of his kill played in slow motion. It looked surreal. The president talking, pointing to someone in the crowd. A sudden tug at his shirt, his mouth caught open in a gasp, clutching a growing red spot on his chest. He dropped to his seat hard, then toppled back and lay still.
Kelly was biting her fingernail when Carl looked at her for approval. “Amazing,” she said.
He shrugged. “Just a day on the range.”
But there was more to it, wasn’t there? Far more. He was playing her game now, as he always had, but if she knew he’d spoken to someone at the hospital, she wouldn’t be so happy.
Carl knew he faced a predicament that could end his life. He had to tell her. She would help him figure it out—she always had. But he couldn’t bring himself to ruin her happiness.
“What’s wrong?” Kelly asked.
He looked at her. “Hmm? Nothing.”
“You’re sweating.”
“Am I?” He drew his fingers across a moist forehead.
“What’s wrong?”
Here it was, then. He couldn’t lie to her. Never. Yet he’d just lied, hadn’t he? He felt nauseated. He’d felt this way before, many times. When he lied to Agotha while on the hospital bed. When he’d mistaken the truth about who he was and answered incorrectly. In that moment before they turned up the electrical current to help him understand the truth, he’d often felt nauseated.
“What is it?” Worry laced Kelly’s voice.
“Our lives might be in danger,” he said.
Kelly stood up. “They know?”
“No, not from them. From Kalman.”
She looked at the television. “But you’ve executed the hit perfectly.”
Carl blurted the truth as he knew he must. “I talked to him, Kelly! I went to the hospital and talked to the old man. He said his name was David Abraham.”
“What old man? What on earth are you talking about?”
Carl pointed at the television, which was replaying the scene.
“Him. The old man behind the target. I recognized him. I felt as though I had to be sure . . .”
“Sure about what? The hit? We can verify through the media! You . . . You’re saying you went to the hospital?”
“They took him into the emergency room. The man was there. He said he knew who I—”
“You talked to him?”
“I told him I didn’t shoot the president.”
“He actually asked you that?” Kelly stared at him, face white, eyes round. She was angry. Or shocked. Both. At moments like this Carl felt nothing like the hero who could kill any man he wished. He felt more like a child.
Kelly walked to the laptops that showed the views of the dummy rooms, slammed them closed.
“What are you doing?”
“We’re getting out of here! You’ve been identified. It’s only a matter of time before the old man matches you to file footage taken over the last few days. They’ll have your face on every television in the world by tonight.”
“He gave me his word that he wouldn’t do that. He’s sending his son.”
Kelly faced him, aghast. “Here?”
“No. To the Peking.”
“How could you do this? You’ve just killed the president of the United States! Do you think some old man loyal to the president will let you walk away because you told him you didn’t kill the leader of the free world?”
Carl fought the nausea sweeping through his stomach. He’d never seen her so distraught. He’d made a terrible mistake, he knew that now. They would terminate him as soon as they discovered it.
And Kelly with him.
He stood and paced in front of the television. “I’m sorry, Kelly. I don’t know why I did it. He knew me!”
“And I know you,” she said quietly.
“Then tell me what to do.”
She studied him. She loved him—he could see it in her eyes. Even when he made such a terrible mistake as this, she loved him.
Kelly closed her eyes, trying to think. “Okay. Forget what happened. Right now we have to survive.” Her eyes drilled his. “You tell me, what will increase our likelihood of survival now?”
He’d already thought this through. Perhaps, if the cards fell in his favor, he could undo the damage before Kalman discovered the truth. “Even if the man sends his son to the Peking, they have no idea where we are. Our exit window is still four hours away. We should watch the room. If the boy arrives, we may be able to use him. We may also choose to ignore him.”
“How will we know if the boy arrives?”
“Before coming here I went by the Peking and opened the door for him.” Carl pointed at the computers she’d closed. “We’ll see him enter the room.”
“We could never trust him. It’s likely a trap.”
“He could have alerted the police at the hospital, but he didn’t. If the son comes, it won’t be a trap.”
She considered his logic.
“We have no way of knowing he’s really the man’s son. I don’t understand why we would need the boy in any case.”
“We may need him to kill the president.”
“The president’s dead!”
“No, I don’t think he is.”
DAVID ABRAHAM walked briskly down the corridor, following the signs to radiology. Dr. Tom Davis was the chief radiologist. He would be the first to know what the X-rays showed.
They were working on Robert Stenton with an urgency that called for the immediate dismissal of all well-wishers, regardless of their political clout. Two Secret Service staff were posted outside the private room, and the hall was lined with staff, but not even his closest advisers knew the president’s condition. All they knew was that he’d arrived at the hospital with a very weak pulse.
It wasn’t great news. Many victims of gunshot wounds managed to hang on to life for an hour, even two, before expiring. In the case of such a prominent figure, no word on his condition would be given until it was certain.
The only thing the world knew at this point was that the president of the United States had been shot in the chest.
But David had to know more. He pushed open the door to the main radiology reception room. A dozen patients waited their turn.
The door twenty yards down the hall marked Authorized Personnel
Only would lead into the same department. David hurried to the door and walked through.
“May I help you?”
He faced a nurse who’d stopped in the hall on his right. “Yes, I must see Dr. Tom Davis immediately. Can you tell me where—”
“Dr. Davis is tied up. Have you checked in at reception?”
“I don’t think you understand. I’m with the president. It’s a matter of life and death.”
She wasn’t impressed. “You’ll have to—”
“Now!” He started to walk. “Another minute and he could be dead. Now!”
She hurried after him. “Sir, they specifically—”
“I’m President Stenton’s spiritual adviser, for heaven’s sake. I don’t have time for this!”
She hesitated only a beat. “Third office on the left. He’s in his reading room.”
David reached the door and put his hand on the knob. “This room?” “Yes.”
“Thank you.”
He stepped into a dimly lit room with four large monitors on one wall and a large vertical light surface on the opposite wall. The man he presumed to be Dr. Tom Davis stood in front of a row of large flat-screen monitors, reading a dozen X-rays. He didn’t seem to notice David’s entry.
“You’re Dr. Davis?”
No response. The man was clearly focused.
David approached, scanning the backlit negatives. “My name is David Abraham. I’m the president’s spiritual adviser. Are these his X-rays?”
“CAT scans. I’ve already sent the digital images down to surgery,” the radiologist said without looking over. “Interesting.”
“What do you see?” David asked.
Now the radiologist looked at him. “Spiritual adviser, huh?”
“That’s correct. I must know if you’ve found any anomalies.”
“Not that I can see.”
“Nothing?”
“Nothing.”
“Show me nothing.”
The radiologist picked up a telescoping pointer, stretched it out, and tapped the image in front of him. “The bullet entered here, between the seventh and eighth lateral ribs. No break. If you want to consider that an anomaly, be my guest.”
“That’s unusual?”
“It happens sometimes. Depends on the entry angle.”
He rested the point on a dark spot just below what looked to David like the president’s heart. “Missed the heart and the lungs by a hair. We have some minor bleeding here, but I would guess it’s from the surface wound. You could also call that an anomaly, I suppose.”
“That’s not unusual?”
“It happens. But yes, it’s unusual.”
He tapped a third image. “The bullet exited here, between the fifth and sixth vertebrae.”
“No breaks in the spinal column?”
“No.”
“So that, too, is unusual?”
Dr. Tom Davis put his hands on his hips and stared at the three images he’d just pointed out. “None of these is particularly unusual. Put them all together, and I would say you have an impossibility.”
David’s pulse strengthened. “Meaning what?”
“Meaning that I’ve never seen anything like it. The bullet entered his torso in one of the only places it could have to miss all the internal organs and exit without so much as breaking a bone. Normally I’d expect to see the bullet break up and tear things to shreds. Most exit wounds leave holes large enough to put your fist through.”
The radiologist faced him with a grin. “This is no anomaly, my friend. If I were a man of faith, I’d call this a miracle.”
He knew it! David could hardly contain himself. Waves of relief washed over his body.
“And what injuries did he sustain?”
“You’ll have to take that up with the surgeon. By what I can see, I’d say he sustained two flesh wounds. No internal bleeding. Nothing but a couple of minor cuts to his chest and back.”
“Then why surgery?”
“For starters, they just got these pictures. They’ll sew him up. His greatest danger was from toxic shock, but they got to him pretty quickly. If I were a betting man, I’d say the president will be up and out of bed in two or three days.”
“And this isn’t an anomaly?” David cried.
“I once read the X-rays of a skydiver whose chute failed to open. He sustained one broken finger and bruises. Unusual, yes; anomaly, no.”
David hardly heard him. He whirled toward the door. “I have to talk to him.”
“He’s in surgery.”
David exited the reading room and suppressed a temptation to run. He hadn’t felt so full of life in twelve years. There was no telling how Robert would react to this turn of events, but David would tell him everything. Today. As soon as he woke up.
Project Showdown was breathing still.
22
He wasn’t sure, he said. His mind had entered a strange place, and he didn’t know what had happened, because he really, really didn’t want his bullet to kill the president. But he would now make it right. He would; he swore he would.
Kelly’s worst fears were realized half an hour later when an NBC reporter giving a live report on location at Central Park was cut off by the anchor.
“. . . was here on this platform, where a forensic team is still looking for the bullet that—”
“I’m sorry to interrupt, Susan, but we have a live update on the president’s condition. Reuters is reporting that the president of the United States has survived the assassination attempt that took place an hour and a half ago. I repeat, it appears that the president has survived the attempt on his life. The report goes on to say that the bullet resulted in flesh wounds only.”
Kelly stared at the screen, disbelieving. “How’s that possible?”
Kelly muted the television and sat on the bed, stunned. Kalman would receive the news soon enough, if he hadn’t already. It would be the end.
Behind her, Carl remained silent.
“Do you know what this means?” she asked.
“That I’ve failed,” he said. “But I can fix it.”
She stood with her back to him. “Agotha will know.”
“She’ll know what?”
“That your failure was intentional.”
“I don’t even know that!”
Kelly could feel her world collapsing around her. So much training, so many hard nights—in one moment, gone. Both she and Carl were now expendable.
Was this also part of the plan? She sometimes found it difficult to determine what was real and what was part of the game.
She looked at Carl, who was still staring at the silent ne
ws broadcast. “You affected the bullet’s trajectory the same way you have been for the last two weeks.”
He refused to look at her.
“Today you placed the bullet precisely where it had to travel to knock him down without killing him. We taught you more about the anatomy of the kill zones in the human body than most medical students ever learn. Now you’ve used that information to save your target. And by doing so, you’ve signed our death warrants.”
“We don’t know that,” he said. “If it was intentional, I would remember.”
“Then what do you remember?”
“That I didn’t want the president to die. I thought that the old man behind him might be my father. Or that the president himself might be. I was confused and knew that Agotha had probably put these ideas in my head to test me. As you said.”
“But you couldn’t overcome the confusion?”
“I thought I had.”
She sighed and closed her eyes. “It doesn’t matter. Kalman will assume that you’ve countermanded his order to kill. He will never accept such a failure.”
Her cell phone chirped.
“That will be him.” Kelly picked up the phone. “Yes.”
Kalman’s distant, gravelly voice spoke into her ear. “I see he missed.”
“Yes. We’re working on a third attempt.”
The phone hissed.
“Carl’s leading the son of the president’s adviser—”
“I don’t want the details,” Kalman said. “Englishman is standing by. You have until midnight. If I haven’t received confirmation by then, your man must be eliminated.” He paused. “I want you to do it personally. I’ll give you two hours following any such failure on his part. If you don’t follow through, I’ll trigger the implant and hold you responsible. Are we clear?”
She hesitated. “Of course.”
The line clicked off.
Kelly kept her back to Carl and gathered her wits. He couldn’t see her face flushed.
“If the boy shows, can you do what you’ve suggested?” she asked, setting the phone down slowly.
He’d formulated a simple plan for a third attempt, but she had her doubts about his willingness to finish the job. If he didn’t, she would.
“Why wouldn’t I?”
