by Joshua Corin
“Daryl,” said Norm, “apologize to the psychopath.”
Daryl scowled from across the aisle. “I’m sorry.”
“So am I,” replied Galileo, softly. “I meant what I said. I didn’t want any of this to happen. That’s why I let Esme live. She was supposed to stop me. I needed to be stopped. I knew God wasn’t going to step in. You all brought her in. She was supposed to be your expert, so I chose her to be my wall. But she failed.”
That was when Tom called from Long Island, and Norm told him about Galileo’s capture. Shortly thereafter, the van crossed the Missouri-Kansas border. They were now ninety minutes from their destination.
By the seventh inning, the A’s had climbed up to a 5-2 lead, and Anna Jackson switched the station to talk radio. Unsurprisingly, the main subject of discussion was Governor Kellerman’s speech in Long Island:
“—and he couldn’t have picked a better place to deliver this address, insulated among his staunchest supporters, preaching to the choir, which I suppose is an inappropriate metaphor now, eh, Charlie?”
“You said it, Mitch. Why don’t we replay some of the choicest portions for our listeners?”
Daryl was lost in his own thoughts about Darby Parr and what might have been. Galileo, however, stirred from his stupor. His muscles tensed in his neck, and underneath his yellow Polo shirt. Preaching to the choir as an inappropriate metaphor? Was it possible after all this time that the governor had finally come clean? Was it possible these murders had not been in vain?
As he listened to the broadcast of the speech, Galileo felt warmth spread out from his chest and surfeit his muscles, tendons, and bones. The Jefferson analogy made him smile. The Lincoln analogy made him beam. He was like a kid on Christmas morning and everything he wanted was waiting there underneath the—
“—churches and synagogues are priceless, and I have nothing but the utmost respect for our great religions. As you know, my wife is Catholic. Do we disagree sometimes? Yes, we do. But disagreement is healthy. In a democracy, it is often our solemn duty to disagree.”
The warmth inside of him froze, became ice, tipped and jagged. His fingers curled like rotting fruit. Nothing but the utmost respect for our great religions? What was that? How could a true atheist bear anything but contempt for groups that invested their entire purpose in worshiping an imaginary super-being? “Great religion” was an oxymoron. Religion created dependency, encouraged infantilism, and fostered an us vs. them mentality and for that man to stand there, knowing better, and to pander to these dangerous, delusional miscreants…
No. This would not do.
Hector turned a page in his magazine. Daryl, though, noticed the look of disgust painted across Galileo’s face. Galileo raised his gaze to match Daryl’s.
“Do you know how to dislocate your thumbs?” inquired Galileo, gently.
“What?”
Galileo smashed his thumbs against the hard cartilage of his kneecaps; the digits made soft popping sounds as they separated from their joints. Before Daryl could react, Galileo slipped his now-rubbery hands out of their shackles and launched across the aisle. His left hand went for Daryl’s Glock and his right hand went for Hector’s and he hoisted their handguns out of their holsters as smoothly as he’d freed his hands only seconds before. The barrels tapped simultaneously against their foreheads. The gunshots were simultaneous too. The backs of their skulls splashed amoeba-like splashes of reddish-gray brain matter against the wall of the van.
Four seconds had passed since he’d dislocated his thumbs.
Norm Petrosky barely had time to reach for his own weapon when Galileo spun around—as dexterously as his leg chains allowed—and fired off two more rounds, one into the cranium of Norm and one into the cranium of Anna. Anything could have happened, then. The van could have spun out of control. It could have swerved into oncoming traffic. But Anna’s death throes took her foot off the gas and instead of a violent end, the van just rolled to a stop, angled toward the breakdown lane. All the better, for Galileo had things to do. And people to see.
Tom and Esme were alone in the study. Rafe had gone out to find Governor Kellerman, as if they were old friends. He said he owed him an apology. Esme didn’t argue.
“So,” said Tom.
Esme nodded.
“How’s Sophie?”
“Good.”
Tom nodded.
“I’m sorry,” she said, quickly adding, “About your motorcycle. I’ll try to get it back to you.”
“It’s okay. I took it for granted, anyway. I didn’t realize how important it was to me until I lost it.”
Esme cocked an eyebrow. “You’re laying the subtext on a bit thick, Tom.”
“It’s been that kind of night.”
“So, do you think Kellerman will be annoyed that he gave that speech for nothing?”
Tom laughed. Esme joined him.
“And after all this,” she mused, “they catch him in at a ball game.”
“Don’t you know? Baseball is full of catchers.”
“Ugh.”
Their laughter dwindled. So did their smiles, as heavier thoughts moved in.
“Do you really think I’m reckless?” asked Tom.
“You know you are,” Esme replied. “It’s not necessarily a bad thing.”
“It is when the ends don’t justify the means.”
“In certain jobs, the ends always justify the means.”
“Mmm-hmm.” Tom flashed her another grin. “Does housewife qualify as one of those jobs?”
“You try raising a precocious little girl while having the absentminded professor for a husband.”
“No, thanks,” said Tom. “That’s not for me.”
Esme shrugged: but it is for me.
And that was that.
“I should find Rafe before, well, you never know.”
“I never do,” answered Tom.
He walked her to the door of the study and watched her disappear into a sea of suburban glamour. He remained in the doorway, and was mostly content. A waiter offered him a flute of champagne, but he declined. It was time to go.
At the very least, it was time to call a cab (although certainly not on the cracked plastic remains of his cell).
He searched the ground floor of the house for a landline, milling through pockets of heightened gossip, but couldn’t even find a wall jack. As he passed from room to room, the crowds seemed to expand in size and volume, and a reasonable sense of claustrophobia began to creep into his nerves. Gradually he maneuvered toward—and then out—the front door.
His pal, the bald-pated gorilla who’d wrecked his cell phone, remained stationed there, and gave him a dirty look.
“Hi there,” demurred Tom.
“Sorry about before,” the gorilla replied. “Just doing what I get paid for.”
“Me, too.”
Tom ambled down toward the valet station. Surely one of them had to have a phone he could—
“Hey!” called the gorilla. “Is your name Tom Piper?”
Tom stopped, pivoted.
“Yes…”
The gorilla pointed at the earpiece. “The governor’s been looking for you.”
And so, before long, Tom was back in the study. Bob Kellerman was there. So was his communications director Kathryn Hightower. She looked as if she’d lived a year in the past two hours. Bob, though, remained in high spirits.
“I wanted to thank you, Special Agent Piper, for coming here tonight. And I wanted to apologize for the misconduct of some of my staff. And I wanted to tell you, here and now, that I will offer any support I can to help you find the man who is killing these innocent men and women. I hope what I said out there in that speech encourages him to stop. I bet all my political capital on the line for you just now.”
“Mmm-hmm.” Tom coughed into his fist. “Well, sir, about that…”
Bob suddenly let out a bellowing laugh.
Tom was confused.
Then he wasn’t.
“You heard we caught him.”
“About two minutes ago. It’s all over the wires.” Bob smirked. “Sorry, I couldn’t help myself. I’ve just been on a high for the past half hour. I’ve wanted to give that speech my entire adult life, Tom. May I call you Tom?”
Bob offered him a gold-rimmed cigar. At first Tom shook his head, but the look of undistilled charisma in the governor’s eyes—how could anyone say no to that? Cult of personality indeed. Kathryn excused herself to take a call, and the men sat back and enjoyed some world-class smokes.
“I can’t fire Paul,” said Bob. “He deserves it, but after the announcement I just made, any shift in my campaign staff would be seen as a sign of weakness and vulnerability. Now if you boys want to go after him with obstruction charges, I won’t stand in your way. But I wanted to let you know where I stood. Integrity is important to me, Tom.”
“Me, too, sir.”
Bob exhaled gray. “What are you doing tomorrow, Tom?”
“Well…”
“Paul told you about my plan to overhaul the intelligence community. With the FBI and the CIA and the NSA and what have you, every agency tripping over the other for jurisdiction, it’s alphabet soup in Washington and I want to get rid of the redundancy. How would you like to spend the morning with me and convince me otherwise? I have a scheduled stop on my way to New York City. Very low-key. I promise to keep an open mind. What do you say?”
What else was there to say? Tom said yes.
26
The campaign’s scheduled stop on the way to New York City was at a two-story hunting shop called Nassau Firearms, located several miles outside Port Washington. The store was owned and operated by one Will Clay, age sixty-two. Will Clay wasn’t a major contributor. He wasn’t even a registered Democrat. Ostensibly the purpose of the visit was to demonstrate the governor’s connection with all Americans, regardless of who they were, but the truth was…
“I just love guns,” he said to Tom and they ascended the stairs to the shop’s second floor. It was on the second floor of Nassau Firearms that Will Clay kept his renowned firing range, which was said to be the largest indoor range on Long Island. This was the shop’s main attraction, and the real reason why Kellerman had insisted on stopping here on the way to New York City.
A padded door met them at the top of the stairs. Tom used the key the governor had rented to open it, and they trotted into the massive soundproofed room. Targets—which varied in portrait from deer and elk and buffalo to a wide selection of featureless human shapes—could be flown back as far as 100 yards. Bob had rented them a pair of classic Smith & Wessons and each carried his steel-engraved weapon by its barrel.
As they set up at their stations and donned their protective goggles and plastic earmuffs, Bob elaborated.
“I was raised on guns. In the wintertime, we would drive up to Canada and hunt white-tailed deer. It’s a magnificent animal. We shared a cabin with our cousins, who lived over in Windsor. They had a daughter about my age. Her name was Margaret. That’s where I learned the essentials of healthy competition. Which is the topic of our discussion today, isn’t it, Tom—the unhealthy, downright juvenile competition that exists between our country’s intelligence communities.”
Bob loaded his pistol. He would have preferred to have a rifle, like a Browning A-Bolt, but shoulder-arms were strictly forbidden at indoor shooting ranges. C’est la guerre.
“Like you said,” replied Tom, loading his own pistol, “some competition is healthy. It inspires you to reach higher.”
“It also inspires you to cripple the other guy.”
They attached their deer targets to mechanical clips and with the slap of a button sent them back fifty yards. The back wall of the range, although solid cinder block, was mottled with erosion, reflecting years and years of missed shots.
Tom didn’t intend to miss. He also didn’t intend to win his debate with Governor Kellerman. In truth, he agreed—for the most part—with the governor’s diagnosis. The intelligence community was a sprawling bureaucratic mess. There were simply too many cooks in the kitchen.
After last night’s invitation from the governor, Tom had wandered the party in search of Esme and Rafe, but they were nowhere to be found. He did finally find a landline, though, and secure a taxi to drop him off at his hotel.
It was around then that authorities had found the abandoned van, well past the Missouri-Kansas border. The FBI on scene contacted AD Trumbull, who immediately put a clamp on the operation. As far as the media knew, Henry Booth had been delivered to Leavenworth as scheduled.
AD Trumbull then put in a call to Tom’s cell to relay the news about his team and about Galileo’s disappearance, but the call went straight to voice mail. He tried several more times throughout the evening, but never reached him. Couldn’t reach him. Broken cell phones didn’t ring.
Tom woke up, showered, watched with amusement as a pop psychologist offered her insights on the nation’s newest captured serial killer to the reporters of Fox News, and then at 9:00 a.m. he headed downstairs to meet the governor’s entourage of stretched Lincolns for the trip to Nassau Firearms.
All in all, his life had taken a turn for the strange. He made a mental note to get his cell phone replaced as soon as they reached NYC, at the scheduled time of 1:00 p.m. He also needed to replace his dear motorcycle, but that would have to wait until he returned to the D.C. metro area. First, he had some alone time with the governor from Ohio…
Who turned out to be an excellent shot. Different areas on the targets were brocaded into circles, displaying scores for accuracy. When Bob tapped his retrieval button and his mock-deer flew back to greet him, five of his six shots had landed in the highest circle, and the sixth missed the bull’s-eye by less than an inch, giving him a point total of a whopping ninety-one out of a hundred points.
Tom managed a sixty-three. He could almost hear his marksmanship instructor now, cackling off-color epithets in his honor.
“Tell you what,” said Bob, with a wink. “First person to reach 500 gets to be president of the United States.”
Down below, on the first floor, lurked Bob’s contingent of security personnel. Additionally, Kathryn Hightower and Paul Ridgely had stuck around, as per the governor’s request, rather than join the rest of the staff in New York.
He had matters to discuss with both.
Governor Kellerman had arrived at the store around 10:00 a.m. There he was greeted by Bill Clay; all sixteen of Bill Clay’s relatives who lived in the area; every regular customer (who was still alive) who shopped at Bill Clay’s store; and several locals who had never set foot in any gun shop, much less the giant one in their township, but were there to meet the famous man. Bill Clay minded these folk the least. They were the ones most likely to buy something useless and expensive, just to show off to Bob Kellerman. By 11:00 a.m., though, Bob had ascended the steps with that FBI agent, and the crowd had mostly dispersed, save for his sixty-nine-year-old wife, who was in the back totaling receipts. At the request of the governor’s five bodyguards, Nassau Firearms was now officially closed. That was fine with Bill Clay. They had done a month’s worth of sales in an hour.
Kathryn and Paul stood in the corner, near the orange vests.
“You would have done the same thing,” he muttered to her.
They had been having the same conversation now for an hour.
“Withheld vital information? No, Paul, I wouldn’t.”
The bodyguards were stationed at various points through the floor. One actually remained outside, by the entrance. This was an ex-marine named Lisa Penny. The two chauffeurs had tried flirting with her, but she’d deflected their advances with nothing more than a raised eyebrow and a shake of the head. It was her responsibility to mind the door. She was the governor’s first line of defense, and she took her job very seriously. So when an orange Chevy pickup dusted into the parking lot and a light-haired man in sunglasses ambled out, Lisa stood at the ready.
“Hey, there,” h
e said. He spoke with a bit of a country drawl. His black T-shirt was untucked from his jeans. “I’m here to buy some ammo.” He angled his head toward the two stretch Lincolns. “Is there a movie star or something in town?”
“I’m afraid the store is closed until 1:00 p.m.” Lisa tried to catch his gaze, but he kept looking around at everything in sight but her. “If you would like, I’ve been given a list of similar stores in the area that may be able to help you out.”
“Closed until one? Lady, this is America. You can’t just pick and choose when you sell just because some big shot’s needing an adjustment on his .30-.06. Next you’ll be telling me which drinking fountain to use.”
That last sentence he punctuated with a finger in her face.
“Sir, if you’ll please—”
“No, I won’t please.” He punctuated again. “I know my rights.” And again. “I came here to buy my ammunition and God damn it, I’m going to buy my ammunition.” And again.
She stared down at his index finger. It would be so easy to break it in three places. She could say he tripped and fell. There were no witnesses. The chauffeurs had wandered down the road for some fried lunch.
But then another car pulled up, this time a white sedan, and her window of opportunity had passed. Out of the sedan emerged another man, in a polo shirt and khakis.
“Hope you’re not wanting to buy anything here, fella,” declared the finger-fiend.
The man in the khakis approached. He looked exhausted, but friendly.
“I’m sorry, sir, but the store is closed,” Lisa said.
But he just continued on smiling.
For their fourth targets, Bob and Tom switched to the human shapes. The bull’s-eyes here were, obviously, the foreheads and the upper left quadrant of the chest. They pounded their buttons and watched their paper men fly a hundred yards away.
In score, Bob was ahead 292-201.
“Did you always want to be president?” Tom asked casually. He was really warming up to the guy. Getting creamed at target practice had that kind of effect.
