Blown Away

by G. M. Ford

The news allowed her feet to move. She began to amble down the corridor with Corso. When he strolled on past the elevators, she stopped walking, shaking her head as she locked her knees and refused to move. She pointed toward the door at the end of the hall. DATA ROOM. “No way,” she insisted. “That’s it. I’m not…”

  “Just want to say my good-byes,” he said. “You can wait here if you want.”

  She pretended not to hear.

  “You can wait out here if you want,” he said. When she folded her arms across her chest and turned away, he started down the hall. Halfway to the door, he heard her footsteps trotting along in his wake.

  He smiled and pulled the door open wide, bowing at the waist in a courtly manner, standing aside and ushering her into the room, before stepping inside and closing the door.

  Plummer was still at his post. In the past four hours, somebody’d emptied the wastebaskets. Everything else was precisely as it was before. Morales was on the phone. The expression on his face said he wasn’t ordering Chinese takeout.

  “Brief me in an hour,” Morales said into the receiver before hanging up.

  “Nice to see you’re still with us,” Corso said with a smile.

  “Amazing what having a few suspects in jail will do for a guy’s popularity,” Morales quipped.

  “Anything new?”

  “Kelly,” he said to Corso.

  “Yeah?”

  “Offed himself before the tac squad could get inside the house.” He threw a disgusted hand into the air. “Looked like we had something going too. Short talked his way inside the house. Thought maybe he had the guy turned around.”

  “That Short’s sure got a knack for putting himself in the middle of things, doesn’t he?”

  Morales agreed. “Kelly musta figured he didn’t have much to worry about from a guy in a wheelchair. From what I hear, Short gets the guy halfway to the front door when the guy pulls out a gun and blows himself away.”

  “That’s gonna make things dicey,” Corso said.

  Morales waggled a hand. “Both Sanford’s and Jones’s attorneys are fishing for deals in exchange for cooperation.” He allowed himself a smirk. “This time we’re not making any promises until we hear what they’ve got to say.”

  “It’s always amazing what people suddenly remember when they’re looking at twenty-five to life.”

  “Life’s hell,” Morales scoffed. “The AG’s insisting on the death penalty for whoever did the capitol building.”

  Corso gave a low whistle. “Can’t have folks offing federal agents.”

  “No, we can’t.”

  Morales walked around Corso, over to where Andriatta stood.

  “I feel like we may owe you an apology,” he said.

  “You didn’t kidnap me and drag me out here,” she snarled. “You’ve got nothing to apologize for.”

  “Anyway…” he said with a small smile. “…let me apologize for any inconvenience this whole thing may have caused you. I’m certain that Mr. Warren would never have gotten you involved in something of this nature had he known…” He searched for the rest of the sentence. “…if he’d…”

  “I just want to go home.”

  “I don’t blame you,” he said. “So do I.” He lowered his voice. “I’m sure Mr. Warren…”

  Corso wandered over and stood next to Plummer. “Nice work on pulling those guest lecturer names out of the GAO list,” he said.

  “It was your idea,” Plummer said, still typing away. “All I did was compile the data.”

  “What if somebody was already on the GAO payroll?”

  “Full-time?”

  “As a consultant.”

  “And as a lecturer?”

  “Yeah.”

  He thought it over. “I don’t know,” he said finally. He laced his fingers and cracked his knuckles. “You got somebody specific in mind?”

  Corso nodded his head. “Can you run the name for me?”

  “Sure.”

  Corso picked up a thoroughly chewed pencil from the desktop and printed the name. Plummer brought it close to his face.

  “Isn’t that the…”

  Corso put a finger to his lips. “Just between you and me,” he whispered.

  Plummer changed screens and typed in the name.

  “Three times,” Plummer said. “July ’97…”

  Corso cut him off. “Thanks,” he said.

  Plummer got the message. He poked the keyboard twice and the names and dates disappeared. “You think he…” Plummer began.

  “Wait fifteen minutes, then show Special Agent Morales,” Corso said. “Can you do that for me?”

  Plummer said he could.

  A hand on his shoulder brought Corso to his full height. Morales had his amiable face on. “I owe both of you a round of thanks.”

  Corso tried demure, but Morales wasn’t having any of it. “Don’t quote me on this, but we wouldn’t be where we are in this investigation were it not for the pair of you.” He ran a gaze over both of them. “You guys have a knack for asking the right question at the right time.”

  “Even a blind pig will occasionally root up an acorn,” Corso said.

  “Even if the pig has been wearing the same clothes for a week,” Andriatta added without the slightest trace of humor.

  “I can probably get you aboard a military transport…”

  Corso cut him off. “We’ve got reservations back to Pennsylvania first thing in the morning,” he said.

  Morales nodded knowingly. “What can I do for you two?”

  “A ride back to the hotel maybe,” Corso said.

  Morales walked over and picked up the phone.

  “One more room service dinner?” Corso asked Andriatta.

  “Actually, I was hoping for another cardboard sandwich,” she said.

  “I’ll call the concierge, see what they can do,” Corso said.

  Morales appeared at Corso’s shoulder. He stuck out his hand.

  “Take the elevator down to parking level three. There’s a car and a driver waiting for you there.” Corso shook his hand.

  For a mad moment, Morales considered wrapping Andriatta in a hug. By the time he made up his mind, she was out the door and gone.

  “Later,” Corso said as he followed her back down the hall to the elevators.

  They made the short ride in silence.

  Parking level three smelled as if exhaust fumes had been mixed into the concrete at the time of construction. This far beneath ground, the weight above their heads was palpable, almost as if it rested partly on their shoulders. Illuminated EXIT signs seemed to point in all directions at once. An assortment of FBI vehicles filled the space. The elevator bonged once and disappeared. Corso looked in both directions.

  “We must have beat the car,” he said.

  Andriatta only grunted and turned away. She walked in a tight circle, the sounds of her heels echoing through the concrete cavern like pistol shots. The squeal of tires and the sound of a car engine pulled Corso’s head around.

  “Here it comes,” he said.

  But he was wrong. Instead of the omnipresent unmarked Chevy, a Ford conversion van whipped around the corner, rolled right at them before making a hard left and screeching to a halt in one of the handicapped parking spaces adjacent to the elevators.

  The driver killed the engine. The van rocked slightly on its springs, then the sounds of a sliding door filled the air. Corso and Andriatta listened as the whine of a hydraulic lift filled the air. They passed a knowing look as the lift folded itself back into the van and the door slid closed.

  Five seconds later, Paul Short and his wheelchair appeared. The sight of Corso and Andriatta brought him to an abrupt halt. “Hey,” he said.

  “You just getting back from Dry Lake?” Corso asked.

  Short nodded. “You guys coming or going?” he asked.

  “Going,” Andriatta answered.

  “I hear you nearly got the guy out of the house.”

  Short lifted his good
hand from the control panel. He held his thumb and forefinger about a half inch apart. “This close,” he said. “He was right there.”

  “What happened?”

  Short shrugged. “Who knows what’s going through the mind of a guy like that?”

  “Another guy like that maybe,” Corso said.

  “Birds of a feather.”

  “Something like that.”

  “Or maybe somebody he knew.”

  Short leaned his head back. “You got some sort of itch you’re looking to scratch?”

  “I just thought you might have known the guy,” Corso said.

  “Now how would I know a dude like that?”

  “Maybe from when you guest lectured at his veterans’ support group.”

  Short’s face thought about a denial but changed its mind.

  “They’re just faces to me, Corso. Gigs I take on for the money.”

  “Must get tiresome,” Corso said. “Parading yourself all over like some circus animal. Appearing here and there. Come and see the freak.” Short began to push himself out of the chair. “Especially with all you’ve done for your country. All the risks you’ve taken. What you’ve sacrificed.”

  “You don’t know the meaning of sacrifice.”

  Behind Paul Short the black FBI sedan had rounded the corner and was rolling their way. Short heard the sound of the tires and threw a glance back over his shoulder.

  He smiled and opened the wheelchair’s control panel. The car stopped. The driver got out.

  Andriatta didn’t need an invitation. She walked away, hurrying over to the car and throwing herself into the backseat. The driver looked at Corso. “You coming” he asked.

  “Just a second,” Corso said.

  The driver walked back and climbed into the driver’s seat.

  Corso waited until the driver closed the door. Corso looked around. “Just us here, Short, and between you and me and the lamppost, the one thing I know for sure is that you’re the one who put this thing together. You’re the one who constructed those bombs and talked Kelly into putting together a crew. It’s the only way any of it makes any sense, and eventually they’re going to figure it out upstairs.”

  “You’re crazy.”

  “Not crazy enough to get involved with something like this mess.”

  It was all Short could do not to smile. “There isn’t a shred of evidence to connect me with anything.”

  “Especially since Mr. Kelly so conveniently offed himself.” When Paul Short remained silent, Corso continued. “It’s gonna come out, man. That’s why conspiracies never work. They rely on people keeping their mouths shut, which of course we all know is something human beings are incapable of. Somebody tells somebody. It’s human nature. The only way to keep a secret is never to tell a living soul.”

  “You lead a rich fantasy life, Mr. Corso.”

  “Everywhere you go these days, you leave a paper trail. There’s just no helping it. You guest lecture at veterans’ groups, you show up on the GAO payroll.”

  “You’re dreaming.”

  “I hear Kelly shot himself through the heart.”

  “So?”

  “Risky business, man. Lots of things could go wrong with a heart shot. That’s why nine out of ten guys…they decide to commit suicide…they stick the gun in their mouths and blow their brains all over the ceiling. The head’s a sure thing.”

  “He was a tortured soul. Probably wasn’t thinking clearly.”

  “I wonder what would happen if a coroner bothered to check the angle of entry. I wonder if he’d find that Kelly held the gun like this”—He clasped his hands in front of his chest—“or whether he’d find the slug came from considerably lower than that.” He gestured at Paul Short. “Say something like down where you are.”

  “You’re starting to piss me off, Mr. Corso.”

  “You’re the tortured soul, Short. Not poor Kelly. He was just an asshole who blamed his failure on others. He had the great misfortune to grow up in our present-day ‘blameless society,’ a shitty little world where even the most atrocious actions can be attributed to poor potty training or absentee parents.” Corso dismissed Short with a wave of his hand. “The party’s over, man. You’re going down for this.”

  The smile he’d been keeping under wraps found its way to his face. “Maybe I’ll make a run for it.” The grin got bigger. “They’ll never find me.”

  “Gonna just blend into the crowd, huh?”

  Short pointed at Corso with his hook. “You know something asshole, you really ought to wipe that self-satisfied expression off your face. You really should.” His facial expression looked as if he’d suddenly detected a vile odor in the air. “About the time those assholes stopped following the plan and started freelancing, my dog could have figured it out. You hear me? This wasn’t about threatening to kill unborn babies, man. This was about getting people’s attention. About somebody finally giving a shit about what’s going on with veterans.” He shrugged. “You were right about conspiracies. Even if they’d stuck to the plan, sooner or later the whole thing was going to come apart. Hell, I never had any illusions about walking away.”

  “Well then I guess you won’t be disappointed.”

  “I’m fresh out of disappointed, Corso.”

  “You were a hero.”

  He shook his head. “I was a fool. Just another dope who believed in a bunch of romantic bullshit that didn’t exist.”

  Another crooked smile crossed his ruined face. He pulled open the control panel and flipped a switch. “I’m not going to prison.” He looked up at Corso.

  “Ten,” he said.

  Corso went cold. His mouth tasted of dirty metal.

  “Nine.”

  Corso turned and ran toward the car. “Go! Go!” he screamed at the driver, using his hands in a frantic gesture of retreat.

  “Eight,” he heard just as the engine began to roar and the car screech backward in a cloud of tire smoke. Corso threw himself onto the hood, grabbing the windshield wipers with both hands, face-to-face with the driver, screaming, “Go! Go!” at the top of his lungs.

  “Six,” Corso counted in his head as the driver got off the gas and whipped the car around the corner in reverse. Centrifugal force nearly tore Corso from the hood of the car, only the windshield wipers kept him in place.

  “Five,” as the FBI car dragged its front fender along the block wall, sending a shower of sparks into the subterranean air.

  “Four,” as they rear-ended a parked car and ground to a halt. Corso lost count as he was thrown up and over the windshield, the wipers still clutched in his hands as he bounced once on the roof before sliding down onto the trunk of the car.

  Inside the FBI car, Andriatta was up on her knees, her face no more than a foot from Corso’s when, from the far side of the garage, Corso heard Short’s voice say the magic word. “Zero.”

  And then the crack and the awful sucking of air in the second before the explosion battered his eardrums and set the building to shaking.

  35

  “L AX always makes me feel like the circus must be in town,” she said.

  Corso looked around and smiled. “Now that you mention it.”

  “Place is a zoo,” she groused.

  When he didn’t respond, she slackened her gait, looked up. “You ever listen to anybody other than yourself for more than ten seconds at a time?”

  Corso thought it over. “You ever do anything but bitch?” he asked.

  She stopped in the middle of the concourse and looked around in disbelief. The flow of bodies broke ranks and split, separating the squeaks of shoes and the whirs of wheels into separate streams, leaving the pair marooned on a narrow atoll of floor.

  “Did you just call me a bitch?”

  “No. I just asked if you ever stopped bitching about things.”

  “You’ll have to excuse me if I fail to see the difference.”

  “One’s a noun. The other’s a verb.”

  She stammered in moc
k disbelief. “I didn’t volunteer for this, you know.”

  “Yes you did. You signed on for pay…signed on to help out on an investigative piece. You’re the embittered international correspondent, remember? You’re little Miss ‘been there and seen that.’ Nothing that’s happened with us lately should have been much of a surprise to you. Nothing’s a given. You just roll with the flow and wait to see what happens next. You know that at least as well as I do. So what’s the big deal?”

  “The big deal is that I’ve had enough. I want to go home.” She shook a finger in his face. “Nobody has the right to…”

  “Is that what you told the Taliban? You tell them you’d had enough of them and their little turbans and that you demanded to go home this instant?”

  She stalked off. Corso followed along in her wake. “I didn’t think so,” he said to her back. “’Cause if you’d started this kind of shit with them, they’d have taken you out back of the tent and put one in your ear.”

  Corso watched as she tossed her hair and stiffened her spine in resolution. After a moment, she melted into the throng at the end of the concourse. Corso watched, trying to pick her out from among the multitude of heads waiting for their flights to be called. Unable to make her out, he made his way across the concourse to the newsstand, found an L.A. Times and took it over to Mickey D’s, where he bought himself a number two with a Diet Coke, found a table and proceeded to eat and read at the same time.

  Only took Corso a minute to realize two things. First off, he realized how long it’d been since he’d read a newspaper. Secondly, he immediately knew he’d best keep it that way. Better stay away from the TV too. The bombing story was everywhere. His picture was plastered all over the front section of the L.A. Times. Complete bio and current photo on page four. News-wise, two names had been added to the list of those in custody. Horace L. Danbury and Jeffrey M. Byrne. Short’s death was mentioned only peripherally. He was described as a “former FBI consultant.”

  A picture of a capitol building maintenance worker standing knee deep in broken glass occupied the front page. The rear axle of the van was visible in the background, lying twisted and broken on the lawn, its shredded tires hanging from the rims like steel-belted vines. Worth a thousand words for sure.