The man inside the bandages opened his eyes and rolled them her way. “Deb?”
He grunted it more than said it. His jaw was wired shut.
Deb started crying. Shoulders hunched, clutching her purse like a life preserver, she moved uncertainly toward the foot of the bed, where Hawkes could see her better. “I’m right here, baby. So is Mickey.”
Mickey came into the room, feeling more frightened than anything. He waved at the legless creature inside the bandages and said, “Hi—”
Hawkes screamed. “Get him out! I told you not to bring him! Get him out, Deb!”
“But he’s—”
“Get him out!” Hawkes screeched. Monitors began to buzz and whine in alarm.
Shocked, feeling rejected, Mickey started toward the door. Then the tears came and his own anger flared.
Mickey spun and shouted. “Why didn’t you leave when you said you would? You left when you said you would, we never would have been blown up! Never!”
Somebody nudged him.
Mickey jerked awake, realized he’d been yelling in his sleep. He looked around, saw a kindly older man with a cane.
“Nightmare, son?” the old man said.
Mickey nodded, realizing how sweaty he felt under the windbreaker, the hoodie, and the vest, and then how close he was to his stop. Glancing past the older man, he scanned a woman reading a magazine, while the six or seven other passengers at the far back of the bus stared off into space with work-glazed expressions.
Time to really wake them up, Mickey thought when the bus pulled over across from Veterans Affairs Medical Center. This soldier’s done fooling around.
Already late and not wanting to miss any more of the evening meeting, Mickey got up, waited until the rear doors opened with a whoosh, and hurried off the bus.
He didn’t notice that the woman reading the magazine was now staring after him. He didn’t look back to see her get off the bus and trail him at a distance.
Chapter 29
Ali, Jannie, and I were waiting on Nana Mama to finish some last minute dinner preparations when my cell phone rang.
“Don’t you dare,” my grandmother said, shaking a wooden spoon at me. “I’ve been working on this meal since noon.”
I held up my hands in surrender, let the call go to voice mail, and sniffed at delicious odors seeping out from under the lid of a large deep-sided pan.
“Smells great, Nana!” Ali said, reaching for the lid.
She gave him a gentle fanny swat with the spoon and said, “No peeking behind curtain number one.”
My cell rang again, prompting a disapproving sniff from Nana. I pulled out the phone, expecting Bree to be calling. We had all been frustrated leaving Vincente’s apartment earlier in the day. He’d looked good for the bomber going in, and not so good coming out. He seemed even more unlikely when Metro transit confirmed he’d never once ridden the Circulator, and the US Army confirmed he’d been a cook.
But it wasn’t Bree on my caller ID. Kate Williams was looking for me.
“Dinner in five minutes,” Nana said.
I walked out into the front hall. “Kate?”
“I think I’ve got him, Dr. Cross,” she said breathlessly. “I’m sitting on the bomber.”
“What? Where?”
“Veterans Affairs Medical Center. He’s in a support group meeting for IED-wounded vets until seven-fifty. I figure you have until eight to meet me at the bus stop at Brookland–CUA.”
The call ended. I stared at the phone.
Nana Mama called, “Dinner’s ready.”
“I’m sorry, Nana,” I said, grabbing my rain coat. “I’ve gotta go.”
Out the door and down the front stairs, I ran north in the pouring rain to Pennsylvania Avenue and hailed a cab. On the way I tried to reach Bree, but it kept going through to her voice mail.
I texted her what Kate had said, and that I was going to check it out. As smart and IED-savvy as my patient was, I wasn’t holding out real hope that she’d somehow identified the bomber. But I wasn’t going to ignore her, either.
In the rain, traffic was snarled, so I didn’t climb out of a cab at the Brookland–CUA Metro Station until two minutes past eight. Kate Williams stood at the bus stop shelter, leaning against a Plexiglas wall, smoking a cigarette and perusing People magazine.
Seeing me, she stubbed the butt out, flipped it into a trash can, and smiled.
“Means a lot that you came,” she said. She explained that she’d come back looking for me the night before and saw me in the D8 bus talking to Mr. Light.
Kate put two and two together, and spent most of the day riding the Circulator and the Hospital Center bus lines. Around six, she got on the Hospital Center bus at Union Station and saw a guy she recognized, sleeping in a seat near the back.
“I didn’t think much of him, beyond the fact that I’d seen him down around the Vietnam Memorial,” she said. “But when we got close to the hospital, he had some kind of nightmare, and yelled out something about getting blown up.”
I said, “I’m sure there are lots of guys who ride this bus and have flashbacks.”
“I’m sure they do,” she said. “But they don’t wear a blue rain jacket with a logo on the left chest that says…shit, here he comes. Half a block. Don’t look. Put your hood up. If he’s been watching the news, he’ll recognize you.”
The D8 bus pulled in.
“Get on before he does,” Kate said. “You’ll be behind him. Easier to control.”
Chapter 30
I hesitated, but only for a beat. If it really was the bomber, being positioned behind him could be a good thing, especially in a confined space.
I pivoted away and climbed aboard. Gordon Light was driving. He recognized me and started to say something, but I held a finger to my lips as I ran my Metro card over the reader. I headed toward the rear of the semi-crowded bus but stood instead of taking a seat, holding on to a strap facing the side windows. When the doors shut and we started to move, I lowered my hood and glanced around.
Kate was standing in the aisle ten feet forward of me. Her eyes met mine, and she slightly tilted her head toward a man wearing a dark blue windbreaker, hood up. He was looking out the window, giving me no view of his face.
The seat beside him was empty. So was the entire seat behind him.
Kate sat next to him, blocking his exit, which caused him to pivot his head to glance at her.
What the hell is she thinking? I groaned to myself. And what the hell was I thinking, coming on this wild-goose chase?
Because I could now see that under a mop of frizzy brown hair was a bored, pimply, teenage boy, who turned away from Kate when she opened her magazine. Her right hand left the magazine and gestured behind her at the empty seat.
I wanted to get off at the next exit and head home. Maybe Nana had saved me a plate. But when the bus slowed for a red light, I thought, What the hell? Kate had led me this far. I slipped into the seat behind them.
When the bus started rolling again, Kate shut her magazine and said, “I have a friend who goes to your school.”
I kept a neutral expression. The kid didn’t respond at first, then looked over at her.
“What’s that?” he said, roused from thought.
“Benjamin Banneker High School,” she said. “It’s on your jacket.”
“Oh,” he said, without enthusiasm. “Yeah.”
“She runs track. Jannie Cross. You know her?”
The kid gave her a sidelong glance. “She’s in my chemistry class.”
Chemistry and in Jannie’s class. Now I was interested. Real interested.
“Nice girl, that Jannie,” Kate said. “What’s your name so I can tell her I met you?”
He hesitated, but then answered, “Mickey. Mickey Hawkes.”
“Kate Williams. Nice to meet you, Mickey Hawkes,” she said, and smiled.
We pulled over at a bus stop, and more people started to board.
Kate said, “Must have been
scary there for a while yesterday.”
“Scary?” Mickey said.
“You know. The bomb threat?”
His posture stiffened. He said, “Oh, that. It was more boring than scary. We stood there for hours, waiting to see the school explode. I should have gone home.”
“So you were out there the entire time?”
“Yup. Like three solid hours.”
“Huh,” Kate said. She looked at him directly. “Mickey, it’s weird. I’m one of these people who remembers every face they see. And I distinctly remember seeing you come off the Circulator bus at the Vietnam Memorial, maybe twenty minutes after the school was evacuated.”
“What? No.”
“Yes. You were wearing that same windbreaker. You were excited, and looking at your cell phone. Probably at the news that the school had been evacuated, after you called Jannie Cross with the bomb threat.”
The kid locked up for two long beats, before turning fully toward her. He looked past her, over his shoulder to me. In a split second I saw recognition, fear, and resolution in his expression. This was our guy. But he’s just a kid, I thought.
Twisting away from us, he lurched to his feet and stepped onto his seat, holding his cell phone high overhead.
“I’m wearing a bomb vest!” he shouted. “Do what I say, or everyone dies!”
Chapter 31
Passengers began to scream and scramble away from Mickey.
“Shut up and don’t move!” the teen yelled, shaking the cell phone at them. “Everyone shut up and sit down, or I will kill us all right now!”
The few passengers on their feet slowly sank into seats, and the bus quieted, save for a few frightened whimpers.
“Good,” the teenager said, and then called to Gordon Light. “No more stops, driver. Straight south now.”
I wished I had a gun. Lacking that, I eased my phone from my coat pocket.
“Where are we going?” Kate Williams said.
“You’ll see,” Mickey said, his head swiveling all around.
He looked at me, then back toward the front. When he did, I moved my hands and phone forward toward the back of his seat where I hoped he couldn’t see them. The second time his head swung away from me, I glanced down to text Bree and Mahoney: Bomber taken D-8 bus hostage. Headed south on—
“What are you doing?” Mickey yelled.
I looked up to see him glaring at me.
Unzipping his jacket and hoodie, he exposed the vest, festooned with wires leading into opaque green blocks of C-4 bulging from pocket sleeves.
“Do you think I’m kidding here?” he shrieked.
“Why are you doing this, Mickey?” I said, thumbing Send.
“You’ll see why,” he shouted. “Have a little patience. And keep your hands where I can see them.”
I palmed my phone and rested my hands on my thighs. “Your game, Mickey.”
Gordon Light yelled, “Almost to Union Station.”
“Keep going,” Mickey directed. “Take a left on Mass Ave.”
He looked back at me. I said, “Pretty difficult to get old Yugoslavian C-4, Mickey.”
He smiled. “Sometimes you just get lucky, Dr. Cross.”
We reached Mass Ave, and Light took the left. Kate was studying Mickey intently. I looked out the windows, searching for the flashing lights and sirens I hoped would somehow appear. If Bree or Mahoney got the text, they knew we were on the Hospital Center Line heading south. Metrobus had GPS trackers on them, didn’t they?
But other than the rain and the nearly deserted sidewalks, it looked like any other evening in the District of Columbia.
Mickey stepped over onto the seat in front of him, then jumped down in the aisle with his back to me. “Take a right!”
I punched 911 into my phone.
“I can’t!” Gordon yelled. “It’s one way there!”
“Do it, or your bus blows up!”
“911, what is your emergency?” I heard the woman say.
The driver slammed on his brakes and cut right through a small parking area off Mass Ave. The bus hit a curb with a jolt. People screamed. My chin hit the back of Kate’s seat and I dropped my phone, which went skittering across the floor before the bus smashed down onto Northwest Drive along the boundary of the Capitol’s grounds.
I was dazed for a moment, hearing cars honking and swerving to get out of the way of the bus, which went careening uphill. As I shook off the daze, Mickey moved forward toward Gordon Light, his cell phone held high.
Passengers shrank from him as he advanced, yelling, “Turn on the lights in here. Open your window. And take the next right, Driver. Go right on up to the barrier!”
“The next right? I can’t! It’s—”
“Do it!”
Mickey ran up beside the driver. Light glanced at the cell phone Mickey held before pressing a button that opened his window, and another that lit up the interior of the bus. He downshifted and swung the bus right, following the curve of a short spur road that led to a bunker-like guard shack and a solid-steel gate.
Ahead, through the windshield, I could see the lights of satellite media trucks blazing across the small plaza in front of the steps of the Senate. A Capitol Hill Police officer armed with an H&K submachine gun stepped out of the shack.
“What the hell are you doing!” she shouted at Gordon. “Back the hell up! This is a restricted—”
“I’m wearing a bomb!” Mickey Hawkes yelled. “And I’m going to explode it and kill you and all these people unless I get to talk to those senators. Right here. Right now.”
Chapter 32
I recognized the officer—her last name was Larson. She hesitated until Mickey exposed the bomb vest again.
“Do it,” Mickey said. “Call in there. And don’t even think of trying to shoot me.
“I drop this phone, the IED goes off.”
Officer Larson blinked and said, “Let’s calm down a second here, son. I can’t just call into the Senate. I wouldn’t even know how.”
“Bullshit.”
“She’s right, Mickey Hawkes,” I called loudly, and got up.
He looked at me as I started past Kate. “Sit down, man.”
I hesitated. Kate tugged on my pants leg. I looked down at her, and saw she wanted to tell me something.
“What?”
She glanced at Mickey and said, “Nothing.”
Mickey had turned to the Capitol Hill cop. “Call your boss, lady. Or call his boss. I’m sure one of them knows how to contact the senators blocking the vets’ bill.”
“Is that what this is about?” I said, moving up the aisle.
“Sit down, or I blow this now!” he shouted at me.
I sat down seven rows from the front with my hands up.
Mickey looked back at Officer Larson, who hadn’t moved.
“Call now!” he yelled. “Or do you want to explain how you could have stopped the bloodbath that’s about to happen?”
Larson held up a hand, said, “Calm down, and I’ll try to make the call.”
I said, “Mickey, how about letting some of these people go while she tries?”
He glared at me. “Why would I do that?”
“To show your goodwill.”
“There’s no such thing as goodwill,” Mickey said. “Why do you think I’m here?”
Larson backed through the door into the guard shack.
I said, “Mickey, why are you here?”
“I’ll tell those senators.”
“You could start with us,” I said. “Convince us, maybe you convince them.”
The teenager didn’t look at me, but I could see him struggle. He said, “I’m saying this once, my way.”
“You could—”
“Shut up, Dr. Cross!” he shouted. “I know what you’re trying to do! I’ve seen what all you goddamned shrinks try to do!”
Officer Larson emerged from the security bunker. I looked out the windows and saw the silhouettes of armed officers racing from all direc
tions to surround the bus.
She said, “Mickey, I can’t call the senators.”
“You can’t?” he screamed. “Or you won’t?”
Larson said, “I don’t make these kinds of calls, Mickey. But there’s no way we’re going to let a senator anywhere near you and your bomb.”
His jaw clenched. He looked out the windshield, and back at the cop.
“Get them on the Senate steps then. And give me a bullhorn.”
Larson started to shake her head, but I yelled, “Call, Officer. See if it’s possible.”
I was standing again. Larson could see me through the windows. She hesitated, but then nodded. “I’ll ask, Dr. Cross.”
When she disappeared back inside the bunker, I said, “If you get your chance to talk to them, Mickey, you’ll let us go?”
He shook his head and said, “I want to see some action.”
Before I could reply, Larson exited the bunker again. “I’m sorry, Mickey, but they won’t allow it.”
His jaw tensed again as he struggled for another option. But then he straightened and gave Larson a sorry look. “I guess I have to make a different kind of statement then, don’t I?”
He held up the cell phone, and looked back at me. “Sorry I had to hack into Jannie’s phone, Dr. Cross. I always liked her.”
I saw flickers of anger, fear, and despair in his face. I’d seen the same in Kate Williams’s face when we first met. I understood he was suicidal.
“Don’t, Mickey!” I said.
“Too late,” Mickey said. He moved his thumb to the screen.
Chapter 33
There was a flash of brilliant light, and I started to duck—but then I saw it was behind Mickey. For a moment the kid was silhouetted there.
I felt sure there would be a blast. We were going to die.
Then Kate Williams stood and yelled, “The bullhorn’s behind you, Mickey!”
The teen looked confused, then glanced over his shoulder through the windshield. There were news cameramen running toward the bus, klieg lights flaring in the rain, and satellite trucks following.