The two men turned quickly, weapons drawn.
For a moment, Theo thought they’d been fooled. He was only half right. The larger man signaled his partner to check it out. The good soldier turned and retreated, but the leader stayed on mission. He was headed straight toward the mound of garbage bags behind the grocery store.
Theo glanced at Sofia, and the look of terror in her eyes had just popped off the charts. Theo gave her hand a reassuring squeeze, and then he squatted even lower, ready to pounce like a cat.
The gunman was just fifteen feet away and closing.
Keep coming, thought Theo. I can use a new pistol.
At five feet away, Theo grabbed a big green bag of garbage with both hands.
One more step.
The man stopped and aimed his pistol. Before he could shoot, Theo leapt from hiding, hitting him first with the bag of garbage, and then laying into him with his entire body. The gun flew across the alley as Theo took the man down, hard, to the pavement.
“Get the gun!” Theo shouted, but Sofia was frozen.
The man was a tough fighter, but Theo had top position, and his fists battered him like a jackhammer.
“Sofia, get the gun!”
Out of nowhere a knife appeared and slashed Theo across the forearm. His cry of pain jolted Sofia into action. The men rolled toward the center of the alley, and when they stopped their tumble, Theo was on the bottom. His arm and fingers were cut from fending off the blade, and the blood from his wounds had splattered into his left eye, turning half his world into a dark blur. He saw his attacker’s arm jerk back, and he saw the tip of the blade coming toward him.
Then he heard the gunshot, and the man fell, his body draped over Theo like a lead blanket.
Theo pushed him off and ran to Sofia. She was trembling, tears running down her face, the gun still in her hand.
Theo grabbed the gun and pushed her behind the mound of garbage. Another gunshot rang out in the alley just as Theo dove into the mound behind her. He whirled and fired at the shooter, who fired right back. Theo squeezed off another half dozen rounds, unleashing enough firepower to send the message that he meant business. Then there was silence.
Once again, he heard the click of heels on pavement, but they were unsteady and fading this time-the sound of a wounded man in retreat.
Chapter 56
Frank Madera knew it was bad.
He staggered through the alley, stepping in a pile of juicy mush as he crossed from one side to the other. It smelled like apples. Stinky, rotten apples. It was amazing how the sense of smell could remain robust even as the rest of the body was shutting down from trauma.
His feet were heavy and could carry him no farther. His knees buckled, and he fell against a Dumpster. He managed to grab the rusty lid and hold himself up, but not for long. Slowly, he slid down the side of the green Dumpster, his back swiping it with a long crimson streak. Too much blood. The exit wound from the bullet was even worse than he’d feared.
He reached inside his jacket to assess the damage. The entry wound was just to the right of the sternum. The clean hole on his shattered rib could have been full-metal-jacket ammunition, but Madera sensed that something even more deadly was at work. Though his body was slipping into shock, the pain not fully expressed, he could tell that this bullet had yawed violently on impact and blown through his body like a snowplow, compressing soft tissue, shredding his lung, and pushing bone fragments out what had to be a devastating hole in his back. Perhaps it was just his mind running wild, confusing rifle with pistol ammo, but the wound had modified.45-caliber FMJ written all over it, probably a tail-heavy cartridge with an interior tip of aluminum, or possibly wood pulp. What did it matter?
I’m a dead man.
He pulled his cell phone from his inside pocket. It felt incredibly heavy in his hand, and he had to wipe the blood off the keypad with his sleeve. He was about to dial 911 when he noticed that the eerie black flow at his sternum was starting to foam. Pneumothorax-a sucking chest wound. He’d watched a fellow soldier die from one on the battlefield. Two weeks later, he’d shoveled the remains of his best friend from a street in Baghdad after a car bombing. He himself had been wounded in combat in a second tour of duty, this one in Afghanistan. None of the suffering or sacrifice, however, had diminished his sense of duty. He’d come home and joined the Secret Service, the only member of his class to have seen combat and hold a Purple Heart. But as time wore on, others were promoted, and Madera was not. Two of his classmates made it to the presidential protection team, and he was denied. That was when he’d cut his deal with Joe Dinitalia. The way he saw it, Madera was good enough to fight for his country, good enough to kill for it, and good enough to die for it. He was good enough to lose a tiny bit of hearing in his right ear in service to his country, only to have the Secret Service hold it against him. He was damaged goods, not good enough to guard the president. So, he figured, he might as well own him.
His breath was short. The foam around his wound was thickening. Madera had even less time left than he’d thought. Calling for an ambulance would have been pointless. He could have called Dinitalia to tell him that he’d failed, but that, too, seemed pointless. Nothing seemed to matter, except for one thing.
Maybe the loss of blood was making him delusional. Perhaps the shame of a good soldier turned bad finally came to a head. Or it simply could have been a dying man’s bitter sense of irony. Whatever was driving him in those final moments, Agent Madera chose to make things the way they should have been.
He did his Secret Service duty and called the commander in chief.
The call came on an encrypted cell line that only one man ever used. The message, however, was unlike any that President Keyes had ever received.
“Agent down,” said Madera, “and it’s me. Sergeant Chavez, MDPD, is your go-to on the Greek. Texting you his number now. You’re on your own with Sofia.”
“What?” said the president, but in the time it had taken to put the question, he grasped Frank’s meaning. That hollow, fragile voice reminded the president of his father’s final breath.
“Frank, are you still there?”
The line was silent, but the president didn’t hang up right away. No matter how he felt about Frank Madera, hearing him utter his last words-a warning-was unsettling.
The president tucked away the phone and peered out the dark tinted window of the armored black Cadillac DTS.
Traffic was stopped at every intersection as the presidential motorcade, thirty-five vehicles in length, headed away from the airport. The president and Harry Swyteck were alone in the rear compartment, the president facing forward and Harry seated directly across with his back to the driver. The television was tuned to Action News, and Harry’s eyes had been glued to the standoff-until Madera’s phone call.
“You look upset,” said Harry.
They passed a Japanese car dealership that was flying a lighted American flag as big as Montana. The president looked at Harry and said, “You really want the truth?”
“I told you I did.”
President Keyes nodded, turning very serious. “The truth is that my worst fears have been realized.”
“How so?”
“Frank Madera killed Phil Grayson.”
Harry’s mouth fell open. “How do you know?”
“He just confessed to me. He said he’s going to turn himself in to the FBI immediately.”