3rd Degree

Chapter 105

I pushed my way up to where he’d been standing seconds ago. Gone! I sca

I didn’t see Charles Danko anywhere. All the men were wearing tuxedos, looking the same. And all those people were exposed to danger, maybe even death.

I badged my way through a barricade and ran down a long corridor that led to the closed-off section of the museum. Still no sign of Danko. I ran back to the main ballroom and bumped into Molinari.

“He’s here. I know he is, Joe. This is his moment.”

Molinari nodded and radioed that no one, under any circumstance, was to leave the building. I was thinking that if any kind of device went off in there, with all those people, it would be a total disaster. I’d die, too. And Molinari. It would be worse than the Rincon Center.

Where are you, Danko?

Then I caught a glimpse of him again. I thought so anyway. I pointed toward a tall balding man. He was circling away from us, ducking in and out of the crowd. “That’s him!”

“Danko!” I yelled, pulling my Glock from its shoulder holster. “Danko! Stop!”

The crowd parted enough for me to see him remove a hand from his jacket pocket. He caught my eyes again—and then he smiled at me. What the hell did he have?

“Police!” Molinari shouted. “Everybody down!”

Charles Danko’s fingers were wrapped around something. I couldn’t tell if it was a gun, or maybe a detonator.

Then I saw it—a plastic canister in his hand. What the hell was it? He raised his arm and I charged. There was no other choice.

Seconds later I crashed into Charles Danko, grabbing at his arm, hoping the canister would break free. I latched on to his hand, desperately trying to pry the canister free. I couldn’t budge it.

I heard him grunt in pain, saw him twisting the canister toward me. Right at my face.

Molinari was on the other side of Danko, trying to wrestle him down, too. “Get away from him!” I heard him yell at me. The canister turned again—toward Molinari. Everything was happening fast, in just a few seconds.

I held on to Danko’s arm. I had some leverage. I was trying to break his arm.

He turned toward me, and our eyes met. I’d never felt such hatred, such coldness. “Bastard!” I yelled in his face.

“Remember Jill!”

In that second, I squeezed the canister.

Spray shot into his face. Very close in. Danko coughed, gasped. His face twisted into a horrified mask. Other agents had him now. They pulled him away from me.

Danko was breathing heavily. He was still coughing, as if he could spit back the poison from his lungs.

“It’s over,” I gasped. “You’re over. You’re done. You lost, asshole.”

His eyes smiled vacantly. He motioned me closer. “It will never be over, you fool. There’s always another soldier.”

That’s when I heard shots, and understood that I was a fool.

Chapter 106

We rushed out to the courtyard, where the shots had come from. Joe Molinari and I pushed our way through the crowd. People were gasping, a few had started to weep.

I couldn’t see what had happened, and then I could. And I wished that I hadn’t.

Eldridge Neal was on his back, a crimson stain widening across his white shirt. Someone had shot the vice president of the United States. My God, not another American tragedy like this.

A woman was being held down by Secret Service agents; she couldn’t have been much older than eighteen or nineteen. Frizzy red hair. She was screaming at the vice president, rambling on about babies being sold into slavery in the Sudan; AIDS killing millions in Africa; corporate war crimes in Iraq and Syria. She must have been waiting for Neal as he was moved out of the main hall.

Suddenly I recognized the girl. I’d seen her before, in Roger Lemouz’s office. The girl who’d given me the finger when I told her to leave. Hell, she was just a kid.

Joe Molinari let go of my arm and went to the aid of the vice president. The cursing, screaming girl was pulled away. Meanwhile, an ambulance drove right into the courtyard. EMS medics jumped out and began to tend to Vice President Neal.

Had Charles Danko pla

Had he known we were on to him?

Was this a setup? Knowing that chaos would reign if we caught up with him? What had he said? There’s always another soldier.

That was the scariest thing of all. I knew that Danko was right.

Chapter 107

I was supposed to go to the hospital to be examined, but I wouldn’t do it. Not yet. Joe Molinari and I went with the red-haired girl back to the Hall. We interrogated A

A

It was four in the morning when we arrived in an upscale neighborhood in Kensington, a couple of towns over from Berkeley. There were at least half a dozen patrol cars there and everybody was heavily armed. The street was in the hills and had a view of the San Pablo Reservoir. Very pretty, surprisingly posh. It didn’t look as if anything bad could happen here.

“He lives well,” said Molinari, but that was it for small talk. “Let’s you and I do the honors.”

The front door was opened by the Lance Hart Professor of Romance Languages, Roger Lemouz. He had on a terry-cloth robe, and his curly black hair was in disarray. His eyes were glassy and red, and I wondered if he had been drinking that night, if Lemouz had been celebrating.

“Madam Inspector,” he said in a throaty whisper, “you’re begi

I didn’t bother to exchange unpleasantries with Lemouz, and neither did Molinari. “You’re under arrest for conspiracy to commit murder,” he said, then pushed his way inside.

Lemouz’s wife and two children appeared, entering the living room behind him, which was unfortunate. The boy was no more than twelve, the girl even younger. Molinari and I holstered our guns.

“Charles Danko is dead,” I told Lemouz. “A young woman you know named A

Lemouz laughed in my face. “I don’t know any of these people. Well, Ms. Breiling was a student of mine. She dropped out of the university, however. This is a huge mistake and I’m calling my lawyer right now if you don’t leave.”

“You’re under arrest,” Joe Molinari said, making the obvious official. “Want to hear your rights, Professor? I want to read them to you.”

Lemouz smiled, and it was strange and eerie. “You still don’t understand, do you? Neither of you. This is why you are doomed. One day your entire country will crumble. It’s already happening.”

“Why don’t you explain what we’re missing?” I spat the words at him.

He nodded, then Lemouz turned toward his family. “You’re missing this.” His small son was holding a handgun, and it was obvious that he knew how to use it. The boy’s eyes were as cold as his father’s.

“I’ll kill you both,” he said. “It would be my pleasure.”

“The army that is building against you is massive, their cause is just. Women, children, so many soldiers, Madam Inspector. Think about it. The Third World War—it’s begun.”