Cold Betrayal

They all waited for B.’s response. None was forthcoming.

“Driver?” Lowell called again. “Hey, what’s going on up there?”

Half sick with relief, Ali realized B. must have somehow managed to exit the vehicle without attracting any attention.

“You’re coming with me,” Lowell growled ominously. “Now.”

“Leave her be,” Witherspoon objected. That was followed by the distinct sound of something hard striking flesh, a loud groan, and a sickening thump as someone crumpled to the floor.

“Come on now, Gov. Move it. You try anything and this AK-47 is going to cut you into tiny little pieces.”

That’s what Lowell was wielding—an AK-47? And the only weapon Ali had available was a measly Glock? Once again, Ali felt a shifting of the vehicle, as though several people were moving around at once. A front passenger door clicked open. That could only mean that Lowell and Governor Dunham were both up front, on the far side of the partition between the cab and the cabin. If Ali was going to do anything about this—and she wasn’t sure what—now was the time to do it.

Holding her breath and with the Glock in hand, Ali cracked the bathroom door open and emerged into the cabin. Andrea was on her knees, trying to help Bill Witherspoon as he struggled to his feet. Agnes and Patricia seemed rooted to their seats.

“Everybody out,” Ali hissed in an urgent whisper, opening the door to the luggage compartment and beckoning them toward it. “Go out the back door and make a run for it.”

They did it at once. Bill Witherspoon was the last of the four to disappear through the opening. Ali moved forward through the cabin. She had just ducked into the galley alcove next to the doorway into the cab as an earsplitting blast of automatic gunfire filled the air.

For a moment, Ali was rendered completely deaf. Her hearing was starting to return when she heard another shot—a single one this time—followed a moment later by another. Then the air filled with the sound of a woman screaming. “Help me, please,” Governor Dunham cried. “Please help me. I’ve been shot.”

Ali started to step forward to do just that—to go help—but then the Sprinter shifted again. She knew what that meant. Someone had just climbed back inside, and she thought she knew who. Freezing in her hiding place, she pulled herself back into the kitchen alcove. She knew Richard Lowell. She had seen him at the hospital when he had come there trying to lay claim to Enid. But what if B. was the first one to come through the door? Or what if someone else did?

When a man wearing a sheepskin jacket suddenly barreled through the doorway, Ali knew it was Richard Lowell. He appeared to be injured. He held an AK-47 in his left hand while his right hand and arm hung uselessly at his side. Intent on something else, he darted past Ali without a glance in her direction. When he reached the captain’s chairs, he slammed his weapon down on the tabletop.

His back was turned to Ali. She could see a bright red spot leaking through his jacket and blossoming into a fist-sized stain just below his shoulder. Richard Lowell had been shot and was bleeding profusely. Grunting in pain, he struggled to pull something out of his jacket pocket. Only when Ali saw the phone did she realize what he pla

It took a second or two, but finally Lowell had the phone clenched in his left hand and was clumsily attempting to operate it with his thumb. Only then did Ali step up behind him.

“Drop it!” she ordered. “Drop it now.”

“You wouldn’t shoot me, would you?” he panted.

“Try me,” Ali said.

Richard Lowell was not a tall man. Looking over his bloodied shoulder, Ali could see the face of the phone. His thumb was already poised over the top number on his list of recent calls when Ali did what she had to do. She simply pulled the trigger.

Richard Lowell slumped to the floor. The phone flew out of his hand and disappeared under one of the seats. Without the phone, Ali had no way of knowing if he’d managed to complete the call or not. Looking at the man’s suddenly still body and realizing that she’d shot him full in the middle of the back, Ali didn’t need to check to see if he was dead. She already knew.

“Drop your weapon and get on the ground!” someone ordered.

Ali turned to see a man in full SWAT regalia appear in the rear door opening, the one through which Witherspoon and the others had exited. As he moved toward her, weapon held at the ready, Ali complied. She laid the Glock on the galley’s counter and dropped to the floor.

“You need to check on Governor Dunham,” she urged as the officer fastened her wrists behind her with a pair of cuffs. “She’s outside the cab somewhere. She’s been shot.”

36

What followed was a forty-five-minute period of total chaos. For most of that time, Ali sat in one of the captain’s chairs with her hands cuffed behind her back and with Richard Lowell’s lifeless body on the floor at her feet. Through the window next to her Ali watched as a group of EMTs swarmed toward the Sprinter and then left again on the run, pushing a gurney that they loaded into a medevac helicopter. It had arrived on the scene so promptly that Ali theorized that it had most likely been summoned by Governor Dunham herself and then held in reserve somewhere nearby, awaiting any possible casualties from the upcoming joint operation.

The helicopter had barely taken off when a grim-faced FBI agent who introduced himself as Agent Malovich stepped into the van. The first thing he did was remove Ali’s cuffs. After that, he popped her Glock into an evidence bag. That was a mixed message. Ali couldn’t tell if she was in the clear or not.

“Is the governor going to be all right?” she asked.

He shook his head. “Too soon to tell. There was a struggle over a revolver the guy had tucked in his pants. Governor Dunham went for it, and so did he. Looks like she got him in the shoulder but ended up shooting herself in the leg. We put on a tourniquet before the EMTs even got here, but I don’t know if they’ll be able to save the leg. Now, how about if you tell me what went on here.”

“Do I need a lawyer? Are you going to read me my rights?”

“No Miranda warning, and you don’t need a lawyer. We already talked to the people outside—three women and a man. According to them, this guy was armed, dangerous, and badly in need of being put down. They all say you’re a hero.”

“First tell me about my husband,” Ali insisted. “He got out of the van earlier. He’s out there somewhere. With all the gunfire, I’m worried about him. Is he all right?”

“B. Simpson? Let’s just say he’s not hurt, but he’s not all right, either. The other guy’s dead. Your husband says it’s his fault.”

“What other guy?”

“The county sheriff—a guy named Alvarado. He tried to bluff Lowell, pretended the place was surrounded even though his backup was minutes away. Lowell unloaded on him with his AK-47. Cut the poor guy to pieces.”

“B. doesn’t even own a weapon. How can it be his fault?”

“You’ll need to ask him about that, but later. He’s being interviewed now, too. So please, tell me what went on. I’m the first person you’re talking to about all this, and I certainly won’t be the last. Do you mind telling me what happened here?”

“What about the hangar? Did it burn down or not?”

“No, ma’am,” Malovich said. “We located the kid with the dynamite and the cell phone. He was still waiting for orders to set it off.”