Balance of Power

mother.

    Daddy had come to meet her with a present. But her mother did not see him.

    Her daddy saw her now.

    Tentative, she raised her arm, a tiny wave to say she saw him, too.

* * *

    Bowden sank to his knees, eyes fixed on Marie. As her mouth formed words he could not hear, her mother turned toward him.

    Fumbling, he opened the box.

    As he slung it over his shoulder, the gun felt heavy, solid. The movement around him slowed, and then his eyes met Joan's.

    First, she would watch the others die.

    Gun at his hip, Bowden aimed at Inez Costello.

    'No,' his wife cried out.

    Inez turned, startled at the anguish in her daughter's voice. Bowden pulled the trigger.

    A red stain appeared from the shredded flesh of Inez Costello's throat.

    Bowden froze, stunned at his power. Joan's screams filled the air; one of the guards reached inside his shirt. A gentle pull of the trigger launched him backward. In a split second Bowden sprayed three more bullets. A blonde girl slumped, then the second guard. Passengers dove to the floor.

    There was no one in front of Joan.

An unearthly calm came over him. First she would watch her sister die, feel the weight of all she had done to him.

* * *

    On her hands and knees, Mary scrambled onto the metal slope of the baggage carousel.

    Shrieks of panic echoed behind her. As she crawled toward the mouth of the baggage tunnel, a bullet exploded the suitcase beside her.

    Frenzied, she reached the opening, pushing aside the luggage it expelled. Another bullet smashed the rubber flaps across it, then two more. In a panic, Mary scrambled inside.

    The belt kept carrying her backward. Twisting to face forward, she pushed against its momentum with the palms of both hands, the baggage piled behind her shoving at her feet. Through the swinging flaps she saw John Bowden aim the gun.

* * *

Alarms began shrieking. The sound made Bowden's finger twitch.

A bullet parted the rubber flap near Mary's face.

    To both sides of the carousel people ran or fell flat on the tile, hands covering their faces or curled like fetuses. Now each movement was too fast for him.

    Panicking, he turned to aim at Joan.

    She clutched Marie, gaping in terror and disbelief. Her daughter's face pressed against her leg. At their feet her mother lay in a spreading pool of blood.

    'John,' she cried out, and then the bullet shattered her jaw.

    Marie fell with her mother, looking into her ruined face. She turned away, eyes shut, doll clutched to her chest.

    Her father stared at her, gun frozen. His eyes were still and wide.

    'Stop!' a man's voice shouted.

    Bowden flinched. In an involuntary reflex, the gun jerked in his hand.

    'No . . . ,' he cried out.

    Marie's doll shattered in china pieces.

* * *

Desperate, Mary struggled to fight the moving belt. As her head cleared the rubber flaps she heard Bowden's wail of grief.

'Marie . . .'

    Staring in horror at something Mary could not see, Bowden placed the gun to his temple.

    There was a short, percussive pop, a spume of red. Bowden crumpled.

    As Mary's arms went slack, the conveyor belt expelled her with the luggage. Turning facefirst on the carousel, she passed Marie.

    Mary began sobbing.

    With a shudder, the belt stopped moving. In the terrible silence, Mary slowly raised her head.

    Around her, passengers wept, some prone, others rising to their knees. A woman, staggering past, chattered like a monkey. Police stood over Bowden's body. Near Marie a paramedic felt Inez's wrist. Beside them, Joan stared emptily at Mary. A burly man with a Minicam bent over them, filming.

    Dropping Inez Costello's wrist, the paramedic turned to Marie.

    The child lay on her back, chest stained with blood. The paramedic touched her wrist. 'Bring a stretcher,' she called out. 'This one's still alive.'

* * *

    Entering the baggage area, Inspector Charles Monk passed a team of paramedics hurrying a dark-haired child to an ambulance.

    It was rush hour. There was no heliport at SF General; the sheriff would have to block Highway 101, freezing traffic so that the ambulance could weave its way to the emergency room. Fifteen minutes, at least. Perhaps a lifetime.

    Stopping, Monk surveyed the crime scene.

    There were at least six dead—a slender woman of middle age; a plump woman of perhaps thirty; a blonde teenager sprawled backward on the carousel, arms akimbo; two clean-cut men in identical sport coats, one white, the other Hispanic; and, perhaps forty feet away, a skinny man in a T-shirt lying beside a spatter of his blood and brains.

    Nearby was the empty box of a child's Lego set. A Lexington P-2 lay beneath his outflung arm.

    Can't accomplish all this with a knife, Monk thought.

    The scene was quieter now. The emergency response team had done its work: the baggage area was sealed; the media cordoned off; crime scene investigators sifted through the debris; the police were interviewing witnesses. A cop sat with a young woman, slumped in a chair near the entrance, eyes dull with shock.

    Kneeling in front of her, Monk felt his weight, his age, the throb in his damaged knee. 'What happened here?' he asked.

    She could not form an answer. 'This is the President's family,' the cop said softly. 'The shooter was his brother-in-law.'