blocking my view. But there was no mistaking it—Charles Danko was the image of his father.
I turned my head away and spoke into my walkie-talkie. “I found him! Joe, he’s here.”
Danko was in line to meet the vice president. My heart was beating furiously. His left hand was still in his jacket pocket. Was he holding some kind of detonator? How could he get it in here?
“I’m in the room with the Rodins. Joe, I’m looking right at him.”
Molinari said, “Stay there. I’m coming. Don’t take any chances.”
Suddenly Danko’s gaze drifted to me. I didn’t know if he’d seen me on TV as part of the investigation, or if I had “cop” written on my face. Somehow he seemed to know. Our eyes locked.
I saw him get out of the line he was standing in. He kept his eyes on me.
I took a step toward him. Opened my jacket for my gun. At least a dozen people were blocking my way. I had to get through. I lost sight of Danko for just a second. No more than that.
When the opening cleared again, Danko was no longer there.
The white rabbit was gone again.
Chapter 105
I pushed my way up to where he’d been standing seconds ago. Gone! I scanned the room. “I lost him,” I spat into the walkie-talkie. “He must’ve ducked into the crowd. Son of a bitch!” For no good reason, I was mad at myself.
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 planned this?
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 Annette Breiling for several hours, and then this revolutionary, this terrorist, this person who could shoot the vice president in cold blood, she cracked.
Annette Breiling told us everything we needed to know, and more, about the plot at the Palace of the Legion of Honor.
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
