principal.
President Bilton's answer continued, a low-register drone. I sneaked a glance at one of the suspended screens. The bombardment of democracy continued. 'I'm Patsy Ryan, and as an elderly person I feel great concern about rising health-care costs. President Bilton, if reelected, would you…'
I walked along the building, glancing at the cordons blocking the side doors. Behind me the viewers sitting in the quad jeered and clapped, news crews moving among them, bulky with equipment. It was an angry year, an angry election, and the voters weren't afraid to play hardball. 'I'm John Quinn, and I'd like to know what the president has to say about the sweetheart deals with war contractors-'
A muscular college girl stepped aside, leaving behind a wall of her floral perfume and clearing my view to the building. By the last side entrance, his eyes raking across the crowd, stood Reid Sever. He was about twenty yards off, behind a line of sawhorses and police officers. I hesitated for a panic-stricken moment that stretched out like a warbling piano note.
I rotated away. Caruthers's enormous figure loomed on the screen above me. He had his head bent down, a hand clamped to his cheek, intently focused as Bilton continued to string together catchphrases and slogans. From the corner of my eye, I saw Sever's face lift and freeze with sudden focus. My heart started palpitating.
I turned my head, just barely. Sever was speaking into his wrist. Looking across the quad. There was another Secret Service type-he looked like Brown-touching his earpiece. And relaying what he was hearing to the guy next to him. Alan Lambrose.
Then all three looked directly at me. I ran.
Sever hurdled the sawhorses, shouting into his wrist. Rucksack bouncing on my shoulders, I plowed into the heart of the crowd, stepping on legs, tripping over college kids. People scattered, shouting complaints until they saw Sever coming, his Glock clear of the holster. It didn't take long for the news crews to pick up the disruption. Glinting camera lenses swung over to capture me — zooming in from either side, leering from strategically parked vans, coasting overhead on a crane like Peter Pan in a bad stage production.
I made my way to the heart of the quad and turned, holding my arms wide. The energy of the crowd pulled to me, an electric charge. There were cameras everywhere, people's eyes. Could I actually bring this off? Agent Brown was on Sever's heels, as were several of Caruthers's other agents I recognized from the jogging detail and Induma's walkway. They spread out, closing in on me from all directions, pants whistling as they ran. Innumerable pistols aimed at my head. I waited for the crack of a gunshot, the kiss of jagged lead. People rose, first those nearest me, then in waves, an astonished standing ovation. I thought, at the same time, This might actually work, and, You '11 be shot.
'I'm Nick Horrigan!' I shouted. My voice wasn't thin or trembling. It was clear as a goddamned bell. 'And I don't have a weapon on me. I have-'
But Sever hammered me, wrapping me up, and then the others were there, too, frisking me. Someone ripped the rucksack off my back. There was movement all around us, a windup to a stampede. One of the agents shouted, 'He's unarmed! Unarmed/'
'What's in the rucksack?'
'Styrofoam peanuts.' The guy was dumping it as he answered.
'Nothing else? '
Black shoes stomped near my face, barely missing, as more agents jockeyed for position. I stayed perfectly still, not wanting to give them an excuse to shoot me. An iron bar of a forearm pressed across the back of my neck, grinding my cheek into the ground. Through the ankles and moving bodies, I glimpsed the post supporting the giant horn speakers.
A familiar voice: 'My question is for Senator Caruthers, and it's on behalf of someone who couldn't be here tonight. It s on behalf of Gracie Everett.'
Despite the lawn smashed to my face, I felt a blast of triumph.
I was hauled roughly to my feet. Cuffs pinched my wrists. I twisted to see the nearest giant video screen, and there Induma was, two stories high, holding the ultrasound aloft so the light streamed through it.
'Gracie would have been old enough to vote next year. But she was murdered when she was thirteen days old. Along with her mother. '
A hush passed over the quad, all faces suddenly intent on the screens. The agents around me stiffened and looked at one another, suddenly aware that their crew had been drawn out of the building. A breeze lifted a few of the Styrofoam peanuts from the grass, underscoring my ruse, that Caruthers's men had been diverted out here in pursuit of an empty rucksack, leaving no one inside to shut down the senator's surprise interrogator.
Caruthers sat frozen on the stool-one loafer on the rug, the other touching the footrest as if to keep its bearing. Those brilliant green eyes were lit with alarm. An odd quiet spread through the quad, everyone sensing that something unscripted was taking place. Heads turned, voices hushed, people pointed.
Every set of eyes focused on that black and gray film, on the eighteen-week-old curl of Gracie Everett. For a brief moment, she was the center of the universe.
Induma said, 'I have here as well the paternity test revealing that Grade's father was then-Vice President Caruthers, and a recording implicating him in the murders. '
Caruthers wilted back into his chair. The lights shone through his green eyes, his unruly hair.
'You have consistently implored us to question our leaders. To hold them accountable. You said that no man is above the law. You said that every American, no matter his post, no matter his privilege, can be faced down, called to answer. My question for you, from Gracie, is, will you answer?'
The agents' hands stayed dug into my arms, my neck, but none of us moved. We stood together, frozen, heads tilted back, taking in the spectacle playing out inside and overhead.
Caruthers rose with great dignity, set his microphone on the stool, and walked from the stage.
Chapter 49
I was held for nearly two weeks on the Mack Jackman murder while the storm brewed, Induma disseminating information from outside, agents and representatives of all stripes poking and prodding at me until it was obvious there was nothing more to get. We turned over the one hundred eighty grand, the ultrasound, the paternity report, Charlie's bone-chip analysis, and the recording of Wydell on the pitcher's mound. I'd done nothing wrong, or at least nothing that the circumstances didn't necessitate. They even opened up Frank's murder file and found nothing to raise an eyebrow at. Having a new ally in the incumbent president probably didn't hurt matters. Charges were dropped, and I was released a few weeks before the election.
Returning home, I saw that my place had been ripped apart. Carpets torn up, plumbing extracted, holes punched in the drywall. It would have been easier just to move, but I decided to stay. Rebuild. It's been a few months, and the place is now functional, but it needs some more cosmetic work. I've been told that these things take time. And, finally, I feel like I have time.
The world, needless to say, is no better for what I have done. Caruthers lost. I can't say we made him lose, but we sure made him not win. I was his October surprise. Or, more accurately, Gracie
Everett was. She lived only thirteen days, but she mattered.
I didn't vote.
The night of his acceptance speech, my old friend Andrew Bilton called to express his gratitude and tell me I was a patriot. But he's still a mediocre human and a worse president. Who would you rather have? A leader who is unthinkingly loyal to opinions you disagree with? Or one who is insincere about opinions you share? A fool or a hypocrite? Too often, it seems, these are our only options. I don't know the answer. Looking at the state of the Union, I don't even know that I'd do the same thing over again. All I know is what I did. And I've been told that what you do is the measure of a person.
A few weeks after the election, Caruthers was indicted. The connective tissue between him and the murders is thin, but his link can be lab-tested and DNA-analyzed. People were crushed. There were mournful columnists and genuinely dazed talking heads and vehement staffers, holding their devastation beneath an angry veneer of denial. There were even some tears when the news cameras found the right Man or Woman on the Street. I won't say it was like when Bobby Kennedy was shot-neither is it that time, nor is Caruthers such a man-but it was a reminder to
