trigger. Every muscle in my body tenses. My eyes narrow. The chandelier sways.
“Say good night, Larry,” I say. Holding the gun at arm’s length, I use both hands to steady it. I sight along the barrel. There he is. For the first time, he loses the grin. His mouth gapes open. My finger twitches against the trigger. But the harder I pull… the more my hand shakes… and the more I realize… I can’t. Slowly, I lower the gun.
Lamb lets out a deep cackle that rips through me. “That’s why we picked you,” he taunts. “Forever the Boy Scout.”
That’s all I need to hear. Lost in adrenaline, I raise the gun. My hands are still shaking, but this time, I pull the trigger.
The gun hiccups with a hollow little click. I squeeze it again, hard. Click. Empty. I can’t believe it’s empty!
Lamb laughs, low and then louder. Crawling toward the railing, he adds, “Even when you try, you can do no wrong.”
Enraged, I hurl the empty gun at him. He lowers his shoulder at the last second, and the gun just misses, skipping across the stained glass like a flat rock across a wide pond. Slamming into the recessed glass casing, it eventually lands on the far side of the enormous mosaic. Lamb’s sick giggle is replaying in my head. It’s all I hear. And then… there’s something else.
It starts where the gun first hit the glass floor. A small pop-like an ice cube dropped into warm soda. Then it gets louder, more sustained. A slowly growing crack on a windshield.
Lamb looks over his shoulder. We both see it at the same time-a fracture moving like lightning across the wide panels of glass.
The whole moment plays in slow motion. Almost sentient in its movement, the crack zigzags from the gun toward Lamb, who’s still at the center of the rosette. Panicking, he scrambles toward the railing. Behind him, the first piece of glass shatters and falls away. Then another. Then another. The weight of the chandelier does the rest. Like a giant glass sinkhole, the center of the mosaic crumbles. The chandelier plummets into the Indian Treaty Room. Piece by piece, thousands of shards follow. As the shock wave widens from ground zero, Lamb scrambles to avoid the undertow. He reaches up and begs me to help him.
“Please, Michael… ”
It’s too late. There’s nothing I can do, and both of us know it. Below us, the chandelier hits the floor with a wrenching crash.
Once again, our eyes meet. Lamb’s not laughing anymore. This time, his eyes are filled with tears. The glass rains down. His floor disappears. And gravity grabs him by the legs. Sucked down into the ever-widening hole, he still struggles to claw his way up. But you can’t avoid the epicenter.
“Miiiaaaaaeeeeeee-” he screams the entire way down.
Then he meets the chandelier. The crunching sound alone will give me nightmares for years.
As the last shards fall, a high-pitched alarm screams out of the Indian Treaty Room. I lean forward over the railing. The stained glass is almost completely gone, leaving a gaping hole. It’ll take forever to fill. On the floor below, amid the shattered glass, are the broken remains of the man responsible. For Caroline. For Vaughn. And most of all, for Nora.
Behind me, I hear a soft moan. Spinning around, I rush to her side and drop to my knees. “Nora, are you… ”
“I–I-Is he gone?” she whispers, barely able to get the words out. She shouldn’t be conscious. Her voice gurgles with blood.
“Yeah,” I say, once again fighting back tears. “He’s gone. You’re safe.”
She fights to smile, but it’s too much of a strain. Her chest convulses. She’s fading fast. “M-M- Michael…?”
“I’m here,” I tell her, gently lifting her in my arms. “I’m right here, Nora.”
The tears roll down my face. She knows this is it. Her head sags and she slowly gives in. “P-P-Please…,” she coughs. “Please, Michael… don’t tell my dad.”
I take a sharp gulp of air to keep myself together. Nodding vigorously, I pull her close to my chest, but her arms just dangle behind her. Her eyes begin to roll back in her head. Tailspinning, I furiously brush her hair from her face. There’s a final twitch in her torso-and then-she’s gone.
“No!” I shout.
Her head slumps against my arm and a rasping, ghostly wheeze releases the final air from her lungs. With the lightest touch I can muster, I carefully close her eyes. It’s finally over. Self-destruction complete.
CHAPTER 40
They don’t let me out of the Sit Room until a quarter past midnight, when the empty halls of the OEOB are nothing more than a bureaucratic ghost town. In some ways, I think they planned it on purpose-this way, no one’s around to ask questions. Or gossip. Or point at me and whisper,
I lower my head and shut my eyes, trying to pretend it never happened. But it did.
As I make my way back to my office, there’re two sets of shoes echoing through the cavernous hallway: mine, and those of the Secret Service agent directly behind me. They may have patched up my shoulder, but when we reach Room 170, my hand still shakes as I open the door. Watching me carefully, he follows me inside. In the anteroom, I flip on the lights and once again face the silence. It’s too late for anyone to be here. Pam, Julian-they both left hours ago. When it was still light out.
I’m not surprised that the place is empty, but I have to admit I was hoping someone would be here. As it is, though, I’m on my own. It’s going to be like that for a while. Opening the door to my office, I try to tell myself otherwise, but in a place like the White House, there aren’t many people who’ll-
“Where the hell’ve you been?” Trey asks, bounding off my vinyl sofa. “Are you okay? Did you get a lawyer? I heard you didn’t have one, so I called my sister’s brother-in-law, Jimmy, who put me in touch with this guy Richie Rubin, who said he’d-”
“It’s okay, Trey. I don’t need a lawyer.”
He looks up at the Secret Service agent who just stepped in behind me. “You sure about that?”
I shoot a look to the agent. “Do you think we can… ”
“I’m sorry, sir. My orders are to wait until you’re-”
“Listen, I’m just looking for a few minutes with my friend. That’s all I ask. Please.”
He studies both of us. Eventually, he says, “I’ll be out here if you need me.” He heads back to the anteroom, closing the door as he leaves.
When he’s gone, I expect another onslaught of questions. Instead, Trey stays quiet.
On the windowsill, I glance at the toaster. Nora’s name is gone. I stare down at the remaining digital green letters, almost as if it’s a mistake. Praying it’s a mistake. Slowly, each line of glowing letters seems to stare back- blinking, blazing-their flickering more pronounced now that it’s dark. So dark. Oh, Nora… My legs give way, and I lean back on the corner of my desk.
“I’m sorry, Michael,” Trey offers.
I can barely stand.
“If it makes you feel any better,” he adds, “Nora wouldn’t have… It wouldn’t have been a good life. Not after this.”
I shake my head unresponsively. “Yeah. Right.” With a deep swallow, it once again all goes numb.
“If there’s anything I can… ”
I nod a thank-you and search for control. “You heard that Lamb… ”
“All I know is he died,” Trey says. “It’s all over the news, but no one has the hows and whys-FBI scheduled the briefing for first thing tomorrow.” He’s about to say something else, but his voice trails off. I’m not surprised. He’s too connected to be in the dark. He knows what the rumors are; he just doesn’t want to ask. I stare at him
