Conspiracy

McSweeney gurgled something. One of the nurses jumped over, checking the monitors.

“Where am I?” muttered the senator.

“You’re at the hospital,” said Jimmy Fingers.

“What the hell are you doing here?” McSweeney asked.

“What am I doing?” Jimmy Fingers felt his anger rise.

“I’m watching out for you, the way I always do.” McSweeney shook his head.

I ought to kill you right now and be done with it, thought Jimmy Fingers.

Two large men in suits, obviously members of the Secret Service, parted the curtains at the front of the room.

“You’re Fahey?” one asked.

“I am,” said Jimmy Fingers. “What’s up?”

“The President is on his way.”

“What the hell is he doing here?” said Jimmy Fingers.

The agent couldn’t have looked more shocked if Jimmy Fingers had turned into a butterfly.

“We don’t want the President here,” said Jimmy Fingers.

“What are you saying, Jimmy?” asked McSweeney.

“Senator, the President is on his way,” said the Secret Service agent. “One of the chief of staff’s assistants should be here momentarily. The President will be along right after that.”

“We don’t want him here, Gideon,” Jimmy Fingers told the senator. “He’s using this for political gain.”

“The President can go anywhere he wants,” said McSweeney. “I’m touched that he’s concerned.”

“He’s not concerned,” snapped Jimmy Fingers. “Not about you. This is all part of some setup.”

“My God, Jimmy, give it a rest. Let the President come if he wants. I’m dying here.”

* * *

The president’s chief of staff had located the head of the surgical team that had operated on McSweeney. The doctor and two of his assistants were standing in a small waiting area just outside the recovery room.

“Mr. President, this is an honor,” said the surgeon. “I wish it were under different circumstances.”

“How’s your patient?”

“Doing very well, considering the circumstances,” said the doctor. “He’s conscious. Some of his people are with him.”

“Can I speak with him?”

“By all means.”

They started walking down the hall. Dean stayed close to the President, buttressed by two burly Secret Service agents.

There were armed federal marshals on both ends of the hall, and all the rooms in between had been vacated.

“Charlie, can you talk?” asked Rubens in his ear.

Dean took a few steps away and pulled out his sat phone, pretending to use it.

“Dean.”

“There’s a possibility that the person who set up the assassination on McSweeney was a member of his staff,” said Rubens. “It may have been his aide, James Fahey, also known as Jimmy Fingers. We’re in the pro cess of informing the Secret Service right now. Fahey may be at the hospital. If so, it would be a good idea to apprehend him there now. He needs to be questioned.”

“All right,” said Dean, noticing that the President was heading into the recovery room.

* * *

Jimmy Fingers had always prided himself on his ability to keep cool under difficult circumstances, but this moment was more trying than most. It wasn’t bad enough that Marcke had ended McSweeney’s career; now he was going to rub it in by using the assassination attempt to bolster his own image.

It was almost too much to handle. It was too much to handle, but Jimmy Fingers couldn’t do anything about it. He was trapped in the room as the President came in, surrounded by his bodyguards and aides.

Damn all these bastards, thought Jimmy Fingers. Damn them all.

* * *

Dean pulled aside Freehan, the Secret Service agent in charge of the presidential detail.

“Which one of these guys is James Fahey?” Dean asked.

“The senator’s aide?”

“We have to talk to him.”

“What?” Freehan put his hand to his ear, listening to a message. Then he looked back at Dean. “You sure about this, Dean?”

“Yeah.”

The Secret Service agent turned abruptly and strode into the recovery room. Dean followed. A short, wiry man stood near the senator’s bedside, glaring at the President, who was just bending over at the right side of the bed.

“Down!” shouted Freehan.

* * *

Jimmy Fingers realized the moment he saw the Secret Service agent’s glower that they had figured it all out.

Somehow, they had figured it all out.

And then they were rushing at him, and he did the only thing he could do under the circumstances — he pulled his pistol from his pocket.

* * *

Charlie Dean saw Jimmy Fingers start to pull something from his pocket. He launched himself at the man, flying through the air like a guided missile.

Something cracked below Dean about midway across the room, but he continued onward, elbow and forearm up. He caught Jimmy Fingers in the neck and they fell back toward the wall. There were two more loud cracks, and Dean felt incredible pain.

He flailed, unable for some reason to form his fingers into fists, unable to kick with his legs or do anything else but grind his upper body into the other man’s. There were shouts all around him, and another crack. Jimmy Fingers pushed up, and then his face exploded, a few inches from Dean’s.

“He’s down!”

“Go!”

“Go!”

“Dean? Dean?… Dean?”

* * *

The pain was so intense that it was impossible to tell exactly where it came from. It surged like a tsunami over Dean, pushing him beneath itself. Then suddenly he lifted free, spinning in a slow circle in the middle of the room.

Everyone was watching.

Not the Secret Service agents. Not the President. Not the senator or his aide. But everyone else.

Everyone. People he hadn’t seen in thirty years, back in the Marine Corps. His first business partner. Sal, the gas station own er who’d given him his first job.

Longbow stood silently next to him, his bolt gun over his shoulder.

“I missed you, Charlie,” said Longbow.

Dean couldn’t answer. The room filled quickly. He didn’t recognize many of the faces. Phuc Dinh was there — or rather, the man Dean had killed thinking he was Phuc Dinh.

Oh, thought Dean. Oh.