In Danger of Judgment: A Thriller, page 33
Twelve.
“Well executed, John,” Thornton said. “You anticipated the problem and created a diversion.”
“I’ve also eliminated the element of choice.”
Thornton shook his head. “No, you haven’t. Not by a long shot.”
Bernie was just now standing up, finally grasping what had happened. “You did it, John. Let’s—”
“Sit down, Bernie.”
“John, we can go now.”
“I said sit down.”
John’s voice was perfectly cold, colder than any voice Bernie had ever heard, and it made him recall what Thornton had said: the flattest, most impassive response of anyone we’ve ever tested.
Bernie sat down.
That conversation seemed to amuse Thornton ever so slightly. “It’s interesting how things work out,” he said. “Edward realized I had taught him a good trade, and he continued to ply it, quite successfully from what I’m told. But not you. No, you turned your back on your considerable skills—and for what? You could have earned a good living in private enterprise, but instead you went to work for the government, doing good for a pittance. What drove you, John? Survivor guilt?”
“I’ll address that with a higher authority than you.”
“Indeed, you will, but the question remains: how does it feel to be operational again?”
“It all came back to me.”
“Until recently I would have agreed, but now I’m not so sure.”
“Some flaw in my performance?”
“Hardly.”
“Then what is it?”
“You could have killed me without risk at any time in the last two minutes, but you haven’t.”
“I didn’t have any trouble with your men.”
“Of course not. You knew they would have killed you, had you not killed them. And the same was true in Vietnam—you were a soldier fighting a war. But now you face a man who poses no threat, and you hesitate.”
“You once told me I was born to kill people.”
“I remember it well.”
“Then why do you doubt it now?”
Thornton paused just long enough to give his words their maximum effect.
“Why didn’t you kill the woman?”
John’s hands trembled, just an infinitesimal movement, but Thornton didn’t miss it because he never missed anything. He locked his eyes on John’s and pitched his voice low.
“I know you, John, even better than you know yourself, but there’s always been one thing about you I didn’t know: do you have it in you to cross that last line?”
Bernie had been watching in rapt fascination, transfixed by the interplay between these men. They were in a different world, operating at a level he couldn’t even begin to understand.
But he couldn’t just sit there and let John commit murder.
“Listen to me, John,” Bernie said. “Just listen. You were born with an ability. You didn’t ask for it, you didn’t have a choice in that, but you’ve got a choice now. You can either control the ability or you can let it control you, and if it controls you now, it’ll control you forever.”
No response.
Bernie swallowed, trying to think of something else he could say.
“Let him go, John. Do it for me. Do it for your friend.”
Bernie couldn’t tell whether John had even heard him. The two men were completely still, as though they’d been flash-frozen at a pivotal point in time when the slightest motion might destroy them. Bernie looked from one to the other, finally settling on John’s hands.
And then gradually, almost imperceptibly, he thought he saw John loosen his grip on the pistol.
A moment later, John’s arms dropped to his sides. He pressed the safety up, opened his hand, and let the pistol fall to the floor.
“I was not born to kill people,” he said.
Chapter 61
Saturday, May 23, 1987
2:58 a.m.
A motorist driving southbound on Route 31 heard what sounded like an explosion coming from the old Lowell property. At the first opportunity, he stopped at a payphone and dialed the operator, who transferred him to the Diamond Lake Fire Department.
Diamond Lake FD dispatched fire engines and ambulances and called the McHenry County Sheriff’s Office. In accordance with a protocol established several weeks earlier in connection with the Quan matter, the Sheriff’s Office notified Chicago PD, which called the officer in charge of the Quan investigation, Commander Michael Kozinski.
Mike looked at his clock and cursed.
He sat on the edge of his bed, trying to wake up and figure out what to do next. He telephoned Bernie but got no answer, so he called CPD and asked them to send a car to Bernie’s apartment.
They called back just as Mike finished dressing. The two officers dispatched to Detective Bernardelli’s apartment received no response when they rang his bell. They proceeded to wake up the building’s supervisor, who unlocked the door and let them in, but the apartment was vacant. They also reported finding a duffel bag containing a .45 caliber pistol, a large quantity of ammunition, plastic explosives, and what looked like homemade detonation devices. The bag was olive drab, appeared to be military in origin, and bore a label that read, “SHEPARD, J.”
Mike’s wife asked, “Is it bad?”
“It’s bad,” Mike said.
“Do you want some breakfast?”
“Thanks, honey, but I’ll pick something up.”
Mike had taken plenty of calls like this one, and he knew what he needed to do. He stopped at a diner, got some sandwiches, and filled two Thermos bottles with coffee.
Chapter 62
Saturday, May 23, 1987
3:04 a.m.
Bernie heard sirens in the distance, getting louder by the second. In minutes, this place would be bedlam. For now, though, he was sitting with his head in his hands, savoring the knowledge that he’d escaped his second brush with death in less than forty-eight hours.
When he finally looked up again, the other two men were still in place, still glaring at each other, the pistol still on the floor at John’s feet. Neither one had moved a millimeter, and Bernie realized: They just can’t let it go.
He stood up and cleared his throat. “C’mon, John, let’s take this asshole and leave.”
That seemed to snap him out of it. John nodded, turned around, and began walking toward the door.
And the instant he turned, Thornton reached inside his coat. He pulled out a .45, clicked the thumb safety down and began bringing the front sight down on John’s back.
Before Bernie could draw a breath, John spun around and in the same motion grabbed the blade end of Thornton’s letter opener. He locked his wrist, cocked his arm back and released it. The blade slid out of his hand, flipped a half-revolution, and skewered Thornton’s throat to the back of his chair.
He didn’t have a chance to give his critique. He was too surprised, and then he was too dead.
Bernie just stared, too stunned to say anything.
The other man in the room spoke one word.
“Thirteen,” said John Shepard.
Chapter 63
Saturday, May 23, 1987
6:05 a.m.
Bernie sat on the trunk of a CPD cruiser, drinking coffee from one of Mike’s Thermos bottles. He couldn’t make sense of what was going on, not only because his brain was sluggish but also because the scene itself was surreal.
The fire engines had arrived first, followed closely by ambulances and squad cars. Most of the vehicles were from Diamond Lake and McHenry County, some were CPD, and a few were Illinois State Police. The last car to roll in was an unmarked, black, late-model sedan, from which a man in a suit emerged. By then, the entire area in front of the mansion was full, and they finally closed the gate.
One of the fire department paramedics cleaned out John’s wound, bandaged it, and made John promise he’d get a ride to the nearest hospital for stitches and a shot of antibiotic. Meanwhile, Bernie watched the man from the late-model sedan speak with Mike for a few minutes, following which the two of them huddled with the other officers and fire department personnel. When the huddle broke up, they all dispersed in different directions. No one took notes or photographs or diagrammed the locations where bodies were found. They looked like they were in a hurry to find the bodies and clean up the mess, and didn’t much care about anything else.
“You sure you’re okay?” Mike asked him for the second time.
“Yeah, I’m fine,” Bernie said. “I didn’t do a thing but sit there. John took care of it all by himself.”
Mike spat on the ground. “Hard to believe.”
“I wouldn’t have believed it either, if I hadn’t seen it. Have they checked John’s apartment?”
“They checked. The woman was gone.”
Bernie drank some more coffee and stretched. “I’m more tired than I’ve ever been in my life. Can I give you my report on Monday?”
Mike looked away. “You don’t need to.”
“What do you mean, I don’t need to? I’ve got to—”
“No, you don’t,” Mike said. “You don’t need to do a damn thing. No reports, no conversations, no nothing. I want every piece of paper you have on this case, and then I want you to forget it ever happened.”
“What’s going on, Mike?”
“It’s the feds. They’re putting a lid on it, as in hermetically sealed.” At that moment, they came across another body—the second roving sentry—and Mike walked off to observe.
Twenty yards to Bernie’s left, John stood with the man from the late-model sedan, engaged in what appeared to be a one-sided conversation—the man did most of the talking, and John just nodded politely and spoke sporadically. The longer it went on, the more agitated the man became, and then John said something and the man threw up his hands and stalked away. John looked around and, seeing Bernie, ambled over and sat down next to him.
“Who was that?” Bernie asked.
“FBI.”
“He looked mad.”
“He was.”
“What did he want?”
“He wanted to know what happened.”
“What did you tell him?”
“I told him the Department of Defense would answer all of his questions in due course.”
“Will it?”
“No,” John said. “As a matter of fact, it will not.”
Bernie nodded. Hermetically sealed, all right.
“What happens now?” Bernie said.
“Defense has informed Justice that this case concerns a national security matter. Justice will fabricate a cover story and issue instructions to local law enforcement. A few days from now, you won’t be able to prove what happened here.”
“And that’s how it ends?”
“That’s how it ends.”
They sat there a while longer, silently watching the chaos. At length, Bernie turned and looked down at the man beside him.
“What about you, John? What do you do now?”
John stared straight ahead as he answered.
“I guess I’ll be a fucking accountant,” he said.
Chapter 64
Sunday, May 24, 1987
8:12 a.m.
By the time John got to Marcelle’s hospital room, Bernie was already there, he and Marcelle huddled together and speaking in low voices. When John walked in, they stopped and looked up. Marcelle said, “Hey, John.”
“Hello, Marcelle. You don’t look as bad as you did the last time I saw you.”
“Wow. You really know to flatter a woman.”
“Thank you,” John said.
She sighed and turned back to Bernie. “I’d like to talk to John for a second.”
“So talk.”
“Alone,” she said.
Bernie walked out and shut the door behind him.
Marcelle got right to the point. “Bernie told me the whole story about you.”
“It’s dangerous knowledge to have.”
“I know that. You don’t need to worry.”
John said, “I’m sorry I lied to you, Marcelle.”
“I understand your reasons, and all is forgiven. But since I’ve got you in a remorseful mood, I was hoping I could ask you a personal question.”
“I’ll tell you whatever you want to know.”
Marcelle hesitated, unsure how he’d take it, but finally worked up the nerve to ask.
“Before they selected you for that operation,” she said, “did you have any idea you had the abilities you have?”
John shook his head. “None of us did. But Thornton told us we had unmanifested abilities buried inside us, that he’d unlock them, teach us how to use them, and make us powerful. I’d always been the small one, you know, the weird one, the one nobody ever wanted on their team, but here was Thornton telling me he wanted to put me on a team and make me powerful. And so, I agreed to join the operation, but I didn’t realize it came with a price.”
“What do you mean?”
John bowed his head for a moment, then raised it again. “The price I paid was learning I have a skill that most people find repulsive, that would make them fear me and hate me if they found out about it. I told myself I couldn’t let that happen, and that’s one reason I’m so solitary. If people knew what I did and what I’m capable of, they’d shun me even more than they do already.”
“Bernie and I won’t shun you,” Marcelle said.
“Most people aren’t like you and Bernie. Most people would only see a monster.”
John looked like he was gearing up to say something else, so Marcelle just waited.
“There’s something I want to tell you,” he said, “and it’s important to me that you believe me.”
“I will.”
“I never enjoyed it. Not in Vietnam, not this past week, not ever. It never made me feel good.”
“How did it make you feel?”
John considered it before he responded.
“Like I was doing my job. I guess that’s it, really. I just felt like I was doing my job.”
* * *
Bernie followed John back to John’s apartment, and when they got out of their cars, Bernie handed over John’s duffel bag. “The folks at Area Six were very impressed by your stuff, but I think you’ll find it’s all still there.”
“Thank you,” John said.
They walked up to John’s apartment, and for the next hour, Bernie watched John pack. When Bernie packed for a trip, he stuffed everything in a suitcase and then mashed it down until he could close it. John, though, was the most meticulous packer Bernie had ever seen. He put everything on his bed, arranged by category and stacked in neat piles, and after placing them in his luggage, he still had room to spare.
They carried the bags downstairs. After John put them in his trunk, he faced Bernie.
“I wish I could tell you how sorry I am—”
Bernie put his hand up. “Don’t get all maudlin on me. I have a feeling you’ll be back.”
“I just want to say one thing.”
“Okay,” Bernie said.
“When I was growing up, I never had any friends, and then I went to Vietnam and I had some friends, and then they were gone and I had no more friends.”
John stopped and looked Bernie in the eyes.
“Are you my friend, Bernie?”
Bernie held his hand out, and John clasped it. “I sure am, John. I’ll always be your friend.”
John got in his car and shut the door, but before he could put his key in the ignition, Bernie bent down and spoke to him through the open window. “There’s just one thing I don’t understand.”
“What’s that?” John said.
“It must have occurred to you that Thornton might have a gun, but you didn’t pick up your pistol and check him before you turned around.”
For the first time since they met each other, Bernie saw John smile.
Acknowledgements
I am deeply grateful to the many people who helped me with this book. Dr. Dennis Lindenbaum, neuropsychologist and shooter extraordinaire, gave me invaluable help with the psychology aspects of the story, and did yeoman’s service by writing John’s psychological evaluation. I hope you clean the Xs, pal.
Susie, Sam, and Gene humored me and listened patiently for years as I blathered on about this book. Don Loft and Alan Perry assured me—with straight faces, no less—that I was on the right track and ought to keep going; I don’t know whether they were right, but I do know I wouldn’t have gotten this far without their feedback and encouragement. Lt. Mike Casey, Sgt. Brian Forberg, and Sgt. John Foster of the Chicago Police Department generously shared their knowledge and reminiscences with me. My editor, Emily Murdock Baker, handled my manuscript with just the right balance of objectivity and tact. Maj. Gregory Sidwell, USA, Ret., and Capt. Ralph Kuhnert, USA, Ret., kept me straight on many of the Army details. My valiant beta readers—Hans de Kok, Don Loft, Jessica Pardi, Alan Perry, Sam Rabin, Richard Reinhart, Alexia Roney, and Tom Suswal—rolled up their sleeves, put the manuscript under a microscope, and provided tons of good suggestions.
