Part 35 (1/2)
Our waitress, Betsy, was directly in the line of fire.
I stole a peek at Valerie's sungla.s.ses now folded on the table, the lenses angled up toward my face.
The only question was whether or not Karcher had noticed, too.
Asked and answered.
Karcher's eyes lit up as he glanced at me. He saw it. Or, rather, he didn't see it. The red dot on me from the laser sight was gone, blocked by the- ”Now!” yelled Valerie.
She had Karcher in no-man's-land, his hand swinging. For a fraction of a second, he was undecided where to aim his gun.
A h.e.l.l of a lot can happen in a fraction of a second.
Valerie lunged for Karcher as I sprang from my chair, the sound of Crespin in my ear, still sprinting, matching the pounding of my heart.
Betsy had no idea what was happening; she immediately jumped back based on nothing but reflex and fear of the unknown. I was heading right for her, no stopping, the M on her ap.r.o.n the target of my dive.
I could feel the wind being knocked out of her as I tackled her to the ground, the crack of a rifle shot from only-G.o.d-knows-where splitting the air above us. But nothing more.
Small comfort. Oswald's first shot in Dealey Plaza missed, too.
I turned my head, looking up to see Valerie still struggling with Karcher, each with a hand on the other's gun. He outweighed her by nearly a hundred pounds, but she'd gotten to her feet first and had the leverage. For how long, though?
”Stay down!” I barked at Betsy, as if there were a chance in the world she was about to get up.
No, that was my job now.
Palms down, I began to push off the ground, my eyes trained on Karcher. His face and neck were a mishmash of muscle and tendon straining for all the strength he had. Slowly, his gun was moving back toward Valerie. She had about six inches to live.
That was when I saw it. The only thing that could make things worse. And only one word came to mind to warn her.
”Red!” I yelled.
I don't know what came next, what I heard or what I saw. But Valerie knew what I meant and knew her geometry, and as the second shot echoed in my ears I saw her step back and take Karcher with her, the dot jumping from her back ...
To his.
The only red now was blood. Lots and lots of it. Karcher fell to the ground faceup and only inches from Betsy, who shrieked in horror as she caught sight of the gaping hole in his barrel chest from the exit wound.
”Drop it! Drop your weapon right now!”
Valerie and I turned to each other and then up to the rooftop down the street. It was Crespin in our ears. He was done running. I don't know if G.o.d actually knew where the shots were coming from. But now Crespin did. He'd reached Karcher's sniper.
”I got him ... it's over,” he said, catching his breath. ”It's over.”
Of course, if that were only true ...
BOOK FIVE.
TRUTH OR DIE.
CHAPTER 104.
FRANK KARCHER had been the master of making all sorts of things disappear. People. Problems. His moral compa.s.s. But the one thing he couldn't cover up was his own death.
Instead, others were going to do it for him. At least, that was the way it was playing out.
There were a dozen witnesses to what happened outside the Mallard Cafe, and they all knew what they'd seen. When the police arrived and a couple of detectives fanned out to ask what had happened, each and every one had an answer.
But none of them knew why it had happened. Same for every news outlet that rushed to the scene. Karcher's death was the stuff of headlines and lead stories, but the whole truth hadn't gone public yet.
The question now was whether it ever would.
”I feel like a kid waiting outside the princ.i.p.al's office,” I said.
Valerie leaned forward, glancing at the closed door to our right. ”Yeah, and your parents are already in there having the adults-only talk, right?”
”Exactly.”
She nodded. ”Par for the course, I'm afraid. The only way to know your worth in this town is the level of cla.s.sified info you're allowed to hear. The whole loaf or just a slice.”
”Or in my case, only a few crumbs,” I said.
”Hey, I'm not in there, either. That makes us both a couple of muzjiks,” she said.
”Muz-whats?”
”Peasants. The word for Russian peasants, actually.”
”Of course.”
”Also, one of the highest-scoring words in Scrabble.”
”Now you're just showing off,” I said.
”Scrabble was big in our house growing up. My father played it every Sunday with my sister and me to build our vocabularies,” she said. ”That's one reason why I know the word.”
”Muzjiks, huh?”