Jack & Jill

straight lines. I made a decision and hoped it was the right one.
    When I came up again, I fired. I carefully aimed away from the little girl. But I fired.
    I went down in the crouch again, hidden behind the dark tank. I knew I hadn’t hit anybody.
    My shot had only been a warning, a final one. Andrew Klauk had been right when we’d talked in the Sterlings’ backyard. The CIA “ghost” was the one who told me all I needed to know right now—
the game is played with no rules.
    “Jeanne, put the goddamn gun down!” I called to her. “Your little girl is in danger.”
    No answer came back, just terrifying silence.
    Jeanne Sterling would do whatever it took to get away. She had murdered a president ordered it done, helped plan every step. Would Jeanne Sterling really sacrifice her own child, though? For what? For money? A cause she and her husband believed in? What cause could be worth the life of a president? Of your own child?
    Take her alive. Even if she deserves to die here in this garage. Execution-style.
    I popped up again. I fired a second shot into the car windshield—the driver’s side, far right. Glass shattered all over the garage. Glass fragments sprayed against the ceiling, then rained back down again.
    The noise was deafening in the closed space. Karon was sobbing and screeching.
    I could see Jeanne Sterling through the mosaic of broken windshield glass. There was blood all over one side of her face. She looked startled and shocked. It’s one thing to plan a murder, quite another to be shot at. To be wounded. To take a bit. To feel that deadly
thud
in your own body.
    I took three fast steps toward the Volvo station wagon.
    I grabbed the car door and yanked it open. I kept my head down low, close to my chest. My teeth were gritted so hard that they hurt.
    I grabbed a full handful of Jeanne Sterling’s blond hair. Then I hit her. I popped Jeanne with a full, hard shot. Same as her husband got. The right side of her face
crunched
as it met my fist.
    Jeanne Sterling sagged over the steering wheel. She must have had a glass jaw. Jeanne was a killer, but not much of a prizefighter. She went out with the first good punch. We had her now. I had taken her down alive.
    We finally had Jack and Jill.
    Her little girl was crying in the front seat, but she wasn’t hurt. Neither was the mother. I couldn’t have done it any easier, any other way.
We had Jack, and now we had Jill. Maybe we would hear the truth.
No—we would hear the truth!
    I grabbed the little girl and held her tight against me. I wanted to erase all this for her. I didn’t want her to remember it. I kept repeating, “It’s all right, it’s all right. Everything is all right.”
    It wasn’t, though. I doubted it ever would be again. Not for the Sterling children, not for my own kids. Not for any of us.
    There are no rules anymore.

CHAPTER
111

    THE NIGHT of the capture of Jeanne and Brett Sterling, the television networks were filled with the powerful, highly disturbing story. I did a brief interview with CNN, but mostly I declined the attention. I went home and stayed there.
    President Edward Mahoney delivered a statement at nine.
Jack and Jill had wanted Edward Mahoney to be president,
I couldn’t help thinking as I watched him address hundreds of millions of people around the world. Maybe he was involved with the shooting; maybe not. But someone had wanted him to be president instead of Thomas Byrnes, and Byrnes had distrusted Mahoney.
    All I knew about Mahoney was that he and two Cuban partners had made a fortune in the cable business. Mahoney had then become a popular governor of Florida. I remembered that there had been a lot of money behind his campaign.
Look for the money.
    I watched the dramatic three-ring TV circus along with Nana and the kids. Damon and Janelle knew too much to be excluded from the big picture now. From their perspective, their daddy was a hero. I was someone to be proud of, and maybe even listen to and obey every now and again. But probably not.
    Jannie and Rosie the cat cuddled with me on the couch as we watched the nonstop parade of news features on the assassination and the subsequent capture of the real Jack and Jill. Every time I appeared in a film sequence, Jannie gave me a kiss on the cheek. “You approve of your pop?” I asked her after one of her best, loudest smackers.
    “Yes, very much so,” Jannie told me. “I
love
seeing you on TV. So does Rosie. You’re handsome, and you talk real