Margaret Truman's Undiplomatic Murder Read online

  Twenty-third Street had been busy with pedestrians at the time of the blast, and they were joined by people pouring out of office buildings and other restaurants. Despite attempts to get closer to the ruins, Brixton was caught up by the throng as they fled in panic. “My daughter! My daughter!” he kept crying out as the wave of people pushed him farther away.

  He turned from the carnage and looked across the street to the crowd that had gathered there. He shook his head again and blinked rapidly to bring things into better focus. The ringing in his ears grew louder, and he cupped his hands over them in an attempt to silence it. He thought for a moment that he might pass out. But something caught his attention, and he focused on it. At first he didn’t believe what he saw. Watching the chaos was the young man wearing the Yankees cap, who’d been with the woman who’d just blown herself up and slaughtered God knows how many people. Did he have a smirk on his face? Brixton thought that he did, and an anguished cry came from him.

  A wave of nausea rose and he forced it back. That was the son—of—a bitch responsible for Janet’s death. Cold now but focused, Brixton skirted the crowd, ignoring the uniformed policemen who’d arrived on foot, and the sirens of the squads of blue-and-white-marked patrol cars converging on the scene. He chose not to cross the street and confront the bomber’s friend. Instead, he used the crowd to shield him from the young man’s view. When he was certain that he wouldn’t be noticed, he made his way across the street, bringing him to within fifty feet of the side of his target. Brixton moved behind the crowd until he was behind the young man. He had a decision to make—try to subdue him or look for a cop and point him out? A quick glance around made the decision for him. All the police were on the other side of the street trying to help the survivors.

  Brixton squirmed past people until he was within striking distance. A few people saw the bleeding wound on his face, grimaced, and moved away. He poised to wrap his arm around the young conspirator’s neck, but the man turned and a flash of recognition crossed his face. Brixton acted instinctively. His right fist landed squarely on the man’s nose, flattening it and sending him crashing into others.

  “Grab him!” Brixton hollered.

  No one did.

  The young man righted himself, turned, and pushed through the crowd, sending a woman holding a baby to the ground. Brixton stepped around them and took off after him. Someone yelled, “Stop that man!” and Brixton assumed that he was referring to the young man. Brixton’s arm was grabbed. He shook it off and continued running.

  The conspirator broke clear of the crowd and raced into an alley separating two office buildings. Brixton followed him and paused. His lungs ached, his right knee throbbed, and back spasms caused him to double over. Breathing came hard. He peered into the narrow passageway and saw the man scramble behind a large Dumpster. Brixton drew a deep breath, pulled his Swiss-made SIG SAUER P226 pistol from its holster nestled in his armpit, and slowly approached.

  “Hey,” he yelled, “I know where you are. Don’t be stupid. You screw with me and you’re dead.”

  The screeching, chaotic sounds from the restaurant where the bomb had gone off, and the incessant wail of sirens, pulsated down the alley like a computer-generated sound track run amok. The acrid smell of the bomb’s explosive elements had by now wafted over the area and stung Brixton’s eyes as he neared the Dumpster, his weapon held in both hands and aimed directly at it. “Come on, come on,” he said, closing the gap. “Don’t mess with me. I’m armed.”

  Brixton moved within a few feet of the Dumpster. He heard sounds from behind it, scraping sounds, something metal being turned over. Was the guy armed? Brixton had to assume that he was. Dizziness came and went as the pain on the side of his face intensified. He leaned against the wall of the building and twisted his neck against stiffness. “Come on, damn it, come out of there.”

  The bomber’s accomplice emerged from behind the Dumpster. Blood was smeared on his mouth and chin from where Brixton had broken his nose. Brixton trained his weapon and ordered, “Get your hands up!”

  His quarry appeared ready to do as he was told. But as he brought up his right hand, light glinted off something metal that seemed pointed at Brixton. Brixton didn’t hesitate. He squeezed off one shot that found its mark in the man’s forehead, sending him tumbling back against the Dumpster. Simultaneously, Brixton heard multiple hard footsteps behind him. He looked back. Four uniformed policemen ran into the alley, guns drawn and shouting orders. Brixton turned to face them. As he did, he realized that the weapon he held would be viewed as a threat and probably get him killed. He lowered the SIG to his side and raised his other arm.

  “Drop the gun,” one of the officers said.

  “It’s okay,” Brixton said. “I’m a U.S. agent.” He went to return his weapon to its holster, but a burly cop attacked, twisting his arm and causing the SIG to fall to the cement. A second cop pushed him against the wall and held him there, his gun inches from Brixton’s temple.

  “Take it easy,” Brixton said. “You’ve got the wrong guy. Look across the alley.”

  The cops wrestled Brixton to the ground; one sat on him and pressed the heel of his hand against his head. People who’d seen the police run into the alley followed, pressing into the narrow passageway.

  Brixton was allowed to sit up. The police attack on him, coupled with the earlier impact of the explosion caused every inch to ache. He was pulled up to his feet and slammed against the wall.

  “There, damn it!” he managed, using his thumb to point at the body.

  “What?” a cop said.

  “There,” Brixton said, this time using his whole arm to point. “The guy on the ground was with the suicide bomber.”

  Two officers went to where the lifeless body of the young man was sprawled, his Yankees hat cockeyed on his head. One of them placed a call on his radio.

  “Hey, look,” Brixton said, “I don’t feel good. I need to sit down.” He’d no sooner said it when a wave of light-headedness swamped him and he keeled over into the arms of one of the officers, who let him drop to the ground.

  “Name?” the officer said, kneeling next to him.

  “Brixton,” he managed. “Robert Brixton. State Department.” He tried to reach back to retrieve his ID from his pants pocket, but it was too painful. “My wallet,” he said. “My ID’s in it.”

  The cop pushed him on his side, pulled out the wallet, flipped it open, and read the card indicating that Brixton was an agent for SITQUAL, an outsourced division of State’s Diplomatic Security Service (DSS) apparatus. He waved over the officer in charge and showed him the card. The officer nodded. “Give it back to him,” he said. The cop shoved the wallet into a side pocket of Brixton’s suit jacket.

  A siren separated itself from the general cacophony as an ambulance entered the mouth of the alley. It arrived almost simultaneously with a second vehicle that carried members of the Metropolitan Police Department’s crime-scene investigation unit. By now the authorities had pushed many of the bystanders back into the street, but their numbers were replaced by officials examining the scene.

  Brixton’s eyes fluttered open and he tried to get up on one elbow.

  Two emergency technicians stood over him.

  “I was there,” Brixton said, his voice raspy.

  “Where?”

  “The café.”

  “What are you doing in this alley?”

  “Him.” He pointed to the young man’s body that was now surrounded by officers.

  Two ambulances inched forward, their progress hindered by the crush of people clogging the alley. Sharp orders to disperse were issued as the EMTs helped Brixton onto the gurney despite his protests that he was all right and didn’t want to go to a hospital.

  “The Dumpster,” he said to no one in particular.

  “What about it?” the EMT asked.

  “The kid, the young punk who was sitting with the gal who blew herself up. Look. He’s there. I shot him.”

  “You wh
at?”

  “I shot him. He pulled a gun on me and…”

  His voice trailed off as he was deposited in the back of the ambulance. The police officers decided that one of them should accompany him on the short ride to George Washington University Hospital on Twenty-third Street. His final thought before he passed out was of his, young, sweet, enthusiastic daughter who’d died at the hands of another young woman whose aspirations were decidedly and tragically different.

  CHAPTER

  2

  Brixton slipped in and out of consciousness as he was wheeled into an emergency room that was frantically gearing up to handle the influx of wounded victims of the suicide bombing. An EMT had applied first aid to the gashes on his temple and neck. The pain from the multiple bruises he’d suffered from the blast and having been roughhoused by the cops had lessened, but the devastating reality of his daughter’s fate now gripped his mind and gut as though a huge boa constrictor had engulfed him.

  “He’s delusional,” the EMT who’d ridden with him to the hospital told a nurse as she directed the gurney to a treatment area separated from others by a white curtain. “Keeps talking about his daughter and the guy he shot.”

  “He shot someone?”

  “Yeah. He claims he’s a government agent.”

  “What? FBI?”

  “Beats me. Something to do with the State Department. All I know is he keeps rambling on about a daughter. He says the guy he shot is the one who blew up the café.”

  The ER was chaotic as its staff scrambled to find space for the incoming victims, some groaning, some screaming hysterically.

  “I don’t need to be here,” Brixton protested in a moment of clarity to the nurse and an emergency room physician, who’d begun questioning him about his injuries. They ignored his protestation as they prepared to tend to his wounds. The police officer who’d accompanied Brixton in the ambulance took a call on his cell and entered the curtained space in which Brixton was being examined and treated. “Get him out of here,” he ordered.

  “What?”

  “You have a private exam room?” the cop asked.

  “Two, but—”

  “Take him there.”

  The doctor and nurse looked at each other before grabbing the rails on either side of the gurney and wheeling Brixton out of the main ER and to a room down the hall. The cries of the injured mingled with terse medical orders trailing behind: “Bag ’em,” meaning put a patient who’d recently arrived on a respirator. “She’s circling, circling,” the desperate words of an ER physician, shorthand for the patient circling the drain, with death close by. And “Jesus, there’s more incoming scud,” as broken, bloodied bodies continued to be wheeled into the area.

  Brixton mumbled, “Janet. I want to see Janet.”

  “Take it easy,” a doctor said.

  Brixton tried to get off the gurney.

  “Restrain him,” the doctor ordered.

  “Is she here in the hospital?” Brixton asked as they pulled straps across his legs and chest.

  “No,” the nurse said.

  “My daughter was in the café when they blew it up. Is she—?”

  “He needs a CAT scan and X-rays,” said a doctor.

  “Take these damn things off me!” Brixton growled as he strained against the straps.

  As the doctor went to arrange for the tests, Brixton looked past the nurse and uniformed officer to see Donna Salvos, his partner at SITQUAL, standing in the doorway.

  The cop still in the room challenged her. She showed him her ID, which satisfied him. She came to the side of the gurney, placed a hand on Brixton, and said, “Hey, pal, you doing okay?”

  “What are you doing here?”

  “Checking up on you. Mike got a call from the PD. They said you’d been hurt and brought here.”

  “I’m fine. My daughter, she…” He fought back tears.

  “What about your daughter, Robert?”

  “She was with me in the café when it went up.” He struggled again to sit up. “Is she here, in the hospital?”

  “I don’t know, Robert. I didn’t realize that—”

  “Go find out, huh? See if she’s here being treated.”

  “I’ll try, Robert, but there’s so much confusion and—”

  “Her name is Janet, Janet Brixton.”

  As Donna left to seek information about his daughter, two men arrived. Both wore suits and had a bureaucratic air about them. Brixton read it immediately. They were followed by two other men, one of whom wore a D.C. PD uniform with a wall of ribbons on the chest. His colleague was in civilian clothing.

  “How are you feeling, Agent Brixton?” one of the suited bureaucrats asked.

  “How do you think I feel?” Brixton said. “I just stopped in here to take a nap. How are you feeling? Somebody please check on my daughter.”

  “Your daughter?” the man asked.

  “Who are you?” said Brixton.

  He introduced himself and his partner as FBI. He turned and indicated that the two other men were from the MPD, as though Brixton hadn’t already figured that out.

  “Can somebody get these damn straps off me?”

  His plea was ignored by the FBI special agent. “You were in the café when the incident occurred?” he said.

  “Yeah, that’s right. I was there with my daughter.” His voice erupted. “Will somebody find out if she was brought in?”

  “You saw the bomber, Agent Brixton?”

  “That’s right, both of them.”

  “Both of them?”

  “Jesus,” Brixton said. “Stuff your goddamn questions.” To the nurse who’d returned: “Please, get these straps off me. I won’t try to get up.”

  She looked at the doctor, who nodded, and the straps were unbuckled. Brixton pushed himself into a sitting position and looked for Donna, then saw her standing in the doorway. “Is she here? Is she alive?” he asked her.

  “There’s no record of her, Robert, but there’s chaos. None of the casualties have been identified and—”

  “Casualty? She’s a casualty?” He asked it despite the reality having set in that, based upon his recollection of the explosion in the café and the second fiery blast from inside the restaurant, there was no way that Janet could have survived. He never would have left the scene if there was a chance that she was alive. He had to battle against allowing tears to flow.

  “How many dead?” he asked.

  “Unknown at this point. You say that there were two people involved?” the FBI agent asked.

  “That’s right. The young girl who blew herself up and the guy she was with.”

  “The young man you shot in the alley?”

  “Yeah. He came in with her to the café, bought a lemonade, drank some, and left just before the bomb went off. I saw him across the street and went after him. The bastard was smiling. I saw him and wanted to kill him, standing there gloating.”

  “And you did.”

  “What?”

  “You killed him.”

  “Because he tried to kill me.”

  “Did he say anything to you before you—?”

  “He said nothing. He tried to hide behind the Dumpster and came out carrying.”

  The agent cast a knowing glance at his partner before continuing. “You say that you were in the café with your daughter when the blast occurred?”

  Brixton didn’t respond. Thoughts of when he had tried to get her to leave, assumed she had followed him, and saw that she hadn’t, were too painful for words to get through.

  “We were leaving,” he managed to say.

  “Why didn’t she leave with you?”

  “Because—because she hung back for a few seconds to collect some things, I don’t know, something she’d brought with her. I yelled at her to get her out. God knows I tried. I had a feeling. I had a feeling.”

  “Did you get a good look at the young woman with the bomb?”

  “No. She was wearing one of those Arab getups. I saw her face o
nce. Just a kid. She looked scared.”

  “What about the young man you allege was with her?”

  “Allege?”

  “You say he came in with her but left after—what?—drinking some lemonade?”

  One of the ER doctors interrupted. “The patient has to go for X-rays and a CT.”

  “Stay with them,” the agent told his partner.

  Brixton was happy to get away from the questioning that had nettled what was already a frazzled psyche. As he was wheeled from the room, he passed beneath a TV set in the hallway that was tuned to CNN.

  “Wait a minute,” Brixton told the nurse as he heard his name come from the set.

  “The number of victims in the suicide bombing on Twenty-third Street has yet to be determined,” the anchor announced. “But CNN has learned that a State Department security agent, Robert Brixton, who was in the café at the time of the bombing and who escaped with his life, claimed that a second person was involved, a young man whom Brixton allegedly followed into a nearby alley and shot to death. According to our sources, Brixton has been taken to the hospital, where he’s undergoing treatment for his injuries. More on this as details emerge. We now go to Roberta Dougherty who is standing by at George Washington University Hospital, where most of the injured have been taken for treatment.”

  Brixton wanted to linger by the TV to hear more, but the nurse pushed the gurney down the hall and into a room where a technician took charge of the testing that had been ordered.

  * * *

  While the insides of Brixton’s body and brain were being viewed and evaluated, his ex-wife, Marylee, gasped as she heard the same CNN report in her Rockville, Maryland, home. “Oh, my God,” she said as she frantically dialed her younger daughter’s cell phone number, only to hear it ring unanswered. She hung up; Janet Brixton had a habit of letting her cell phone run out of juice or forgetting to pay her bill. Marylee next dialed her older daughter at home.

  “It’s Mom,” she said. “I just heard on TV that—”

  “I know, I know,” Jill said. “I heard it, too.”

  “Do you know where Janet is? I tried her cell but it’s not working.”

  “I talked to her this afternoon. She said she was going to meet Daddy for dinner and—”