or if Morrison and Howard had agents following him. Probably both. He had no doubt they could see him.
Back at campaign headquarters, they’d cleaned him up as best they could before they sent him out. They gave him a fresh shirt out of a box kept inside one of the staffer’s desks. They put his suit jacket back on him, over the suicide vest. To cover the bulk, they wrapped him in one of the special oversize raincoats that the Secret Service used while they were carrying shotguns and automatic weapons in public. It made him look normal, at least at first glance.
Then they clipped an all-access pass to his coat. It had the senator’s campaign credentials stamped on it, along with a photo they’d snapped of him and printed onto the badge.
He had a trigger for the vest inside the pocket of his suit, but Howard had disconnected it—it was just a piece of plastic now. The real trigger was a code that could be sent at any time from Morrison’s or Howard’s phone.
And for leverage, they had Susan.
“Remember, Doc,” Howard told him in the car as he was dropped off. “You deviate from our instructions in any way—talk to anyone, try to warn the president, go anywhere near a cop—and you will end your girlfriend’s life, as well as your own. It will be quick for you, but not for her. Understand?”
Beck understood. He just had to decide if he could do it anyway.
He saw uniformed security at the metal detectors. They were checking everyone. Campaign staffers had to surrender their phones. Big-name donors had to put their $20,000 Rolexes and Fendi purses into little buckets and send them through the X-ray machine. Beck even saw the secretary of state being patted down. As usual, they were taking no chances when it came to the safety of the candidates.
Beck knew he could stop the plan right there. He could tell the nearest security man he had a bomb, and they would immediately take him down. With luck, it would start a panic and people would scramble to get away from him. Even if Howard detonated the vest remotely, fewer people would die out here than inside the auditorium.
And Damocles’s sniper would never have a chance to kill the president. Pierce’s twisted scheme would fail. On balance, more lives would be saved than lost.
But it would mean Susan died. Probably in the most horrible way possible. Beck didn’t fool himself about Howard or Morrison. They would do their worst, if only for revenge against him, even if he were dead.
Beck was willing to die. But he wasn’t sure he could live with sentencing Susan to torture and slow death.
The line moved forward, one agonizingly slow step at a time. The people around him were smiling like they were heading into a football game. This was the playoffs for political junkies. Pierce had been right about that, at least. She’d made the race more exciting.
Beck had to decide. Who was going to live, and who was going to die?
No one should have to make this choice, he thought desperately.
But here he was.
He was two places away from the metal detector now. He wondered if it would pick up on the wiring in the vest. Maybe he wouldn’t have to make a choice at all. If they pulled him out of the line and patted him down, would Howard trigger the bomb just to keep him from talking?
“You’re looking a little nervous there, Doc,” Howard said. “Just take a deep breath and try to enjoy it.” There was a chuckle in Beck’s ear as the agent laughed at his own little joke. Beck truly loathed the man.
Then Beck was at the metal detector.
He made his choice.
Susan, forgive me, he thought.
He turned to the man in the uniform and opened his mouth to speak.
Chapter 29
At that moment, Susan was looking at Agent Howard’s gun.
She and the agent were parked in the alleyway behind the university’s performing arts center, which was where the debate was being held. Morrison had gone off with Pierce back at campaign headquarters, while Howard had taken Beck and Susan. He didn’t even have to threaten them with the gun—one look at the vest strapped to Beck had been enough to keep them compliant.
Howard had bundled her inside the car with Beck, and then kept her as a hostage after dropping him off at the front of the building. Since then, he had been running the operation from the