clearing the way respectfully and carefully. It was more stagecraft. Nobody here would do anything against her. They were all vetted beforehand to get a seat at the debate.
Beck was the only truly dangerous man in the room.
Pierce drew even with Beck in the crowd now. She turned and saw him. They locked eyes. And Pierce gave him a radiant politician’s smile. She looked happy.
Because she was going to get away with it. Beck could see that, almost written on her face.
She was barely five feet away from him. If the trigger in his pocket actually worked, he’d be tempted to squeeze it.
He reached into his pocket, and found not the trigger, but the handcuffs that Howard had used on him that morning. It seemed a million years ago to him now.
Useless. Just like him.
Beck was still sweating. His head throbbed, and his pulse pounded behind his ears.
He took a deep breath. This would be the absolute worst time for one of his episodes. But all this stress, the sudden spike in his blood pressure, the adrenaline. All of that, on top of his exhaustion and the punishment he’d already taken today…it would make sense if his body couldn’t take any more, if the pressure inside his skull was too great.
It would make sense.
Beck began gasping for air.
The people closest to him in the crowd looked at him.
“You okay?” a young man who looked barely out of high school asked him. He looked like a kid wearing his dad’s jacket and tie.
“I’m fine,” Beck choked out, and bent over, hyperventilating now.
Other people began to notice. Including Howard, who spoke through the radio.
“What’s going on, Beck?” he said, a warning in his tone. “You’d better pull it together.”
Beck didn’t answer, just kept breathing hard.
“Sir, are you all right?” someone else asked. “Do you need help?”
“Someone get a doctor. Is anyone here a doctor?”
Beck would have laughed at that if he could.
“I’m fine,” he said again. It came out in a wheeze. Beck sounded weak even to his own ears.
Howard’s voice spoke in the radio again. “What the hell are you doing?”
“Can’t breathe,” he said. He stumbled to one side and bumped into several people. “My head—”
Now people were beginning to grab for him, trying to keep him upright. Pierce was stuck in the crowd as everyone froze in place, wondering what was going on.
Now Pierce’s protective detail was moving away from her, and toward Beck.
“We need a doctor over here!” someone shouted. “Call 911!”
“Get yourself together, Beck,” Howard snapped. “Do I have to remind you—”
Whatever he was going to say next was lost in the shouts of the crowd as Beck fell forward and lay facedown on the carpet.
Chapter 34
“Get up, Beck! Get up!” Howard screamed into his mike.
“That won’t work,” Susan told him. “You can’t bully a cancer patient into getting up. He needs medical attention.”
Howard turned to her and snarled, “Shut up or I will shut you up.”
He turned back to the console, his eyes searching the screens, listening to the multiple radio channels, where chaos reigned.
But for all that data, he still had no idea what was happening right in front of his eyes.
“What’s going on?” the driver asked from the front seat. “Should I call Morrison?”
“Shut the hell up and let me think!” Howard shouted back. He was unraveling right in front of Susan’s eyes.
The sound of a 911 dispatcher suddenly broke through one of the speakers: “We’ve got a call for a paramedic at the Georgetown University debate. Is the Secret Service aware of the problem? Do they require assistance?”
Howard pressed a button on his console and switched channels. Then, in a surprisingly calm voice, he said, “Metro Dispatch, this is Secret Service. We are aware of the problem and have a medical unit onsite. We have no need for assistance.”
“Are you sure?” the dispatcher asked. “We have a unit on the way.”
In a slightly tighter voice, Howard answered, “We have it under control, Metro Dispatch. Please let us do our job, and you do yours.”
There was a pause. Then: “Copy that, Secret Service. Call if you need help.”
The dispatcher broke the connection.
“You have to get him help,” Susan said. “He needs an ambulance. He could be bleeding into his brain, he could be going into cardiac arrest—”
Howard pointed his gun at her and cocked the hammer back.
“Not. Another. Word,” he said, biting off every syllable. Then he switched the channel on his console again.
An urgent voice broke through all the other chatter. It was the