Ace in the Hole Page 0,162

He was going to die. After all he'd lived through, he was going to fucking die! Again.

Spector fought through his panic and locked eyes with the hunchback. He channeled his pain and terror through his eyes and into the man who'd killed him. The world began to shake and blur. Spector felt the darkness closing in and tried to push it all into the hunchback. A familiar fear crept into Spector. He felt very alone.

The darkness was complete.

Mackie tried to pull his eyes away. The head's eyes held them with black-hole suction.

Something was shaking his soul to pieces. His body began to shake in sympathy, vibrating faster and faster, out of control. He felt his blood begin to boil, felt himself sweating steam from every pore.

He screamed.

The skin on the severed head's cheeks crisped and blackened from the friction of Mackie's fingers. The buzzing fingers met bone, began to shake the skull to pieces, to agitate the fluids within the rounded box of its cranium to the boiling point.

But the eyes--

The leather boy exploded. Sara dropped her head into her arms, felt wet impacts in her hair that would stay with her forever.

When she looked again, there was nothing left of hunch back or head but red-and-black splashes steaming all over the podium.

There was a dead moment.

Then Gregg was pushing aside his blanket of Secret Service agents, struggling to his feet. The crowd had flowed back from the podium like mercury from a fingertip. Now it washed forward again with a roar that went on and on.

That's it. He's president now. This guarantees it. The death of his ace assassin was no comfort. President Gregg Hartmann would have no need of German psychopaths to deal with his opponents.

If we even get that far. Steele had hinted that Soviets would launch a first-strike rather than see Hartmann inaugurated.

Her head was a dead weight. She let it drop, and let the grief pour out in hopeless tears.

Jack just tossed people out of the way till he found Tachyon, then picked the little man up and stuffed him securely under one arm. Gunshots cracked out; the stampeding crowd accelerated. There was wild but confused violence on the platform. Jack couldn't see a thing.

Jack bulled his way through the crowd, parting them like the Red Sea. Finally he and Tachyon stood in front of the massive white podium, but from his low angle they could see nothing.

Whatever had happened seemed to be over. Gregg Hartmann rose from the crush of Secret Service and brushed himself off as he walked uncertainly to the microphones.

"Damn," Jack said. "We're too late."

There were still people shouting and screaming in the hall; there was still panic as they stampeded for the exits or stared at the podium in frozen horror.

Yet the impression Gregg had was somehow one of silence, of a frozen moment like a still photograph. He could hear his own breath, gasping and very loud in his ears; he could feel very clearly the hands of the Secret Service man on either side of him. He could see Jesse Jackson being herded off the podium, Ellen blockaded by a cordon of uniformed security, dignitaries on the floor or standing with hands to faces or running blindly from the scene.

There was more blood and gore than Gregg had thought possible.

And a strange, echoing void inside his head. Puppetman?

There was no answer. Puppetman? he queried again. Silence. Only silence.

Gregg took a shuddering breath. He allowed himself to be . hauled to his feet, then shrugged away the restraining hands that wanted to pull him from the podium. "Senator, please--"

Gregg shook his head. "I'm fine. It's over." And it was very clear what he had to do now. The path was laid out before him, a gift. Puppetman was gone, and the loss was as if some great, dark burden had been lifted from him, a burden he hadn't even been aware that he was carrying. Gregg felt good. There was carnage and destruction all around him, and yet ...

Later. Later we'll know.

He straightened his jacket, tugged at his tie. He arranged the words in his mind, knowing what he would say. Please. Please be calm. This is what happens when jealousy and hatred are allowed to grow. This is the fruit we receive from the seed of prejudice and ignorance. This is the bitter feast we endure whenever we turn away from suffering.

Words to salvage a presidency from ruin. Brave Hartmann, cool Hartmann, compassionate Hartmann. Hartmann before the eyes