The Constantine Conspiracy (36 page)

She glanced back at the hole in the ground; something about it screeched across her nerve endings. Her breath caught and her feet stilled as she remembered. “Pop goes the weasel. Pops is a no-good, crawl-out-of-a-hole weasel.”

After clearing the security gate, Rick had eased his way toward the casket, nodding hello to the people he knew, shaking a hand or two as he moved toward his grandfather whom he had spotted two rows behind the section reserved for the surviving members of the Supreme Court. Now he stood near the edge of the crowd, his eyes on his granddad, waiting for some signal that would start the destruction to come. But nothing happened. The officiate—not a minister since Toliver had openly reveled in her status as the only publicly identified atheist on the Court—finished her short remarks and the surviving justices, each in dark suits and sunglasses, stood and took positions around the casket. The officiate referred to a book, then opened it and began to read while the justices waited. Rick rubbed his tired eyes. Perhaps he’d made a mistake, misinterpreted everything.

Rick’s cell phone vibrated but he ignored it. It vibrated again and he carefully slipped it out, turned his head away, and checked the number, then twisted around and eased away from the crowd.

“What?” he whispered.

“A tunnel!” Shannon shouted. “Underground. Pops is a no-good-hole-in-the-ground weasel!”

Rick understood immediately. “Must be explosives under the casket. They’re going after all the justices!”

“The president will choose new justices in their forties. They’ll be members of the Conspiracy or controlled by it!”

“He’s got sixty senators, no way to stop him!”

“They’ll serve long enough to make radical changes!”

Rick pivoted to the justices gathered around the casket. They each held a handful of Missouri dirt in their hands, Justice Toliver’s last wish. Toss the dirt onto her to symbolize her belief in what happened after death, ashes to ashes, dust to dust, no more, no less, no eternity to follow.

Without hanging up, Rick sprinted toward the casket. A group of security guards spotted him and rushed his way. Pops turned his head at the commotion and Rick saw pure panic slide across his face. Pops rose and pushed past the people sitting by him and hurried toward Rick.

“No!” Pops shouted, his arms outstretched.

“Bomb!” Rick screamed the word at the top of his lungs and the graveyard broke into bedlam.

Shannon’s pace picked up as she rushed toward the man in the Nike hat. But then he looked up, opened the door, and climbed out of his truck, his face a scowl. He held a device with a blinking red light in his hand, and even from twenty yards away, she recognized it as a detonator.

He smiled at Shannon, held up the detonator so she could see it, then pressed it with his thumb before she could pull her weapon to stop him.

The justices dropped to the ground as Rick yelled, their bodies flattening, their hands grasping the grass as if to hold on for dear life. Rick knocked one guard aside, then dodged another and reached his grandfather. Pops pulled Rick into a giant hug as the casket erupted behind him and the steel vault became a thousand pieces of fiery shrapnel spraying flaming metal into the crowd. Security guards threw themselves at the justices, draping their bodies over them almost simultaneously with the explosion. The eruption knocked the phone from Rick’s hand and spilled him to the ground, Pops’ long frame on top of him, a shield against the explosion. Smoke billowed from the grave and fire singed the trees overhead. Sirens suddenly wailed and people screamed and cried as they lay on the ground, their bodies charred and bleeding. A shrill ringing sounded in Rick’s ears and his forehead felt hot, like somebody had set an iron on it and pressed. A mob of people ran from the scene, a melee of fear sprinting in all directions. Rick tried to move, but Pops still lay on him, his eyes closed, his arms curled under his back.

“Pops?” Rick shook his grandfather but got no response.

Shannon yanked off her high heels and sprinted away from the man in the Nike cap, her bare feet slapping on the sidewalk. A second man appeared beside him and Shannon moved faster, her fingers finding Rick’s number on her speed dial and hitting the button. She looked back and saw her pursuers loping like wild dogs, surprisingly fast for men of their size. Each held a pistol and she started zigzagging out and back with uneven strides to keep them from getting a clean shot.

She spotted a gate about fifty feet away, a cut into the cemetery, and she sprinted toward it, hoping to duck inside and disappear into the tree line that lay past it. She heard helicopters overhead and waved at them even as she ran, but they zipped by her, their blades blowing the grass on the edges of the sidewalk over which she ran. A shot fired behind her but missed and she willed her feet to move faster. The gate into the back side of the cemetery beckoned her and she saw a security checkpoint but no one manned it. Must have rushed toward the blast, she guessed. No help for her there.

Disappointed, she bowed her neck and rushed toward the gate, one hand working her phone while the other reached for her pistol.

Rick rolled to the side, eased Pops to the ground, then stood, grabbed Pops under the shoulders, and slid him away from the fire and smoke still boiling out of the gravesite. The air felt a little cooler and Rick stopped and knelt by Pops, wiped blood from his hair and eyes.

“Can you hear me Pops?”

No response.

Rick looked up and saw several EMTs, but they were headed to the justices. He glanced toward the justices, but the billowing smoke and a ring of Secret Service agents around them made it impossible to gauge the damage anywhere except right in front of him. He faced his grandfather again.

“Pops?”

His grandfather opened his eyes and reached up, grabbed Rick by the lapel and pulled him close.

“You . . . hurt?” Pops whispered.

Rick felt his forehead, the burned skin there, but nothing seemed broken. “I’m okay, Pops.”

Pops let go of his lapel and relaxed into the grass, his eyes closed again. Blood seeped from a wound on his head and Rick eased his head to the side to see the cut. A shard of copper-colored metal lodged behind his left ear and a knot the size of a baseball welled up on the temple beside it. More blood oozed out of a slash on his neck.

Rick shouted at an EMT sprinting past, but the man kept going. A pair of helicopters landed nearby and the wind from the blades blew Rick’s hair. He leaned close and shouted at Pops to make his voice heard.

“I’m getting you out of here!” he yelled.

Pops roused again, raised his head, and shook it side to side. “No, it’s over! Go, hurry, not safe here!”

“You need a doctor!”

“No! I’m . . . done!”

Rick grabbed Pops under the shoulders again and hauled him to an ambulance, but blood seeped from Pops’ mouth. He knew Pops was right, so he laid him back down and bent low as tears filled his eyes. The chopper blades whirred quicker and Rick glanced up and saw several gurneys lifted onto them, then the choppers lifted off, and for a moment, things turned quieter.

“You saved my life, Pops,” Rick said, wiping the blood off his grandfather’s forehead.

Pops licked his lips. “Never meant to . . . harm . . . you.”

“I know, Pops.”

Pops reached for his hand with trembling fingers and Rick grasped him and held him tight.

“I’m . . . not a good man,” Pops murmured. “Killed . . .” Rick felt anger flood through him—Pops had murdered his father. But then he knew to hold the anger inside. Let his grandfather deal with his own guilt, not make it any worse than it already was. “But you saved my life.”

“Glad of that. . . Margaret . . . would be . . . proud.”

“Yes, Pops, Nana would be proud. You’re going to be with her now, Pops. Forever.”

“You . . . believe that, Rick? Really?”

Tears streaked Rick’s face. He didn’t know what he believed. “Yes, Pops,” he lied. “I believe that.”

Pops closed his eyes; a flit of a smile crossed his lips, then he took his last breath.

Shannon crouched behind a hickory tree, her Sig Sauer in hand. Her toes dug into the grass as she peered out, wondering if she’d lost Charbeau and his friend. She hit Rick’s phone number again and willed him to answer but received no response. She leaned into the tree and whispered as quietly as she could into his answering service.