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I shook my head. “I can’t give you anything, Cindy. Mercer’s handling everything. I’ve never seen him so worked up. I’m sorry.”
“I didn’t ask you here to get something, Lindsay….”
“Cindy, if you know something, tell me.”
“I know that boss of yours better be careful what he’s committing to.”
I glanced at the screen. “Mercer…?”
In the background, I heard his voice asserting that the shooting was an isolated incident, that we already had tangible leads, that every available cop would be on the case until we tracked the killer down.
“He’s telling the world you’re gonna nail this guy before it happens again…?”
“So…?”
Our eyes met solidly. “I think it already has.”
Chapter 8
THE KILLER WAS PLAYING Desert Command and he was a master.
Phffft, phffft, phffft… phffft, phffft.
Impassively, he squinted through the illuminated infrared sight as hooded figures darted into view. As if by an extension of his finger, the darkened, mazelike chambers of the terrorist bunker exploded in balls of orange flame. Shadowy figures burst into narrow halls, phffft, phffft, phffft.
He was a champion at this. Great hand-eye coordination. No one could touch him.
His finger twitched on the trigger. Ghouls, sand mites, towel-heads. Come at me, baby…. Phffft, phffft… Up through the dark corridors… He smashed through an iron door, came upon a whole nest of them, sucking on tabbouleh, playing cards. His weapon spit a steady orange death. Blessed are the peacemakers. He smirked.
He squinted one more time through the sight, replaying the scene at the church in his mind, imagining her face. That little Jemima, with her braided hair, the rainbow-colored knapsack on her back.
Phfft, phfft. An onscreen figure’s chest exploded. This next kill was for the record. Got it! His eye flashed toward the score. Two hundred seventy-six enemy dead.
He took a tug on his Corona and grinned. A new personal record. This score was worth keeping. He punched in his initials: F.C.
He stood at the machine in the Playtime arcade in West Oakland, flicking the trigger long after the game had ended. He was the only white guy in the room. The only one. In fact, that was why he chose to be here.
Suddenly, the four large television sets overhead were blaring the same face. It sent a chill down his back and made him furious.
It was Mercer, the pompous ass who ran the San Francisco cops. He was acting like he had everything figured out.
“We believe this was the act of a single gunman…,” he was saying. “An isolated crime…”
If you only knew. He laughed.
Wait until tomorrow…. You’ll see. Just you wait, Chief Asshole.
“What I want to stress,” the chief of police declared, “is that under no circumstance will we permit this city to be terrorized by racial attack….”
This city. He spat. What do you know about this city? You don’t belong here.
He clutched at a C-1 grenade in his jacket pocket. If he wanted to, he could blow everything open right here. Right now.
But there was work to do.
Tomorrow.
He was going for another personal record.
