"I understand… right… when… uh-huh, and where?" After a moment, she said, "The helicopter's in the parking lot. I'll be there inside twenty minutes."

She punched off and stared at the floor a moment. She said, "Wait'll you see this."

CHAPTER EIGHT

Straight ahead and through the helicopter's windshield, we observed three or four columns of dark smoke curdling up from 495, Washington's notorious beltway and below, a long and frustrated parking lot that snaked its way back to northern Virginia.

The pilot twisted around in his chair and yelled back to us, "No place to land. When I get low, jump out. Watch the skids."

He tugged back on his throttle and the machine swooped down about five feet off the ground and loitered. I leaped first and landed on a small patch of grass, turned, and saw Jennie hurtling into me. I had just enough time to get my hands out, and she landed in my arms. A nearby cop was staring. I asked, "What happened here?"

He replied, "Man, you won't believe this. Some asshole fired at a car." He pointed a finger at a mangled wreck leaking black smoke near the front of the tangled pack. "There-that thing… Used to be a BMW 745i, if you can believe it. Just started crashing into other cars. Everyone was doing about sixty-five… and you got this."

I saw that in addition to the wrecked BMW, "this" included some fifteen cars ranging from dimpled to mangled, a collage of shattered safety glass, torn steel, and ripped and dented people. Looking badly shaken, the cop remarked, "Probably just road rage… but holy shit."

Three county fire trucks, ten ambulances, and a fleet of marked and unmarked police cars were squeezed onto the outer median, lights flashing, radios squawking, the whole nine yards. To my right rested a crunched-up blue Ford Escort, where an emergency crew manhandled a Jaws of Life apparatus. An old woman howled in agony, and two emergency aid workers leaned through the car window and fought to plug an IV into her arm. To my left were several dazed people seated on the backs of ambulances, their shirts and dresses stained with blood. Above circled three news helicopters, broadcasting this corpus of destruction and misery.

Twenty yards from the BMW; I noted a clump of cops, in the midst of which stood a man looking singularly self-important, cell phone in one hand, the other waving around, directing an invisible symphony or something. It was George Meany, and understandably, he was not displaying the gestures or body language of a happy man. I asked Jennie, "Why are we here?"

"What?" She appeared distracted.

"How do we know this was caused by our friends?"

"I… what?" She was peering in the direction of the old lady who'd been fighting the emergency aid people. I followed her eyes and saw that the woman was now slumped forward, quiet and still, the fight gone out of her. The rescue team was catching its breath and the medical techs were repacking their kits. Jennie took a step in the direction of the car, and I took her arm. "Don't. She's beyond help."

"But-"

"I know." I squeezed her arm. "Focus on finding her killers. Now, why are we here?"

Jennie took a long swallow and said quietly, "Let's go ask."

We joined Meany, who ignored us and continued to chat on the phone. Above the cacophony I caught snatches of George's conversation, and clearly the tone was neither cordial nor pleasant. Actually, George looked a little panicky, like a guy being told it was his ass on the line. For a brief instant I almost felt guilty about disliking him. He said, "That's right, sir." He wiped some perspiration from his upper lip. "No, uh… yes sir… of course, sir." He hung up and announced, "What a fuckin' nightmare."

Jennie asked him, "How do we know it was them?"

Meany licked his lips, pointed, and said, "That black BMW over there… the plate check says it belongs to Merrill Benedict."

Nobody said anything. Nobody needed to say anything. Merrill Benedict was the White House spokesperson, the poor soul thrown into the daily mosh pit called the White House press corps to look and sound like he was answering questions he wasn't answering. About forty, slight of build, sandy-haired, a bit of a dandy, but nice-looking, and boy, was the guy a gold-star bull-shitter. I asked George, "Dead?"

"That's what being torn in half will do to you, Drummond."

Jennie said, "So he was the target. And all the rest of these poor people were… were…"

I looked at her. Her face was drained of color and her eyes looked cloudy and unfocused. All this misery and chaos was getting to her, was in fact affecting us all. But you have to swallow your feelings and put on a game face, or you scare the shit out of the public. I said, "The clinical expression is 'collateral damage.' " I added, "But I don't think that fits this."

"No?" asked Meany, looking at me a little incredulously. "Well.. . what does it fit, Drummond?"

"I don't think this was random carnage. I think the killers intended something spectacular."

George shook his head derisively. "Just what I need. A half-baked theory from a half-assed lawyer." He smiled-or more accurately, sneered-at me and added, "If you don't mind, Drummond, I'll make up my own mind after I hear from the professionals." Now I remembered why I disliked this guy.

Jennie, however, had heard what I said and asked, "Why? Why would they… I just don't… I mean, I don't see…"

There was no answer, yet. I replied, "We should think about that."

And for a brief moment we did think about it. Clearly there were a thousand easier and less conspicuous ways to murder Merrill Benedict-an ambush in his driveway, poison in his toothpaste-any and all of which could've been accomplished without witnesses, without complications, and without this indiscriminate brutality. But I was sure that was exactly the point-the decision to murder Merrill Benedict in plain daylight, in the densest traffic, at the worst possible hour was meant to ignite an atrocity, to provoke awe and revulsion. Throw a stone into water, and you know you'll get ripples. Unbelievable.

"Seven dead, so far," Meany muttered, a bit stunned. "Twenty-two more injured, several critically."

Actually, eight dead and twenty-one wounded as of a moment ago, but the devil's not in the details in a nightmare like this. Meany commented, "Thank God it was rush hour. No children."

"Think parents," I replied. No need to spell out that there were a lot of kids waiting for Mom or Pop to come swinging through the door, who were instead about to find a glum-faced D.C. detective bearing bad tidings on their stoop. I caught Jennie's eye, and she turned away.

I looked at George and asked, "Witnesses?"

"What?"

"Witnesses, George?"

"Oh… well, the police are collecting statements."He said to Jennie, "That lady over by that ambulance… the blue skirt, over there?" He pointed and we saw her. "She thinks she saw something. Make yourself useful and see what the cops are getting out of her."

The lady in question was already being interrogated by a pair of detectives. Jennie flashed her fed creds and asked the duo to take a powder. Actually, I was a little surprised when the detectives put up no fight and complied. Then again, the conditions on this highway weren't normal-not with this level of carnage, not with a federal notice to report all serious incidents immediately, and certainly not with feds falling out of helicopters. It was beginning to dawn on the locals that what happened here was something much worse than a simple case of road rage gone berserk.

Jennie asked the lady's name, Carol Blandon; her age, sixty-one; her address, Montgomery, Maryland; and so forth. We didn't care about her personal info, but it's important to assess a witness before you get into it. With a shaky hand, Mrs. Blandon held a bloody bandage over her left eye, and clearly she was distressed and a little out of focus. But she appeared lucid enough, and she sounded reliable, albeit a bit crabby, which, given the circumstances, was understandable. In a soothing and respectful tone Jennie finally asked what happened.