“Show me your hands,” Lynch said.

The man raised his hands, locked them behind his head.

“My work is finished, Detective Lynch. I am at your mercy. And I am sure there is much you want to know.”

Lynch heard a thud. Fisher staggered and groaned. Two more thuds milliseconds apart, and Fisher dropped to the ground.

Lynch squatted, spun, looking for a shooter, seeing nobody. The shots had to have come from across the street, from near Manning’s condo, but he couldn’t see anyone. He hadn’t heard the shots, just the sounds of the rounds hitting Fisher’s body. He turned back to Fisher. Blood was spreading all along Fisher’s right side and sputtered from his lips as he muttered something. Lynch leaned down to hear. The Act of Contrition.

“…for having offended thee, and I regret all my sins–” Fisher’s head fell to the side, his eyes open, no more blood bubbling from his mouth.

Chen was standing next to the car when Ferguson and Jenks got there.

“Let’s go,” she said.

“Not sure we got Fisher,” said Ferguson.

“I got him,” said Chen.

“That’s swell,” said Jenks. “Now let’s get the hell out of here.”

Lynch was sitting on the curb next to one of the ambulances that were parked in front of Manning’s condo, arm bandaged, drugs kicking in, adrenaline wearing off. Crashing. Crime scene guys all over the place – Fisher’s truck, Manning’s place, down by the church. The fake Manning and the fake priest were under tarps down that way. The press were three deep behind the barricades at either end of the block, the commissioner and a crowd of department brass hanging out in the middle of the street where they knew the TV cameras could pick them up.

Cunningham walked up and sat down on the curb next to Lynch. “Get shot again? What’s that, twice this week?”

“Yeah. How you doing? You really rip some guy’s eye out?”

“Fuckers tase me, drug me, lock me in a damn box, and sit around talking about how they’re gonna waste me and frame me for all this shit. He’s lucky all I got a hold of was his eyeball.”

Starshak walked over, still in his raid gear.

“How you doing, Lynch?”

Lynch shrugged. “Alive. Way this thing’s gone, that seems pretty good.”

“How about you, Cunningham?” Starshak asked.

“Oh, I’m just dandy. Just fucking dandy.”

“Went about the way you figured, Lynch,” Starshak said. “Most of these guys, once we showed up, they sat it out. Had their orders, and I guess shooting it out with the cops wasn’t one of them. Got six in custody, nobody’s saying nothin’ to nobody. Hear there have already been some interesting calls from DC. Even some guy from the Israeli consulate wanting to take a look at the stiff in Manning’s window.”

“How’d our side make out?”

“That Weaver puke did most of the damage. Hit a couple of the guys on my stick on their way up to the door. Nothing serious. Leg wounds. He shot low. Either he was trying to do us a favor or he was trying to miss the body armor. Take your pick. He shot up a squad car couple blocks out, driver took one through the chest. They say he’ll pull through. We got lucky.”

“I heard Manning’s OK?”

“Had her trussed up in her bedroom.”

“So who was in the church?”

“Decoy I guess. Never did find Ferguson, or any of the rest of your buddies.”

“I’m OK with that.” Lynch nodded across the street at the tarp over the body by the pick-up truck. “So that’s Fisher?”

Starshak shrugged. “May never know for sure. Whoever it is saved your ass, taking the priest out – or the fake priest, I should say. Real priest is up in the rectory, neck’s broke. If it’s Fisher, he took three transverse through the right chest. Looks like small caliber.”

Lynch nodded. Chen. “Whole damn thing is just weird.”

An EMT walked up, leaned over. “We’re ready to transport you, detective.”

Lynch nodded.

“I’ll stop by later, I ever get out of here,” Starshak said.

“I’ll be fine,” Lynch said. “Probably sleep for a week or so.”

“Don’t sleep too late. OPS wants everybody downtown in the morning.”

“They may have to subpoena me to get my ass out of bed.”

CHAPTER 63 – WASHINGTON, DC

President Hastings Clarke sat behind the desk in the Oval Office. It was late. He’d come down from the residence after watching the television coverage of the events in Chicago. No mention of him yet, but the inquiries to his press people had increased exponentially from the already fevered pace of the past day. Tomorrow. He’d already been warned. His name would be in it tomorrow.

He ran his hand over the surface of the desk – a gift to the United States from the Queen of England, constructed from the planks of the HMS Resolute. The Resolute was a British ship on an Arctic research mission that got trapped in the ice. The ship was freed by an American whaler and returned to Great Britain. Queen Victoria ordered the desk made in thanks.

Clarke loved the desk. He loved the Oval Office. He loved being president. No more sucking up to the Rileys of the world. He had his own Rileys now. Weaver, for example. But his Riley had failed him.

Clarke opened the desk and took out the one reminder he had from his days with David Hurley. Hurley’s Walther PPK.

The Walther had been the key piece of evidence in the case against those AMN Commando patsies back in ’71. After the investigation, Hurley asked for the gun. He looked at it now, sitting on the desk. He’d never really understood why he wanted it then or why he’d kept it all these years. He didn’t even believe Americans should own handguns. Until this moment, he didn’t believe that violence solved anything.

But it was going to solve this.

The President of the United States raised the pistol to his head. Easier on the knees this way, he thought to himself, and fired.

CHAPTER 64 – CHICAGO

Four days later, the day after his mom’s funeral, Lynch stood in his dress blues on the side of a temporary stage on the plaza off Washington Street across from City Hall, just outside the shadow of the Picasso. Blue skies, light breeze, temperature in the seventies.

There’d been press conferences a couple times a day as details broke. Too much press to keep things indoors. Trucks from all the networks, all the Chicago stations, dozens of affiliates from major markets nationwide had lined the streets all around City Hall ever since the story broke.

Damage control was in full spin. The official story? The president had tabbed Weaver, a rogue agent upset at his demotion, to prevent the president’s dark secret from destroying his re-election chances. Today, Hurley and his Chicago crew wanted the big local climax – the DA giving an update on the legal situation, the commissioner outlining the successful undercover operation led by Lynch in cooperation with national intelligence liaisons. Then it was Hurley’s turn. He was going to give a speech and give Lynch a medal, the Chicago crowd hoping that, after today, the press would go home, that it would be a Washington story.

Hurley walked to the podium and paused a long moment.

“I stand before you today both proud and ashamed. Proud of our police and our city for the profound courage and determination with which they have confronted and overcome remarkable odds and intense opposition to bring this dark chapter in our city’s – in our nation’s – history to light and, finally, to a close. And ashamed, for the first time in my life, of my family. I never knew my father. He died before I was born. Murdered, I had always been told, by agents of intolerance. By people who would not abide his attempts to heal the racial divide in our country. And now I learn that he himself killed to hide the secret of his own sexuality, to hide it from the intense bigotry that my own grandfather – the man who raised me, who raised so much of this city, a man I loved and still love today – did far too much to engender. And we have all learned how those secrets kill, not just thirty years ago but still today. These secrets, these bigotries, kill not just in this recent outbreak of violence but every day – when a child’s dream is deferred, when a community’s soul is torn, when any person cannot become who they ought to be because of who someone else sees them to be. When any child feels that his or her dream, however large or small, may be beyond their grasp because of the color of their skin, or the nature of their faith, or, yes, because of their sexuality. These secrets still kill. Lives and dreams.”