Backfire

3

Georgetown

Washington, D.C.

Friday morning

Five a.m.

Sean leapt impossibly high, caught the football from his mother, and took off toward the end of a park that was really a baseball field, with Savich on his heels. Savich couldn’t catch him because Sean’s legs were stilt-long, eating up huge swathes of ground, and he was rounding bases for some reason, clutching the football tight to his chest, heading for home, and John Lennon was suddenly singing into Savich’s left ear in his flat whiny-smooth voice about imagining people getting along, like that would ever happen.

Savich reared up in bed and automatically looked at the clock. Five a.m. Not good. No telephone call was ever good at five a.m.

He picked up his cell. “Savich.”

“Dillon, you’ve got to come, quickly, it’s bad, it’s really bad, I’m afraid-” Molly Hunt’s voice, choking and thick with tears and fear. Dillon thought, Not little Emma, who’d survived so much-

“I’m putting you on speakerphone so Sherlock can hear you. Tell us what’s happened, Molly.”

Sherlock was leaning up beside him, her face pale in the predawn, her hair tangled wildly around her face.

“Someone shot Ramsey in the back. I don’t know if he’s going to make it; he’s in surgery. Everyone’s here, but I need you and Sherlock. You’ve got to come and find out who did this to him. Please, please, come quickly.”

Ramsey shot? Savich couldn’t get his brain around it. He hadn’t seen Ramsey for six months, since he, Sherlock, and Sean last visited San Francisco. It had been more than five years, he realized now, since Ramsey had saved six-year-old Emma’s life and hooked up with her mother, Molly.

Ramsey shot?

“Molly, take a deep breath. That’s right. Now slow down and tell us exactly what happened.” But he was thinking, Why Ramsey? He’s a federal judge, removed from that sort of violence-but a man who judged others was a man who gathered enemies.

“He’s in surgery,” Molly said again. “The nurses say they don’t know anything yet, but I know it can’t be good. He was shot in the back-” she said, and broke off. He heard her breathing, harsh and fast, and then her voice, choked, frantic: “Please, Dillon, you and Sherlock, you’ve got to come.”

Savich and Sherlock both asked questions and let her ramble, knowing she was trying to get it together. She told them Lieutenant Virginia Trolley was there with her, and they realized she was probably listening to their questions and Molly’s answers. They’d met Virginia and her husband a couple of times when they’d visited San Francisco over the past five years.

“Molly, let me speak to Virginia.” Virginia came on the line. “Dillon, the SFPD responded and arrived at Ramsey’s house right after midnight. I arrived ten minutes later. Since it was dark, we didn’t bother to look for footprints while I was there. No one wanted to mess up the crime scene bumbling around with flashlights.”

“Have you spoken to Cheney?”

Virginia said, “Cheney arrived at Ramsey’s house when I was leaving. He called me a couple minutes ago, told me he’s assigned Special Agent Harry Christoff to lead the case, but he, Cheney, will be monitoring every detail. He wondered if shooting Ramsey was a revenge deal. It’s too soon to know, but I’ll tell you, it sure feels like it.” Virginia’s voice dropped lower. “Molly needs you guys. Can you come out here?”

“We’ll be there as soon as we can.”

When he punched off, he took Sherlock in his arms and held her close, stroking his hand up and down her back.

“He’ll make it,” Sherlock said against his neck. “Ramsey’s got to make it. He’s one of the good guys, Dillon. He will make it. How could this happen, and right on top of this threat to you?”

No, the threat’s not aimed at me, it’s aimed at you. Or Sean.

Cheney Stone called back as Savich was stepping out of the shower. He’d made it back to the hospital and learned that Ramsey had survived surgery and was in the surgical ICU. Molly, though, was a mess. “I asked the doc to give her Valium to calm her. You know what? He did. It seems to have helped her.

“Ah, here’s Virginia. Let’s go to speakerphone.”

“Is Emma all right?” Savich asked.

Virginia said, “She was bordering on shock at first, with everything that was happening, but Emma’s a tough little nut, she’ll hold it together. When I was at the house I heard her tell her brother Cal she’d play him the theme from Harry Potter on the piano this morning-with variations-if he stopped shining a flashlight into Gage’s eyes. Cal said he wanted to see if it would cause seizures.” Virginia’s voice hitched. “Where’d a three-year-old kid hear about lights and seizures?”

Savich said, “Don’t ask. Our flight gets in this afternoon. You playing nice with Cheney? And Harry Christoff?”

“Oh, yeah, Cheney’s a nice guy”-pause-“he’ll throw us some crumbs, even though you FBI guys are going to have jurisdiction. All I hear about Christoff is that he came off an ugly divorce a year and a half ago, and he’s been a nasty git ever since.”

Savich heard Cheney say in the background, “Crumbs? You know what we know. Hey, and Harry’s not a nasty git any longer, he’s just nasty.”

Virginia said, “And you, Mr. SAC? You’re newly married. That means you’re stupid happy all the time. Wait till you’re married a few years, then I’ll check back in with you. My guess is you’ll still be stupid, but the happy part isn’t a given.”

Cheney said, “I’ll be sure to pass that along to Julia.”

Stupid happy? Savich liked the sound of that.

–

Savich said to Virginia, “Since you’ve known Ramsey for a long time, you know his habits, his friends. Cheney and Agent Christoff will see you as a valued resource.”

Virginia gave a curiously charming snort. “Sure, like I’ll expect to see that from any of his precious special agents.” She sighed. “Every single cop in San Francisco wants to help get this crazy craphead, Dillon. You know Ramsey’s a hero, even after five years, he’s still Judge Dredd to all of us.”

Savich remembered how Ramsey had been dubbed Judge Dredd by local and world media after he’d jumped down from the bench, black robes flying, and single-handedly took out the three gunmen who’d invaded his courtroom with guns and violence and death.

He said, “Keep repeating that to Cheney and Christoff.”

“Just saying, Dillon. This is tough, really tough. It’s personal, not only for me but for most of the force.”

“We’ll get the crazy craphead together, then, Virginia,” Sherlock said. “See you later today.”

Ramsey, Savich thought, who did you push over the edge? And then he realized he and Sherlock would be three thousand miles away from the guy who’d written the letter to him. And they could take Sean with them, to stay at his grandparents’. That was a relief.

–

Cheney called again when they were on their way to Dulles. “Here’s what I know so far. Ramsey postponed a hearing at a trial yesterday morning because he believed the federal prosecutor wasn’t conducting the case properly, that he might have been threatened. He met with the federal marshal and the U.S. attorney, who are all in the same building with us, as you know.

“Now the prosecutor is a twelve-year veteran, Assistant U.S. Attorney Mickey O’Rourke. Ramsey had asked to speak to him in chambers, naturally, after he came to suspect Mickey might be purposefully jeopardizing the case. Mickey made an excuse. According to Olivia, Ramsey’s secretary, Ramsey told O’Rourke he wanted him and his people at the meeting he was calling. Mickey didn’t show, and none of his staff had any clue where he was. They hadn’t seen him since Ramsey adjourned the hearing, and they were worried about him. His second chair said Mickey seemed off. But this? No one could believe it. In any case, we can’t find O’Rourke. He’s now officially missing. There’s quite an uproar, as you can imagine.”

“The name of the defendant?”

“There are two co-defendants, Clive and Cindy Cahill, up for the murder of a rich software geek here in Silicon Valley. Either the Cahills have lots of money stashed offshore or they have some rich friends, because they have hired a first-rate counsel.”

But once the prosecutor was suspected, Savich thought, what would it matter which judge presided anymore? And O’Rourke’s disappearance would mean only a delay. None of it made sense yet to Savich.

He asked, “Why are the Cahills a federal case?”

Cheney said, “Because there’s espionage involved, that’s why. The murder victim, Mark Lindy, was working on a top-secret project for the government, and was probably murdered because of it. That’s why the FBI handled the case and not local law enforcement. We’ve got the Cahills pretty cold on the murder, but we could never find out the particulars of the project Lindy was into, because it involved national security. You know the CIA-they refused to tell us anything at all, even with CIA operations officers out here digging around.

“Even if a foreign government did set the Cahills on Mark Lindy, I don’t know which one. I’ll be speaking to O’Rourke’s team again while you’re in the air, see exactly what they have, if anything, that might help us find him.”

“All right, Cheney, see you this afternoon,” Savich said. He and his laptop MAX had a lot of reading to do about the Cahills on their way to California.

And flying with Sean was always a treat.