Detective Cross

Chapter 33

There was a flash of brilliant light, and I started to duck — but then I saw it was behind Mickey. For a moment the kid was silhouetted there.

I felt sure there would be a blast. We were going to die.

Then Kate Williams stood and yelled, “The bullhorn’s behind you, Mickey!”

The teen looked confused, then glanced over his shoulder through the windshield. There were news cameramen running toward the bus, klieg lights flaring in the rain, and satellite trucks following.

“Go, Mickey!” Kate shouted. “Before they figure it out!”

Mickey stared at her as they shared an understanding that eluded me, then addressed Gordon Light. “Open the door!”

The driver pushed a button. The front and rear doors whooshed open. Mickey looked at us. “Sorry it had to come to this.”

He climbed out.

I waited two seconds before I ran forward, saying, “Everyone out the back, and move away. Now.”

The other passengers lunged for the rear exit. I went out the front door, and watched Mickey Hawkes go toward the barrier that blocked access to the Capitol, his jacket open, exposing the vest.

Officer Larson was aiming her rifle at him. “Not a step further, Mickey.”

He stopped at the thick, solid steel barrier, which came up to the bottom of the vest, and stood there squinting as the cameras and lights came within yards and formed in a ragged semicircle facing him. Kate climbed from the bus and stood by me.

“You should get out of here,” I said.

“No,” she said. “It’s all right.”

One of the journalists shouted, “Who are you?”

“What do you want to tell the senators?” another cried.

We watched silently, transfixed. Mickey put one hand on the bomb vest and showed them the cell phone with the other.

“My name is Michael Hawkes,” he said in a wavering, emotional voice. “I am seventeen years old. When I was eight, my father, my hero and my best friend, was blown up by an IED on his ride back to Kabul to muster out of the Special Forces for good.”

“Shit,” Kate said under her breath.

“Maybe he should have died,” Mickey went on. “Most of the time he says he should have. He lost both legs and an arm, and suffered a closed head injury. When I went with my mother to see him at the hospital in Germany, he wouldn’t let me into his room.”

His shoulders heaved, and I knew he was crying. “My dad said to forget him. He told my mom the same thing. But I wouldn’t forget my dad. No matter how many times he swore at me, no matter how many times he told me to never come back, I went to see him in every hospital he’s lived in since the explosion.”

Mickey paused, and looked around at Officer Larson, who had lowered her gun.

He glanced over at us. I nodded. Kate said, “Keep going. You’re doing fine.”

Mickey turned back to the cameras, and said, “I finally started to get through to my dad two years ago. There are daily support group meetings for IED survivors and their families at Veterans Affairs Medical Center. I go every day I can because I want to be there for my father, and because it’s the only way I really get to see him when he doesn’t get angry, and it’s the only way he stays sane, and...”

His voice cracked as he said, “If I don’t...”

Mickey looked at the sky, coughed, and cleared his throat before pointing toward the Senate.

“The politicians in there owe my dad,” he said. “They made a promise that if he risked his life for his nation, his nation would stand by him. They made a promise that his nation would not forget him, that his grateful nation would help and provide for him.”

Mickey took a deep breath, and said, “But those senators in there aren’t standing by their promises, and they’re not standing by my father. They’ve forgotten him, and every other vet. They’ve forgotten to be grateful to those who served. If they don’t pass this bill tonight, the funding for veterans stops. The VA hospitals shut down. The programs halt. The help my dad needs is gone. The help every wounded warrior in the country needs is gone. And I... I can’t let that happen.”

He paused and then said in a strong voice, “Pass the bill, senators, or I’ll blow myself up, and the blood’s on your hands.”