Zimmerman's Algorithm

1.07 Tue. Mar. 3

LIONEL sat on the Metro, passing stop after stop, waiting for the shit to hit the fan. He had been on the trains almost constantly since getting on in Brookland. Half the time he had a plan in his head, get the money from the cop, get back on the train, and make for the airport.

The other half of the time he was feeling his gun bite him in the gut where he'd shoved it in his waistband, and watching the people who got on and off the train. He studied each face as if it belonged to someone who might want to kill him. It was nuts, but he felt like he was being watched. He had that feeling every time he got on the Metro. It had to do with the cameras at every stop. Today, it was worse. Every time he looked up, he saw Davy's glassy eyes staring at him from behind the lenses.

He had changed trains a few times, and had gone as far as Arlington, just to avoid someone following him. But those damn cameras were everywhere, making him nervous.

The people on the train made him nervous, too. Fortunately, none of them chose to sit by him. His psycho stare was giving him some space.

When they reached Metro Center, he raced to the door and bumped into a lawyer type—three-piece suit and all. Lionel might never have noticed the guy if it wasn't for something the guy carried—keys, pens, Lionel couldn't tell—stabbing him in the hand.

"Pardon," the man said, without even looking at him. Lionel wanted to tear into the bastard, but the crowd leaving the train had already separated them.

"Fuck out of my face," Lionel yelled at the guy, through the closing doors of the train. Frustration was thick enough to make him sweat. He pushed aside a woman who was just a little too close to him and muttered, "Lucky shit. Don't know how lucky . . ."

The train was pulling away, and the motion ignited a wave of vertigo that sent the inside of his head spinning. The walls were about to close in on him.

Lionel stumbled out onto the platform. Cradling his hand, which was burning like a motherfucker, he looked at it, and all he saw was a red welt where something had scraped across the skin. Just a scratch, but it hurt like the asshole had driven a spike through his hand.

The cameras were watching him.

Him specifically. He saw them pan after him as he moved. The concrete ceiling seemed incredibly far away.

Lionel began to sweat, and felt real terror. His heart seemed to race, trying to smash through his rib cage...

His hand, the one that didn't burn, began to drift toward the gun.

They were here, he could feel it, knew it with a certainty. The sharpness of the knowledge matched the razor clarity with which he saw the platform. Everything, the benches, the poster ads, the train pulling away, was torn out with a bold relief and colors bright enough for his eyes to ache.

And the people, everyone on the platform, stared at him with Davy's dead gray eyes.

Someone called his name, and Lionel knew it was death, come for him.

Gidion called out, "Lionel," again.

Lionel was normally nervous and shaky, but Gideon had never seen the guy looking this strung out. Gideon approached on his crutches, and made it a half-dozen steps before Lionel reacted.

When he did, he surprised the hell out of Gideon.

Lionel looked dead at him and shook his head, "No, no, man, you ain't taking me. Not like Davy."

After halving the distance between them, Gideon could see just how bad off Lionel was. Lionel was soaking with his own sweat, staring through pupils dilated enough to swallow the iris in a dead, black hole.

"I have your money—" Gideon started, hoping to calm him down.

Lionel scrambled backward and someone shouted, "Gun."

Gideon didn't know if it was one of the undercover cops on the platform, or one of the transit boys manning the cameras shouting over the PA system. But the crowd reacted, a sudden panicked rush of people running past Gideon, toward the exit.

Gideon fell backward, seeing Lionel waving an automatic, not seeming to know where to point it. As the civilians rushed for the exit, Lionel pointed it at Gideon, at the escaping people, and at the cameras.

One of the undercover boys had Lionel covered, pointing his weapon at him from behind a bench. In the chaos of moving people, Gideon heard a single gunshot. In response, a dozen other shots reverberated through the giant concrete chamber.

Lionel was cut to pieces as every undercover cop on the platform fired into him. He was probably dead before he slumped to the ground. Gideon watched, sickened, as Lionel spun, blood spraying from wounds in his chest, his throat, and his legs. It was like watching a replay of what had happened to Raphael.

The firing stopped when Lionel was motionless, facedown on the concrete. In the few moments of gunfire, the platform had emptied of everyone but cops.

"Fuck . . ." Gideon gasped as he grabbed his crutches and struggled to lever himself upright.

Eight plainclothes cops closed on the corpse, ringing Lionel with their guns drawn, as if he might still make a threatening move. Gideon, moving slowly, was one of the last to join the ring.

Gideon had nurtured a faint hope that Lionel might still be alive, but once he stood next to the body, he could see it was hopeless. The shot to the neck was final.

One of the detectives turned to Gideon. "You all right?"

"Yeah, damn it. He wasn't even aiming at me." Someone else said, "Bastard didn't give us a choice." Gideon nodded. Once they heard a shot, the only duty that remained was protecting the civilians on the platform. There was no way around it.

Gideon crutched around to the other side of Lionel and looked at the other cops. The transit boys would have the ambulance call in already. All they had to do was wait.

"Any of you have some gloves?" he asked the others.

One nodded, holstered his weapon, and pulled on a pair of latex gloves. He looked at the body and asked, "What do you see?"

"Pick up the gun," Gideon asked. "See how many shots he fired."

The cop with the gloves bent over and retrieved Lionel's gun from the pool of his blood. He looked at the gun, shook his head, frowned. Then he pulled the clip and stared at it for a few moments.

Gideon didn't like his expression. "What is it?"

"This weapon hasn't been fired at all." He turned it around so the circle of cops could see the side of the gun. "He never even took the safety off."