Detective Danny Cavanaugh 01 - The Brink

cemetery.
    Danny led Sydney toward the north exit. They stopped short of the double doors. As he whispered the next part of his plan into her ear, Danny looked through the windows. The rain had intensified. Some National Park police were trying to keep order near the cemetery’s exit. Beyond the two D.C.P.D. cruisers that had pulled up on Memorial Drive, Danny spotted the GWU alumni tour group.
    “You ready?” he asked her.
    She turned and gazed into his eyes. “Can we make sure this is the last time we’re in a life and death situation?”
    “What? You don’t like being the damsel in distress?”
    Sydney huffed. “I’m just tired of playing to the male ego.”
    They both grinned. Danny blew out a quick breath before he opened the door. As he stepped outside, he opened his blue and buff umbrella. He held the canopy close to his head as he scurried toward the GWU group. From the corner of his eye, he saw Sydney emerge from the Visitor Center exactly thirty seconds later and open her umbrella.
    Soon, they were both cloistered among two dozen other people holding blue and buff umbrellas and were heading down the stairs that led to the Arlington Cemetery Metro station. As they boarded the waiting Metro train, Danny couldn’t help thinking about Chip. Something was wrong. Chip should have made contact by now.

Chapter 106
    Stefan Taber’s shot hit the small man exactly where he had aimed. The man’s right leg buckled, and he went down into an outcropping of cedar trees just outside the Memorial Amphitheater.
    Taber had been less than fifty yards from him when he heard the two gunshots ring out. His instincts compelled him to check the nearby woods from where the sounds originated. Through his scope, he saw a man wearing an eye patch stand from a prone position next to an exposed bolder. He left his rifle on the ground and shucked off the camouflage coveralls he was wearing. He then bent over and picked up a recorder wired to a shotgun microphone. The familiar device was super-directional. It could pick up private conversations that were over two hundred yards away. It was the perfect tool to record the conversation taking place between Cavanaugh and the president.
    Taber wheeled around and gazed at the spot next to the JFK Memorial where he had had a perfect shot of Cavanaugh. Neither he nor Sydney were there any longer. Taber moved on the only target he did have and began sprinting through the trees. He heard the president’s voice in the walkie-talkie on his hip but ignored it. He had to get to the man with the eye patch. Even though he was injured, the man might be able to make it to the amphitheater. Memorial Drive snaked right next to it. A car could be waiting there to help him escape.
    Taber burst through the cedar trees and dove into the small of the man’s back. He had been trying to hop on his left foot up the steep hill that led up to the amphitheater. Taber flipped him onto his back and pinned him to the ground. He searched him and found no weapons. He yanked the recorder out of the man’s right hand. The man stared at him with his one eye. Taber could tell he was in indescribable pain, but he didn’t make a sound. To add insult to injury, Taber ripped off the man’s eye patch. The man winced but then stared at Taber with his clouded, dead eyeball.
    Taber held up the recorder. “Who is this for?”
    The man remained silent. The look in his ghostly eye said it all. Go to hell.
    The president’s whispered shouts again squelched from the walkie-talkie on Taber’s hip. “Cavanaugh’s escaped! I repeat, Cavanaugh has Sydney Dumas! They headed into the Visitor Center! Do you read me?”
    The man heard it and smiled a shit-eating grin. Taber stood, grabbed his rifle off his back, and leveled it at the man’s injured eye. Still not a word. Taber pulled the trigger. The bullet ripped into his eye socket and exploded out the back of the man’s head with only so much as a soft whump.
    Taber yanked his walkie-talkie from his belt and faced the Visitor Center. “I read you.”
    “What the fuck were you thinking?” the president shot back. “I thought you had a silencer?”
    “It wasn’t me. Cavanaugh had help.” Taber looked down at the dead body at his feet. “Don’t worry, I took care of him.”
    “Get your ass down to the Visitor Center and find him,” the president ordered.
    Taber had already begun playing the recording. As he listened to stupid Jack Butcher explain himself to