––––––––
I took a long, deep breath and then slapped my throbbing knee. The pain was fierce and immediate, but it temporarily blotted everything else out.
Sammy careened around Mt. Vernon Square so fast that for a moment I thought we were going to flip the car. At the last possible moment she straightened the wheel and we rocketed forward onto New York Avenue. Though traffic slowed us down we would be at the National Mall in a few moments.
"I'm trying so hard not to poop myself right now!" Sammy said. Her eyes looked like they might bug out of her head.
"What do you mean he's going to kill the president? At the big speech tonight? That's madness!" Nami said from the back.
"Before I got my ass kicked back there I took a peek into Chuck's mind. Murdock isn't a foreign assassin; he worked for Smith."
"What?" Smith and Sammy said in at the same time.
"He was captured a few months ago while on a mission in Iran. Smith, Senator McArthur, and President Thomas disavowed him and left him to die. They actually sent in another assassin to kill him, so he couldn't give the Iranians any information. That's why he killed everyone involved in the program, because they betrayed him."
Sammy blew through the next red light and barreled onto the sidewalk, knocking over a large post office box in the process. Letters flew through the air like confetti, covering the windshield before blowing away. A couple walking toward us dove in opposite directions, trying to get out of the way.
"Sorry!" she said through her window. The man sprawled on the sidewalk flipped us off as we flew by them.
"Are you trying to hit everything you can see?" Nami asked. She bounced around like a ragdoll in the back as we smashed through a flower stand.
"You probably should have stolen a car with a child safety seat," I said.
She started to retort but was cut short when we screeched along the side of a minivan as Sammy swerved back onto the road. I had to give her credit; she did everything she could to make sure our car didn't stop.
"So if Smith used you to find Murdock, why let him go in the cemetery?" Nami asked.
"He didn't. Not completely, anyway. They've been tracking him since then. The information you gave about his escape has been used in official reports to President Thomas."
Police cars formed a road block ahead of us, rerouting traffic for the president's speech.
"Slow down," I said. "Take a left on Fourteenth Street and follow the speed limit. Cops and secret service are going to be everywhere from here on out."
We didn't slow down enough as we swung onto the street, away from the barricade, because I could see the officers pointing and shouting at us as we went by. Less than ten seconds later a patrol car raced after us, lights swirling.
"What do we do?" Sammy asked. She was nearing hysteria.
"Keep going, we're almost there."
"Why are they giving false information to the president? This isn't making any goddamn sense," Nami said.
"President Thomas and Senator McArthur planned to shut down Smith's agency after Murdock's capture. They felt it was too much of a security risk having agents capable of mind transference landing in the hands of foreign nations. You know all of those creepy nursery rhymes Murdock keeps saying? Smith's team used those as a way of communicating to their operatives in the field."
"So he used those to let Smith know who killed his people. That and it's creepy as hell."
"Exactly. Smith also knew that he would try and kill all three of them: Thomas, McArthur, and Smith himself. That's when Smith decided to let him assassinate the senator and the president. Smith and his goons have been following Murdock since the cemetery, waiting for him to take out President Thomas. Once he does they're going to make their move on him. Then Smith and his program will be safe."
"That's madness!"
"What you just said is so confusing!" Sammy said.
Nami looked at me through the mirror on my visor. "So the president is using Murdock's crimes as fuel to start a war?"
"It seems like it."
"And Smith is allowing Murdock to kill the president, to keep his program active?"
"Yes."
"Murdock was captured and probably tortured by the Iranians. So he wants revenge on the men who abandoned him. What are the odds that he's trying to maneuver the president into attacking Iran?"
"Pretty damn high."
"So all three of these buttholes are using each other without realizing they're being manipulated at the same time?"
"Isn't America great?"
Nami sat back in her seat, contemplating all of the information I just dumped on her.
"If they've been following Murdock since the cemetery, how did they guess he would even be there? And if they thought they could find him at the funeral, why kidnap your dumb ass?"
"They thought they could find him there, but they didn't dare get close to him. He would have sensed their presence long before they could figure out which person he was. That's why they threw me in there, like a lamb to the slaughter. The funeral service was for a friend of Murdock's. She worked with him as one of the agents for Smith.”
"Didn't Murdock kill all of the other agents? He killed his own friend?"
"Yup. He didn't want to leave any telepaths alive that could help the government locate him."
"We're so screwed."
I thought the same thing. If he didn't have a problem killing his friends, then what hope did the rest of us have?
The patrol car closed the distance and pulled alongside us, sirens blaring. The officer stabbed his finger at the side of road, demanding we pull over.
Sammy, still sitting straight as an arrow, refused to look over at him.
"I'm going to jail, I'm going to jail, I'm going to jail."
Everything began closing in around me. As we got closer to the massive crowd at the monument, I was being overtaken again.
"Pull over at the end of block; we're here," I said. "No matter what, you have to get me as close to the crowd as possible."
The Explorer skidded to a stop as Sammy slammed on the brakes. The front end of the car protruded onto Constitution Avenue. An old woman walking in the direction of the speech looked at us with contempt. Without saying a word, she hit the side of the car with her cane and then kept walking.
In the side view mirror I could see the officer step out of his car while removing his firearm from its holster.
"Out of the car!" With his gun aimed, he circled around us.