WASHINGTON, DC
Shortly after Detective Rogers had finally taken his leave, Brixton was escorted up to street level to be transported to Georgetown University Medical Center to be fully checked out. He boarded the back of an ambulance, joining two other passengers he vaguely recognized from the crowded Metro car, who’d also suffered potential concussions. The street had been shut down to allow the area outside the Metro station to become a way station for emergency vehicles and first responders. There weren’t many bystanders or onlookers about; the city was likely undergoing a soft evacuation, given the possibility that the Metro attack presaged a wider, 9/11-like wave of them. So far there had been no further reports, and by the time the ambulance in which Brixton was riding reached the medical center’s emergency room, the potential code red had been dimmed to yellow.
Upon arriving at the already chaotic emergency room, Brixton insisted on going to the back of the line to be checked out. Others were clearly in more need, as much for reassurance as for treatment. The injured knew to a man and woman that no matter how shaken they were, they had come very close to being part of an unspeakable tragedy. While they might not have been aware of the specific physics of what the typical deadly contents of a suicide bomb could have done in an enclosed environment like a Metro car, as Brixton was, they certainly understood that the vast majority of them would be nursing far more than minor injuries if the bomb had gone off inside it.
He looked about the jam-packed area where his fellow passengers had been brought and, for the first time really, considered his own actions. What would have happened if his suspicions hadn’t provoked the bomber to flee the car? What if he had ignored his instincts and had not studied her in a way that had clearly unnerved her? In that sense, the death of his own daughter may well have saved dozens of lives, at long last lending a measure of sense to that tragedy. He had told Detective Rogers that he’d once read that coincidence was another word for God. But there was another quote Brixton found even more oddly appropriate to explain his presence on that Metro train this morning, from John Lennon no less: “There’s nowhere you can be that isn’t where you’re meant to be.”
And fate had placed him in that Metro car, just as it had placed him in that restaurant with his daughter five years ago. He’d been plagued so much over that period by the question of why Janet had died while he had lived. Perhaps, at long last, this morning had provided the answer.
He continued rotating his gaze about, occasionally encountering a grateful look from someone who recognized him and clearly understood that his actions were what had forced the suicide bomber from the car. He took no special pleasure in being proclaimed a hero, especially since he’d felt like the polar opposite of that after he’d failed to save Janet.
The sound of the automatic doors sliding open turned his gaze in that direction, and he spotted Mackensie Smith barreling in. He hesitated only long enough to spot Brixton before resuming his charge.
“Oh my God, Robert, oh my God…”
Brixton rose to greet him and Mac swallowed him in a hug, his trembling making Brixton quiver himself.
“Thank God you called. If you hadn’t, when you didn’t show up at the office, I might have…”
Mac let his remark trail off. No reason to complete the thought, since the rest was understood.
“Thanks for coming down, Mac,” Brixton said, squeezing the older man’s shoulders.
He’d lived with Mackensie Smith and his wife, Annabel, in their apartment after the media circus had camped outside of his, in the wake of his gunning down of a sitting congressman’s son, whom he was certain was complicit in the terrorist bombing five years ago. And it had been Mac who had invited him to set up shop in one of his law firm’s offices to both take much of the firm’s investigative work while also having a base to find his own. In that moment, Brixton remembered he’d been on that particular train this morning specifically because Mac had asked to see him earlier than he normally came in—something else, in other words, he had to thank his friend for.
A couple who’d occupied the next two chairs over got up to leave, freeing space for Mac when Brixton sat back down. Mac clutched his forearm and showed no signs of letting go.
“I thought you’d be answering questions from the police by now,” he said.
“They questioned me at the scene.” Brixton laid his free hand atop the one with which Mac was clutching his forearm. “Don’t think I’m going to need your guest room this time.”
“Offer’s always open, Robert. You know that.”
Brixton finally slid his arm out from Mac’s grasp. “What’s wrong, Mac?”
“Are you really asking me that? First, news of the vice president’s tragic death, and now this?”
At that, Smith moved his gaze to one of the emergency room’s wall-mounted flat-screen televisions, now featuring a split screen of the bombing’s aftermath and the tragic news about Vice President Stephanie Davenport, who had died of a heart attack the previous night.
“There’s something else,” Brixton said.
“That’s not enough?”
“What did you want to see me about this morning?”
Smith hedged. “What’s the difference? It can wait.”
“New case?”
“I said it can wait.”
Smith seemed suddenly reluctant to meet Brixton’s gaze. “That’s what I thought.”
“It’s nothing.”
“Then why are you lying?”
“About what?”
“The fact that it’s about nothing. Whenever people say that, it’s almost always quite the opposite.”
His best friend very much seemed like he desperately wanted to be somewhere else. “How many lives did you save this morning, Robert?”
“I wasn’t counting.”
“Could have been as many as fifty, if that bomb had gone off inside the car.”
“You’re changing the subject.”
Smith nodded. “Anything to take my mind off the vice president. I knew her, you know. Quite well in fact. Did you ever have the pleasure?”
“You’re changing the subject again, Mac.”
“I thought you could use the distraction.”
“What did you want to see me about this morning?”
“It can wait, Robert.”
“You said that already.”
“And it’s still true.” Smith fidgeted, shifting in search of a more comfortable position. “You call Flo?”
“No.”
“Why?”
“We’re no longer together.”
“Something I’ve never quite understood.”
“We grew apart, Mac. What can I say?”
“More than you have already, for starters,” Smith scoffed. “You don’t think she’s worried out of her mind, regardless?”
“She’d have no way to know I was on that train, unless my name’s already gotten out. Please tell me it hasn’t, Mac.”
“Not to my knowledge.”
“Because I don’t want that kind of attention again.”
“Flo called Annabel, you know.”
“No, I didn’t,” Brixton said. “When?”
“Last week, the week before maybe. She was worried about you.”
“I’m sure Annabel reassured her.”
“As much as she could.”
“What’s that mean?”
“We’ve been worried about you, too, Robert.”
“Is that what you wanted to see me about this morning, Mac?”
Mackensie Smith’s expression changed, his thoughts veering. “You were carrying on the train, I assume.”
Brixton tapped his holstered SIG Sauer, giving his friend a pass on not answering his question. “Sure.”
“Did you think about shooting the bomber?”
“I followed her up the aisle when my presence made her uncomfortable. I couldn’t see her hands, Mac. Figured she might be holding the trigger cord, and I was afraid if I shot her she would have yanked it, even involuntarily, inside the car.”
“Makes sense. You’ll come out of this one just fine,” Smith assured him.
“I already have—relatively, anyway.”
“Mr. Brixton. Mr. Robert Brixton. Please come to the reception desk,” a voice blared over the emergency room’s PA system.
Brixton stood back up, feeling a bit woozy on his feet.
“Easy there,” Mackensie Smith said, rising to support him.
“Must be my turn.”
Smith accompanied him over to the reception desk, which was nearly blocked by people milling about, waiting to ask about loved ones. Before Brixton could make his way to the front, a pair of men with DC Metro police badges dangling from their necks slid before him.
“Who said you could leave the scene, Mr. Brixton?” asked a detective who looked vaguely familiar to him.
“Excuse me?” Brixton posed, as Mackensie Smith shouldered his way alongside him.
The bigger detective, who had a bald pate, shiny with perspiration, flashed his badge. “Detectives Lanning and Banks, Mr. Brixton. A uniform placed you away from the other passengers in triage and told you to wait for us.”
Brixton realized the bald detective, Lanning, had been part of the team that had investigated the suicide bombing five years ago, the local liaison. “Yes, that uniform told me to wait for a detective, who would be questioning me.”
“But you left anyway.”
Brixton exchanged a glance with Mac Smith. “Only after the detective showed up and questioned me about my actions and what I witnessed on the train.”
“After who questioned you?” Lanning asked him.
“Detective Rogers.”
Now it was Lanning’s and Banks’s turn to exchange a glance, before Lanning resumed. “I don’t know who you spoke with, Mr. Brixton, but there’s no Detective Rogers on the force.”