13

“WAIT UNTIL YOU SEE this, Jim,” he said.

“You really think so?” James said, sitting in the leather seat at the projection room they’d set up in the old bedroom at the back of the house.

“Oh, yeah.” He switched off the lights. “I don’t think anyone is ready for this. Amazing stuff .”

He switched off the light and took the seat next to Jim. He was getting all nervous in his stomach, tingly in the arms, just like he’d felt up in the tree. Couldn’t decide if he was excited out of his mind or sickened by the whole thing.

Only one way to find out. He hit the remote, and the movie started on the screen in front of them.

There was Blakely in his green BMW heading down the hill.

There were the school buses and the kids down there.

There was a zoom in on Blakely’s face, at the exact moment he realized that his brakes had failed.

Pull back and see the larger view. The mother screaming, then close in on her face, a scream like something out of Potemkin.

Then back to Blakely, as he realized what his choices were.

Suddenly he hit the pause button, and the image froze right there on Blakely’s face.

Jim turned and looked at him, his face agitated.

“Why’d you stop it?”

“See, Zac Blakely has a choice here. He can either save the kids and their mothers, or he can hit the wall. He can think of himself, his career, his retirement party, which is coming up soon, his wife, a very beautiful woman, or he can hit the wall and die a hero.”

“Yes,” Jim said. “I see that. And he chose . . .”

“The wall,” he said. “That’s right. Funny about that, isn’t it? He chose the wall. And died a hero.”

“The hero,” Jim said. Then he laughed, but it wasn’t a happy laugh at all. There was a deep bitterness in it.

“Yeah, the big FBI hero,” he said.

“Let’s see how the hero looks when he hits the wall,” Jimmy said.

“Right,” he said.

Then he clicked the button again, and together they watched Zac Blakely turn into the Wonderland cafeteria wall.

They watched the car explode, the bricks flying through the air. Blakely launched through the windshield.

“Great shot!” Jim said. “Great goddamned shot!”

“Thanks,” the older man said. “I would have never gotten it all if you hadn’t shown me how to use the camera.”

They turned and looked at one another, fondly. A mutual- admiration society.

“Who do we hit for Act Two?” Jim said.

“We need to talk about that,” the man said. “I got some sensational stuff with Rollins running through the soccer game. That stuff is golden.”

“Good,” Jim said. “But that’s more transitional stuff . We need a solid Act Two. Something that’ll top Blakely.”

“Don’t worry about that,” the man said. “I’ve got some great ideas. You want to eat first?”

“Nah, I’m not hungry,” Jimmy said. “And I gotta go soon. So let’s get down to the nitty-gritty, okay?”

“You gotta run, huh?” the man said.

“Yeah,” Jimmy said. “So let’s get started. Who is the next lucky asshole?”

He laughed wildly this time, and it gave the other man the creeps. But he didn’t say so, and they soon got right down to work.