Necessary Force Read online

  Georgie couldn’t agree more. Whatever the shortcomings of the decorator’s—or the owners’—taste, the view was to die for.

  Frank unlocked the balcony door and then began patting his pockets. “Damn. Forgot my phone. Can I borrow yours? I have to check in with the office.”

  “Sure.” Georgie handed hers over after unlocking it.

  “Go ahead outside. I’ll be with you in a sec.” He turned back to the living room, punching numbers.

  Georgie stepped through sliding doors out onto a wide, gently curving balcony that ran the full length of the condo. Beyond it lay an unobstructed view of the Potomac River and the Georgetown waterfront.

  Moving to the cement-and-iron railing, she looked out on a rare calm D.C. bathed in a golden focus on a Saturday morning in late June. At nearly a dozen stories up, the air lifting off the river was cool and crisp and clean, something seldom experienced in D.C. in the summer at ground level.

  When she heard the doors sliding open behind her, Georgie turned her head. “This is just perfect. I could live right here, on the balcony, for a week and take pictures from sunup to sunset.”

  Frank pulled the door shut, limping slightly as he came toward her. “This is what I brought you here for. You’re going to take photographs from this balcony that will win you a Pulitzer.”

  “Sure, as long as you’re planning to hijack next year’s selection committee.”

  “That won’t be necessary. You’ll get your photos this morning.”

  “What do you have in mind?”

  Instead of answering, Frank drew back his arm and pitched her cell phone out over the edge of the balcony.

  Chapter Ten

  “Frank? What are you doing?”

  “Sorry, Georgie.” He limped over to her. “I don’t have time to explain everything. You’ll just have to trust me. I’ve made all the arrangements. Now you’re in place, too.”

  Georgie backed up a step. “You’re scaring me. What are you talking about?”

  He smiled, one corner of his mouth drooping. “After a while people like us become familiar fixtures, even in paranoid D.C. We’re there all the time but no one notices the press corps. That allows me a great deal of freedom. We can come and go as we like without anyone getting suspicious.”

  “I don’t understa—” Her stomach did a flip that left her feeling sick. “Oh, Frank. No. What have you done?”

  He frowned. “What do you mean?”

  Feeling her knees melt, she grabbed the railing for support. “The FBI came to see me after my break-in. They told me I took pictures of an event where an unexploded bomb was later found. Are you involved?”

  He sighed. “We gave the FBI all the photos that came in to our AP office from that event but they were especially interested in yours. I worried you would figure it out if the authorities came to you and you went over your photos.”

  “There were no photos.”

  “Still, I had to check and be certain.”

  Even as his response sank in, that he had broken into her apartment and left the telltale trace of explosives that Zander had alerted to, Georgie’s mind retreated from that reality. “It couldn’t be you. No. That’s crazy. You couldn’t do something like that.”

  “You are right. It’s not easy. I lost my courage that day. But the thing is …” He paused to wince and rub his scar. “The longer you think about something, the easier it becomes to do it. This damned head of mine is going to explode on me at a time and place I can’t control. They call that life. So, why not control an unpleasant ending like death?”

  Georgie looked around wildly but there was only the wide blue sky behind her. Frank stood between her and the sliding doors. “So, you’re going to kill us?”

  “Don’t be ridiculous. You are my greatest achievement. I’ve nurtured your talent, guided you, given you every break I could fashion for you. You’re better than me behind the lens. You have a sensibility that is innate. Now the world will see what I’ve seen in you all along. You’re going to record the drama of this day.”

  Georgie tried to fast-forward through her careening thoughts to the key facts. He wanted her to take pictures of a bombing. From this balcony!

  She tossed a look over her shoulder as if she might be able to get a clue from the view. “There’s a bomb out there? Where?”

  He rubbed his scar a little more forcefully than before. “Don’t worry. I’ve planned it all. Every detail. This is your big chance. The story has everything. High drama. Pathos. Betrayal, loyalty, a kidnapping. Lost love. Everyone from the tabloids to the New Yorker will have a field day dissecting and analyzing the results. It will be news for weeks.”

  For the first time in a week, Georgie wished she was wired. “What if they don’t believe you? What if they think I knew about this and I’m arrested, too? The FBI has been following me. I-I’m wired. Have been all week.”

  He frowned. “Are you wired now?”

  “Yes.”

  “Then I’ve nothing else to say. We just wait.”

  Georgie took a step toward him. “Frank, please. Where is the bomb? I can’t live with knowing that people who did nothing are about to die.” She searched her mind frantically for a way to connect to him. She took another step toward him. “You’re not thinking right. This has got to be the tumor. It’s doing something to you. I promise I’ll do everything I can to help you. I’ll talk to everyone I know. There are medical trials going on all the time. I’ll get you help.”

  He smiled at her, the most tender smile she’d ever seen. “You’re the kindest person I’ve ever met, Georgiana. Do this for me.”

  “I won’t. I can’t.” Georgie grabbed the camera from around her neck and turned and hurled it off the balcony. “There. I can’t take any pictures.” And just maybe someone would notice two objects dropped within minutes from the same building.

  For a moment complete surprise animated Frank’s features. Then he smiled. “You have another camera.” He pointed to her shoulder bag. “You never travel with only one.”

  Georgie reached for the shoulder strap of her camera case but he lunged for her, folding her in his arms. He was surprisingly strong, wrestling her pack from her back. “I’ll just hold onto this until you need it.”

  Horrified, Georgiana broke away and lunged for the sliding doors. Once through them, she ran for the front doors but they wouldn’t open. She twisted the locks but they wouldn’t move.

  “Superglued.” Frank had stepped just inside the room. “You can’t leave and neither can I. I know it’s shocking but you need to accept this and work with me. I want you to take down these numbers for your camera. Aperture settings will make all the difference.”

  Ignoring him, she ran wildly from room to room, looking for a phone. There wasn’t one. She punched all the keys on the keypad she found near the kitchen for things like Concierge and Doorman. Dead. None of them responded. Frank had disabled them, no doubt. Careful planning had gone into isolating her in this million-dollar prison without resources. Perhaps that’s why he wasn’t trying to stop her from attempting to escape as she expected he would.

  There must be something. Think, Georgie.

  She ran back toward the living area, frantic and furious. “What have you done? What have you—?”

  Frank had crumpled to the floor. His whole body was spasming in the throes of a full grand mal seizure.

  “Oh, Frank.”

  She knelt down beside him, loosening his shirt, uncertain what else to do as specks of foam formed in the corners of his mouth. “Frank?” She brushed a hand over his cheek. “Don’t die, Frank. I’ll get us help. But you have to stop this thing you’ve done. Please.”

  She scrambled through his pockets, hoping he had a phone. He didn’t. “Think, Georgie!” She crawled on her knees over to her camera bag, searching through the pockets for something, anything that she might use to get help.

  The FBI listening device, which she thought she’d left behind tumbled out of the smallest
pocket. Laughing and weeping, she picked it up and flipped it on. “Help! Emergency. Send SWAT and medical. I know who the bomber is. He’s planted another bomb to go off today. Hurry.”

  After she had given the address repeatedly, Georgie scrambled back over to where Frank lay, inert now, and pulled his head into her lap.

  In the distance sirens wailed to life as Foggy Bottom reacted to the threat of a Red Alert emergency.

  ***

  The FBI SWAT team came through the door like a human tornado, all percussive action, harsh voices, and crushing force.

  Georgie threw up her hands at the sight of men with weapons at the ready. They overwhelmed her anyway, pushing her flat on the floor. A knee thrust into her back as someone roughly pulled her arms behind her and secured them tightly and painfully.

  Georgie twisted her head to the side, trying to see if they were helping Frank. Instead she saw that they were holding and securing him in the same way. “Don’t hurt him. He’s ill. He’s had a seizure from a brain tumor. But before it happened, he told me there was a bomb.”

  She was ignored by the hard-eyed men who didn’t even look at her.

  “All secure.” The shout from another room slowed the whirlwind.

  Georgie was dragged up into a sitting position. A man in tactical gear bent down to her, his gun still aimed for action. “Who are you?”

  “Georgiana Flynn. I called the FBI. I’m under surveillance by your people. We are trying to stop a bombing.”

  As she spoke, another team member riffled through her camera bag while a third snagged her photographer’s ID from around her neck. As he examined the photo credentials his gaze flicked back and forth between them and her. “Identified, sir.”

  Georgie’s gaze sought out Frank, who, she saw between the legs of the men surrounding him, had been rolled onto his back. He wasn’t moving, just staring through half-closed lids, as if he was dead.

  Dread snaked through her. “Is he breathing?” Anger flashed through her as one of them nudged him with a boot tip. “Stop that. He has a brain tumor. He had a grand mal seizure. He needs medical care. Now. He’s the only one who knows where the bomb is. Please help him so he can stop it before it’s too late.”

  The leader squinted at her. “Did he tell you where the bomb is?”

  “No, he seized before I could get him to tell me more. It’s not here. But close by, I think.”

  “Why do you think that?”

  She glanced back at Frank, lying inert. “He wanted me to photograph the results. Only he knows where and what it is. Now please, get him medical help before he dies.”

  The team leader shouted orders that brought a new flurry of activity into the condo. More men in uniforms followed by EMTs and a K-9 bomb team in the form of Brad and Zander.

  Zander lifted his head at the entrance, sniffing the air. Then he put his head down and came almost directly to Frank, nudging aside an EMT tech. He sniffed Frank’s hands and then sat, perfectly still.

  “That’s the guy. Zander, aus.” Brad signaled to his canine. “Gute hund.” He fed his partner a snack. Only then did he look at Georgie. “You okay?”

  “Yes.” Her gaze moved to Frank as he began to moan. “But don’t let them hurt Frank. He’s sick.”

  “Stop making excuses for him, Georgie.” Brad’s face was grim.

  “But he was doing this for me.”

  “He was doing it for himself.” Brad nodded to the SWAT team member holding her ID and then knelt down beside her. “What was the last thing Frank said to you?”

  “He was giving me aperture settings for my lens.”

  “Why would he do that?”

  “So I’d be ready when the—oh, god. The bomb.”

  “Do you remember the settings?”

  “No. I was so shocked by what he was telling me I just tried to get away.”

  Brad took her by the shoulders, squeezing hard. She had never seen a more serious look on anyone’s face. All the men in the room matched it. “Help me find the bomb.”

  “I don’t know how.”

  “You must know more than you think. Tell me what he told you.”

  “He has planted a bomb. He brought me here to photograph the destruction.”

  “That means it’s not in this building and that he didn’t expect you to be a victim.”

  Brad pulled her to her feet and indicated that her cuffs be removed. When they were, he handed her the camera that had spilled from her bag when she was rummaging through it.

  “Get out on that balcony with your camera and tell me what you think he may have chosen as a target.” He handed her a device with an earbud and began positioning it on her ear. “Talk to me through this. The whole FBI team will be able to hear you. You’ll hear only me. I’m going down to street level with Zander. Give me whatever you’re thinking. Talk. Constantly. Start now!”

  Georgie nodded and watched as he turned away. Beyond him she saw the EMTs rolling Frank on a stretcher out through the caved-in door. Brad stopped one of them and said something she couldn’t hear. The woman shook her head.

  Finally, she glanced at the remaining SWAT team members who were no less alert because they outnumbered her six to one.

  One of them stepped forward. “Do your job, ma’am.”

  She pushed the hair from her eyes and took a deep breath as she walked out onto the balcony. Somewhere out there in the beautiful morning a deadly explosive device was waiting to go off. She didn’t know where or when. She only knew that Special Agent Brad Lawson and his K-9 partner, Zander, would be among those who led the search to find it before it exploded. Everyone was depending on her to guess the location before that happened.

  “Are you breathing, Boots?”

  Brad’s voice in her ear surprised her. “Yes. Give me a sec.”

  Heart thumping painfully, she lifted her camera to her eye.

  She made a slow sweep of the panoramic view through her camera lens, starting from the north. Always before, the view had made her feel connected with whatever that view was. Now they seemed far away and alien, as if she had never before seen this world. Maybe that was because she was looking for likely places where a bomb explosion would have the most impact, and therefore be the biggest news. How did one decide that?

  The Rock Creek and Potomac Parkway came into view with the Saturday morning traffic, which was much lighter than it was on weekdays. Theodore Roosevelt Island; the waterfront of Georgetown. Things passed in a blur.

  After a moment she lowered her camera. “I don’t know. I can’t choose.”

  Brad’s voice came to her as a harsh whisper in her ear. “Try again, Boots. You know something. Frank trusted your instincts. What would make a photo worthy of a Pulitzer? What view would give you the most spectacular shots in the case of an explosion?”

  Georgie took a deep breath and tried to steady her thoughts.

  “Talk to me, Boots. Think out loud.”

  “It’s morning. I’m facing west. My best shots this time of day would be for things north, west, or south of me. That way the sun would light them with the least glare.”

  “Good. Now start picking targets that fit into that view. Call the names, if you know them, or describe them and we’ll figure it out.”

  Her stomach cramped as Georgie again lifted her camera to make another, more deliberate sweep of the city below her. Sweat dripped into her eyes, blurring her vision and making them sting. She couldn’t afford to choose the wrong target. Frank had put her here for a purpose. She sucked in a breath and held it to stop the hard trembling of her hands that made the camera jump and bounce so that a clear image was impossible.

  Looking wasn’t enough. She wasn’t a looker. She was a photographer. She needed to take pictures.

  Track and click. Track and click. She began to take pictures, as if doing a sweep for a panorama.

  She took photos of distant objects first. As she did so she called out possible targets with high impact, naming the ones that she recognized. “Th
e Francis Scott Key Bridge. The statue of Theodore Roosevelt on Roosevelt Island. The U.S. Marine Corps Memorial, I think. The Saudi Arabian Embassy.” At the end of her first photo sweep, at the far distant south, she said, “The Lincoln Memorial. That’s it. But none of them feel right. Let me start again.”

  All of a sudden, as she was preparing to shift away and begin another sweep, a nearby object came into view so close she had to adjust her lens for less distance. A chill swept through her as the object came into focus.

  “Oh, god, Brad. I think I know where Frank set the bomb. The Kennedy Center. It’s directly across the street below.”

  ***

  Brad and Zander, already on the street, ran for the Kennedy Center, alongside more SWAT team members.

  The streets were a tangle of emergency and law enforcement vehicles of every stripe. Adding to the congestion were military helicopters as the arduous task of clearing the area of civilians was underway.

  The Kennedy Center was a huge complex but instinct told Brad to start his search in the center of the building. He and several other K-9 teams surged in behind swarms of SWAT teams who deployed as quickly as possible throughout the corridors of the building. While others peeled off, he followed a team moving quickly from the north side entrance of the building down the Grand Foyer.

  Time was of the essence and every person there knew it. They had no assurances that they would find the explosive device before it detonated. But that was the job they trained for and were prepared to do. No matter the cost.

  His heart beat heavy in his chest but Brad took long deliberate strides, pausing whenever Zander did to sniff a corner, or the leg of a display, or the edge of a drape. Zander moved swiftly but did not run. Hurry caused mistakes and accidents. And there was no room for error.

  Finally, the golden Lab stopped short at the shallow carpeted steps leading to the Opera House.

  “I think so, too,” Brad whispered as he bent to pat and reassure his partner. “Boots, is Frank an opera fan?”

  “Yes. He has regular seats. Do you think—?”