Page 33 of V-Day
Reluctantly, the staff left.
Rosa pulled out her gun as she reached them and pointed it at Doug’s face. “We need to talk, Mr. Mulray.” Her gun was a little Glock .22, which was useless in most situations, and just about the perfect weapon for inside a jammed building like the White House. Its effective range was maybe six feet and only if the user had perfect aim. Daniel knew Rosa’s aim was good enough. The soft tissues of a body would halt the bullet’s trajectory. On the other hand, a .45 fired in this place would drill through walls and take down bystanders before it came to a halt.
Doug saw the Glock. His eyes shifted and skittered. Full blown panic.
“Where did the other two go?” Daniel asked Rosa, when the corridor behind her remained empty.
“They got the President out of the room,” Rosa said. Her gaze didn’t shift from Mulray, who was tossing his head from side to side, his throat and mouth working silently.
“You got him?” Daniel asked.
“Yeah.”
He got to his feet, taking his weight off Mulray. “What the hell were you thinking?” Daniel asked him, his disgust making his tone withering.
“We’ll interrogate the suspect, Mr. Castellano,” Rosa said stiffly.
Daniel opened his mouth to assure her he wasn’t trying to horn in, only Mulray gave a cry of panicked alarm at Rosa’s mention of interrogation.
She tightened her grip on the gun, pulling her injured arm out of the sling to rest the butt in that hand, which would keep it nice and steady.
Mulray moaned. It was a heart-rending sound, which was about right—the man was face to face with the real consequences of his choices. Like many such men, he was collapsing, unable to cope with it.
He sobbed, his eyes screwing up and his chest hitching.
Rosa’s gaze met Daniel’s. He could see his disgust mirrored in her eyes. She turned her attention back to Mulray. “There’s a bunker in the basement, where we can take him for questioning. I can’t let you down there, Castellano, so when another agent gets here, we’ll take him down—”
“It was supposed to be Minnesota!” Doug Mulray cried, with a wretched hitch of his breath. His fist pummeled the carpet. “It was supposed to be me who saved the country. Not here! Not whereIam!”
Daniel almost laughed. Almost. “Ask him where the drone is being directed from,” he urged Rosa. “Now, while he’s talking.”
She nudged Mulray with her shoe. “You heard him, Mulray,” she said. “Where is the control room for the drone? Mulray? Doug!”
Mulray hitched in another wet breath, and his gaze swiveled toward Rosa. From where he was laying, the muzzle of the little pistol would be all he could see. For someone in his position, with his lack of fortitude, it would look like the mouth of a canon.
For the first time, intelligence showed in his eyes. He was processing details again. He was thinking.
Daniel settled squarely on his feet. Doug was an inactive chair jockey. He couldn’t spring up from the floor and not take a week doing it. Daniel rocked onto his toes, anyway, ready to take him out all over again if he twitched in the wrong direction.
“Where is the control room, Doug?” Rosa repeated.
“Los Alamitos, they said,” Doug whispered. “They probably lied about that, too, right?” Weary cynicism touched his face. He glanced around the now-empty corridor, at Daniel, then back at Rosa.
His fingers curled into his palm.
“Don’t be stupid, Doug,” Daniel growled. “She only has a .22. She has to go for the kill shot to stop you.”
“Please don’t, Mr. Mulray,” Rosa added, her voice soft and completely neutral. She was as braced for action as Daniel.
“I’m not waiting here for a toxic shower,” Doug said. He surged up, his hand flashing toward his jacket.
The quiet cough of the Glock tossed him back on the floor, flinging his arm out to rap against the carpet.
A neat black circle sat just over his left eye. It turned red, the blood welling. It didn’t run, because Mulray’s heart had already stopped pumping blood around his body.
“Fuck,” Rosa whispered, her gun dropping.
Daniel straightened up. “He wanted it. If you hadn’t done it, I would have had to break his neck to stop him.”
