The Blackfire Protocol by Clifford Beck - HTML preview

Chapter 54

Returning from the Bahamas two weeks later, Betsy did as Frank knew she would, as she bragged about the man of color she met and how well endowed he was. And as was also expected, there was little conversation between them. Of course, she wasn’t making comparisons, but she did tell him of the night she spent in an emergency room after her jaw dislocated. She never told Frank how it happened, but the giggle in her voice was enough. Between the exhaustion of the flight back and the stress that had been repeatedly imposed on her body, Betsy took the time to make herself unavailable, except for a phone

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call letting him know she had returned safely—and to brag.

“You are too much,” Frank said.

Her only response was another giggle. Since her days in college, she had used her sexuality as a playground and considered such activity both healthy and normal, in spite of what others might think.

Cutting the conversation short, Betsy was brief in telling him that the one thing she needed was rest. Sleep was the only cure for this kind of exhaustion. Later, she would stretch the tightness from her legs and hips—another cure for a different type of stress. Life would soon return to normal, yet their agreement to distance themselves from was still being observed and would be for months. However, they did agree to stay in touch by phone, but a few months later the phone calls suddenly stopped. Frank repeatedly called her number, but without a response, he began to worry. Soon after, he received a visitor, and answering the door, he found a police officer who asked for him by name. “Can I help you, officer?” Frank asked. The officer bore a stone-like expression as he proceeded to ask only one question. “Do you know this woman, sir?”

The officer held out a picture of Betsy that happened to be the one shot for her driver’s license. “Um, yeah,” Frank replied. “I know her.” With her journalistic skills, Frank immediately assumed that she had gotten into trouble and needed bail money.

“What kind of trouble is she in?” he asked.

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The officer’s expression went unchanged, leading him to suspect that something more serious was at hand.

“Sir,” the officer said. “I think you should come with me.”

Frank never suspected the reality he would soon be thrown into as he grabbed a jacket and followed the officer down the stairs. Getting into the back of the patrol car, he closed the door and belted himself in as the officer pulled away from the curb. Fifteen minutes later, he found the officer driving into the parking lot of George Washington University Hospital. his heart sank as he began to assume the worst.

“Officer,” he began. “Are you sure about this?” The officer answered with only one question. “Did you want to see the picture again, senator?” Frank’s concern piqued as they pulled into a parking spot marked specifically for the police. The officer got out of the car as Frank opened the door and, leaving the parking lot, walked to the hospital’s front entrance. The lawn was cleanly cut, with flower beds symmetrically dug along the front walk leading up to the front door. During the summer months, they bloomed bright with red and yellow flowers, only to die in the fall. But with the return of spring, they reincarnated themselves and did so every year.

Entering the hospital, the officer led him to the elevator, and pushing the button for the basement prompted a question.

“Shouldn’t we be going upstairs to one of the medical floors?”

The officer turned to him with only two words.

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“No, sir.”

The elevator car jolted to a stop at the basement floor, and as it opened, Frank could see the business of people as they went about their jobs. The officer led him down the hallway to an isolated room a few doors down from the autopsy room. “Why are we going down here?” Frank asked. The reality of what he was about to walk into was rising to the surface, but denial had taken over, and Frank was fighting an experience that was only moments away.

Approaching a door at the end of the hallway, they were met by a doctor—a pathologist, to be exact. Opening the door, he let Frank and the officer in. The room was empty save for a gurney placed in the middle of the floor; its wheels locked in place. The rails had been raised, a habit performed by most medical professionals. On the mattress of the gurney lay a long white body bag, zipped shut along the top. Approaching the gurney, the doctor unzipped the body bag, and separating the unzipped portion exposed Betsy’s face. Even in death, her beauty shown through with her eyes open and her mouth posed in an open smile. Now, reality set in as Frank felt the blood begin to leave his head. The officer rushed up behind him as his knees buckled, prompting the doctor to rush out of the room for a chair. Moments later, he was sitting with his elbows on his knees and his head in his hands, while a torrent of tears burst from his now wounded soul. Fighting to speak, he turned to the officer and managed one question.

“What happened?”

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The officer and the pathologist glanced at each other, hoping one of them would come forward with an answer. Finally, the pathologist spoke up. “Well, senator,” he said. “We haven’t performed an autopsy yet, but after doing a preliminary exam, we found that she had been shot.”

Frank was immediately suspicious, but he wanted more information. After all, DC is a violent town, and anything could have happened. Gang warfare is not uncommon. A stray bullet could have come from anywhere.

“Shot?” Frank asked. “What do you mean, shot? Where?”

The pathologist didn’t want to move the body, as it would risk purging—a sight he did not need to see. However, the pathologist did have more information. “She was shot in the back,” he continued. “There are no burns around the entry wound, so it’s obvious that the shot originated from a distance. It entered through her back just left of her spine and entered her heart. She may have been momentarily stunned by the impact of the bullet, but I can guarantee she didn’t suffer.”

Now, it was the officer’s turn.

“Mister Senator,” he began. “Do you if she had any enemies – someone who might want to hurt her?” As a former journalist for the post, it was likely that Betsy had made at least a few enemies during her career, but it was doubtful that anyone from her past would want her dead.

“She never told anything like that,” Frank replied. The officer began writing in his notepad. Documentation is everything during a criminal investigation, and the officer continued asking

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questions. Frank, however, just wanted to go home and cry. He had just lost the one person who mattered most in his life and wanted nothing more to do with the questions being put to him. He turned his attention to the pathologist.

“So,” he began. “What happened?” The officer and pathologist, having already spoken at length, had come to a tentative conclusion. “Well,” the officer said. “Based on the wound and the absence of powder residue, this looks like it might be intentional. Do you think that’s possible?” Given the people he had been involved with over the years, it occurred to him that Betsy could have been the victim of a professional hit. But if he revealed this possibility to the officer, he would be obliged to provide an explanation. His lie would have to be brief.

“I don’t think so,” he said.

The officer continued jotting down notes as Frank stared at Betsy’s face. It was at this moment he realized that throughout all the years he had known her, he denied the love he felt for her. He would never know her true feelings for him, but his feelings suddenly came to the surface. His denial having been shattered, he rushed out of the room and into the parking lot, where he again burst into tears. He would never feel her warm body against his, the release he experienced as they tumbled around together in bed, and he would never go to northern Maine again.