Chapter 58

  Bennett had no shot at the assassin’s legs, and he didn’t want to take a chance the man had on a vest, so he took the only option left to him, a headshot. He didn’t want to kill the man, yet he was left with no alternative. He put the sight in the center of his head just as he reached down to pull the covers off the bed. He held the gun steady against the door jam and squeezed the trigger. Bennett knew he had hit his target because the man cried out in pain. Wasting no time, he quickly turned the gun on the second man and started firing. He started high and worked his way down the ladder as he fired four quick shots before the man returned fire with his MP5. He didn’t have to wait long. The door jamb started to disintegrate next to his head as the rounds from the intruder's machine gun tore through softwood and plaster. Bennett hit the floor and tried to duck into the short corner beside the door. The man’s MP5’s clip was soon empty, and the shooter stopped to reload. Bennett took the opportunity to stick his gun around the door jamb and get off another five shots. As the fifth shot exited the barrel of his Sig, the man had finished reloading and started firing again.

  Ducking back into the corner, the wall he was leaning against started to vaporize. A slug finally caught him, and he knew that he would be dead if he stayed where he was. He dove back to the farthest corner of the closet and waited for the killer to come around the corner. An eerie silence suddenly filled the room, and a dead calm invaded the bedroom. Finally, he heard a clip drop to the floor and a new mag being inserted into the weapon. Bennett sat with knees up and his Sig in both hands resting on top of them, hoping to make the smallest target possible. When he came, he came fast. The man flung the door open and suddenly appeared as a shadowy outline in the open doorway, firing the MP5 even before he came into view. Bennett could just see the outline of his head, but it was just enough. The handgun bucked in his hands, and the man fell to the floor, still firing the weapon as he stitched a line of holes up the wall and into the ceiling before the clip ran out. Then, all was silent again until he heard sirens coming in the distance.

  Bennett placed a hand on his t-shirt and strained to plug the hole that was leaking out blood at an alarming rate. He tried to stand, but the task proved too much, and he slumped back to the closet floor. The room suddenly felt like he was in an ice locker, and a strong sense of nausea gripped him. He could feel a darkness creep into his soul like a spider spinning its web across a window pane. Seconds later…he was gone.

  *****

  Bennett sensed his body moving. He wasn’t quite sure if he was dead and his spirit was leaving his body or if he was still alive and dreaming. Nonetheless, his body seemed to be floating. He hoped it was the latter because he felt he wasn’t quite ready to meet St. Peter or, for that matter, his counterpart. He could hear voices, but they didn’t appear to be angels’ voices; they were too harsh.

  “I don’t think he’s going to make it,” one of them said. Then he did hear the voice of an angel, an angel that was crying. It sounded just like his dinner date, Miss Hottie, but the other voices seemed to drown her out.

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  “Please take care of him. Please don’t let him die,” the voice was pleading.

  He didn’t feel any pain or anything else for that matter, just the sensation of drifting. Then, all of a sudden, everything went calm.

  *****

  “What have you got, Pete?” asked the man in a black suit standing at the entrance of Bennett’s bedroom.

  “We got two DOA wearing bulletproof vests. Both are Caucasian and look to be in their thirties no IDs, visible scars or tattoos. The unlucky bastard by the bed over there took one just below his jaw, and it took out his windpipe. Probably took a while for him to die. The second one looks like he got off a shitload of rounds. I counted at least two used clips and one still in the assault rifle. He was hit twice in the vest and once in the leg. But the kill shot was right between the eyes. It looks like the fucker got hit and then stitched the ceiling after he was dead. His finger was still locked around the trigger.”

  “What about the homeowner?”

  Pete shook his head, “40/60, maybe less. He took two slugs, one in the arm and the other in his chest just below his right lung… he’s lost a lot of blood. I’m told he was an Army General…Green Beret…he probably was a tough old bastard. I hope he makes it.”

  “Yeah, me to Pete; maybe he can fill us in on who the hell had a hard-on for him.”

  “Well, from the looks of the firepower they brought… it was definitely a big one.”

  *****

  Bennett’s phone rang, but he didn’t answer the call. It was still relatively early in California, and Jesse hoped they could talk. When he didn’t answer, he left a message for him to call back as soon as possible. He knew he was talking with David Choi and wondered what he had told him. He didn’t mention his name, or Bennett would have called him. He then called General Jackson, told him of his conclusions, and made a request.

  The next morning, Jesse woke early and checked his voice messages and e-mail. Bennett hadn’t called, and that wasn’t like him. Because of the time difference, he decided not to call again. Instead, he sent him a text message. He found that he had another e-mail from General Jackson with an attachment. The e-mail was sent at 3.14 A.M. and Jesse wondered if the man ever slept. He hoped it was the information he had requested and he wasn’t disappointed. He quickly opened the attachment and sifted through the reports. The first was a list of people that Tim Choi had phone contact with soon after the assassination of President Roberts. He learned that it was a landline and that only about a dozen calls were coming in and going out. No one on the list was remotely familiar to him, and almost all the names were Thai. Jesse suspected Choi had a cell phone, but it was not listed in the report. He wanted that number because he was sure the person who hired him had called him not long after the assassination to set up a meeting. If he could get the cell phone records, he would have the man that hired him. So before he went any further, he called a man who could hack into any computer system and made a request.

  That completed, he next found and read the official investigation report on Jensen’s death. It hadn’t changed. That wasn’t surprising, but what he saw next was. The two people who knew Jensen the best were both dead. Jeffery Emerson died from complications of AIDS in 1998, and Seth Clawson died in 1985 in a parasailing accident. The report on Shawn Harris was what he expected. There was no address for Shawn anywhere in the U.S. No social security, federal, or state taxes were withheld by any employer. No veteran or social security benefits were paid out, and Shawn hadn’t filed a tax return since he was discharged from the Army in April of 1975.