The rough noise of scuffling shoes, a chair perhaps being overturned–metal colliding with tile–and then one of those sounds no one would ever mistake for anything but what it was.

The ratchet of the slide on a semi-automatic pistol was clear as Kingston’s scream of “No!” in my ear.

One shot...a second...the ominous sound of a heavy thud close by the telephone.

“Bastard. Jah no save you now. Rot in hell.” Corlene’s voice was sharp and followed by a spit.

I could hear the Senator sobbing into the phone and was about to run upstairs to be with him when Agent Westbrook shouted for silence in the room.

“Listen. He’s still breathing.”

Westbrook was right. Not only was he breathing, but mumbling incoherently as well.

I looked at him anxiously. “Do you have the goddamn trace?”

“Ten seconds.” And then, “Got him!”