Free Damascus Road by Charlie Cole Page A

blurted. The question took him off-guard.
    “On the phone!” I shouted. “Did you call me on the phone?
Are you Nathan? You are… You’re Nathan…”
    Harrison was panic-stricken, shaking his head furiously.
    “No-no-no-no…” he said again and again.
    A shrill electronic tone broke between us and we looked at
one another, startled. What was he doing? What had he done? Then it happened
again.
    “It…it’s my phone,” Harrison said.
    I considered my options. If he didn’t answer his phone,
someone would be looking for him.
    “Answer it,” I said. “Get rid of them. We’re not done here.”
    He jerked his head in one quick affirmative.
    “This is Senator Harrison.”
    Harrison’s eyes went from staring at nothing, listening, to
bewildered fear. He looked at me, directly into my eyes with a startling
clarity.
    “It’s for you,” he said.
    I cocked my head to the side.
    “Is this a joke?” I shot back.
    He said nothing but held the phone out to me. I looked at it
with the same distrust one might have for a loaded pistol. Numbly, I took it
from his hand, eyed him cautiously, expecting him to bolt for the door and
ready to put him down in a heartbeat.
    “Hello?” I said, lost for a better response.
    “James… brother of Christ…what are you doing?” It was
Nathan, his voice laced with condescension and malice.
    Nausea rushed through me. My head pounded, pain lanced its
way through my temples. The bathroom spun around me and I struggled to maintain
my bearings.
    “You… you…” I breathed.
    “I expected so much more from you,” Nathan said. “You’re
nothing but a sinner are you? Just like your father.”
    The blade of guilt hit my heart with the accusation and
snapped me out of my stupor.
    “You killed him!” I shouted into the phone.
    Harrison was moving away from me and I did not stop him. I
shuffled forward and saw my own reflection in the mirror. Phone in my hand,
sweat on my brow. Harrison cowered in fear, made his way to the door away from
the maniac, the madman… me. What had I become? The knife was still in my hand
and I dropped it into the sink. The stainless steel hit the porcelain with a
ringing clatter that made Harrison yelp in fear.
    “You couldn’t protect him and he deserved to die,” Nathan
said, dismissively. “You’re missing the point, James.”
    “Which is?”
    Behind me, in the mirror, I saw Harrison at the door to the
bathroom, he was looking at me in abject terror, while he disengaged the lock.
    “Your father is dead,” Nathan said. “And you couldn’t stop
it. What does that make you, James? Do you really think you deserve some reward
for what you’ve done? And in your failure, your solution is to slaughter the
innocent. You deserve damnation, James. Nothing less.”
    My gaze went from Blake Harrison to my own reflection in the
mirror. My eyes looking into the reflection, looking back at me. Nathan was
right…
    I dropped to my knees as Harrison pulled open the bathroom
door. I was aware in some way of what happened next, but somehow I was
disconnected, distant even from myself.
    Blake shouted to the Secret Service agents, but his voice
was muted to me, lost like a voice calling out under water. I could not raise
my eyes from the tile floor. Foosteps, then being thrown to the tile, my head
rapping against it with a resounding thump that rattled my vision, but did not
bring the sweet solace of unconsciousness. That I would not have.
    Handcuffs were attached, cinching down on my wrists, and
still I watched the blue tile. I was pulled upright and led out into the
convention hall. There I felt the eyes on me, blame heaped on me by the crowd.
I had neither the desire, nor intent to change that.
    I lowered my head and let myself be dragged through the
crowd. As we neared the entrance to the building, I could see the flickering
red and blue lights of the squad cars and knew what was to come next.
    The agents threw me against the side of the squad car and
frisked