Free Total Immunity by Robert Ward Page A

into a right turn, went up on two wheels, and somehow slid right by a parked yellow school bus before it hit the wire fence . . . but by now it was going nearly 90 miles an hour, too fast for the fence to make much of a difference. The fence snapped open, and Zac Blakely’s BMW smashed into the north wall of the Wonderland Elementary School cafeteria at slightly over 98 miles per hour.
    The car engine exploded on impact, and the cafeteria walls exploded with it, sending a shower of bricks and stucco and steel girders showering out into the parking lot. They rained down on the school bus, barely missing the driver, who had thrown himself on the floor.
    Blakely was right about the air bag. Whoever had worked on his car had gotten rid of the bag, too, and so seconds before the car exploded, he was sent sailing through the windshield, his throat cut by jagged shards of glass, his body broken in twelve places by the impact with the steel-reinforced school walls.
    In the end, Agent Zac Blakely lay on the hood of his BMW, like a broken doll.
    The mothers and teachers and children panicked, thinking that this surely must be a terrorist attack. They screamed and ran around looking furtively for the next wave of al-Qaeda terrorists.
    But nothing else happened. No one else came.
    Except one person. One person, whom no one else saw, because he was perched high up in the thick branches of a fi - cus tree. In his hand was a Panasonic DVX 100 digital video recorder. It was mounted neatly on his left shoulder, and he carefully recorded the entire crash. Now, with his powerful new lens, he zoomed in on the broken body of Zac Blakely, and then jumped over to the screaming, terrified children and their mothers and fathers.
    Staring at the havoc below, he felt a complex mélange of terror, horror, and an obscene ecstasy. The feelings were so strong that he nearly lost his balance and fell out of the tree.
    Which wouldn’t have done at all.
    Now he heard the police sirens coming. This presented the filmmaker with a problem. He would have loved to get the cops on film, too . . . the screeching of brakes, the LAPD leaping out, seeing the chaos and ruin for the first time . . . but what if, by happenstance, one of them looked across the playground, and saw him up there filming. That would be the end of everything, of all they were trying to accomplish.
    He knew he ought to run for it now, while there was almost no chance anyone would see him come down, walk up the hill to his car.
    But still . . . what good was the scene without the cops and then the Agency’s appearance? No good at all . . .
    Nah, he had to stay for a little of it.
    Besides, when he showed it to Jimmy tonight . . . Oh, man, now that was going to be worth any risk he had to take.
    So he stayed, waited, got the shots when the LAPD arrived. Saw the horror on their faces and got it all . . .
    And got Harper and Hidalgo, too, when they arrived. Got the look of total disbelief and shock on Harper’s face as he looked down at Zac Blakely’s broken body.
    Oh, yeah, hanging out was a risk, but in the end, it was more than worth it.
    He had it all, and he couldn’t wait for Jimmy to see it.
    And after he had all he needed, he climbed down the tree, walked up to his car, and shot out of the canyon, the back way.
    No one had even a glimpse of him.
    Jack watched as the ME took away the broken body of his oldest friend. He talked to Ed Charles, the medic at the scene, and learned that Zac Blakely had been killed on impact. He felt a rage so deep inside of him that he had to turn away from the scene for a minute before he could do his job.
    Jack walked over to a uniformed officer who was talking with one of the women who was walking across the street when Blakely had come roaring down the hill.
    â€œHe couldn’t stop. I saw his face. He was straining to turn the wheel. If he hadn’t . . . we would have all been dead for sure.”
    The woman began to break