by Allan Topol
(3) March 1, develop plans for increases in manpower and equipment in the army, navy, and air force, and begin development of a nuclear arms program.
(4) June 1, begin negotiations with Taiwan for a mutual defense treaty.
In the margin of the speech were a number of handwritten revisions in a script that Taylor recognized to be Harrison's.
The next document in the file was the final version of the speech, in Japanese, dated October 20. With her knowledge of the language, Taylor compared the final with the draft. All of the changes Harrison had suggested had been made.
With a sick feeling in the pit of her stomach, Taylor turned the speech over and looked at what else was in the folder. There was a copy of a fax addressed to Yahiro Sato, which read, No need to worry. Everything is proceeding on schedule. It was signed, R.L. That must be the code name for Sato's American contact. Under the fax was a report from a French investigator that linked Abdul Azziz and Maison Antibes and made the bribery case against Boyd.
She pulled out the calendar that Harrison kept in the center drawer of his desk. With trembling hands, she flipped back to August.
There it was staring her in the face. A line through August 27 and 28 with a note that read, Y.S. The Alvear Palace, Buenos Aires. Precisely the date that Alex Glass had said Sato had recruited his American supporter in Argentina.
There was no doubt it was Harrison.
Taylor felt light-headed and weak in the knees. She collapsed into Harrison's desk chair, and sat there for several minutes as the full measure of the conspiracy sank into her mind.
Sato's motivation was easy for Taylor to understand—his distorted view of what was good for Japan. But what about Harrison? What possibly could be motivating him? That had Taylor stumped. It couldn't be money. He had all he could ever want. Power? He had turned down important positions in the American government. Then what?
Whatever it was, it had to be significant enough to involve him in the murders of Boyd and Gladstone.
She would have bet anything that Harrison wasn't capable of arranging those, but now she realized that she would have been wrong. Goddammit. Cady was right. Harrison had been able to plan precisely every move because he always knew from her where the senator was and how he was reacting to Cady's investigation. She had been the perfect stooge.
Suddenly Taylor realized what else Harrison had done to her. He must have sneaked into her office and examined her Mississippi travel records in order to frame her for the hit-and-run that would have put her in a Mississippi jail.
Waves of anger and betrayal flooded her mind. She knew that she had to move, but she felt frozen. She couldn't get up from that chair.
* * *
Cady saw someone approaching his car, and he raced toward the front doors of the building, the gun in his hand. Once he saw it was just a young couple who stopped to admire the XK8, he breathed a sigh of relief.
While Cady was looking out front, Bruce reached down and pushed the button on the two-way pager hooked to the belt on his waist.
Terasawa was parked in the Toyota Camry a couple blocks away from Cady's house in order to avoid detection by the FBI agent parked in front. When Taylor and Cady came home, he planned to make a frontal assault, even if it meant killing all three.
Once he heard the beeper, he knew what it meant: Taylor was at the law firm. He started the engine and headed toward the building.
* * *
Taylor rose with a start and collected all of the documents she had been examining, as well as Harrison's calendar. With swift, purposeful strides, she walked down the hall to the copying machine and made two copies of each. Then she went to her own office, stuffed one set into a brown mailing envelope, addressed it to Chief Justice Hall at the Supreme Court, and applied more than enough postage to get it there.
The second set she placed in a red folder. After that, she returned the original documents to Harrison's office.
On her way to the elevator, she stopped in the firm's mail room and tossed the brown envelope into one of the bulging gray sacks of outgoing mail that would be taken to the post office first thing in the morning. The red folder she clutched tightly in her hand.
* * *
They walked quickly from the lobby to Cady's car. "Let's go back to my house," he said. "Then we can take a careful look at what you have in that folder. While I drive keep your eyes open, and I will too. Let's make sure we're not being followed."
Cady drove west on Pennsylvania Avenue and then cut over to Rock Creek Parkway and Beach Drive, which sliced through the large park in the center of the city. From the passenger seat in the front, Taylor kept glancing back, watching the flow of cars behind them. When they passed the P Street exit, she said to him, alarmed, "I think we're being followed."
"Keep watching," Cady said tersely.
Minutes later they went through a brightly lit tunnel. At this time of the night very few cars were on the road. Taylor kept her eyes riveted to the side mirror next to her window.
"It's still there," she said. "Looks like a beige Toyota Camry."
"Buckle up and hold on. I'm going to lose him."
For the next few minutes, Cady raced around the winding narrow roads that snaked through the park, with the Toyota hot on his tail. He was frantically trying to lose his pursuer, but the Toyota gradually gained ground. Cady slowed down slightly to cross a narrow stone bridge.
Through the rearview mirror, he watched the Toyota close most of the gap.
Taylor turned around in her seat. Terrified, she saw that the driver was a Japanese man clutching a pistol. "He's got a gun," Taylor screamed. "It must be Terasawa."
Cady floored the accelerator and shot around a bend. They heard a gun firing. The bullet sailed over the top of the green Jaguar. A second one shattered the rear right taillight. Cady stomped on the accelerator.
Just ahead a narrow road cut off to the right. At the last instant, without any warning, Cady swerved sharply and took the turn. The driver of the Toyota couldn't react in time, and he missed it. With a couple of seconds' lead time, Cady roared along the road. He turned left into a parking lot for a picnic grove and slammed on the brakes.
"What are you doing?" Taylor asked frantically.
"Out of the car. Fast," he snapped. "Follow me."
He turned off the engine, jumped out, slamming the door behind him, and ran into the grassy, leaf-filled area just ahead. Taylor followed him with the red file folder in her hand.
When he dove behind a bush, she was right with him.
It was quiet on the road.
"Maybe he won't find us here," she whispered.
"Let's hope so," he said anxiously.
Then they saw a set of headlights coming toward them. It was the beige Toyota. The car stopped on the road, adjacent to the parking lot. As they watched, Terasawa rolled down the window on the driver's side. In his hand he was holding a bottle. He raised it and flung it in the direction of the green Jaguar. It smashed the front windshield and burst into flames, exploding and triggering an explosion in the car's engine.
"Holy shit," Cady hissed, glued to the spot. "He thought we were in there."
The flames were shooting into the air with a savage heat that threatened to engulf Taylor and Cady. She grabbed him by the arm and pulled him away. "We've got to get the hell out of here," she said. She began running with the folder clutched tightly in her hand. Cady was two steps behind.
Back on the road, Terasawa saw a flicker of movement in the darkness. Cursing, he grabbed his gun and ran after them.
Taylor and Cady sprinted through the park, which was thick with trees and covered with leaves on the ground. Glancing over her shoulder, Taylor saw Terasawa coming after them. Shots flew over their heads. She was on the verge of panic. Then she cautioned herself, Don't be stupid. She knew her way around Rock Creek because she often ran in the park. They had an advantage here. She had to decide how to use it.
She jumped over a small stream. Cady followed her
.
"I hope you know where we're going," he blurted out between short breaths.
"Just follow me," she called over her shoulder.
Another round of shots rang out. One narrowly missed Cady, blasting the bark of a tree.
Taylor looked back to make sure Cady was okay. That was a mistake. She stumbled over a log, crashing down into some branches and scratching her knees, arms, and face. She was stuck in a mess of branches on the ground. Another shot flew over her head.
Cady grabbed her by the arm and pulled her to her feet. The delay permitted Terasawa to close the gap.
In a renewed burst of energy, with Cady right behind, Taylor practically flew over a tiny stream and hurdled a tree trunk on the opposite side.
She heard Cady gasping for breath. "Not far to go," she called, encouraging him. "Fifty more yards or so. You can do it."
That energized Cady. "I'll make it," he said, "but hurry."
A shot ricocheted off a boulder, but neither of them broke stride.
Ten yards ahead, across the road, Taylor saw a gray stone building. It was the Beach Drive Station of the U.S. government's park police. Half a dozen patrol cars were parked in front. Emerging from the woods, Taylor dashed across the road. She burst into the open door of the park police station, with Cady right behind.
"We're being chased by a killer," she cried out.
Alerted, two officers pulled out their guns and ran to the door.
Before they could see Terasawa, he took off back into the trees. Cautiously the two officers crossed the road, their pistols drawn. With no one in view, they returned to the station.
"You want to tell us what happened?" one of the other policemen asked Cady. Producing his DOJ identification, he explained that they were being chased by the man who had been involved in the shoot-out at the Capitol City Motel. "It involves one of my cases," he said, not telling them any more about it.
As he spoke, Cady was considering his options. Going back to his own house was out of the question. Terasawa would attack there. But if the assassin couldn't find them, they would be safe. They had to get out of the area before Terasawa could get to his car and return to follow them.
"Will you drive us to the Willard Hotel?"
* * *
When Harrison arrived at Yahiro Sato's country house in the mountains west of Tokyo, Sato was waiting for him near a small pond with carp in the back. "Let's walk," Sato said.
Despite his age, the Japanese leader was in excellent physical shape. With long, purposeful strides he walked swiftly. Harrison, a full foot taller than Sato, struggled to keep up the pace. For several minutes they went on in silence, with Harrison waiting patiently for Sato to begin talking.
They stopped in a clearing, where Sato motioned for Harrison to sit down on a tree stump. The American took a cigarette, a real one, from a pack in his pocket and tried to light it, but the wind made it impossible. He cursed under his breath, crumpled the tobacco into his hand, then tossed it on the ground.
Grim-faced, Harrison said, "It's all turning to shit on us."
Sato stared at the American in dismay. "That's ridiculous. Boyd's no longer a candidate. Everyone believes he took his own life. Regardless of who wins the election in the United States, I'll get what I want: support in the White House for my program."
Harrison frowned. "When I agreed to help you, I didn't think anyone would be killed. You didn't tell me that."
Sato tossed the blame back to Harrison. "And you told me that Boyd would drop out of the race once he saw the evidence."
Harrison's face tensed. "I was wrong, but that didn't justify two murders."
Sato picked up a twig on the ground and snapped it in two. He had to be patient with this naive American fool. He couldn't afford to have Harrison turning on him. "Sometimes unforeseen things occur. We do what we have to do in order to prevail."
Distraught, Harrison threw his arms in the air. "You don't understand. Now we have two murders that could be investigated. It can get back to both of us. You should never have sent Terasawa to the United States in the first place."
Harrison's words infuriated Sato. The American had assisted Terasawa with everything he had done. Now Harrison was trying to disassociate himself. Struggling not to lose his temper, which would be counterproductive, Sato gestured for calm. "We can ride this out if we don't panic. Unless Terasawa is arrested and talks to the American authorities, which will never happen, no one will be able to prove a thing against either of us."
Harrison disagreed. "You underestimate Taylor. I know her well. When she grabs onto something, she's like a dog with a bone. She'll find the truth with or without Terasawa. She's even tied Alex Glass's death into this whole business."
Sato looked worried. There was no longer any doubt in his mind that Ozawa had spilled his guts to Glass at dinner. The walls were closing in. "I'll do whatever it takes to avoid having this destroy us."
His words were spoken with such vehemence that Harrison's despair lifted. He thought about the cryptic conversation he'd had a couple of hours ago with Bruce, the guard on the desk at the law firm. Initially Harrison had developed the elaborate plan with the judge in Mississippi to have Taylor arrested and taken out of circulation—in jail, where she wouldn't be harmed until the election was over. It was only when she foiled that effort that he had reluctantly concluded that he had to give Terasawa the support he needed to kill her. The assassin should have done that tonight. Yet he had never received the telephone verification that she was dead. "The steps I've taken to eliminate Taylor," Harrison added glumly, "haven't succeeded."
"So what? If the police don't capture Terasawa, Taylor has nothing."
Harrison thought about Sato's words. He had to assume the worst. That meant Taylor had searched his office. But everything that was incriminating he had carefully locked up. And even if she did find it, at most it was circumstantial. There wasn't enough for her to build a case against him. Besides, she had nowhere to go with it. If she tried to get to President Webster, McDermott would block her. If Harrison were back in Washington, she would confront him and kick up a fuss. Until he received some confirmation from Terasawa that she was dead, he had to remain in Japan.
"Terasawa will take care of Taylor," Sato said.
Harrison nodded in abject resignation. God, he hated what he was doing. What this had come down to. In Buenos Aires everything had seemed simple enough. All he had to do was get Cady launched on the investigation. Aided by his relationship with Taylor and his ability to control McDermott because of the woman in Sarasota, Harrison was confident he would be able to force Boyd into withdrawing from the presidential race. And certainly nobody would be hurt or killed. Webster would be reelected, or possibly Crane. It didn't matter. Sato would become the Japanese prime minister. With support from the White House, a remilitarized Japan would offset China's military might. At long last he would be avenging the death of his father. It would have all played out that way if it weren't for that fool Boyd refusing to drop out in return for immunity from prosecution, even though the evidence against him was overwhelming.
Now Harrison was cornered. He kicked at the muddy ground in anger and frustration.
Reading his mind, Sato said, "This battle's not over." His eyes were blazing with fury and determination. "You don't have to worry. We'll find a way to destroy Taylor before she destroys us."
* * *
"We're safe now," Taylor said as Cady threw the dead bolt and put the chain on the door of their room at the Willard Hotel. "We're finally safe from that awful man."
While she went into the bathroom to clean her cuts and bruises, Cady got on the phone to call John Frazier and tell him what had happened.
"I'm sending two men to the Willard," Frazier said. "One to stand out in front of your room and the other at the entrance to the hotel. They'll stick with you tomorrow. This guy's not going to quit."
As Taylor came out of the bathroom, the full enormity of what had happened to them tonight str
uck her. Her body began convulsing wildly, and Cady put his arms around her. "He'll never be able to find us here," he said as he held her tight. He led her over to the bed and hugged her. "We're going to get even with Harrison. Before this is all over, he'll pay for what he did to both of us."
Hearing Harrison's name, and remembering his betrayal, Taylor leaned forward, threw her arms around Cady, and began to cry. For several minutes she trembled against him. Rivulets of tears flowed down her cheeks.
Cady held her close. "It's going to be all right. We're going to get even with him. We'll find a way."
All we have to do, he thought grimly, is stay alive that long.
Chapter 27
Two FBI agents escorted Taylor and Cady out of the Willard, looking in every direction as they walked down the front steps. Terasawa was nowhere in sight. "We must have lost him," Taylor said, hoping she was right.
Another agent was in the car, behind the steering wheel. As they began moving, Cady muttered, "I loved that XK8. I'll kill the bastard if I ever find him."
Once they arrived in Chief Justice Hall's office, Taylor opened up the red folder from the law firm and spread out the Harrison documents on Hall's desk. The Chief took his time examining each piece of paper carefully. He tapped his fingers on the desk as he looked at the documents. Taylor didn't like the frown that was growing on his face.
Finally he lifted his head. "I'd say that these documents build a good case against Philip, but it's all circumstantial. It's not as strong as I'd like to prove a conspiracy that's responsible for two murders."
"But his work on the speech itself is enough," Taylor responded. "The handwriting in the margin is Philip's. All of the changes he proposed were picked up in the final."
"He's a Washington lawyer. They provide advice to foreign leaders all the time." The Chief's tone was thoughtful.
"Even on actions contrary to the interests of the United States. That's not a crime. You know that, Taylor."
"How do you dismiss the fax? It's obviously a coded message."
