“I’ll give the money back. I didn’t know! I’ll—”
“Get real! You politicians sold out to the country-club types who ran out and bought savings and loans. You let them shoot craps with government-insured money—five hundred billion dollars down the sewer. You’ve maneuvered like drunken snakes to get yourselves big pay raises. You’ve voted yourselves the best pensions in the nation while you’ve looted the Social Security trust fund. You’ve damn near bankrupted America. The voters have to pay for all that! Their children will have to pay for it! Their grandchildren will have to pay! They aren’t going to believe that Bob Cherry was so senile, so abysmally stupid that he didn’t check to see who was stuffing the money into his pocket!”
Brody stood. He buttoned his jacket and adjusted his tie. “All you glad-handing backslappers do little favors for each other—a military base in this district, a sewer system there, a dam over here. Isn’t that the way your exclusive little club works?”
Brody’s voice dropped. “You get busy and call in some markers. Raise some hell. I’d better be reading in the newspaper about your courageous stand to keep democracy in the District and the soldiers out, or come Friday you’ll be reading about some very interesting contributions made by big-name dope dealers to a certain senator.”
Brody paused on the way to the door and turned around. “One more word of advice, Senator. People who cross Freeman McNally rarely live to brag about it.”
T. Jefferson Brody’s next stop was Senator Hiram Duquesne’s office. He caught the senator on the way out the door.
“If you don’t mind, I’ll walk along down to the garage,” Brody said.
He broached the subject of the National Guard troops.
“You know,” Duquesne said, “if someone had suggested calling in the Guard this morning after the attack on the Capitol, I would have been against it. But after that shot at the Vice-President I’m for it.
“Gid Cohen’s in bad shape. The doctor thinks he’ll make it. Took that slug in the shoulder. Just missed his left lung by an inch.” Duquesne shook his head. “The rifleman fired from a building five hundred and twenty-seven yards away. Left the rifle and a tripod and a toolbox. Just aimed, fired right through a closed window, dropped everything and walked away.”
“Amazing,” Brody agreed.
“I don’t know what we’re up against here, but this shit has got to stop. Quayle’s doing the right thing. Didn’t think that airhead had it in him.”
“My clients want you to oppose this move. They don’t want the Guard in the District.”
“Sorry, Jefferson. This has gone too far for politics as usual. Quayle has the legal and moral responsibility and he is taking steps. The Senate will back him up every way it can.”
Brody kept silent as they walked past the attendant at the entrance to the garage. He waited until they had reached Duquesne’s car and the senator was fishing in his pocket for the key.
“My client is Freeman McNally. Perhaps you’ve heard of him?”
Senator Duquesne gaped.
“Freeman McNally. His reputation is a little unsavory, but he’s a businessman. Pays his legal fees without a quibble. Contributes money to worthy causes. Gives freely to certain politicians. Like you, for instance. He’s given you over twenty-five thousand dollars. Remember FM Development Corporation?”
“Why, you greasy, filthy son of a bitch!”
“Now, now, Senator, let’s not get personal here. You were free to check to see where the money was coming from, and presumably you didn’t bother. You were free to refuse the money. You never did.”
“What do you want from me?”
“I told you. My client doesn’t want the Guard in the District. He’s contributed generously to keep you in the Senate and he thought you should pull out all the stops and help him out on this.”
“And if I don’t? Come on! Your kind of slime always has a stick handy if the carrot doesn’t work.”
“My client wants to see you right out front, Senator, waving the banner to keep the military out of the District. If the parade leaves without you …” Brody shrugged. “You’re going to have a difficult time explaining away twenty-five thousand dollars in contributions from Washington’s biggest crack dealer, Senator. Really tough.”
“Get out of my sight, you bastard.” Duquesne balled his right fist and took a step forward.
“Think it over, Senator.” Brody took a step backward. “If I were you I wouldn’t throw away my reputation and a Senate seat over this. I’d bend a little and go on down the road.”
Brody turned and walked quickly away.
“I’ll see you roast in hell, Brody,” the senator called after him.
Brody kept walking.
Captain Jake Grafton and his staff spent the evening at the Pentagon. They had much to do. The National Guard had already begun mobilizing at the armory adjacent to RFK Stadium, but the usual chain of command was about to be radically altered. Grafton and his colleagues drafted an order for the signature of Vice-President Quayle that placed the Washington Guard unit under the immediate operational command of the chairman of the Joint Chiefs, thereby removing ten or so layers of generals and their staffs from the chain of command. This change had been requested by the White House. The order would be signed first thing in the morning.
After the order had been sent to the chairman’s office for review, and probably for redrafting, Grafton and FBI special agent Thomas Hooper got themselves a cup of coffee and spread a street map of metro Washington upon Grafton’s desk.
Toad Tarkington, never one to be left out, pulled a chair around so he could see.
“I really don’t have time for this,” Hooper muttered. Jake knew that well enough. Hooper looked exhausted. His shirt was dirty and he had spots on his sports coat. He needed a shave. He probably hadn’t been home in several days. But his superiors had sent him over here anyway.
Jake got a yellow marker from his desk drawer and begin putting yellow splotches on the map. He marked public buildings, the White House, the Executive Office Building, the Capitol, the Supreme Court, the FBI building, the Justice Department, the office buildings that were used by members of Congress.
Then he handed the marker to Hooper. “Your turn.”
Hooper marked the courts, the jail, buildings used by various other government agencies. When he finished, he tossed the marker on the map.
“Twenty-six buildings,” Tarkington said, ever helpful.
“Around the clock, at least three armed men at every entrance.”
Jake pulled a scratch pad over and began figuring. “Anybody want to guess the average number of entrances for each building?”
“Six or eight,” the Air Force colonel said from his seat on the adjacent desk.
They discussed it. They used seven.
“We don’t have enough men. Nowhere near.”
“Get more,” Hooper said. “Men are the one asset you guys got lots of.”
“Until we get more—and that will take some time—we’ll have to put maybe one man at each entrance and keep mobile squads nearby to back them up.”
Hooper shrugged.
“You realize,” Grafton said, “that all we’re doing here is setting up a shootout if the Colombians or anybody else wants to start something. These troops will be issued ammunition and they’ll shoot. They’ll have to. There aren’t enough of them to do anything else, and they aren’t trained to do anything else. Some of them will be killed. Bystanders will be shot. It’s gonna be real messy.”
“Better not be,” Hooper said. “That’s what you people are supposed to prevent.”
“Let’s trim the list. Protect only key buildings.”
“No. I’ve got my orders. Protecting only key buildings merely sends the terrorists to unguarded buildings.”
“Not if what they’re after is a confrontation.”
Hooper shook his head. “The object of terrorism is to show the impotence of the government. Give them an open
ing and they’ll take it.”
Toad Tarkington spoke up. “How about a trap? Apparently unprotected buildings with a couple squads of soldiers inside?”
“The buildings would have to be empty,” Hooper pointed out. “But without a stream of civilians coming and going, any observer will immediately see that something is wrong.”
“You’re telling us that this is a no-win situation,” Jake Grafton said.
Hooper raised his hands in acknowledgment.
“How did we get to this?” the colonel asked rhetorically. “Again?”
“You can’t win fighting terrorists,” Hooper said, trying to explain. “The politicians—this is just my personal opinion—will never allow you to move fast enough to get the jump on these people. Politicians are reactive, always looking for consensus.”
“Bullshit,” said Jake Grafton. “Politicians aren’t stupid. This is not a conventional war. Every shot fired is a political statement. The politicos intuitively understand that and the guys in uniform had better learn it damn fast. Until we do, we’re not even in the same ballgame.”
Hooper looked skeptical. He rubbed his face and drained the last of his coffee.
Jake Grafton picked up the phone and called the chairman’s office. Anybody who thought Hayden Land was going to let the terrorists pick and choose their targets, he told himself, didn’t know Hayden Land.
The final fillip of the evening for loyal slaves of the big eye made the eleven o’clock news coast to coast. The networks had spectacular footage.
At approximately ten p.m. Eastern Standard Time four cars drew up to a three-story row house in northeast Washington—two cars on the street in front, two in the alley. The men in the passenger seats of the cars used Uzi submachine guns on the men guarding the house, then sat in the cars and fired a total of twenty-four 40-mm grenades through the windows, totally destroying the interior of the structure and setting the place afire. Then the cars drove away.
None of the witnesses could, they said, describe any of the cars or the men in them. No one could remember a single license number.
Police theorized on camera that the killers had used M-79 grenade launchers. They said the house belonged to a suspected crack dealer, one Willie Teal.
The fire in the background behind the policemen and reporters played on screens nationwide. It was quickly out of control and burned out half the houses on the row.
The following morning when the fire was completely out, officials found fourteen bodies in the house where the fire had started, the one that had been assaulted with grenades. This total did not include the four men shot to death outside. Police also found the twisted remains of over a dozen pistols, three submachine guns, and five pump shotguns. A briefcase containing almost five hundred thousand dollars was in the rubble with most of the bills still intact. Five pounds of cocaine somehow escaped the fire and was discovered in a hiding place in the basement by a fireman searching for smoldering timbers.
Harrison Ronald Ford watched the conflagration on television as he lay in his bed in his room at the FBI dormitory at Quantico. He sipped a soda pop and rubbed his Colt automatic occasionally and listened to the commentators try to sum up the violence and horror of the day.
One earnest female was expounding eloquently when he rose from the bed and snapped the idiot box off.
So Freeman McNally had decided to permanently settle Willie Teal’s hash. Another little lesson for those who thought they could cross Freeman McNally and get away with it.
M-79 grenade launchers, 40-mm grenades through the window. Like this window.
He pulled back the edge of the Venetian blind an inch or so and peeked out at the parking lot and the grass beyond.
What do you do when a grenade comes through the window into your bedroom at night? Do you huddle under the blanket? Pick it up and toss it back?
Hell no! You die, man! Bloody and perforated from hundreds of shards of steel, you die. Just like Willie Teal.
He was breathing hard. His heart was pounding and he was breathing too fast.
He turned off the light. In the darkness he got dressed, layering on sweaters and sweatshirts.
In the bathroom he tried to vomit and couldn’t. His stomach felt like he had swallowed a stone. He closed the door, stuffed a towel under it so light wouldn’t leak, and turned on the light.
The .45 automatic was loaded and had a round in the chamber. The hammer was back and the thumb safety on. Cocked and locked, the DI had called this condition, way back when.
He put the muzzle in his mouth and tasted it.
Go ahead. Save Freeman the trouble. You know that he didn’t decide to annihilate Willie Teal and not lift a finger to solve his biggest problem—you.
He saw himself in the mirror. So pathetic.
He put the gun in his waistband and sat on the commode and sobbed.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
ABOUT two in the morning Harrison Ronald heard the fire door on the first floor of the stairwell being opened. It made a metallic noise that was clearly audible here on the third-story landing of the Quantico FBI dorm, where he sat in the darkness with the slab-sided Colt in his hand. Nobody had ever oiled the push-bars on the heavy doors, thank the Lord.
Harrison Ronald eased his head between the rails and stared downward into the darkness, trying to see. There was nothing. Not a glimmer of light. There should have been light, of course, but Harrison Ronald had unscrewed all the bulbs over two hours ago.
Somebody was down there.
He closed his eyes and concentrated on what he could hear. He even held his breath. Yes, a scraping sound. A shoe sole on the nonskid of the concrete steps.
Harrison Ronald pulled his head back and sat absolutely still, the automatic held firmly in both hands.
This is really it, he told himself. Anybody with a legit reason to use this stairwell would not try to be quiet.
This is really it!
He sat frozen. Any movement he made the other man was bound to hear. His feet were out of position and his butt was cold, ice-cold, on the hard concrete step. He sat listening, breathing shallowly.
A light! The man below was using a small pencil flash, looking things over. Now it was gone.
Somewhere outside a car horn honked. It sounded far, far away.
The man was at the second-floor fire door. The intruder would have to push down the thumb latch on top of the grip, then pull the door open. The thumb latch would require some serious pressure since it mechanically moved the push-bar on the other side.
The latch clicked and the sound echoed in the stairwell.
The man below stood for the longest time, also listening.
Harrison Ronald didn’t even breathe.
Then the door opened and the intruder went through. He let the door swing shut but stopped it before the latch clicked.
Was that right? That’s what it sounded like to Harrison Ronald. He eased himself upright, massaged his cold, stiff bottom, and still trying to make no noise, crept across the landing and down the stair to the second-floor door.
He felt the steel door, slid his fingers across to the jam. Yes, it was ajar.
He eased his eye to the window in the door and looked down the hallway. The man was outside his door. A thick figure, medium height, carrying a long weapon.
Harrison Ronald moved away from the window and stood in the darkness, trying to think.
The man might not come back this way although he had left the door ajar. Even if he did, he might be expecting Ford to be waiting here. If the man goes into the room, Ford asked himself, should I go down the hallway toward the room? Back up to the third-floor landing? Or down to the first floor?
He took another look.
The man was bent over, working on the lock.
What if there is more than one man?
That thought froze Harrison Ronald. No, not a sound here in the stairwell. Maybe another man coming from the lobby, using the elevator or the stairway beside it. If so, wher
e was he?
He took another peek through the window. The stout man was going through the door. No one else in the hall.
The man would come out of there in seconds.
What to do?
Amazingly enough, the simple expedient of avoiding the man never occurred to Harrison Ronald Ford. He had lived with fear too long. He sought now to surprise his enemy, confront him in a way that maximized the slim advantage that surprise bestowed on the aggressor. For Harrison Ronald intended to be the aggressor. Growing up black in the blue-collar neighborhoods of Evansville and as a young rifleman in the Marine Corps, he had learned the lesson well: attack—fiercely, ruthlessly, with iron-willed determination—always attack.
The door to Ford’s room opened silently. A head peeped out and surveyed the dimly lit hallway. Now the stout figure emerged, moving lightly for a man so large, and came along the corridor toward the fire door standing ajar.
He opened the fire door and slipped through.
Crouching on the second step, Ford swung the edge of his hand with all his strength at the man’s legs. The man pitched forward headlong. He made a sickening splat on the landing.
Ford was on him in seconds. His hands around the prone figure’s throat, squeezing with all his strength. After a few seconds he stopped.
The man under him was absolutely limp. Sitting on his back, Harrison Ronald felt the carotid artery. Nothing.
He rolled the body over and felt gently in the darkness. The forehead was smashed in, pulpy. No blood, or at least no slick, smooth wet slimy substance.
Still breathing hard, still pumped with adrenaline, Ford grasped the dead man’s arms and pulled the corpse up the steps. The weapon clattered away.
The body was heavy, at least two hundred pounds. Ford heaved and tugged with all his strength. He paused twice, but with one last mighty heave he managed to get the corpse to the second-floor landing.
05.Under Siege v5 Page 38
