Charon’s restless eyes scanned the cars yet again, then watched them creep across the intersection. One man blocked the crosswalk with his car when the light changed on him and he sat unperturbed staring straight ahead as pedestrians walked around the car, front and back, and glared at him.
Now he saw it—the car he was waiting for. Henry Charon lifted the binoculars to his eyes and adjusted the focus. Yes. It was him.
Charon looked at the cars ahead of his man with a practiced eye, estimating how many would get through the next green light. About six. That would bring this car down to third in line. Perfect.
Henry Charon laid the binoculars down and picked up the rifle. He checked the safety. Still on.
He looked again at the pedestrians, at the other cars, at the bag lady on the far side of the street rooting through a trash can.
The light changed and the traffic moved. One, two, three … six! Yes. The car he wanted was right there, third one back.
Henry Charon raised the rifle to his shoulder as he thumbed off the safety. The crosshairs came immediately into his line of vision without his even tilting his head. He put them on the driver, on his head, on his ear. Automatically Charon breathed deeply and exhaled. He was squeezing the trigger even before all the air had left his lungs.
The report and recoil came almost immediately. Charon brought the scope back into line and looked.
Good shot!
He laid the rifle down and walked briskly to the door, pulled it open and closed it behind him, making sure it locked. He passed the elevator and took the stairs downward two at a time.
Out onto the street—around the corner from where the victim sat dead in his car—and away at a diagonal. Charon stripped off the latex gloves from his hands and thrust them into the first trash can he came to. His car was in a garage five blocks away. He walked briskly, unhurriedly, scanning the faces of the people on the sidewalk with his practiced hunter’s eye.
With all of the wounded and most of the dead removed from the underground Metro station, Jake Grafton, Yocke, and Tarkington went back the way they had come in. The chairman of the Joint Chiefs, General Hayden Land, was standing with the major general in the middle of a knot of people in uniform by the main entrance.
Grafton went over to the group and stood where General Land could see him and he could hear everything that was said.
Toad Tarkington stood near the door to the mall. He pointed the rifle he was carrying at the sky and examined the action. His face was intense, grim.
A question popped to mind as Yocke watched Toad. Would the naval officer have used it? No, he had made the mistake of asking the wrong question once already today, and as he looked at Toad, he thought he knew the answer. Yocke was still feeling the aftereffects of the adrenaline. Somehow, for a reason he couldn’t quite fathom, Toad seemed the proper person to tell. “I was pretty pumped up back there.”
“Uh-huh,” Tarkington muttered and glanced at the reporter, then resumed his scrutiny of the weapon.
Yocke couldn’t let it alone. “You know, you can watch a hundred movies and see the carnage every night in the hospital, but nothing prepares you for that feeling when the bullets are zinging by and you realize that every second could be your absolute last.” He snapped his fingers. “Like that, life for you might stop right here. Like it did for all those folks down there on those subway platforms.”
Toad finished his inspection of the rifle and held it, butt on his hip, pointed at the sky. He surveyed the knot of senior officers and the smooth-faced soldiers in battle dress and glanced up at the steel-gray sky. “I don’t know how much life insurance you got,” Toad said, “but if you’re going to trail along behind Jake Grafton, you’d better get some more.” Without waiting for a reply Toad wandered off to find the soldier who had lent him the rifle.
Yocke watched him go.
The brass was still in conference. And here comes Samantha Strader, as I live and breathe. She marched over to the group and joined it. His reporter’s juices flowing, Jack Yocke managed to squeeze between the shoulders of two aides.
One of the men talking was not in uniform, although he had that look. Yocke whispered to the man beside him, who whispered back, “FBI. Guy named Hooper.”
That would be Special Agent Thomas F. Hooper. Yocke made a note as Hooper spoke to General Land. “… they came in on a freighter last week. At least twenty of them, armed to the teeth, paid to commit suicide.”
“So there’s probably going to be more of this?” General Land said.
“Yes,” Hooper told him.
“Do your sources have any feel for their targets?”
That was Jake Grafton speaking.
“Anywhere there are people,” Hooper replied. “The more people, the better for them.”
“Well, Captain?” General Land said.
“If we could just get everybody to stay home for a couple of days, sir, and use the time to search house-to-house—every building, every store, every apartment—a couple of days would do it. If we shut down all the public transportation and forbid everyone to use their cars, we could do it.”
“FBI?”
Hooper pulled at his earlobe. “That’s my recommendation too, General.”
“General Greer.”
Greer was the general in direct charge of the National Guard and army units, which had been integrated into one command. He considered for ten seconds. “That’s probably the only way, I think. We’ve got to find these people and keep crowds from congregating while we do it. Those are the priorities.”
“We’re only four days away from Christmas,” Congresswoman Strader noted aloud.
Land glanced at her, then back to Greer and Hooper. “Okay. You’ve got two days to find these people. Nothing moves inside the beltway unless it’s a military or emergency vehicle. I want a concrete plan on how you’re going to do this on my desk in three hours.”
“General, I suggest we shut everything down at midnight,” Jake Grafton added. “Be a nightmare trying to do it any other way.”
“Midnight it is,” said General Land. He didn’t get to be a four-star general by being indecisive. “That’ll give us eight hours to figure out how we’re going to get this unscrewed.”
Jack Yocke scribbled furiously, bitterly aware of the irony of his position. He was hearing the scoop of the decade only because Jake Grafton had made him promise not to print anything.
Then he became aware that somehow he was no longer in the circle of people. Apparently the group had moved, almost ten feet, no doubt because General Land had moved. Wherever the chairman was was going to be the center of the action. Yocke rejoined the conference.
“… that negotiation is key to resolving situations like we had here today without bloodshed,” Strader was saying, her voice firm and businesslike. Lecturing to the anthropoids, Yocke thought, and jotted the impression down.
General Land’s reply was inaudible.
Strader’s voice carried. “Why haven’t you consulted with the FBI crisis-response team? They’re expert at negotiating with terrorists and criminals in hostage situations.”
This time Yocke caught the reply. “This was not a terrorist or a hostage situation, ma’am. These men were out to kill as many people as possible. This was an atrocity pure and simple and the men who did it knew they were going to die.”
“You don’t know that!”
“I know a war when I’m in one, madam.”
“And I’m telling you that you don’t know what those men wanted because General Greer didn’t take the time to talk to them. Those men might be prisoners if General Greer had talked instead of charging in willy-nilly shooting everybody in sight.”
“Madam—” General Land began icily.
Strader chopped him off and bored in for the kill. “The aggressive behavior of your troops may be the reason those men shot all these civilians.”
“General Greer did exactly the right thing. These people didn’t want to talk.” Land’s v
oice had a razor-sharp edge. “They were too busy chasing down unarmed men and women and slaughtering them like rabbits. They might have laid down their arms, it’s true, after they killed everyone in sight.”
“… lives at stake here.”
“When are you goddamn dithering fools gonna figure out you can’t negotiate with people who don’t want to negotiate?” The general’s voice was a roar, the anger palpable. “Now I’ve listened to all of the free advice I can stomach. I’ve got better things to do than stand here and shoot the shit with some civilian! Who the hell are you, anyway?”
“I’m Congresswoman Strader. I’m on the presidential commission to—”
“You can do your investigation later. Not now! Not here!”
“You wouldn’t say that if I were a man! I’ve got a pass signed by—”
“Major,” the general barked, “get her political ass out of my face, right fucking now.”
“Yes, sir!”
Infuriated, her face the color of a scalded lobster, Sam Strader was firmly escorted away.
When Jack Yocke had the last of it in his notebook in his private shorthand, he looked up, straight into the bemused face of Toad Tarkington.
“What we got here,” Tarkington said, “is a total entertainment package. Write that down too.”
“Tarkington!” It was Grafton calling.
Yocke followed the young naval officer.
“Let’s go,” Jake Grafton said. He began trotting toward the military sedan. “Someone just shot the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court.”
“Is he dead?”
“Apparently.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
HENRY Charon parked the car a block from the New Hampshire Avenue apartment and walked. The streetlights were on and the sky was dark. Raindrops were beginning to splatter on the pavement and poing on the car roofs.
One of the cars near the apartment house was the green VW bug wearing its trendy bumper stickers. Ah yes, the sweater lady.
He paused in the entryway and used his key on the mailbox. As he suspected it contained the usual circulars and junk mail addressed to “Occupant.” He put them in his pocket. He didn’t want mail to accumulate in the box because very soon now someone would look through that little window. An FBI agent or police officer, or maybe a soldier, but someone. Someone hunting him.
He looked again up and down the street. The rain was getting heavier. Perhaps setting in for the night.
The cold felt good. When you live in the wild long enough you get used to the cold. You learn to endure it and never feel it. It’s a part of everything and you fit in and adapt or you perish.
Henry Charon was good at that. He had learned to adapt. Becoming a part of his surroundings was his whole life.
So he stood for a few more seconds and let the cold and dampness seep over him as he listened to the tinny sound of the raindrops striking the cars.
Then he inserted his key in the doorlock and went inside.
The door to the first apartment was ajar and he could hear the television. This was where the apartment manager lived, the sweater lady, Grisella Clifton.
Wouldn’t hurt to be seen for a moment. He paused at the door and raised his hand to knock.
She was seated in a stuffed chair in front of the television with a cat on her lap. Charon pushed the door open a few more inches. Now he could see the television. And hear the words:
“… an artist’s conception of the man who shot and wounded Attorney General Gideon Cohen yesterday at the Capitol in what may have been an attempt on the life of Vice-President Dan Quayle. This man is armed and very dangerous. If you see this man, do not attempt to apprehend or approach him, but notify the police immediately. At the bottom of the screen you will see a number to call if you think you might have seen this man. Please write this number down. And take a good, careful look.”
On the screen was an artist’s line drawing. Charon stared. Yes, the artist had got him. Probably from that woman he had met in the lobby as he was leaving the building. Who would have thought she had gotten that good a look? Damn!
The cat saw him and tensed. Grisella Clifton turned and caught sight of him.
“Oh! You startled me, Mr. Tackett.”
“Sorry. I was about to knock.”
She rose from her chair and turned toward him. The cat scurried away. “I’m so sorry. I guess I heard the outside door open, but I was just so engrossed in this … this …”
She turned back toward the television. The artist’s effort was still on the screen. She looked from the television to Charon, then back to the television.
He saw it in her face.
She drew her breath in sharply and her hand came up to cover her mouth. Her eyes widened.
“Oh! My God!”
He stood there trying to decide what to do.
“You’re him! You tried to kill Vice-President Quayle!”
“No, I didn’t,” Henry Charon said automatically, slightly irritated. He had been shooting at Gideon Cohen! And hit him too. That was one hell of a fine shot!
He saw her chest expand as she sucked in air. She was going to scream.
Without conscious thought he had balanced his weight on the balls of his feet, so now he pushed out toward her in one fluid motion with his hands outstretched.
Thanos Liarakos didn’t know what made him turn his head to the right, but he did. She was sitting on a park bench there amid the naked black trees, the streetlight limning her.
He sat behind the wheel of the car staring, uncertain, yet at some level deep down very, very sure.
The man in the car behind laid on his horn.
Liarakos took his foot off the brake and let the car move. He went around the block looking for a parking place. Nothing. Not a single vacant spot. He jammed the gas pedal down and shot down the next street. Every spot full!
Around the corner, looking, the frustration welling rapidly.
He began to swear. The goddamn city, the goddamn traffic engineers and the goddamn planning board that let them remodel these goddamn row houses without driveways and garages—he cussed them all while he thought about Elizabeth.
There, a fireplug. He pulled in beside it and killed the engine. He hit the automatic door lock button on the door and was off and running even as the door slammed shut.
Elizabeth! Sitting out in the rain on a dismal cold night like this. Oh God—if there is a god up there—how could you do this to gentle Elizabeth? Why?
He jogged the last block and darted into the street to see around a tree that was in the way. In the process he was almost run over, but he dodged the delivery van and dashed across the tralffic. Another Christian soul laid on his horn and squealed his brakes.
Liarakos paid no attention. On the edge of the park he halted and looked again.
She was still sitting there. Hadn’t moved.
He walked forward.
As he passed a bench, still seventy-five feet from her, a derelict huddled there spoke: “Hey man, I hate to ask this, but have you got any loose change you could …”
She wasn’t looking around. She was sitting there staring downward, apparently oblivious of the cold and the cutting wind and the steady rain that was already starting to soak Liarakos.
“Some loose change would help, man.” The derelict was following him. He was aware of it but didn’t bother to look behind him.
Her hands were in her coat pockets. The good coat she had worn to the clinic was gone, and in its place she wore a thin, faded cotton thing that looked as if it wouldn’t warm a rabbit. Her hair was a sodden, dripping mess. She didn’t look up.
“Elizabeth.”
She continued to stare at the ground. He squatted and looked up into her face. It was her all right. The corners of her lips were tilted up in a wan little smile.
Her eyes moved to his face, but they looked without recognition.
“Man, it’s a damn cold night and a cup of coffee would do for me, you know? I had some tro
ubles in my life and some of them wasn’t my fault. How about some Christian charity for a poor ol’ nigger. A little change wouldn’t be much to you, but to me …”
He found his wallet and extracted a bill without taking his eyes off Elizabeth. He passed the bill back.
“God, this is a twenty! Are you—”
“Take it. And leave.”
“Thanks, mister.”
Her face had a glow about it. Aww, fuck! She was as high as a flag on the Fourth of July.
“I tell you, man,” the derelict said, “’cause you been real generous with me. She’s in big trouble. She’s strung out real bad, man.”
“Please leave.”
“Yeah.”
The footsteps shuffled away.
He reached out and caressed her face, pressed her hand between his.
The rain continued to fall. She sat with her thin, frozen smile amid the pigeon shit on the park bench among the glistening black trees, staring at nothing at all.
“So what can you tell me?” Jake Grafton asked the FBI lab man.
“Not much,” the investigator said, scratching his head. They were standing in the room from which the assassin had shot Chief Justice Longstreet. The rifle lay on the table. Everything in sight was covered by the fine dark grit of fingerprint dust.
“Apparently no fresh prints. We got a bunch, but I doubt that our guy left any. Be a fluke if he did.”
“Where did the bullet hit the Chief Justice?”
“About one inch above the left ear. Killed instantly. Haven’t got the bullet yet. It went through the victim, through the upholstery and the sheet metal and buried itself in the asphalt of the street. Rifle is a thirty-ought-six, same caliber and make as the one that fired the bullet into the attorney general. Same brand of scope, and I suspect, the same brand of gun oil and so forth.”
The floor of the room in which they were standing had a fine layer of dust on it, and it showed tracks, a lot of tracks, so many in fact that the individual footprints ran together.
05.Under Siege v5 Page 44
