I whispered into the phone.
“This is Bennington.”
The reply was from the same female voice who spoke to me earlier, and in doing so, likely saved my life.
“Are you out of the hotel yet Mr. Bennington?”
I peered through the door glass and saw a near empty lobby. There was no sign of the two men I had just seen outside my room.
“No, working on it. Who are you?”
“Right now, that’s not important Mr. Bennington. What is important is that you get outside and walk directly toward Lafayette Park across the street from the hotel. I suggest you run Mr. Bennington, as fast as possible. There is a light blue cab waiting for you there being driven by one of our people. His name is Ahmed. You’ll see his name and photo on display inside of the cab. He will take you to safety.
Get moving, Mr. Bennington, you’re running out of time.”
The woman ended the call, leaving me alone inside the stairwell of the Hay-Adams hotel, trying to figure out how in the hell I was to get back outside without walking through the lobby.
The fire escape!
That was how I got out of here. Only the employees and a handful of longtime regulars would know about it. There was an old, rarely used door past the bathrooms of the Off the Record that opened into the same alley that me and Arman had dealt with Talbot, Deckler, and Tony yesterday. Every now and again it was a way for high profile clients of the hotel or bar to enter and leave without being seen by the public. In D.C., discretion is everything to such people, and that door was one of the working secrets for those of us who had been around here awhile.
Getting downstairs to the bar meant I would have to skirt the back wall of the hotel lobby to make my way there. That would keep me about forty feet from the entrance door. Hopefully that would be enough.
I opened the stairwell door and tried to walk as casually as my frayed nerves would allow toward the stairs located at the back of the hotel lobby leading down to the bar below. My eyes looked straight ahead as my mind shouted for my feet to simply keep moving everything forward toward the stairs. I sensed more than saw one of the hotel attendants looking up at me briefly from behind the lobby desk as I neared the stairs. I allowed myself a quick look behind me and was grateful to see the young woman had already gone back to working at the computer screen in front of her. No one else appeared to be in the lobby.
Letting out a slow, grateful breath, I made my way quickly downstairs to the Off the Record. The bar had just opened, and was empty except for Reg, the seemingly always present bartender.
“Well-well, Mr. Bennington! Don’t usually see you this early in the day! You gonna be sitting at your regular table?”
I walked past Reg with a thin smile across my face, shaking my head.
“No thanks, Reg, just gonna use the restroom.”
Seemingly satisfied with my response Reg went back to wiping down the bar.
“Hey, don’t mess it up in there.”
I kept walking as fast as I could without breaking into a run. Reg probably thought I had some kind of need-to-go-now prostate troubles. I was certainly old enough for that kind of shit. I followed the hallway past the restrooms and to the very back where the fire escape door was located. Before reaching the door, I heard voices coming from the main area of the bar, and what I believed was my name being spoken. This was followed by Reg responding in an unusually loud voice back to whoever was questioning him.
“No sir, haven’t seen a Mr. Frank Bennington here this morning. He never comes in this early. Actually, don’t see much of him at all anymore. I heard he quit drinking!”
I felt myself smiling in gratitude at Reg’s clever warning to me. The volume of his response allowed me to know my followers were right behind me. It was time I moved my old ass out of here quick and to the hopefully, still waiting cab outside. And the thought of me quitting drinking made it all the more funny.
I pushed open the door and felt a rush of unusually cold for this time of year air hit my face. While the cold air was a surprise, what I really didn’t expect was for a fire alarm to go off.
Why God do you persist in pissing in my cheerios at the absolute worst possible moment?
Obviously sometime between the 90’s and now, the hotel decided to actually modernize the fire escape door at the back of the bar. Full on panic set in as I scrambled outside and closed the door behind me. It was nearly fifty yards to the street in front of the hotel, and another hundred yards to the Lafayette Park entrance the woman on the phone instructed me to get to.
That was a lot of go fast running for a sixty-four year old heart attack victim, but run I did. I’m sure I was no threat to qualify for the Olympics sprint team, but I got my tired old butt moving down that alley and to the street as fast as physics, and accumulated years of high mileage hard living would allow.
It was almost fast enough, or perhaps I’d be more accurate in saying it was actually almost too fast.
Almost.
21.
The sensation of the pacemaker shocking me was what I remembered another guy I shared a room with in the hospital during my own procedure, described as “God’s finger” jabbing them in the chest hard - real hard. So hard in fact, my legs buckled under me and down I went, with barely enough time and self control remaining to put my hands out in front of me to somewhat break my fall.
After I hit the pavement about halfway across the street that separated the Hay-Adams Hotel and Lafayette Park, I rolled to my left and prayed a car, or worse yet, one of those big commuter buses, wasn’t gonna make me road-kill. My eyes opened and I felt my strength already returning to me. Yeah, I was breathing hard, and sweating like a fat Elvis, but by God, I was still alive.
I recalled my cardiologist telling me the pacemaker was set to 160, meaning if my heart rate exceeded that amount, the device would attempt to regulate my heart with a shock. He warned me it would be a brief, but very intense sensation that might cause me some temporary physical distress.
Thanks for the understatement, Doc.
Guess it meant the thing was working like it should though, but I figured I better walk the rest of the way and slow the old ticker down some. I was in no hurry to have that thing send another shock through me.
Of course, that seemingly logical decision was cut to shreds by a shout coming directly behind me from the other side of the street. It was the taller of the two men I had spied standing outside my hotel room minutes earlier.
“There he is!”
Seems some days, a guy just can’t catch a break. It was time to start running again, because I sure as hell knew I didn’t want those two well dressed thugs getting their hands on me.
I spotted a light blue cab some fifty yards away, parked near the entrance to the park, just as the woman on the phone described. My lungs were burning from the sudden, and for me, quite out of the ordinary exertion. Far more concerning than that though was the increasingly rapid beating of my heart as I jumped from the street onto the sidewalk and began moving as fast as I could toward the cab as the sound of approaching footsteps indicated both men were catching up to me from behind.
Oddly enough, Sinatra’s voice singing out for Bonita began echoing inside of my head, joining the chorus of my wheezing breath and the scuffing clatter of hard heeled dress shoes hitting pavement.
Almost there, you’re gonna make it.
My hand reached out to open the rear passenger door of the cab, but came up short as I was pulled violently backwards onto my back, followed by the unmistakable outline of a handgun being held just inches from my face, held by the older of the two men.
“Hello there, old timer. Play time is over. Now get off----“
The man’s voice was cut off as I heard movement to my left, including the scrape of metal hitting pavement. I pushed myself up in time to see a dark skinned man of average height and build facing off against the other two men who had been chasing me.
“Please get into the cab, Mr. Benningto
n. I am Ahmed. I’ll be with you in a moment.”
Ahmed was cleanly shaven, his dark, nearly black hair, long enough that it touched the top of his shoulders. He wore a grey Princeton College sweatshirt, classic Levi’s 501 blue jeans, and a pair of white, Chuck Taylor Converse shoes.
I hesitated, believing I should assist my seeming savior by evening out the one against two odds he appeared more than content to take on. Somehow knowing what I was thinking, Ahmed nodded his head toward the cab while keeping his eyes on the other two men in front of him.
“Please do as I say, Mr. Bennington. I’ll be done here very soon.”
With that, the man I simply knew as Ahmed exploded in a flurry of movement as the taller and younger of the two men withdrew his own handgun. The weapon was knocked from the man’s hand as Ahmed’s right palm snapped upward to implant itself with crunching force into the bottom of the man’s jaw.
The older man who had been pointing his gun at me attempted a punch to the right side of Ahmed’s head, who in turn ducked, spun in a blurred circular motion, and sent his right elbow into his attacker’s chest, knocking the man backward onto the ground.
Ahmed held both of the two men’s weapons and pointed each one back at them.
“Please be on your way now, gentlemen. Our conflict here will likely attract attention from the authorities, and neither of us, or our supervisors, wish for such distractions. Mr. Bennington is now under T3 protection.”
Both men had regained their feet and were glaring back at Ahmed. The older of the two then stepped to his right to look directly at me as I sat in the backseat of the cab. That look communicated far more than the words that followed, though the message from both was very much the same.
“I have my orders. I’ll be seeing you again real soon, Frank.”
Ahmed took a step toward the men, the guns pointing at their heads.
“I don’t wish to break protocol gentlemen, but I will do so if provoked. Time for you to leave.”
The two men turned and jogged across the street, back toward the entrance of the Hay-Adams hotel. Satisfied they no longer presented a threat, Ahmed took his position behind the wheel of the cab.
He turned to look back at me, his face breaking out into a wide smile, as if what had just happened was no more stressful to him than ordering out for pizza.
“Nice to meet you, Mr. Bennington. It is likely you have many questions. I am not one permitted, nor informed enough, to provide answers. I have been instructed to transport you to one who is.”
With that brief introduction, Ahmed put the cab in gear and pulled out onto the street as I quietly counted the number of heartbeats banging away in my chest while in my head, Sinatra continued begging Bonita not to run away.
22.
It took no more than a minute of sitting in the back seat of the cab as Ahmed drove for me to recognize where I was being taken – the Capitol Building, my still recent old stomping grounds. Ahmed now drove upon the very road I had taken year after year after year while working on the now deceased Congressman Latner’s staff. And before that, as a campaign consultant, where early in my career, allowed me a small, cluttered basement office in the White House itself.
“Simply check in at the public entrance, Mr. Bennington. Your appointment is already in the system. You do have identification on you, correct?”
I nodded, unable to recall the last time I had entered through the public check point.
‘Who’s expecting me?”
I watched Ahmed glance back at me via the rear view mirror inside the cab. He smiled briefly and then gave a slight shrug.
“Just check in, Mr. Bennington, and you will be escorted to your contact.”
I sat back and digested this newest bit of information in what was proving one hell of a case.
This case will either make you or break you.
I smiled at the memory of Walt’s words, a brief pang of sadness as I thought of how much the old guy would have loved to have been along for the ride.
The cab stopped two blocks down from Union Station and in front of one of the primary parking areas adjacent to the East Capitol Street.
“The visitor center is straight ahead, just another block from here Mr. Bennington.”
I nodded at Ahmed as I stepped out of the cab.
“I think I can find my way. Thanks for the help.”
Ahmed gave a brief wave and then drove away, his cab quickly disappearing into the always present human and vehicle congestion that is Capitol Hill.
I was grateful to feel my heart had slowed considerably, its beating at near normal levels. The short walk to the visitor center would pose no physical problems for me. In fact, as I looked over at the imposing, white pillared Supreme Court building on my right, I realized I had missed taking this walk. There truly was something awesome about this place, no matter how much shit I knew went on in and around it.
A cold breeze hit me from behind, causing me to fumble with the top buttons of my jacket. I could feel Walt’s manila envelope moving against my chest as I did so. The Capitol’s visitor center was now just ahead, already a long line of people waiting patiently to pass through the security check.
I soon joined the line, and another twenty minutes later, stood before an attractive, middle aged black woman who smiled warmly as she moved her metal detection wand over my body, making me wonder if my pace maker would set it off. Thankfully, it didn’t.
“Do you have an appointment sir?”
“Yes, I was told I’m already in the system. Bennington. Frank Bennington.”
The women’s eyes stayed on me for a moment longer before she nodded and asked that I step to my left.
“And is your appointment with a member of the Senate or the House?”
My eyebrows rose slightly as I shook my head.
“Actually, I’m not sure on that.”
The woman’s eyes narrowed slightly at my response, her face revealing her uncertainty at my response.
“Ok sir, just a moment please.”
I looked ahead toward the entrance to Exhibition Hall, which marked the true public entrance to the Capitol Building. I had rarely walked through it during my time working at the Capitol, choosing instead, like most staff, to use the entrance just past the South Orientation Center. I recall thinking of the very people I now stood in line with as the “riff-raff”, those moronic masses who clogged up the hallways of the Capitol and were to be completely avoided if at all possible.
Now I walked among them. Now I was one of them.
The black woman returned, her face once again warm and inviting.
“Welcome back to the Capitol, Mr. Bennington! Your appointment is with Congresswoman Betty Mears. They’re sending a member of staff here to meet you. Should be no more than five minutes, you can wait right over here.”
There was a bench seat to my right that I sat down on, my mind already working double time trying to figure out how in the hell any of this involved Congresswoman Mears – the very member of Congress I had attempted last year to negotiate a co-sponsored mortgage protection bill for active service military with my old boss, Congressman Latner.
Mears was a Florida Republican from a precinct dominated by military families. In the little time I had working with her, she struck me as both intelligent, and no-nonsense.
So would she have anything to do with what happened to Walt? Am I being set up here?
I had no time to develop possible answers in my head as a young woman stood in front of me and held out her left hand. Her exact age was difficult to determine due to the right side of her face being horribly disfigured by what appeared to have been a severe burn injury, the skin a discolored, scarred mass that was in direct contradiction to a very attractive and flawless skinned left side. I then noted her right hand was a well made prosthetic. If she had not been standing so close to me, I would never have known the hand wasn’t real.
Her brown eyes seemed both honest and kind, with medium length hair that ma
tched the color of those eyes hanging a few inches above her wide, athletic shoulders. Her body, even hidden under her matching dress jacket and slacks, appeared to be that of a runner, lean yet muscular.
“Hello, Mr. Bennington my name is Dedra. I work with Congresswoman Mears.”
I instantly recognized her voice as being the same one that had called me earlier that day, warning me to get out of the hotel. My left hand shook hers briefly, and I noted the strength and confidence she returned that shake with.
Despite just meeting her, I found myself already intrigued.
“Tell you what, Dedra, I’ve already had myself one hell of a day. Can you promise not to make me have to go running for my life anymore?”
Private Detective: BENNINGTON P.I.: A thrilling four-novel political murder mystery private detective series... Page 31
