Fate of the Union

by Max Allan Collins

  Finally, Rogers said, “I think you should probably shut down this building until that new furnace has been thoroughly checked, and till we know for sure what the intruder was doing in the basement.”

  Ackley’s laugh was mirthless. “Shut down the United States Capitol, Agent Rogers? It’s like turning the Titanic—in mud.”

  “What if you had time to turn before you hit the iceberg, mud or not?”

  Ackley shook his head and said, “In 1954, four Puerto Rican nationals fired shots from the gallery of the House of Representatives. That was before any of us were born. Three men and a female fired thirty shots, wounded five congressmen . . . but the Capitol didn’t stop running that day. Trust me, nothing we say is going to shut down this place.”

  “You have it locked down already.”

  “Right, and I guarantee you, at least five hundred members of Congress don’t think that pertains to them . . . like half the laws they pass. Right now, you’ll see them strolling between offices, some heading downstairs for a late lunch. Then there’s the tourists who don’t have anywhere to go during a lockdown.”

  “Damnit,” Rogers said.

  Reeder said, “She gets grouchy when somebody shoots her. Tell her what you can do, Bob.”

  “Agent Rogers, my people will go through that basement inch by inch, using human eyes and every high-tech tool. I will find out why our interloper was down there, and how he got through security with a weapon.”

  Rogers’s cell vibrated. She rose and went out into the outer office to take the call.

  Ackley said to Reeder, “You think this Senk stuff is a real threat?”

  “I do,” Reeder said. “But that new furnace isn’t what we’re looking for.”

  “But the target is this building?”

  “Maybe, or the White House, or even something nonpolitical—I don’t know. Remember Guy Fawkes?”

  “The Gunpowder Plot,” Ackley said.

  In 1605, in London, Guy Fawkes and his coconspirators planned to blow up the House of Lords with gunpowder they stashed beneath Parliament.

  “Hell, Peep—you think that’s what’s going on here?”

  “Certainly is possible, and you don’t need hundreds of pounds of this Senk stuff. Ten pounds would shuffle the deck from here to the Washington Monument.”

  “You want to be free, don’t you? And how can you if you are scared? That’s prison. Fear’s a jailer.”

  Audie Murphy, most decorated soldier of World War II, Medal of Honor winner.

  Section 46, Lot 366-11, Grid O/P-22.5, Arlington National Cemetery.

  SIXTEEN

  Patti Rogers, in the otherwise unoccupied outer area of Chief Ackley’s satellite office, did not immediately recognize the name in her cell phone’s caller ID window—KEVIN LOCKWOOD—but something about it was so frustratingly familiar that she took the call.

  “Patti Rogers.”

  “Agent Rogers, it’s . . . it’s me. Virginia.”

  The transvestite friend who’d found DeShawn Davis aka Karma Sabich: Kevin Lockwood.

  “Virginia,” Rogers said. “What can I do for you?”

  That came out like a salesperson and Rogers immediately regretted it.

  “Can you meet me?” The next was whispered: “I’m . . . I’m scared.”

  “Virginia, are you in immediate danger?”

  “Not this second, but . . . please, I really need to see you.”

  Holding the hand of a jittery drag queen was probably not the best use of Rogers’s time, but Virginia sounded terrified, and was a part of this case, after all. “Where are you?”

  “Bob & Edith’s,” she said. “The diner where I work sometimes? There are enough people here to make me feel fairly safe.”

  “It may be as much as an hour. Are you all right for that long?”

  “I . . . I think so.”

  “Good. I’m in the middle of something, but I’ll get there as soon as I can.”

  “Thank you. Really, thank you.”

  They clicked off.

  Leaving Reeder behind to participate in the Capitol search, Rogers got to Bob & Edith’s on Columbia Pike in Arlington in just under an hour—a small miracle in that kind of traffic.

  The cozy diner stayed open 24/7, and most people seemed to be eating breakfast, no matter the time of day. Stools at the counter alternated blue and yellow seats, a color scheme continued with the blue tabletops in booths.

  As usual, the aromas of comfort food welcomed Rogers—Bob & Edith’s was a place where she often brought visitors from her native Iowa, the fare making them feel at home and the clientele reminding them they weren’t. The families bringing their kids here for Mom-style cookin’ did so as part of a shifting Fellini-esque cast of transvestites, junkies, and alkies. Yet there were no fights, no robberies, not even misdemeanors at Bob & Edith’s, the Switzerland of the DC map.

  Not spotting Virginia, Rogers settled into the nearest booth. A handful of patrons were scattered around the place, at what seemed to be an off time; and what few customers were here appeared to be in groups of at least two.

  A waiter came over, took her order for coffee, went away. She didn’t even look up, her concentration going to her cell as she retrieved Virginia’s number. She punched it in but it went to voice mail.

  Had Virginia been in real trouble? Was Rogers too late? Too late for what?

  The muted sounds of “It’s Raining Men”—Virginia’s ringtone?—came from somewhere, the timing making it clear this was Rogers’s call. Had someone grabbed Virginia, and she left her phone behind, on a nearby booth maybe?

  The ringtone continued as her waiter returned to her table, poured her coffee, then said over his shoulder to a middle-aged henna-haired female cashier, “Pinky, I’m going on break.”

  Then Rogers’s waiter sat across from her in the booth. The sample of “It’s Raining Men” started up again, third time through.

  “Part of the persona,” he said with a shy shrug. “My ringtone, I mean.”

  She hit END on her phone and the song stopped playing.

  Kevin Lockwood had short dark hair and tortoise-shell-framed glasses behind which Virginia’s fawn eyes gazed at her. He was impossibly handsome in that GQ model manner, making even his waiter’s white shirt and black bow tie look fashionable.

  Still, she found herself asking the one-word question: “Virginia?”

  The young man smiled. “Yes, Agent Rogers,” he said quietly, “there is a Virginia . . . but best call me Kevin in here. Virginia has the waitress job, but sometimes Kevin takes a shift for her.”

  For a few moments, she just studied him, getting used to this new person. “Is it just an act? Virginia, I mean?”

  He shrugged a shoulder. “It’s more than that. The best way I can explain is, I’m at my most comfortable when I’m her.”

  “Why is, uh, Kevin taking her shift today?”

  “Because Virginia is afraid.” The fawn eyes narrowed. “And I don’t think the person following me knows what Kevin looks like.”

  “You’ve been followed? You’re sure of that?”

  He nodded. “Was being followed, anyway. I shook him, I think.”

  “Him.”

  “A dangerous-looking blond man.”

  Their SIM card blond again.

  Rogers asked, “This was when?”

  “Just last night, or really today, because it was past midnight. I saw him sitting at the bar in back, when I was on stage—at Les Girls? He had a nice build, and kind of a Beach Boy grown-up look. Cardigan, chinos, shades of tan. And he was still there, when I came from the dressing room to go home.”

  “Still as Virginia?”

  “Still as Virginia.”

  “Did you get a good look at him?”

  “As I left, I did—I passed right by the bar. He was watching me, but of course a lot of guys at Les Girls do that, on and off the stage. Really, it was the way he was watching me.”

  “What way was that?”

  “S
tealing looks. Pretending not to.”

  “Isn’t that common, too?”

  “It wasn’t in the way most guys do, where you get that . . . checking-you-out kind of look. Something else. Can’t explain much more than that. Not sexual.”

  Rogers nodded. “You got a good look, you said.”

  Kevin nodded back. “Light-blue eyes to go with the blond hair—you know the expression, ‘ice-blue eyes’?”

  “Those kind of eyes.”

  “Those kind of eyes,” Kevin said, “but not in a good way. And the Beach Boy features, that kind of chiseled California thing, closer up they looked hard. Rough complexion.”

  Rogers got the SIM card picture up on her phone. “Could this be him?”

  “Not could—that’s him. That is him. Who is he?”

  “We don’t have a name yet, Kevin, but he’s wanted.”

  “Not by me! I got Ronnie, one of the bartenders, to drive me, I was so shaken up.”

  “And he followed you home?”

  “Somebody was following us, I thought. I kept looking back. Ronnie said I was being paranoid, but just when I got dropped off outside my place, that blond creep drove by.”

  “Do you know what he was driving?”

  “A Nissan. An Altima? And, no, I didn’t get a license plate. I was in a hurry to get inside behind a locked door.”

  “So, what then? How did you lose him if you just locked yourself in?”

  Kevin leaned forward in a sharing secrets way. “After Virginia went inside, I did the big cleanup. Makeup off, wig, clothes, showered, shaved again . . . then I came back out of the building as Kevin. I haven’t seen him since.”

  Rogers sipped her coffee, thinking. Then she said, “Kevin, I’d like to get you into a safe house for the next few days.”

  “Is that like . . . protective custody?”

  “Yes. You may be a material witness in this case. The blond who followed you is someone who doesn’t just look dangerous. And what we’re investigating isn’t merely one crime, but a series of ongoing crimes.”

  “Like Karma’s murder.”

  She nodded. “That reminds me—would you mind sitting down with a forensic artist, to come up with a likeness of Karma’s older gentleman friend?”

  “I could do that. Anything for Karma.” He smiled and it was a dazzler. “Anything for you, Agent Rogers.”

  Was he flirting with her? And was she liking it? She didn’t even know for sure what this guy was—gay, straight, bi—and then Reeder kidding her on the same subject flashed into her mind and she shifted gears back to business, where she belonged.

  “Shouldn’t be tough,” Kevin said, “getting a decent likeness.”

  “Oh?”

  “Yeah. He was pretty distinctive looking.”

  “Tell me.”

  “Well, he had this scar. Not very long, maybe an inch and a half or so—right here?” Kevin indicated his right cheekbone.

  She did a quick Internet search on her phone and brought up a photo of Adam Benjamin’s majordomo, Frank Elmore, whose scar she’d noticed at Constitution Hall.

  “A scar like this one?” she asked, holding up her phone screen.

  Kevin’s eyebrows rose. “You are good. That’s him.”

  “Karma’s generous john?”

  “No question. Swear to it in court.”

  “Let’s not get ahead of ourselves. What do you remember Karma saying about him?”

  “Just that he had plenty of money, but was somebody we could never talk about.”

  “So . . . money and power.”

  Kevin shrugged. “That’s typical in this town. Anybody tricking, like Karma, knows to be discreet, or . . .”

  “Or it might get you killed?”

  Kevin paled. “I never thought of it like that. Just that this was a sugar daddy, probably up the political food chain, with a wife and kids, and . . . you know, the old story.”

  Rogers’s mind went from zero to bullet train in milliseconds. Did Adam Benjamin have a traitor on his staff? A man with the kind of background that made hiring a mercenary for a professional killing a no-brainer?

  Or was this just a well-off guy having a sketchy hookup with a transvestite hooker, a misjudged affair that led to having the hooker killed? In this cruel town, that scenario made sense.

  But not when Karma was just one in this unending line of double-tap professional killings.

  Rogers wanted to get this in front of Reeder, but right now getting Kevin to safety was the priority.

  She said to him, “Tell the cashier you’re going.”

  “Pinky already knows that’s a possibility.”

  He took a moment with the henna-haired gal at the register while Rogers left a five for the coffee. Then she and Kevin went out into the tiny parking lot where Rogers slowly scanned the sidewalk out front (and across the street) and the other cars in the modest lot.

  Cold wind, bright sun. They walked quickly toward her car and were almost there when, just ahead of them, a backseat window exploded in a spray of safety glass pebbles. Rogers pulled Kevin down to the gravel and threw herself on top of him. She’d seen no muzzle flash, heard no report, but it sure as hell hadn’t been a brick that took that window out. Rifle or handgun, she couldn’t say—in either case a sound suppressor was in use—but she couldn’t even be sure which way the shot had come.

  “Stay down,” she said.

  “No problem!”

  A second shot ricocheted off the concrete next to her, sending up sharp shards of cement, one of which nicked her cheek. She rolled off Kevin, said, “We’re moving—stay low,” and they crawled between two cars, getting behind one.

  Both leaned against the rear of the parked vehicle. Neither was even breathing hard, it had gone down so fast, though Kevin wore an understandably startled expression.

  “You hit?” she asked, her Glock out from her hip holster and in her right hand.

  “No, I’m okay. Is it . . . the evil Beach Boy?”

  “Not a clue, but we can’t stay here.”

  The shooter—knowing he’d been seen, realizing the FBI agent would be armed—might have fled by now. But he could just as easily be waiting for them to present him a better target.

  She said to Kevin, “Give me a shoe.”

  “What?”

  “A shoe. Give.”

  He gave her his left loafer—a pity, as it was a nice Italian job—which she flung over to their right.

  A bullet clanged off metal.

  So the shooter hadn’t fled.

  “Why is he doing this?” Kevin shrieked.

  “Because he thinks you know who killed Karma.”

  “I don’t!”

  “I know you don’t. But somebody doesn’t. Don’t you go all Virginia on me now, Kevin. If there was ever a time for you to man up, this is it.”

  “Sorry.”

  “That shot came from the other side of the lot. I think behind that out-of-business gas station next door.”

  With her in the lead, they duckwalked back around toward the front of the car. When they were at the front bumper, she stopped.

  “We have two choices,” she said. “Stay here and hope he doesn’t go looking for us in this lot. Or make it to my car before he does.”

  “How about none of the above?”

  She pointed up and over the car they hid behind. “We’re only two spaces over. I’ll unlock it from here. It’s the green Ford Fiesta. I’ll go around on the driver’s side, and if he’s still here, that’ll draw his fire. You get in on the left, and stay low, get down on the floor if you can.”

  “We can’t just wait it out?”

  “He could already be stalking us in this lot. We’re doing this.”

  But before she could start, a couple came out of the diner, putting themselves in full view of the defunct gas station.

  Without popping up, Rogers shouted, “Get inside! Someone’s shooting!”

  The couple did a deer-in-headlights freeze.

  “
Now! Federal agent! Call 911!”

  That immediately thawed the couple, who scrambled back inside, a moment before the shooter fired another round that shattered the driver’s side mirror of the car they were using as cover.

  Kevin said, “Jesus!”

  “Quiet. That was helpful.”

  “Helpful!”

  “He hasn’t changed positions. He’s shooting from behind the gas station, all right. We’re making our move.”

  She got the car-key remote from a peacoat pocket, clicked it, causing a honk, which unfortunately might’ve alerted the shooter. A risk but she had to take it.

  Coming up in a crouch, on the move, Rogers fired off two rounds toward the rear of the gas station, a couple of cowboy shots that wouldn’t do more than keep the shooter tucked behind his wall momentarily, but that was all she was after. Kevin’s feet on the gravel told her he was just behind her.

  As she got to her parked car and came around the front to the driver’s door, the shooter popped out from behind his corner, but she was ready and sent him three more quick shots, whipcracks in the afternoon. He ducked back to safety and then she was inside the car, and Kevin was already in on the other side. She switched her Glock to her left hand as she got the car started. Kevin was tucked low, an oversize fetus jammed as close to the floor as possible.

  The car was parked in a slot next to the sidewalk, but taking the exit, over to the left, would put the Fiesta in harm’s way, so she gunned it and ran across the sidewalk and over the curb and into traffic, causing a symphony of screeching brakes, but nobody hit her.

  Best of all, the shooter didn’t hit them, either. He didn’t even bother to shoot again.

  She got her cell out and called it in, though she knew damn well the shooter was already making tracks.

  Then she asked Kevin, “You all right?”

  “I’m all right.” No Virginia in his voice at all, though his face was whiter than his waitstaff shirt.

  Sirens announced themselves, and she could have circled around and returned to what was now a crime scene, but she wasn’t stopping till she got to the Hoover Building. She holstered her Glock.

  Kevin asked, “Are you all right?”